A new round for Robinhood, Kabbage gets eaten, and Oracle is talking to TikTok, too

August 17, 2020

Hello! We're a little worried about our friends not so far away in Napa tonight as smoke fills the air in the Bay Area yet again. If you are there or nearby, we hope you're safe.

Top News

It's not just Microsoft and Twitter; Oracle has also reportedly expressed interest in buying TikTok's U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand operations from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, says the Financial Times. According to its report, Oracle is/was working with some U.S. investors that already have a stake in ByteDance, including General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital. More here.

Uber said today it will continue operating its revenue-generating food delivery business Uber Eats even if its ride-hail business should be forced shut in California at the end of this week following a court order. More here.

New cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. have remained stubbornly high in recent days, with the country averaging more than 51,100 new cases per day over the past seven days. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 closed today's session up 0.3%, just shy of its record closing high of 3,386.15 from February 19.

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Massive Fundings

Grafana Labs, a six-year-old, New York-based open-source developer platform that organizations use to for visualizing their metrics and logs, has raised $50 million in Series B funding from earlier backers Lightspeed Venture Partners and Lead Edge Capital. The company has now raised $75.2 million altogether. Crunchbase News has more here.

Robinhood, the seven-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based stock trading app, says it has raised $200 million in Series G funding led by D1 Capital Partners at a post-money valuation of $11.2 billion. Including this new round, Robinhood has now raised more than $1.7 billion, according to Crunchbase data. Crunchbase News has more here.

Weee!, a five-year-old, Fremont, Ca.-based startup that delivers Asian groceries like fresh kimchi and Japanese desserts to major cities across the U.S. from its own warehouses, has raised $35 million in Series D funding led by DST Global. The round brings the company's total funding to $100 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Agiloft, a nearly 30-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based company that makes no-code contract and commerce lifecycle management software, has raised $45 million in its first round of outside funding, led by FTV Capital. VentureBeat has more here.

Geneva, a year-old, New York-based community-based group chatting platform, has raised $14.2 million in funding according to a recent SEC filing funding flagged by Axios. Among its backers is Thrive Capital. More here.

Lana, a 1.5-year-old, Madrid, Spain-based startup that hopes to become a digital wallet for all of the different companies on which gig workers and laborers list their services, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Base10 Partners, with participation from mobility company Cabify and Cathay Innovation. TechCrunch has more here.

PowerPollen, a five-year-old, Ankeny, Iowa-based startup focused on enhancing agricultural productivity through improved pollination, has raised $13 million in Series B funding from Ag Ventures Alliance and several return investors, including Iowa Corn Growers Association. Clay and Milk has more here.

Smaller Fundings

Warmly, a nine-month-old, San Francisco-based startup whose product tracks individuals in a customer's CRM system, then sends out a notification when one of his or her contacts changes jobs, has raised $2.1 million in seed funding led by NFX, with participation from Y Combinator, Matchstick Ventures, Scribble Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and 20VC. (As an aside, the company is currently taking part in one of Sequoia's internal crash courses for founders, which we wrote about in TechCrunch late on Friday.) Forbes has more here.

New Funds

Lightspeed Venture Partners has closed its third India-focused fund with $275 million in capital commitments as it looks to double down on startups across the country. Times of India has more here.

Exits

Kabbage, which had built a platform that uses machine learning algorithms to assess and loan out money to small business owners, is officially being acquired by American Express, following reports that a deal was afoot. Terms aren't being disclosed, but those earlier reports put the value of the acquisition at up to $850 million. Kabbage had raised nearly $990 billion in debt and equity (and at least $3.5 billion in securitizations), and was valued at over $1.2 billion in its last equity round of $250 million in 2017, led by SoftBank. TechCrunch has more here.

Rackspace soared 19% today following a Reuters report that Amazon is considering a minority stake in the company, which helps companies migrate data to the cloud and transition to cloud services like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft's Azure. More here.

India’s Reliance Industries is in talks to buy online furniture retailer Urban Ladder and milk delivery firm Milkbasket to strengthen its e-commerce business, the Times of India newspaper reported today. Talks with Urban Ladder are reportedly at an advanced stage. More here.

Signal, an 11-year-old, Chicago-based ad tech startup, says it has been acquired by the credit reporting agency TransUnion. Founded originally as BrightTag, Signal had raised more than $60 million over the years, including from I2A, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Baird Capital and Yahoo! Japan. Terms of its acquisition aren't being disclosed. American Inno has more here.

Afield but interesting: Actor Ryan Reynolds’ Aviation Gin is being acquired by the British beverage company Diageo for up to $610 million over a 10-year period. You may remember George Clooney sold his Casamigos tequila company to Diageo for upwards of $1 billion in 2018. The Wrap has more here.

IPOs

Grupo Mateus, a Brazilian operator of supermarkets and discount warehouse-style stores, has filed for an IPO with the country’s securities regulator. Grupo Mateus has 137 stores in Brazil’s northern and northeastern states, selling food, furniture and electronics, says Reuters, adding that the family-owned chain grew thanks to an aggressive pricing strategy. The company hasn't disclosed the size of the offering yet. More here.

Universe Pharmaceuticals, a Jiangxi, China-based company pharmaceutical specializing in traditional Chinese medicine derivatives that target the elderly, filed IPO plans today with the SEC. It intends to raise $30 million by offering 5 million shares at a price range of $5 to $7. At the midpoint of the proposed range, Universe Pharmaceuticals would command a market value of $126 million. Renaissance Capital has more here.

The makeup of China’s equity capital market is changing as it attracts more tech companies amid rising tensions with the U.S, notes Bloomberg. Tech listings reportedly account for about a third of the $38 billion raised through IPOs in the mainland this year -- their share growing more than three-fold since last year to 35% of the total. More here.

People

Quibi CEO Meg Whitman, who ran for governor of California as a Republican, spoke at the at the Democratic National Convention tonight.

Connor Watumull has been promoted to vice president at. Bessemer Venture Partners. He joined the firm in 2018 after working as a senior product manager at Tile and as a senior associate with Bain Capital before that.

Pinterest has appointed Andrea Wishom, president of real estate company Skywalker Holdings* and former Harpo Studios executive, to its board of directors. The appointment makes her Pinterest’s first Black board member and third female board member. The announcement comes a couple of days after Pinterest employees staged a virtual walkout to demand systemic change as it relates to gender and racial discrimination, notes TechCrunch.

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A new round for Robinhood, Kabbage gets eaten, and Oracle is talking to TikTok, too

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