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September 3, 2020
Thursday!
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Top News
The Dow slid more than 800 points, or 2.8%, today for its biggest one-day decline since June, and stock futures have fallen further tonight. Allianz Chief Economic Advisor Mohamed El-Erian said on CNBC today, “We could have another 10% fall, easily ... if people start thinking fundamentals."
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That Whole Foods is a Warehouse; Get Used to It
Earlier this week, in Brooklyn, near the waterfront, Amazon opened what looks from the outside like a typical Whole Foods store. It isn't open to the public, however; it's a new fulfillment center.
“Grocery delivery continues to be one of the fastest-growing businesses at Amazon,” the company said in a statement about the location, noting that it has hired hundreds of new employees to aid in its operations. “We’re thrilled to increase access to grocery delivery."
Americans sort of knew this was coming. Still, the pace at which buildings of all sizes are being either built or converted into e-commerce fulfillment centers -- and closer to city centers -- has become a bit breathtaking. According to the commercial real estate services firm CBRE, since 2017 at least 59 projects in the U.S. have centered on converting 14 million square feet of retail space into 15.5 million square feet of industrial space, and that trend is "absolutely going to continue," says Matthew Walaszek, an associate director of industrial and logistics research at CBRE.
It has played out fairly quietly to date, save for the occasional headline about, well, Amazon, typically. Last month, for example, the Wall Street Journal reported that the ever-expanding conglomerate is in talks with the largest mall owner in the U.S., Simon Property Group, about converting both former and current JCPenney and Sears stores into distribution hubs from which it can deliver its products more quickly.
Amazon needs the space. Meanwhile, Simon needs a tenant that can pay its bills.
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Massive Fundings
Shine Medical, a 10-year-old, Janesville, Wi.-based company that's working to commercialize radioisotopes that it plans to produce for medical testing and cancer therapy, has raised $80 million in Series C funding led by Fidelity. GazetteXtra has more here.
Zomato, the 12-year-old, Indian food delivery company, has raised $250 million in new funding from Tiger Global, Kora Capital and Temasek as part of a circuitous fundraising process that doesn't sound to be going so smoothly. The Economic Times has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Cloudentity, a 23-year-old, Seattle, Wa.-based cloud app security startup, has raised $13 million in Series A funding led ForgePoint Capital, with participation from WestWave Capital. The company has now raised $15 million altogether. More here.
Conversica, a 13-year-old, Foster City, Ca.-based virtual assistant startup, has raised $20 million in Series D funding. Hollyport Capital led the round, joined by earlier backers Providence Strategic Growth, Toba Capital, and Savano Capital Partners. Business Insider has more here.
Dreame Technology, a five-year-old, Beijing-based maker of smart vacuums and hair dryers, has raised $14.6 million in Series B+ funding. IDG Capital led the round, joined by earlier backers Xiaomi, Shunwei Capital, Peak Valley Capital, and Edge Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
MatchMove, an 11-year-old, Singapore-based platform that provides its business customers with modular banking services (in case they want to integrate spending or lending in their apps), has raised $21 million in new funding. ZTC Private Markets, Singapura Finance, and Vickers Venture Partners led the round, joined by NTT Investment Partners, Iconic World, and V V Pentafond. Tech in Asia has more here.
Miracor Medical, a 12-year-old, Awans, Belgium-based medical device company focused on improving the outcome of patients with impaired cardiac function, has raised €24 million in Series E funding. Yonghua and an undisclosed corporate backer co-led the round, joined by Earlybird, Noshaq, Quest for Growth, SFPI-FPIM, and SRIW. More here.
Moteefe, a six-year-old, London-based on-demand clothing production platform, has raised $11 million in funding led by BGF, joined by earlier backers Gresham House Ventures and Force Over Mass Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Transposit, a year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based platform for building interactive runbooks that learn as they're used, has raised $35 million in Series B funding. Altimeter Capital led the round, joined by earlier backers Sutter Hill Ventures, SignalFire, and Unusual Ventures. The company has now raised $50.4 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Anima, a nearly four-year-old, New York-based no-code design startup with an office in Tel Aviv, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from Hetz Ventures and Israeli angel investor Zohar Gilon. Tech.eu has more here.
Aspinity, a five-year-old, Pittsburgh, Pa.-based maker of ultra-low-power analog machine learning processors, has raised $5.3 million in Series A funding. Anzu Partners led the round, joined by Amazon Alexa Fund, Birchmere Ventures, Mountain State Capital, and Riverfront Ventures. More here.
Avo, a nearly three-year-old, Bay Area-based startup that says it helps businesses better manage their data quality across teams, raised a $3 million seed round led by GGV Capital, with participation from Heavybit, Y Combinator and others. TechCrunch has more here.
CoreStack, a four-year-old, Seattle-based cloud governance startup, has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding led by Naya Ventures. The company has now raised $13 million altogether. GeekWire has more here.
Demodesk, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based enterprise screen-sharing startup, has raised $8 million in Series A funding. Balderton Capital led the rounnd, joined by Target Global. TechCrunch has more here.
Reserved.AI, a nearly year-old, Seattle-based startup helping other companies save money on cloud-related costs, just raised $3.3 million from Amplify Partners and Pioneer Square Labs. GeekWire has more here.
uMotif, an eight-year-old, London-based clinical trial software company whose apps enables patients in drug trials to monitor themselves and consent to treatments, has £5 million in Series A funding led by earlier backer AlbionVC, with participation from Oslo-based DNV-GL and earlier angel investors. The round takes the company's funding to £7.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
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New Funds
Tectonic Ventures, a four-year-old, Newton, Ma.-based venture firm, is raising $75 million for its second fund, shows an SEC filing. More here.
Xfund, an eight-year-old, Palo Alto- and Cambridge, Ma.-based seed-stage firm focused on university research-based startups, says it has closed on $120 million in capital commitments for its third fund. More here.
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IPOs
QuantumScape, a 10-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based developer of solid-state batteries that spun out of Stanford and is backed by Volkswagen (and Bill Gates), says it plans to go public through a reverse merger with Kensington Capital Acquisition Corp. with an enterprise value of $3.3 billion. CNBC has more here.
Taysha Gene Therapies, a year-old, Dallas, Tex.-based developer of gene therapies for CNS disorders, has registered plans to go public with what's likely a placeholder amount of $100 million. The company has already raised $125 million in funding; it was founded in partnership with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Endpoints News has more here.
Skillz, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based competitive mobile game maker, says it is going public this fall through a SPAC and that as part of the process, it's raising $849 million in cash from investors at a $3.5 billion pre-money valuation. (That's 6.3 times its projected revenue for 2022, reports VentureBeat.) More here.
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Exits
Optimizely, an 11-year-old, San Francisco-based company that became synonymous with A/B testing and that raised more than $200 million over the years, including from Goldman Sachs and Andreessen Horowitz, is being acquired. Episerver, a 26-year-old Swedish company that offers tools to marketers looking to manage their digital content and which is currently owned by Insight Partners, is the buyer. Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.
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People
Columbia University hired Kim Lew as chief executive of its $11 billion endowment; the longtime chief investment officer of the nonprofit Carnegie Corp. of New York, Lew joins a small group of women to oversee investments at the wealthiest U.S. colleges. She also has her work cut out for her, suggests Bloomberg. It notes that in fiscal 2018 and 2019, Columbia ranked last among its peers with returns of 9% and 3.8%.
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Layoffs
E-cigarette maker Juul Labs is planning to lay off more than half its 2,200 employees, according to the WSJ. It had already cut about one third of its 3,000 workers earlier this year and stopped selling its vaporizers in several countries. Now it's considering halting its sales across Europe and Asia, too.
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Essential Reads
The U.S. Justice Department reportedly plans to file antitrust charges against Google in the coming weeks despite the objections of career lawyers who've said they need more time to build the case.
SoftBank Group is "exploring assembling a group of bidders for TikTok’s India assets and has been actively looking for local partners," says Bloomberg. SoftBank, which bought a stake in TikTok's parent company Bytedance in 2018, has held talks with the heads of India’s Reliance Jio and its rival, Bharti Airtel, according to Bloomberg, which says discussions have fizzled but that SoftBank hasn't dropped the effort
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