|
Top News
The United States reported 55,220 brand-new coronavirus cases today, surpassing yesterday's record of 52,789. More updates here.
|
|
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!
|
|
|
Uber's Newest Board Member is Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi
Uber has a new, independent board member, shows a new SEC filing: CEO Revathi Advaithi of 51-year-old Flex, which is among the world’s largest electronic manufacturers and competes against Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology.
Advaithi, a mechanical engineer who grew up in India with four sisters, was appointed to the top job in February of last year after spending roughly 10 years with the electronic manufacturing company Eaton, where she was COO and oversaw its global electrical business.
Before that, she spent six years as a VP at Honeywell.
Advaithi came to the job at a tough time. Specifically, Flex once counted among its biggest customers the Chinese company Huawei, for which it provided contract services for products like smartphones and 5G base stations. But the U.S. government last year banned U.S. firms — and non-U.S. firms with more than 25% American components in their products — from doing business with Huawei after it was deemed a national security risk.
Indeed, Flex, which today enjoys a market cap of $5 billion, saw its shares trading in the high teens in 2018, but they’d fallen to around $10 a share before Advaithi was brought aboard, and they have largely stay there since.
|
|
Massive Fundings
Anduril Industries, a three-year-old defense technology company that develops drones and surveillance towers that was founded by Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey, has raised $200 million in Series C funding at a post-money valuation of $1.9 billion. Earlier investor Andreessen Horowitz led the round, joined by 8VC, investor Elad Gil, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Human Capital, Lux Capital, and Valor Equity Partners. In related news, the company was just awarded a five-year security contract with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Forbes has more on the round here.
Caffeine, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based live-streaming website that's aiming to differentiate its programming from Twitch and YouTube, has raised $113 million in funding led by Fox Corp., Cox Enterprises and Sanabil Investments (wholly owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund), with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and Greylock Partners. The new funding values the company at more than $600 million, says Bloomberg. More here.
Big-But-N0t-Crazy-Big Fundings
Carbon Clean Solutions, an 11-year-old, London-based specialist in low-cost CO2 capture and separation technology, has raised $22 million in Series B funding co-led by Equinor Ventures and ICOS Capital. Gasworld has more here.
Citryll, a five-year-old, Netherlands-based developer of antibodies, has raised €18.5 million in funding co-led by Seventure and BioGeneration, with participation from earlier backers BOM Brabant Ventures, BrightGene, and ModiQuest. More here.
FraudScope, a 3.5-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based startup that sells artificial intelligence-based software designed to spot suspicious medical-insurance claims, has raised $7 million in Series A funding from GRA Venture, Brewer Lane Ventures, QED Investors, and earlier backers Spider Capital, Mosley Ventures, and TechSquare. The WSJ has more here.
Genome Medical, a 4.5-year-old, South San Francisco-based startup that offers virtual consultations for patients and providers, has raised $14 million led by Samsung Catalyst Fund. The money is an extension of a $23 million Series B round that was closed last year. MedCity News has more here.
Jüsto, a 1.5-year-old, Mexico City-based online supermarket, has raised $12 million in funding from Foundation Capital, Mountain Nazca, FEMSA Ventures, H20 Capital, SV Latam, and S7V. TechCrunch has more here.
OurPeople, a four-year-old, U.K.-based startup that has built a team communication and engagement platform for desk-less workers, just raised $2 million in Series A funding led by the investment firm Alpine Meridian. TechCrunch has more here.
Owkin, a four-year-old, New York-based company using machine learning in medical research, has raised $18 million in extended Series A funding led by Mubadala Capital and Bpifrance. MedCity News has more here.
Zetwerk, a two-year-old, India-based B2B online marketplace for manufacturing items, raised $21 million in Series C funding. Greenoaks led the round, joined by earlier investors Accel, Kae Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Sequoia Capital India. TechCrunch has more here.
Onda, a new, L.A.-based maker of a canned sparkling tequila that was founded in part by actress Shay Mitchell, has raised $1.1 million in funding led by a venture studio called 25madison. People has more here.
Voicemod, a six-year-old, Valencia, Spain-based based developer of in-game voice filters, raised $8 million led by Bitkraft Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.
|
|
New Funds
Biospring Partners, a new Boston-based venture firm that says its focused on the "intersection of life sciences and tech," is raising its debut fund, shows an SEC filing that does not list a targeted amount. General partner Michelle Dipp, an M.D. and Ph.D, spent the previous three years as a managing director with General Atlantic; her cofounder, general partner Jennifer Lum, was most recently an entrepreneur-in-residence at Harvard Business School. More here.
Hamilton Lane, the Bala Cynwyd, Pa.-based asset manager, has raised $95 million for a fund with the dual goals of generating attractive investment returns and helping to create positive social and environmental impact. More on the fund, dubbed the Hamilton Lane Impact Fund, here.
SV Angel founder Ron Conway is reportedly working with Grammy Award–winning musician Pharrell Williams to raise a venture capital fund that will back startups led by underrepresented minorities. The Information has the story here.
Longwood, the 10-year-old, Boston, Ma.-based venture firm that creates and invests in life sciences startups, has closed its fifth fund with $117.8 million in capital commitments from 38 investors, shows a new SEC filing. More here.
|
|
Exits
Having lost an $8 billion battle to buy Just Eat to Takeaway.com in January, the e-commerce group Prosus NV is trying once again to acquire EBay's classified business, according to Bloomberg. More here.
|
|
IPOs
The Seattle-based health tech company Accolade debuted on Nasdaq today and saw its shares soar 35%. The Seattle Times has more here.
New York-based Lemonade just enjoyed the year's strongest IPO debut of a U.S. company as shares of the mobile-based insurance startup more than doubled on their first day of trading today. MarketWatch has more here.
Velodyne Lidar, the leading supplier of a sensor widely considered critical to the commercial deployment of autonomous vehicles, struck a deal today to merge with special purpose acquisition company Graf Industrial, with a market value of $1.8 billion. The company said it was able to raise $150 million in a PIPE deal from new institutional investors as well as existing shareholders of Graf Industrial. Through the transaction, Velodyne will have about $192 million in cash on its balance sheet. TechCrunch has more here.
|
|
People
A Facebook operations manager and two rejected job applicants filed a complaint today with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, accusing the company of discriminating against Black workers, as first reported by The Washington Post. More here.
Manu Gupta, a founding partner at Lakestar, is leaving the seven-year-old European venture firm after nearly a decade. The serial investor tells Sifted he has decided to step down later this summer without, apparently, saying what drove the decision. Lakestar has backed companies such as digital bank Revolut, delivery startup Glovo, and travel company GetYourGuide. More here.
Steph Korey, the co-CEO of luggage company Away, will be stepping down from her role within the year, co-founder Jen Rubio and co-CEO Stuart Haselden told staff today, after employees voiced concern over a recent series of Instagram stories about the media that Korey posted. “Steph’s personal social media activity does not reflect the current priorities of the company,” Rubio and Haselden wrote. “We stand with you, our employees.” The Verge has the story here.
Elon Musk said today on Twitter that the surge in coronavirus cases is due to testing errors, but a virologist called him out, saying he is spreading "false and dangerous misinformation."
|
|
Data
America is now home to almost 800 billionaires, a record high that accounts for more than a quarter of the world’s megarich, and they control $3.4 trillion in total assets, 14% more than they did at the end of 2018. Recode has more here.
|
|
Essential Reads
So that super secret Clubhouse app turns out to be not so super secret (or interesting).
India’s Reliance Jio Platforms, which has been on a fundraising streak (Intel Capital is its very latest investor), is jumping into video conferencing. Yesterday, the firm — backed by Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man — formally launched JioMeet, a service that looks a lot like Zoom. TechCrunch has more here.
Since becoming Uber's CEO in 2017, Dara Khosrowshahi has been pushing to move more of the company's engineering to India to save on costs, reports The Information. It says India-based engineers already account for 15% of Uber’s engineering team and that Khosrowshahi wants to move even more work there, despite that it seems to have cost him Uber's longtime CTO, Thuan Pham, who disagreed with the shift. More here.
|
|
Detours
A Tesla owner captures a valet's joyride . . . into a tree.
Alexa, just shut up. ("I say things to Alexa that I wouldn’t say to my worst enemy, if I had one. And I don’t know why.")
|
|
Retail Therapy
Boats "haven’t quite achieved sold-out pandemic panic-buy status, like toilet paper, bicycles and baby chickens," but sales are booming.
|
StrictlyVC StrictlyVC, LLC, 1 Blackfield Drive, No. 239, Tiburon, CA 94920 - |
|
|
|
|
|
