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September 10, 2020
Thursday!
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Top News
Opendoor, the seven-year-old, San Francisco-based company that has from the outset aimed to help people buy and sell homes with the “push of a button” (or nearly), is in advanced talks to go public through a merger with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. II, according to Bloomberg. Social Capital II, the blank-check company led by chairman Chamath Palihapitiya, is discussing raising fresh equity to help fund the transaction with prospective investors; reportedly, the combined company would be valued at around $5 billion in the deal, which is expected to be announced in the coming weeks. More here.
Donald Trump said today he won't extend the fast-approaching September 20 deadline he set for ByteDance, the Chinese-owned parent company of Tiktok, to sell the popular app or have it be banned. "We'll see what happens it'll either be closed up or they'll sell it," Trump said, maintaining there will be "no extension of the TikTok deadline."
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VC Josh Kopelman Isn't So Sure About SPACs (But He Thinks Rolling Funds Could Prove Powerful)
Yesterday, we had a chance to catch up with Josh Kopelman, cofounder of the now 16-year-old early-stage venture firm First Round to talk about a wide variety of issues. As part of that conversation — which we’ll run in its entirety in our StrictlyVC podcast tomorrow — we naturally asked Kopelman about some of the big changes afoot in the venture industry right now, including the special purpose acquisition vehicles (SPACs) that are being raised left and right, the rolling fund concept that is gaining traction, and how First Round is thinking about diversity.
We’ll be covering all of these issues next week over at the TechCrunch Disrupt show with a wide variety of top VCs. Knowing that Kopelman is also well-regarded by founders, we thought you might be interested to learn what he thinks about some of these newer developments, too. Our chat has been edited lightly or length and clarity.
Your own industry has obviously changed quite a bit since you founded First Round. There are now hundreds of firms that are going after early-stage deals. How have your results been impacted by what’s been happening in the market? Are you still getting the same return on investment that you did in the past?
If you’re talking about changes in the last five years, no one’s results are in, so for me to talk about unrealized markups over the last five years, sure, they look fine. But I’ve been in this business long enough to realize that there’s a big difference between realized and unrealized [gains].
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Massive Fundings
Casma Therapeutics, a three-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based biotech that's focused on muscular dystrophy, has raised $50 million in Series B funding. The Column Group led the round, joined by Eventide Asset Management, Schroder Adveq, and early investor Third Rock Ventures, which had incubated the company. FierceBiotech has more here.
OncoImmune, a 20-year-old, Rockville, Md.-based developer of leukemia and (more recently) COVID-19 therapeutics, has raised $56 million in Series B funding. HM Capital co-led the rund with an undisclosed investor; they were joined by GBA Fund, GF Xinde, and earlier investors 3E Bioventures Capital and Kaitai Capital. FierceBiotech has more here.
Orchard, a three-year-old, New York-based home buying and selling platform (it buys homes; its product suite also includes tools for searching for homes, titles and mortgages), has raised $69 million of Series C funding. Revolution Growth led the round, joined by FirstMark, Navitas, Accomplice, and Juxtapose. TechCrunch has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Descartes Underwriting, a two-year-old, Paris-based insurtech focused on climate risk modeling and data-driven risk transfer, has raised $18.5 million in Series A funding. Serena Capital of Paris led the round, joined by Cathay Innovation and BlackFin Capital Partners. VentureBeat has more here.
EverC, 12-year-old, New York-based company that gleans online data intelligence to detect and prevent money laundering via online transactions, has raised $35 million in Series B funding. Red Dot Capital Partners led the round, joined by Maor Investments and earlier investors Viola Ventures, Arbor Ventures, and American Express Ventures. The Times of Israel has more here.
Klue, a nearly six-year-old, Vancouver-based competitive intelligence platform that scrapes information about a company's competitors and presents and distributes it through embeddable cards to its salespeople, has raised $15 million in Series A funding. Craft Ventures led the round, joined by HWVP; earlier investors OMERS Ventures, Rhino Ventures, and BDC Ventures; and angel investors, including Okta cofounder Frederic Kerrest. Forbes has more here.
Orasis Pharmaceuticals, a five-year-old, Herzliya, Israel-based ophthalmic pharmaceutical company at work on an eye drop for the treatment of presbyopia symptoms, has raised $30 million in Series C funding. New investor Bluestem Capital co-led the round with earlier backer Visionary Ventures; they were joined by other earlier backers, including Sequoia Capital, SBI Innovation Ventures, Maverick Ventures Israel, LifeSci Venture Partners and additional investors. More here.
Oyster Financial, a two-year-old, Mexico-based neobank, raised $14 million in seed funding. Monashees and SV Latam Capital led the round, joined by Fintech Collective, former Accel partner Kevin Efrusy, Redpoint eventures, S7 Ventures and Ulu Ventures. More here.
Replicant, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup behind a conversational AI technology, has raised $27 million in Series A funding led by Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from the insurance firm State Farm’s venture arm. Other participants in the round include earlier backers Bloomberg Beta, Costanoa Ventures and Atomic, the venture fund and startup studio that originally launched the company. Forbes has more here.
Sana Benefits, a three-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based manager of self-funded insurance plans for small businesses, has raised $20.8 million in Series A funding. Gigafund led the round, joined by Trust Ventures and mark vc. TechCrunch has more here.
StackRox, a six-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based container and Kubernetes security provider, has raised $26.5 million in funding. Menlo Ventures led the round, joined by Highland Capital Partners, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Sequoia Capital, and Redpoint Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Ubicquia, a two-year-old, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based company whose tech plugs into existing streetlights to provide services like light control, video artificial intelligence, and public WiFi, has raised $30 million in Series C funding. Investors included Fuel Venture Capital. Crunchbase News has more here.
BinSentry, a three-year-old, Kitchener, Ontario-based startup that makes feed-bin monitoring software, has raised $7.6 million in funding from Lewis & Clark AgriFood, a St. Louis, Mo.-based food and agriculture focused investment firm. BetaKit has more here.
Bolster, a six-month-old, New York-based marketplace for on-demand executive talent that was cofounded by Matt Blumberg (he previously cofounded and ran the email deliverability company Return Path for nearly 20 years), just raised $6 million in funding. Investors included High Alpha, Union Square Ventures, Costonoa Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank. More here.
Britive, a two-year-old, Glendale, Ca.-based startup focused around helping organizations implement cloud security best practices like just-in-time access and zero standing privileges (ZSP) to prevent security breaches and operational disruptions, has raised $5.4 million in funding. Upfront Ventures led the round, joined by a clutch of security experts. TechCrunch has more here.
CredoLab, a five-year-old, Singapore-based developer of digital credit scorecards based on smartphone metadata, raised $7 million in Series A funding led by GBG. More here.
Curio, a 4.5-year-old, London-based curated audio platform that offers a library of "expert" journalism, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Earlybird VC, with participation from Draper Esprit, Cherry Ventures, and Horizons Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Manifold Bio, a five-month-old, Boston-based startup that's working on a protein barcoding system to enable developers to test multiple drugs in the same animal and to study multiple drug properties in the same experiment, has raised $5.4 million in seed funding. Playground Global led the round, joined Fifty Years, GettyLab and Allston Venture Fund. FierceBiotech explains the company here.
QuadSAT, a three-year-old, Denmark-based company whose quadcopter drones are designed to test satellite antennas, has raised €2 million ($2.4 million) led by Seraphim Capital. Space News has more here.
ReturnLogic, a six-year-old, Camp Hill, Pa.-based returns management platform that enables online retailers to manage and optimize their product return strategy, recently raised $2 million in funding from Revolution's Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Amplify.LA, Cultivation Capital, SaaS Ventures, Stout Street Capital, SpringTime Ventures, and Ben Franklin Technology Partners. More here.
Terabase Energy, a year-old, Berkeley, Ca.-based startup that makes software for utility-scale solar projects, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by SJF Ventures, with added participation from Powerhouse Ventures, City Light Capital and Trancoso Partners. PV Tech Power has more here.
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New Funds
TCV, the 25-year-old, late-stage and crossover venture firm, is targeting $3.25 billion for its eleventh fund, per public pension fund documents viewed by Axios. It had closed its tenth fund with a (then) record amount of $3 billion early last year. More here.
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IPOs
Palantir is holding fast to its strategy of insisting that it's more patriotic than other companies, with CEO Alex Karp yesterday telling investors who want Palantir to change its client base or culture of U.S. government support that they should “pick a different company.”
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Exits
Blockchain investment firm Digital Currency Group has acquired Luno, a London-based retail-focused cryptocurrency exchange. Luno was backed in part by Balderton Capital. Financial terms weren't disclosed. Coindesk has more here.
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People
Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is exploring a “mental disease” defense for her criminal fraud trial, a possibility revealed today when the judge overseeing the case ruled that government prosecutors can examine Holmes. As Bloomberg notes, Holmes may be looking to introduce the evidence to challenge the requirement that prosecutors prove her intent to do something wrong or illegal. More here.
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Sponsored By. . .
Three annual events are incorporated into one as the GCV Asia (Tokyo), GCV Synergize (New York) and GCV Energy (Houston) events combine online for 2020 at the second Global Corporate Venturing Digital Forum on September 29. Head to the site to watch the short video on what you can expect, as 600+ of the venturing industry gather from across the world to share expertise through top-level content with extensive networking. Lock down your place now, and take advantage of the 20% discount on top of the current early bird rate using the code STRICTLY20 during registration. See you on September 29.
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Essential Reads
Facebook is returning to its roots as a college-focused social network. The company announced today the launch of a new social networking platform, Facebook Campus, that's hoping to entice college students who are looking for a more 'private' place to connect with classmates, join groups, discover upcoming campus events, get updates from their school’s administration and chat with other students from their dorm, clubs or any other campus group. TechCrunch has more here.
One of Wall Street’s biggest employers is calling its trading staff back to the office. JPMorgan Chase execs have reportedly told senior employees of its sales and trading operation that they and their teams must return to the office by Sept. 21, unless they have child-care or medical issues. The WSJ has the story here.
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Detours
New "days-of-the-week" shirts.
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Retail Therapy
An ingenious hanger that won't stretch out your clothes.
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