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September 16, 2020
Hope you've had a fine Wednesday.:)
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Top News
Snowflake, the data storage and analytics provider, kicked off a spate of tech IPOs today in grand fashion today. Its stock opened at more than double its listing price -- $245 up from $120 -- and it shot as high as $319 before closing the day $254 per share. It was the largest IPO ever for a software company. The New York Times has more here.
Trump administration officials are looking to give American investors a majority share of the company that will take over the Chinese-owned video sharing app TikTok, according to the WSJ. ByteDance, its Beijing-based parent company, is meanwhile seeking to retain majority ownership for its proposed partnership with Oracle in a new U.S.-headquartered company that takes over TikTok operations. In fact, the only thing that's crystal clear, suggests the report, is that the current administration won't openly make money off TikTok's sale; Trump said that administration lawyers have informed him the U.S. government cannot accept payments as a result of the deal.
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Can't Stop Won't Stop: Social Capital Hedosophia Reportedly Files for Its Fourth SPAC
According to a new report in Bloomberg, Social Capital Hedosophia has filed plans confidentially with the SEC to raise $500 million for its newest blank-check company.
It will be the fourth special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, to be raised by the outfit, which is headed up by Chamath Palihapitiya and his longtime investment partner, Ian Osborne.
Astonishingly, dozens more may be in the works. On the “All-In Podcast,” co-hosted by Palihapitiya, he revealed recently that has reserved the symbols from “IPOA” to “IPOZ” on the New York Stock Exchange. He also said he has $100 million of his own involved in each deal to demonstrate his alignment with potential investors.
What’s the play? In the podcast, Palihapitiya pointed to the Federal Reserve’s economic and interest rate forecasts and its plans to keep interest rates at zero for years to come. “I mean, quite honestly,” Palihapitiya said, “there’s no path to any near-term inflation of any kind whatsoever.”
It’s why he thinks investors are going to “get paid to be long [on] equities, because your risk-free rate is zero and will soon be negative. And what are you supposed to do if you’re an asset manager?”
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Massive Fundings
AppDirect, a 10-year-old, San Francisco-based company the describes its platform as a Shopify for businesses needing recurring digital services (and offered via a single sign on), has raised $185 million in fresh funding. Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec led the round, joined by existing investors. The company has now raised $465 million altogether. Crunchbase News has more here.
Acko, a nearly four-year-old, Bangalore, India-based startup that's selling a digital-first insurance product, just raised $60 million in Series D funding led by Munich Re, with participation from earlier backers Amazon, RPS Ventures and Intact Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Observe.AI, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company focused on contact center AI that analyzes conversations, has raised $54 million in Series B funding. Menlo Ventures led the round, joined by Next47 Ventures and NGP Capital. More here.
Zwift, a five-year-old, Long Beach, Ca.-based online fitness platform that immerses cyclists and runners in 3D-generated worlds, just raised a hefty $450 million in funding led by the investment firm KKR in exchange for a minority stake in its business. Permira, the Amazon Alexa Fund and Specialized Bicycle’s venture capital fund, Zone 5 Ventures, also joined the round, alongside earlier backers Highland Europe, Novator, Causeway Media and True, which is a London-based consumer specialist firm. Zwift has now raised $620 million altogether and is valued at north of $1 billion. We wrote up more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Airmeet, a 1.5-year-old, Bangalore, India-based platform for virtual events, has raised $12 million in Series A funding. Sequoia Capital India led the round, joined by Redpoint Ventures, Accel India, Venture Highway and Global Founders Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Alloy, a five-year-old, New York-based identity operating system for the financial services industry, has raised $40 million in Series B funding. Canapi Ventures led the round, joined by Avid Ventures, Felicis Ventures, and earlier backers Bessemer Venture Partners, Primary Venture Partners, and Eniac Ventures. Crunchbase News has more here.
JupiterOne, a two-year-old, Morrisville, N.C.-based cybersecurity management automation startup, just raised $19 million in funding led by Brain Capital Ventures, with participation from Rain Capital, LifeOmic, and individual investors. VentureBeat has more here.
Monte Carlo, a 17-month-old, San Francisco-based company focused on reducing downtime in data, raised $16 million in Series A funding led by Accel, with participation from GGV Capital and individual investors, including renowned data scientist DJ Patil. Forbes has more here.
RapidAI, a seven-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based maker of advanced imaging for strokes, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by the Lennertz & Co. Family Equity Fund. More here.
VanMoof, a 12-year-old, Amsterdam-based e-bike brand, has raised $40 million in Series B funding from Norwest Venture Partners, Felix Capital and Balderton Capital. VentureBeat has more here.
Varada, a three-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup that focuses on making it easier for businesses to query data across services, has raised $12 million in Series A funding. MizMaa Ventures led the round, joined by Gefen Capital and earlier investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, StageOne Ventures and F2 Venture Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Veem, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based payments network, has raised $31 million in funding led by Truist Ventures, which is the venture arm of the commercial bank Truist Financial Corp. More here.
Dendra Systems, a six-year-old, Oxford, England-based company whose drones perform high resolution data collection to show vegetation, species, condition, and erosion characteristics in service of ecosystem restoration, has raised $10 million in funding. Investors include At One Ventures, Airbus Ventures, Future Positive Capital, and Lowercarbon Capital. More here.
Base, a 16-month-old, New York-based at-home lab testing and digital tracking app, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding from Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, Lakehouse, AmplifyHer Ventures, and K50. More here.
Finch, an 18-month-old, New York-based fintech service for millennials, has raised $1.8 million in seed funding. Mendoza Ventures led the round, joined by Barclays, Techstars Investors, and Draper Frontier.
Gravity Sketch, a six-year-old, London-based product design and collaboration platform, has raised $3.7 million (£2.9 million) in seed funding. Kindred Capital led the round, joined by Point Nine Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
ManiMe, a three-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based based maker of custom-fit stick-on gel nails, has raised $6 million in Series A funding co-led by Canaan Partners and Trinity Ventures. Axios has more here.
Signifier Medical Technologies, a five-year-old, London-based maker of devices for snorers and people with other sleep disordered breathing conditions, has raised $10 million in Series C funding led by Alan Howard, a co-founder of the European hedge fund Brevan Howard. More here.
YAPI, a nine-year-old, L.A.-based software company focused on dental practices, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from M33 Growth. More here.
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IPOs
JFrog, a 12-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company trying to change the way that software is updated, priced an initial public offering of 11.6 million shares at $44 last night, according to Barron's. The stock then opened at $71.27, up 62% from its offering price, and finished the day at $64.79, up 47%. More here.
Chinese online video startup Kuaishou, ByteDance’s biggest domestic rival, is seeking an IPO in Hong Kong as early as this year, according to The Information. Kuaishou, which was valued at $28 billion in its most recent funding round last year, is aiming for a valuation of $50 billion in its planned IPO, say the outlet's sources. The company’s backers include Chinese tech giants Tencent and Baidu as well as Sequoia Capital China, DST Global, and DCM (which has already taken some money off the table, as DCM cofounder David Chao told us last week).
ChargePoint, a 13-year-old, Campbell, Ca.-based EV charging networks, is nearing a deal to go public through a reverse merger with Switchback Energy Acquisition Corp, according to Automotive News. Switchback raised $300 million in an IPO last year; the deal could reportedly value ChargePoint at $2 billion. More here.
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Exits
CB Insights, the New York-based firm that tracks venture capital and start-ups, has acquired Blockdata, a Netherlands-based company that tracks the global blockchain economy in order to build out a blockchain data offering. Financial terms weren't disclosed. Coindesk has more here.
Grail, the liquid biopsy biotech that last week filed for an IPO, is on the cusp of being acquired by the sequencing giant Illumina, reports Bloomberg, with its sources saying the price could be in the neighborhood of $8 billion. The company originally spun out of Illumina and has since raised $1.9 billion from investors, including Illumina, which already owns 14.6% of the company. More here.
Pure Storage, a public enterprise data storage company, is shelling out $370 million in cash to acquire Portworx, a startup that provides a cloud-native storage and data-management platform based on Kubernetes. TechCrunch says the deal is Pure Storage’s largest acquisition to date. Portworx had raised $55.5 million from investors, according to Crunchbase. More here.
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People
McKesson Ventures, the venture capital arm of McKesson Corporation, announces the expansion of its leadership team, promoting Jennifer Carter and Carrie Hurwitz Williams to partner. Carter joined the firm in 2014; Williams joined in 2017. Both have extensive healthcare industry experience. More here.
Investor Mike Speiser helped create Snowflake and served as its CEO and CFO from 2012 to 2014. His firm, Sutter Hill, amassed a stake in the software company that’s now worth $11.6 billion. CNBC has more here.
A look at some of the other big winners in Snowflake's IPO.
Mark Toland, CEO of Corindus Vascular Robotics (acquired by Siemens last year), is leaving to join BioStar Capital, a health-tech venture capital group focused on cardiovascular and orthopedic medical devices, as a partner and entrepreneur-in-residence. More here.
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Essential Reads
Facebook is officially killing off the Oculus Rift line.
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