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July 8, 2020
Wednesday! Hope yours went well.:)
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Top News
Facebook said today it has removed a network of more than 100 accounts and pages posting misinformation with ties to longtime Republican operative Roger Stone. The network -- followed by more than 320,000 accounts across Facebook and Instagram -- used Facebook to pose as Florida residents and post misinformation regarding local politics in that state. CNBC has more here.
Futures contracts tied to the major U.S. stock indexes held steady during the overnight session tonight just hours after the Nasdaq Composite hit its 25th record close for 2020.
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This VC Just Raised $60 Million to Fund "Technical Risk," Saying That Most Other VCs Do Not
Ashmeet Sidana, a longtime VC who struck out on his own in 2015 to form Engineering Capital, just closed his third and newest fund with $60 million in capital commitments from a university endowment, a fund of funds, and three foundations.
Sidana -- who previously spent nearly nine years with Foundation Capital and received one of his first limited partner agreements afterward from Foundation's legendary founder, Kathryn Gould -- says that despite the pandemic the fund came together without too much pain.
That's thanks in part to Sidana's track record, including the sale of the cloud monitoring startup SignalFx to Splunk for $1 billion after it raised $179 million from VCs, and the sale of the cloud application monitoring startup Netsil by Nutanix for up for $74 million in stock after it raised just $5.7 million. (Engineering Capital was the first investor in both.)
Sidana's day-to-day work in Palo Alto -- which centers on working with teams "that you can feed with two pizzas," yet whose narrow technical insights can have broad applicability -- was also an apparent draw. To learn more, we talked earlier today with Sidana, a self-described engineering nerd who studied computer science at Stanford about what "technical insights" have caught his attention most recently.
You talk about pursuing founders with technical insights. Is that not true of most venture capitalists?
No. Silicon Valley is a tech investing ecosystem, but most of its participants aren't solving hard technical problems. They have market insights or consumer insights. It's the difference between Google and Facebook. Google figured out how to index better, how to better prioritize a sorting problem. Facebook was started with the consumer insight that people want to be connected with each other. I focus on companies based on technical insights. Most VCs don't.
What are you looking for exactly?
A team that's using software or tech to solve a known problem that exists but for which there does not exist a solution. Many such problems exist. For example, we know the future will be multi cloud. Amazon has succeeded wildly with AWS. Microsoft is doing well with its cloud business. Google is catching up to them. Then you have the seven dwarves, including DigitalOcean. It's a difficult way for enterprises to engage with infrastructure. Another technical problem is rooted in all of us wanting to give our infrastructure over to the cloud but not our data. How do we solve this? Some are solving it legally, some with publicity. But really, it's a technical problem.
What's a recent bet you've made that has solved a technical problem?
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Massive Fundings
Doctor On Demand, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based virtual primary and mental health care platform, has raised $75 million in Series D funding led by General Atlantic. Forbes has more here.
Karma Automotive, a Hangzhou, China-based subsidiary of Wanxiang Group Corp., which bought carmaker Fisker Automotive in 2014 and now makes plug-in hybrid luxury cars, has raised $100 million in funding from unnamed investors. Bloomberg has more here.
LeanIX, an eight-year-old, Bonn, Germany-based enterprise architecture software company, just raised $80 million in Series D funding led by Goldman Sachs Growth, with participation from Insight Partners and DTCP. TechCrunch has more here.
Perfect Day, a six-year-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based startup that's making animal-free dairy products, has extended its Series C funding round by $160 million. The new funding was led by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and brings the total Series C round to $300 million. Food Business News has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Apiture, a 2.5-year-old, Wilmington, N.C.-based digital bank, has raised $20 million from T. Rowe Price Associates and Nashville-based Pinnacle Bank. More here.
Liftit, a 3.5-year-old, Bogotá, Colombia-based trucking and logistics services startup, has raised $22.5 million in fresh funding led by Cambridge Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Permutive, a six-year-old, London-based startup works to help online publishers make money by allowing publishers to utilize their own first-party data more effectively, has raised $18.5 million in Series B funding. Octopus Ventures led the round, joined by EQT Ventures and previous investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Truepill, a four-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based online pharmacy that's expanding into telehealth, has raised $25 million in Series B funding from TI Platform Fund, Optum Ventures, Initialized Capital, and Sound Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.
XM Cyber, a four-year-old, Israel-based cyber risk analytics and cloud security management company, has reportedly raised $17 million in Series B funding, including from Macquarie Capital, Nasdaq Ventures, Our Innovation Fund, and Swarth Group. More here.
Smaller Fundings
Athlane, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based platform looking to connect streamers and brands, facilitating sponsorship and endorsement deals and streamlining communications flows, has raised $3.3 million, including from Y Combinator, Global Founders Capital, Romulus Capital, and Seabed VC, among others. TechCrunch has more here.
Liquid Wire, a four-year-old, Portland, Ore.-based startup that produces conformal and pliable electronic circuits using a non-toxic printable liquid metals printed on plastic and textile substrates, and which is eyeing the medical wearables market, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. Deerfield Management Company led the round. More here.
Nomad Homes, a year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that's aiming to help people in Europe and the Middle East buy and finance homes more easily, has raised $4 million in funding led by Comcast Ventures, with participation from Abstract Ventures, Partech, Precursor Ventures, WndrCo, and Class 5 Global. Crunchbase News has more here.
Northflank, a seven-year-old, London-based DevOps platform in the cloud, has raised $2.6 million in seed funding from Kindred Ventures, Stride.VC and Amaranthine Partners led the round. TechCrunch has more here.
Optimal Dynamics, a four-year-old, Princeton, N.J.-based logistics and supply chain automation startup, raised $4 million in seed funding. Fusion Fund led the round, joined by The Westly Group, TenOneTen Ventures, Embark Ventures, FitzGate Ventures, and Newark Venture Partners. FreightWaves has more here.
Quaestor, a months-old, San Francisco-based collaboration platform for financial data and business metrics, raised $5.8 million in seed funding. 8VC led the round, joined by Spark Capital, Abstract Ventures, GFC, Fathom Ventures, and Riot Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Replenysh, a four-year-old, Orange County, Ca.-based startup that aims to streamline recycling for buyers and sellers, raised $2 million in seed funding, including from Kindred Ventures, Floodgate and 122WEST. TechCrunch has more here.
Second Front Systems, a six-year-old, Arlington, Va.-based software company whose technology aims to identify, assess, and access innovative commercial technologies for national security, has raised $6 million in seed funding. ARTIS Ventures led the round, joined by Kleiner Perkins, 8VC, Gula Tech Adventures, and Abstract Ventures. More here.
Swiftmile, a five-year-old, Bay Area-based startup that makes and deploys charging stations for electric bikes and scooters in cities, has raised a $5 million round led by Thayer Ventures, with participation from Verizon Ventures, Alumni Ventures Groups and WSGR. The company has now raised $11 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Vital4, a four-year-old, Marietta, Ga.-based fintech platform for risk screening and continuous monitoring, raised $1 million in seed funding led by Valor Ventures. More here.
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New Funds
DCM, the 24-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based cross-border, early-stage venture fund, has closed on two new funds that total $880 million in capital commitments: one fund -- its ninth flagship venture fund -- closed with $780 million in pledges; a second fund closed with $100 million to make seed-stage investments around the world. DCM is backed by Japan's SoftBank Group Corp. and Rakuten, along with U.S. endowments and pension plans and European firms. Bloomberg has more here.
K Fund, a five-year-old, seed-stage venture firm that provides capital to Spanish startups, has closed its second fund with €70 million in capital commitments, up from the €50 million it had raised for its debut fund. The plan is to invest between €200,000 and €2 million in anywhere from 25 to 30 companies. TechCrunch has more here.
Nauta Capital, a London-based venture firm, says it has held a first close of €120 million for its fifth fund, which is expected to be larger than it fourth fund, closed with €155 million in capital commitments in 2016. Nauta, which has partners in London, Barcelona and Munich, invests primarily in the UK, Spain and Germany, and primarily in B2B software startup. Tech.eu has more here.
OpenSpace Ventures, one of Southeast Asia's most prolific investors, says DealStreetAsia, has closed on $90 million in capital commitments for a third fund that is targeting $200 million. OpenSpace had closed its second fund with $135 million in 2018; its limited partners include Temasek Holdings and Stepstone Group. More here.
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IPOs
BlueCity Holdings, the nine-year-old, Beijing-based owner of Blued, China’s biggest LGBTQ dating app, climbed 46% in its trading debut after raising $85 million in a U.S. IPO. The company's shares, which rose as much as 124% earlier today, closed at $23.43 in New York trading. It had sold 5.3 million shares at $16 each. Bloomberg has more here.
nCino, a Wilmington, N.C.-basedfintech startup that provides operating software to banks, has updated its S-1 filing to reveal plans to sell 7.625 million shares in its debut, at between $22 and $24 per share, for a roughly $2 billion valuation. Salesforce Ventures and Insight Partners are the company's biggest outside shareholders. TechCrunch has more here.
GoHealth, a Chicago-based company that provides consumers with a digital portal to help them select insurance products, set an initial price range for its IPO today. The firm intends to price its equity between $18 to $20 per share in its debut; it expects to sell 39.5 million shares in the offering. TechCrunch as more here.
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Exits
Slack is acquiring Rimeto, a four-year-old subscription software startup founded by former Facebook employees. Terms aren't being disclosed. Rimeto had raised $10 million from VCs to build a detailed employee dictionary for companies that allows employers and fellow employees to see employees’ skills, experience and current projects. CNBC has more here.
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Data
Nearly 70,000 tech startup employees have lost their jobs since March -- 25,500 of them in the Bay Area, according to a report by U.K.-based brokerage BuyShares.co.uk. The WSJ has more here.
Almost one-third of U.S. households, 32%, have not made their full housing payments for July yet, according to an Apartment List survey reported on by CNBC. About 19% of Americans made no housing payment at all during the first week of the month, and 13% paid only a portion of their rent or mortgage.
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Detours
A short history of 'simp.'
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