Twitter's version of events, cracks in Airbnb's prized culture, and a national game of "you're it!"

July 17, 2020

We're closing up shop (and popping open a much-needed Chimay), but before we go, we bolted together a new StrictlyVC Download for you, with some of the week's biggest stories and featuring guest Brad Feld, the renowned cofounder of Foundry Group and Techstars.

We really enjoyed this one, from talking to Feld about how he's getting through the pandemic, to bias in investing, to why startup ecosystems are complex systems in the same way that parenting is (i.e. there's only so much you can control).

Stay cool. Stay sane. More Monday.:)

Top News

The former assistant of Fahim Saleh has been charged with the tech CEOs grisly murder of earlier this week in New York. Detectives believe money was involved. Saleh reportedly discovered the assistant had stolen $90,000 from him and fired him, then devised a payment plan for him to work off the debt. The New York Times has more here.

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Veteran VC Kittu Kolluri Just Raised $216 Million More to Take On His Bigger Rivals

Kittu Kolluri — who in late 2016 stepped down as a general partner with NEA after 11 years with the investing giant to form the much smaller, much earlier-stage outfit Neotribe — has closed on $216 million for the outfit’s second fund, a sizable jump up from its $130 million debut fund. (Kolluri and his team separately kicked in enough money to bring those funds to $138 million and $220 million, respectively.)

We talked yesterday with Kolluri — a longtime operator whose earlier career spans across Silicon Graphics, Healtheon (which he co-founded), the VPN software company Neoteris (which he ran as CEO) and Juniper Networks (which acquired the company that acquired Neoteris) — to ask about the new fund and Neotribe’s mission more broadly. We also wound up talking a bit about founder attitudes around being publicly traded, M&A and what VCs get wrong about founders (in his view).

For those who don’t know you, why did you leave NEA to start your own thing?

We wanted to capture an era gone by of investing in companies and founders developing breakthrough technologies that stretch the imagination. They’re solving hard problems but also looking around the corner and discovering a macro trend that they can then use to develop a new category of product.

Wouldn’t all VCs say they are doing this?

There are two types of VCs — those that fall in love with the story and who look at the world through the founder’s eyes and work really hard to influence the outcome, and those who look for proof. We’re a poster child for the first category. We like to take not just technology risk but also market risk.

You’ve been involved with many startups over the last 14-plus years, so what are standouts that underscore your point?

I was an early investor in Climate Corp. and Bloom Energy and Aruba Networks; these were personal investments. Robinhood and VeloCloud [acquired in 2018 by VMware] are other examples from [my time at] NEA.

There are extremes in venture capital right now. On the one hand, you have micro VCs and super angel types who write a large number of checks and who take market risk but who have sort of a spray-and-pray strategy and who don’t have the wherewithal to make a difference at the companies they are funding. On the other extreme, you have large venture funds with large pools of capital but whose check sizes need to be so large that they can’t make investments at the seed stage; their checks start at $10 million. I was at NEA and you can’t afford to write $3 million checks.

More here.

Massive Fundings

Adagio Therapeutics, a new, Waltham, Ma.-based developer of antibodies for coronaviruses that was just spun out of Adimab, a venture-backed company that discovers and optimizes antibodies to pass off to drug development companies (and doesn't want to compete with them), just raised $50 million. Adimab backers Polaris Partners and Mithril Capital co-led the round, and were joined by Fidelity, OrbiMed, M28 Capital, and GV. Xconomy has more here.

BlueVoyant, a 3.5-year-old, New York-based managed risk service that's geared toward supply chains and oil companies, has raised $68 million in funding. Temasek led the round. CRN has more here.

Coursera, the eight-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based online learning platform, has raised $130 million in Series F funding at a post-money valuation of $2.5 billion from insiders. NEA led the round, joined by Kleiner Perkins, SEEK Group, Learn Capital, SuRo Capital and G Squared, reports The Information. More here.

Imvax, a five-year-old, Philadelphia, Pa.-based developer of an advanced brain cell therapy, raised $112 million in Series C funding led by HP Wild Holdings. Earlier backers also joined the round, including Ziff Capital Partners, Magnetar Capital, and TLP Investment Partners. FierceBiotech has more here.

Plus.ai, a four-year-old, China-based developer of self-driving trucks based in the U.S. and China, is in talks to raise $60 million, according to The Information, which says the fundraising would be led by the Hong Kong-based investment and securities firm Guotai Junan International and could value Plus.ai in the range of $600 million to $1 billion. More here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

CartiHeal, an 11-year-old Israel-based company that makes implants for the treatment of joint surface lesions in traumatic and osteoarthritic joints, has raised $15 million from earlier backer Bioventus. The orthobiologics company is planning to acquire CartiHeal shortly after FDA approval of its implant (under terms that aren't being disclosed). More here.

Gem, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based recruiting platform, raised $37 million in Series B funding. Greylock led the round, joined by earlier backer Accel. Forbes has more here.

Moneybox, a five-year-old, London-based savings and investing app, raised £30 million in Series C funding from Breega, CNP, and earlier backer Eight Roads, among others. EU Startups has more here.

Mori, a four-year-old, Boston-based company using silkworm cocoons as food preservatives, just raised $12 million in Series A funding. Acre Venture Partners led the round, joined by Prelude Ventures, The Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust, ACCELR8 and numerous earlier backers. The company was formerly known as Cambridge Crops. Crunchbase News has more here.

Puppet, a 15-year-old, Portland, Ore.-based infrastructure automation company, has raised $40 million in debt from BlackRock Investments. TechCrunch has more here.

SAB Biotherapeutics, a six-year-old, Sioux Falls, S.D.-based clinical-stage biopharma company that says it can produce fully human polyclonal antibodies without the need for human plasma donors, has closed its Series B funding round with $14 million. New investor Merck led the round, joined by South Dakota Equity Partners and several other follow-on and private investors. More here.

Smaller Fundings

Cohesion, a two-year-old, Chicago-based smart office building startup, has raised $6.5 million in seed funding led by Hyde Park Angels, Frasers Property and Illinois’ richest man, Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin, among other individual investors. Built in Chicago has more here.

Ergatta, a 20-month-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based home fitness startup that makes a digital rower, has raised $5 million in seed funding. Greycroft led the round and was joined by Zynga cofounder Mark Pincus, Zach Weinberg and Nat Turner of Flatiron Health, and numerous other investors. Crunchbase News has more here.

VideoPeel, a five-year-old, Lehi, Ut.-based video testimonial platform, has raised a $1.5 million round led by Active Capital, with participation from Next Coast Ventures, eonCapital, and numerous angel investors. More here.

New Funds

Industry Ventures, the 20-year-old, San Francisco-based investment firm, is raising a $750 million fund to invest in secondary stakes in companies and venture funds, shows a new SEC filing. It's the firm's ninth related vehicle. We talked with firm founder Hans Swilden about shopping for secondary stakes when the world first shut down back in March.

People

Carolina Brochado, the former Atomico partner and most recently a partner at SoftBank Vision Fund’s London office, has joined EQT to help launch a new fund dedicated to growth-stage investments, says TechCrunch. More here.

Data

SoftBank Group quietly sold an additional $2.2 billion of its stake in Alibaba Group a part of a fundraising effort to pay down debt and buy back its own shares, says Bloomberg. It adds that the deal brings the total of Alibaba stock sold by the Tokyo-based company this year to $13.7 billion.

Essential Reads

Airbnb was like a family -- until the layoffs started.

Hackers tell the story of the Twitter attack from the inside. Twitter offers its own version of the event.

The White House says restrictions on TikTok could come in "weeks, not months."

Detours

The real reason you procrastinate.

Why I must remove myself as a moderator on NextDoor.

FedEx and UPS drivers across the U.S. engage in a game of "you're it!"

RIP, John Lewis.

Retail Therapy

Keith Haring collectibles available at resale.

Finally, a true pain point is addressed.

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Twitter's version of events, cracks in Airbnb's prized culture, and a national game of "you're it!"

Older messages

Instacart versus Uber, Facebook's TikTok clone is coming, and a "statement" fund by CRV

Twitter gets hacked, AIrbnb's IPO is apparently still a go, and a WeWork rival may be crumbling

International students in the U.S. can breathe again, Google's talks with Jio, and a tech founder meets a terrible end

Apple rethinks its plans, Google's India push, and a market top (then sell-off)

Amazon's strange day, a lawsuit against LinkedIn, and why certain words really stick in our minds

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