|
Sponsored By ...
Built for VCs, Anduin digitizes PDF subscription documents for funds and SPVs. Our paperless solution allows VCs to close faster, monitor the progress of LPs in real-time, and save thousands in legal fees. Arrange a demo today!
|
|
Cendana Capital, Which has Been Funding Seed Funds for a Decade, Now Has $278 Million More to Invest
When in 2010, former VC Michael Kim set out to raise a fund that he would invest in a spate of micro VC managers, the investors to which he turned didn’t get it. Why pay Kim and his firm, Cendana Capital, a management fee on top of the management fees that the VC managers themselves charge?
Fast forward to today, and Kim has apparently proven to his backers that he’s worth the extra cost. Three years after raising $260 million across a handful of vehicles whose capital he plugged into up-and-coming venture firms, Kim is now revealing a fresh $278 million in capital commitments, including $218 million for Cendana’s fourth flagship fund, and $60 million that it will be managing expressly for the University of Texas endowment.
We talked with Kim last week about how he plans to invest the money, which differs slightly from how he has invested in the past.
Rather than stick solely with U.S.-based seed-stage managers who are raising vehicles of $100 million or less, he will split Cendana into three focus areas. One of these will remain seed-stage managers. A smaller area of focus — but one of growing importance, he said — is pre-seed managers who are managing $50 million or less and mostly funding ideas (and getting roughly 15% of each startup in exchange for the risk).
A third area of growing interest is in international managers in cities where seed-stage startups can now reliably find follow-on financial support. In fact, Kim says Cendana has already backed small venture firms in Australia (Blackbird Ventures), China (Cherubic Ventures, which is a cross-border investor that is also focused on the U.S.), Israel (Entree Capital), and India (Saama Capital), among other spots.
Altogether, Cendana is now managing around $1.2 billion. For its services, it charges its backers a 1% management fee and 10% of its profits atop the 2.5% management fee and 20% “carried interest” that his fund managers collect.
“To be extremely clear about it and transparent,” said Kim, “that’s a stacked fee that’s on top of what our [VC] fund managers charge. So Cendana LPs are paying 3.5% and 30%.” An observer “might think that seems pretty egregious,” he continued. “But a number of our LPs are either not staffed to go address this market or are too large to actually write smaller checks to these seed funds. And we provide a pretty interesting value proposition to them.”
|
|
Massive Fundings
Denovo Biopharma, a nine-year-old, cross-border based in San Diego, the U.S. and Hangzhou, China, that is entering into Phase III trials with a small molecule that was discarded by Eli Lilly and Co. and is being tried in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and glioblastoma, has raised $83.5 million in Series C funding. CICC Capital led the round, joined by Guozhong VC Group, Yingke PE, and earlier backers, including Jiuyou Capital, Sangel Capital, Share Capital and CITIC Securities. BioWorld has more here.
Discord, the five-year-old, San Francisco-based social media platform, has raised $100 million in new venture funding at a $3.5 billion post-money valuation, up from $2.05 billion 18 months ago. Earlier backer Index Ventures led the round. Forbes has more here.
Fivetran, a-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based data software company that helps analysts use cloud data warehouses to store and access their data, raised $100 million in Series C funding at a post-money valuation of $1.2 billion. Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst led the round, joined by CEAS Investments and Matrix Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
Freeline Therapeutics, a five-year-old London-based biotechnology company focused on developing curative gene therapies for chronic systemic diseases, raised $80 million in extended Series C funding (that it is tacking on to an earlier $40 million round led by investor Syncona). Investors included Novo Holding A/S, Eventide Asset Management, Wellington Management Company, Cowen Healthcare Investments, Acorn Bioventures, and Ample Plus Fund. FierceBiotech has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
DigniFi, a seven-year-old, Seattle-based financing platform for auto repairs and services, has raised $14 million in Series A funding led by BuildGroup, with additional participation Exor Seeds among others. Crunchbase News has more here.
Elementary Robotics, a three-year-old, L.A.-based robotics company developing tools to automate industrial tasks, has raised $12.7 million in Series A funding led by Threshold Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Fika Ventures, Fathom Capital, and Toyota AI Ventures. The company has now raised more than $15 million altogether. VentureBeat has more here.
Hunters, a two-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based cybersecurity startup whose autonomous system detects attacks and threats to an organization's cloud service, network, and endpoints, has raised $15 million in Series A funding. Investors include M12 and U.S. Venture Partners, with participation by seed investors YL Ventures, Blumberg Capital, and Okta Ventures. The company has now raised. $20.4 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Mynd Property Management, a four-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based property management company, has raised $41.5 million in Series C funding. Wells Fargo led the round, joined by Canaan Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Jackson Square Ventures. More here.
NexHealth, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based digital appointment platform that simplifies the appointment process for small medical and dental practices, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Mino Games founder-turned-angel investor Josh Buckley. Other investors include Behance founder Scott Belsky, AngelList cofounder Naval Ravikant and Superhuman founder Rahul Vohra. The company has now raised a total of $19.75 million. Forbes has more here.
Scalefast, a six-year-old, L.A.-based company that says it provides the infrastructure and business operations that e-commerce brands need to increase their scale and revenue, has raised $22 million in Series B funding. Investors include Xplorer Capital, Stereo Capital, FJLabs, as well as earlier backers Benhamou Global Ventures, Crédit Mutuel Equity and Adara Ventures. Crunchbase News has more here.
Sundae, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based residential real estate marketplace that pairs sellers of distressed property with potential buyers, has raised $16.55 million in Series A funding. QED Investors led the round, joined by Founders Fund and Susa Ventures. Housing Wire has more here.
Upsolver, a six-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based startup whose software makes it easy to set up a data lake on AWS, has raised $13 million in Series A funding. Vertex Ventures led the round, joined by Wing Venture Capital and earlier investor Jerusalem Venture Partners. More here.
Smaller Fundings
Capital, a 20-month-old, New York-based debt-financing startup, has raised $9 million in additional seed funding. AME Cloud Ventures led the round, joined by Future Ventures, Greycroft, Wavemaker Partners, and Partech. TechCrunch has more here.
Emissary, a seven-year-old, New York-based sales intelligence platform, raised $6.3 million led by G20 Ventures, with participation from PBJ Capital, Converge, and Castor Ventures. More here.
PlayBrain, a four-year-old, Tokyo-based esports content provider, has raised $6 million in Series A funding, including from earlier backer Bitkraft Esports Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.
RIOS, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based developer of AI-powered robots for assembly lines that was spun out of Stanford, has raised $5 million in funding co-led by Valley Capital Partners and Morpheus Ventures, with additional participation from Grit Ventures, Motus Ventures, MicroVentures, and Alumni Ventures Group. More here.
Scurri, a 10-year-old, Wexford, U.K.-based software company used by e-commerce vendors to oversee the ordering, shipping, and delivery of their goods, has raised €1.5 million ($1.7 million) in funding. Investors include Act Venture Capital, Episode 1, and Pa Nolan. EU Startups has more here.
Sun Genomics, a four-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based company that sells custom probiotics designed to improve digestive health, has raised $8.7 million in Series A funding led by Pangaea Ventures, with participation from Danone Manifesto Ventures, SOSV, Human Longevity, and Nascita Ventures. The WSJ has more here.
Willa, a year-old, L.A.- and. Stockholm-based freelancer payment platform, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by EQT Ventures, with participation from Moonfire Ventures, Nordic Makers, and individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Zeller, a months-old, Melbourne, Australia-based alternative to business banking, raised $6.3 million in seed funding led by Square Peg. DealStreetAsia has more here.
Not-Saying-How-Much Fundings
Ackio, a four-year-old, Singapore-based company whose wireless monitoring sensors are used in industrial settings, including in mining and construction, has raised an undisclosed amount of pre-Series A funding from Wavemaker Partners and Michael Gryseels, who is the president of True Digital Group. Earlier backers also joined the round. DealStreetAsia has more here.
|
|
New Funds
It hasn’t taken long for B Capital to amass a lot of assets under management. Just five years after the venture firm was launched by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin and Raj Ganguly, a veteran of private-equity firm Bain Capital, the firm says it has closed its second fund with $822 million in capital commitments. TechCrunch has more here.
Oakpi Venture Capital, a 14-year-old, Ladera Ranch, Ca.-based seed-stage venture outfit with numerous Saas and life sciences bets, is raising $30 million for its sixth fund, shows an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. More here.
Lightship Capital, a two-year-old, Cincinnati-based impact venture outfit, says it is raising a $50 million fund to invest in Midwestern, minority-led startups. Toward that end, the firm has already secured a $20 million commitment from the consulting firm SecondMuse. Cincy Inno has more here.
Reach Capital, a five-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based early-stage venture firm focused squarely on ed-tech, is raising $150 million for its third fund, shows a new SEC filing. More here.
Summit Partners, the 36-year-old growth stage investor, has raised two new megafunds: a $1 billion growth equity fund focused on North American startups, and a €1.1 billion ($1.24 billion) fund focused on European startups. The firm said that the funds will target growth equity-style investments with a check size of between roughy $10 million and $60 million for North American startups, and that it might write even bigger checks to their European counterparts. TechCrunch has more here.
|
|
IPOs
Shift Technologies, a seven-year-old car-buying e-commerce platform, will go public by merging with Insurance Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company with no operations of its own. the deal will enable the company to raise $185 million and provide it with an enterprise value of $415 million, says the WSJ. It will also enable the company to raise more money than in a traditional IPO and to get the capital more quickly, its co-CEO, George Arison, tells the outlet. More here.
Velodyne Lidar, a maker of sensors used in self-driving vehicles that's backed in part by Ford and Baidu, is in talks to merge with blank-check company Graf Industrial Corp, says Bloomberg. Merging with a blank-check company has become a popular way for companies to go public, as the coronavirus pandemic upends the markets, notes the outlet. More here.
|
|
Exits
Alphabet’s Google says it has acquired North, an eight-year-old, Amazon-backed company that makes smart glasses. The value of the deal was not disclosed, but the Globe and Mail, which first reported Google’s interest, placed the price at around $180 million, which is less than the $200 million the company had raised, according to Crunchbase. Google said that the acquisition would help realize its vision of “ambient computing,” where ubiquitous connected devices work together. CNBC has more here.
Société Générale is acquiring Shine, a France-based. challenger bank for freelancers and small companies in the country. Terms of the deal are undisclosed, though according to TechCrunch, Shine is getting acquired for around €100 million in an all-cash deal. The startup had previously raised €10.8 million ($12.2 million) in total from Daphni, Kima Ventures, XAnge and various business angels. More here.
Garmin, the wearable and GPS application company, said today that it's acquiring Firstbeat Analytics, a Finnish business focused on analyzing heartbeat data from consumer devices in the health, wellness, fitness and performance markets. Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed. ZDNet has more here.
|
|
People
Rebekah Neumann, wife of former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann, has bought back school project WeGrow from WeWork with plans to relaunch it.
Former SoulCycle CEO Melanie Whelan has joined Summit Partners as a managing director.
|
|
Data
Sovereign wealth funds have participated in $17 billion of venture capital deals so far this year, already more than the entirety of 2019, as their appetite for long-term investment appears undimmed by the coronavirus outbreak. Reuters has more here.
|
|
Essential Reads
The International Monetary Fund says Asia’s economy will shrink ‘for the first time in living memory’ due to the coronavirus.
Facebook today removed hundreds of accounts and groups associated with a violent network of the far-right “boogaloo” movement whose followers have been linked to violence that disrupted otherwise peaceful protests around the United States. Facebook said it was designating the faction of the movement that advocates violence as a “dangerous organization” and had taken down hundreds of Facebook groups and Instagram accounts that were associated with it. The Washington Post has more here.
|
|
Retail Therapy
A smart mask that ostensibly offers self-sterilizing properties. (Downside: you'll look like Hannibal Lecter.)
|
StrictlyVC StrictlyVC, LLC, 1 Blackfield Drive, No. 239, Tiburon, CA 94920 - |
|
|
|
|
|
