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September 22, 2020
Tuesday! Hello.:)
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Top News
Facebook said today that it's removing accounts that it has detected were created in China with the aim of influencing the U.S. election. As reported in the New York Times, intelligence officials have said this week that the actions on Facebook so far were small and Beijing had not yet decided to mount a large-scale influence operation comparable to Russian efforts in 2016
For the first time in more than 20 years since Apple just began its operations in India, the iPhone-maker just started selling its products directly to consumers in the world’s second largest smartphone market. TechCrunch suggests the move is a big deal.
Amazon is limiting the ability of some competitors to promote their rival smart speakers, video doorbells and other devices on its dominant e-commerce platform, according to Amazon employees and executives at rival companies and advertising firms, reports the WSJ. “News flash: retailers promote their own products and often don’t sell products of competitors,” said Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener in a written statement to the outlet. But Amazon already is facing scrutiny over its treatment of competing sellers on its site; this new story adds fuel to the fire.
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Morgan Beller, C0-Creator of the Libra Digital Currency, Has Left Facebook to Become a VC
Morgan Beller, who is a co-creator of the proposed Libra digital currency, along with Facebook vice presidents David Marcus and Kevin Weil, has left the company to become a general partner with the venture firm NFX.
In a call yesterday, she said she first became acquainted with the San Francisco-based outfit five years ago when on a “tech trek” to Israel, she met its local partner, Gigi Levy-Weiss, and formed a friendship with him.
At the time, she was a young partner at Andreessen Horowitz, working on its deal team after graduating from Cornell as a statistics major.
A role working on corporate development and strategy at Medium would follow, then it was on to Facebook in 2017, where Beller began in corporate development and — intrigued by cryptocurrency tech — where she quickly began evangelizing to her bosses the importance of better understanding it.
As she half-jokingly explains it, “Crypto is a mental virus for which there is no cure. I was at a16z when they got infected with the crypto virus.” She eventually caught it herself, and by the time she joined Facebook, she says she “realized no one was thinking about that space full time, so I took it upon myself to [help the company] figure out its point of view.”
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Massive Fundings
Acesso Digital, a 17-year-old, São Paulo, Brazil-based facial biometrics firm and digital admission company, has raised roughly $107.3 million in funding co-led by General Atlantic and SoftBank Group. Reuters has more here.
Bright Health, a five-year-old, Minneapolis, Mn.-based health insurance company, has raised $500 million in Series E funding from T. Rowe Price, Tiger Global, NEA, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Greenspring Associates. The company, co-founded by former UnitedHealthcare CEO Bob Sheehy, had raised another enormous round -- $635 million in Series D funding -- back in December. MedCity News has more here.
Green Monday Holdings, an eight-year-old, Hong Kong-based plant-based food company, has raised $70 million in funding. TPG’s The Rise Fund and Swire Pacific Limited led the round. TechCrunch has more here.
ICEYE, a six-year-old, Espoo, Finland-based microsatellite manufacturer, has raised $87 million in Series C funding led by True Ventures, with participation from OTB Ventures. CNBC has more here.
Mirakl, a nine-year-old, Paris, France-based maker of B2B and B2C online marketplace software, has raised a $300 million in funding at a $1.5 billion post-money valuation. Permira Advisers led the round, joined by 83North, Bain Capital Ventures, Elaia Partners and Felix Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Rappi, a five-year-old, Bogota, Colombia-based on-demand delivery company in Latin America, has raised at least $155 million from a target of nearly $350 million in new funding, per an SEC filing flagged by Axios. The complicated company, which has raised $1.5 billion from SoftBank, Andreessen Horowitz, and Sequoia Capital, among others, and was valued at $3.5 billion as of earlier this year. More here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
EasySend, a four-year-old, Israel-based maker of no-code tools for businesses, has raised $16 million in funding after completing an $11 million in Series A funding round led by Hanaco, with participation from Intel Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Manticore Games, a four-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based company behind a video game creation platform, has raised $15 million in funding led by Epic Games. The Hollywood Reporter has more here.
Papa, a 3.5-year-old, Miami, Fla.-based senior services provider, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led by Comcast Ventures, with participation from Canaan, Initialized Capital, Sound Ventures, Pivotal Ventures and Magnify Ventures. The company has now raised $31 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Pure Watercraft, a nine-year-old, Seattle-based company that has built an electric propulsion system for boats that it says is clean and quiet, has raised $23.4 million in funding led by L37, with participation from numerous individuals, including unnamed Amazon executives and angel investors in the boating industry. TechCrunch has more here.
SigmaSense, a five-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based startup whose sensing technology aims to solve the noise immunity and tuning challenges of traditional touch sensors, has raised $22 million in Series A funding. Foxconn Technology Group led the round, joined by Corning, E Ink, GIS, and MRI (managing partner of LG-MRI). Former Dell CFO Tom Meredith also participated in the round. More here.
Syfe, a three-year-old, Singapore-based robo advisory startup that wants to make investing more accessible in Asia, has raised SGD $25.2 million (USD $18.6 million) in Series A funding led by Valar Ventures, with participation from Presight Capital and earlier investor Unbound, which led Syfe’s seed funding last year. TechCrunch has more here.
Aqua Membranes, a nine-year-old, Albuquerque, N.M.-based water treatment company, raised $2.1 million in funding, including from Clean Energy Ventures and Pentair. More here.
Arna Genomics, a seven-year-old, Moscow- and Wilmington, De.-based company whose liquid biopsy assay measures the circulating cell-free DNA in a breast cancer patient's plasma sample and plasma enzyme activity (to monitor her response to therapy), has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding led by Xploration Capital. More here.
Cloud Paper, a 1.5-year-old, Seattle-based maker of bamboo-based toilet paper, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Greycroft, with participation from numerous individual investors, including Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. TechCrunch has more here.
Conjure, a three-year-old, New York-based furniture rental service that was previously called Mobley, has raised $9 million in seed funding, including from Pillar VC, RiverPark Ventures, and CoVenture. Crunchbase News has more here.
daring, a two-year-old, L.A.-based plant-based protein brand with a variety of chicken alternatives (like breaded pieces), has raised $8 million in Series A funding. Maveron led the round, joined by GoodFriends, among other investors. More here.
DeepCube, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based startup developing a platform that reduces the computational requirements of AI algorithms on existing hardware, has raised $7 million in Series A funding. Awz Ventures led the round, joined by Koch Disruptive Technologies and Nima Capital. VentureBeat has more here.
Jina AI, an eight-month-old, Berlin, Germany-based open-source neural search startup, has raised $5.4 million in pre-Series A funding. GGV Capital led the round, joined by SAP.io and Yunqi Partners. More on what it's building here.
Marco Financial, a year-old, Miami, Fla.-based startup offering a revenue-based lending service for small and mid-size Latin American businesses, has raised roughly $6 million in funding led by Struck Capital, with added participation from Antler. The company also raised around $20 million in debt from Arcadia Funds. TechCrunch has more here.
RedTeam, a 14-year-old, Orlando, Fla.-based construction management platform for commercial contractors, has raised $5 million in funding from a private equity firm called JettyCove. More here.
Tarfin, a three-year-old, Turkey-based online price comparison platform for farmers, raised $5 million in Series A funding. Quona Capital led the round, joined by Elevator Ventures, Syngenta Ventures, Collective Spark Fund, and Wamda Capital. Wamda has more here.
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New Funds
Sequoia Capital China is reportedly raising at least 15 billion yuan ($2.2 billion) in a new yuan-denominated fund, building a war chest as the world’s second-largest economy recovers from a virus-induced slump. Reuters has more here.
A new Tokyo-based venture capital fund -- Pacific Bays Capital -- has raised $17.6 million from overseas investors including a co-founder of Skype in a bet that startups in Japan offer quicker exits because they have a shorter path to public markets. Bloomberg has more here.
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IPOs
Asana, the workflow management software company that was cofounded by Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, issued some guidance about its financials today, ahead of its expected plans to go public via a direct listing next week. Moskovitz himself owns roughly 40% of the company, which expects widening losses and slowing revenue, it said.
GoodRx, a nine-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based price comparison app for prescription drugs at local pharmacies, tonight raised $1.14 billion in its IPO, reports Axios. GoodRx priced its shares at $33 a piece, above its $24 to $28 per share offering range, which will give it an initial market cap of around $12.7 billion. Its shares beginning trading tomorrow on Nasdaq. More here.
Palantir, the data analytics company whose many SEC filings have kept industry watchers on their toes, said in yet another filing today that it expects to record growth this year of 42%, to close 2020 with $1.06 billion in revenue. Like Asana, Palantir is also planning to go public via a direct listing next week. More here.
Prelude Therapeutics, a four-year-old, Wilmington, De.-based biotech that's developing therapies for cancer and two weeks ago registered to go public using a placeholder amount, has now revealed its plans to raise $150 million in an IPO by selling 8.3 million shares priced between $17 to $19. Renaissance Capital has more here.
UiPath, the 15-year-old, New York-based robotic process automation company, has initiated discussions to hire investment banks as it prepares for a U.S. IPO that could value it at more than $15 billion, according to Reuters. More here.
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Exits
Fitness startup Aaptiv is exploring options including a sale, according to Bloomberg. Aaptiv makes an audio fitness app whose instructors guide users through running, cycling, yoga and other workouts. It was valued at $200 million as of June 2018, according to data provider PitchBook, and had raised $75.5 million from investors as of this April, including the Amazon Alexa Fund, Insight Partners, and Walt Disney Co. More here.
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People
Andrew Baldwin has joined Luminate Capital Partners. Baldwin previously spent six years as a partner at Western Technology Investment.
Jacob Effron has joined Redpoint Ventures as a vice president. He was most recently an investor with Rough Draft Ventures for two years.
Marcelino Pantoja has joined Tribe Capital as a vice president. Earlier, he was a director at Costanoa Ventures and an associate before that with Stanford Management Company.
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Data
Harvard’s undergraduate enrollment has dropped 20% from last year, with 5,382 undergrads at Harvard College for the fall semester, compared with 6,716 as of last October. The freshman class is about 14% smaller, as more than 200 accepted students notified Harvard that they intend to begin in the next academic year instead of this one. Bloomberg reminds that all instruction at Harvard College is remote for the 2020-2021 academic year. Freshmen and other students approved to be there based on academic needs are the only undergrads living on its campus in Cambridge, Ma. More here.
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Essential Reads
Amazon launched a “Prime Bike” today in a a bid to compete with an array of at-home exercise bikes that have become popular in the pandemic, including Peloton. The knock-off weighs far less and is missing a screen, but with a tablet, Prime Bike users can participate in Peloton's subscription service.
How the design of TikTok helps its algorithm work as well as it does.
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Retail Therapy
Nine high-reward home workout accessories that are comparatively teeny tiny.
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