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September 24, 2020
And it is Thursday, hello.:)
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Top News
Speaking to Congress today, Tim Kendall, the former Facebook manager who was the first employee tasked with making the company money, did not mince words about his role. He told lawmakers that Facebook "took a page from Big Tobacco's playbook, working to make our offering addictive at the outset" and arguing that his former employer has been hugely detrimental to society -- even potentially pushing it to the "brink of civil war." Ars Technica has more here.
A U.S. judge said today that the Trump administration must either delay a ban on U.S. app stores offering TikTok for download or else file legal papers defending the decision by tomorrow.
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Writer Anand Giridharadas on Tech's Billionaires: "Are They Even on the Same Team as Us?"
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, America’s roughly 640 billionaires have seen their fortunes soar by $845 billion in combined assets or 29% collectively, widening the already yawning gap between the very richest and the rest of U.S.
Many of those billions were made by tech founders, including Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, whose companies have soared in value and, in tandem, their net worth. In fact, so much has been made so fast and by so few relatively, that it’s easy to wonder if greater equality is now forever out of reach.
Giridharadas’s message at the time was largely that the generosity of the global elite is somewhat laughable — that many of the same players who say they want to help society are creating its most intractable problems. (Think, for example of Bezos, whose company paid zero in federal tax in 2017 and 2018 and who is now on the cusp of opening a tuition-free preschool called the Bezos Academy for underserved children.)
Given the aggressive escalation over the last six months of the same trends Giridharadas has tracked for years, we wondered how he views the current situation. Our chat has been edited for length and clarity.
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Massive Fundings
Attentive, a four-year-old, New York-based text message marketing startup whose software integrates with customer service and email software to create a smoother communication channel for retailers and their customers, has raised $230 million in Series D funding led by existing investor Coatue. The company has now raised $394 million total -- with more than 80% of it coming this year. Forbes has more here.
Greenlight, a six-year-old, Atlanta-based company focused around debit cards for kids, has raised $215 million in Series C funding at a post-money valuation of more than $1.2 billion, it says. The round was co-led by Canapi Ventures and TTV Capital, with participation from BOND, DST Global, Goodwater Capital, Fin VC and earlier backer Relay Ventures (which was Greenlight's first institutional investor). More here.
Monte Rosa Therapeutics, a two-year-old, Boston-based developer of precision medicines to degrade disease-causing proteins founded by Versant Ventures, has raised $96 million in Series B funding. Aisling Capital led the round, joined by HBM Healthcare Investments, Cormorant Asset Management, GV, and numerous others, including earlier investor NEA. The Institute of Cancer Research has more here.
Nuvia, a 1.5-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based chip design startup, raised $240 million in Series B funding. Mithril Capital led the round, joined by Marvell, BlackRock, Fidelity, Temasek, Atlantic Bridge, Redline Capital and earlier backers Capricorn Investment Group, Dell Technologies Capital, Mayfield, Nepenthe, and WRVI Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Petal, a four-year-old, New York-based startup whose credit card offering assesses the cash flow of potential borrowers to gauge creditworthiness rather than traditional credit scores, has raised $55 million in Series C funding led by earlier investor Valar, which also led the company's B and A rounds. TechCrunch has more here.
Silverback Therapeutics, a nearly five-year-old, Seattle-based developer of immune-modulating drug conjugates, has raised $85 million in Series C funding. EcoR1 Capital led the round, joined by Boxer Capital, Fidelity, Nantahala Capital, RA Capital, and earlier backers OrbiMed, USVP, Nextech Invest, Hunt Tech Ventures, and Pontifax. The company had closed its Series B round with $78.5 million back in March led by USVP. FierceBiotech has more here.
SpotOn, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based payments and software startup focused on small and medium-sized businesses, has raised $60 million in Series C funding. DST Global led the round, which also included participation from earlier backers Dragoneer Investment Group and Franklin Templeton. Notably, the financing comes just over six months after SpotOn closed on $50 million in Series B funding led by 01 Advisors –the newish VC firm founded by former Twitter execs. FinLedger has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Babson Diagnostics, a 3.5-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based blood diagnostics company, has raised $13.7 million in Series A funding, including from Siemens Healthineers, Prism Ventures, Genesis Merchant Capital, and Lago Consulting Group. FierceBiotech has more here.
ClassEDU, a months-old, Washington, D.C.-based company that's developing a suite of software tools that lets instructors take attendance, distribute and grade assignments, and deliver online assessments through Zoom, has just raised $16 million in seed round led by Deborah Quazzo of GSV Ventures and Emergence Capital’s Santi Subotovsky, who is also a board member of Zoom. The company's founder is Michael Chasen, who previously cofounded the education company Blackboard. TechCrunch has more here.
Finom, a year-old, Netherlands-based provider of online financial services to small and mid-size business in Europe, as well as to the self-employed, has raised €10.3 million in seed funding from Target Global, Cogito Capital Entree Capital, Avala Capital, Tal Capital, AdFirst.vc, and FJ Labs. TechCrunch has more here.
Libra Therapeutics, a newly launched San Diego-based biotech focused on ALS and other neurodegenerative diseases, has raised $29 million in Series A funding from Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, Epidarex Capital, Santé Ventures, Yonjin Venture, Dolby Family Ventures, and Sixty Degree Capital. Xconomy has more here.
Ripjar, and eight-year-old, Gloucestershire, England-based developer of AI that detects financial crimes (it was founded by five data scientists who worked together previously in British intelligence), has raised £28 million in Series B funding. Long Ridge Equity Partners led the round, joined by Winton Capital and Accenture. TechCrunch has more here.
ShareChat, a five-year-old, Bangalore, India-based social network that focuses entirely on serving users in non-English languages, has raised $40 million in new funding from earlier backers Twitter, SAIF Partners, Lightspeed Ventures, and India Quotient, along with prominent individual investors. The company says the round is part of a pre-Series E round. TechCrunch has more here.
Turntide Technologies, a seven-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based company that makes a software-driven electric motor, has raised $33 million in funding, including from the Amazon Climate Pledge Fund. Other participants in the round include Tony Fadell's Future Shape, Meson Capital, BMW iVentures, JLL Spark, and WIND Ventures. The round brings the company's total funding to $103 million, it tells Crunchbase News. More here.
Whitebox, a 17-month-old, Baltimore, Md.-based startup that manages e-commerce logistics and fulfillment for a variety for brands, has raised $18 million in Series B funding. Noro-Moseley Partners led the round, joined by TDF Ventures, TCP Venture Capital’s Propel Baltimore Fund, and individual investors, including Millennial Media co-founder Chris Brandenburg.
Yummy Corporation, a three-year-old, Jawa Barat, Indonesia-based cloud kitchen management company in Indonesia, has raised $12 million in Series B funding led by SoftBank Ventures Asia. TechCrunch has more here.
Zoop, a six-year-old, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil-based business-to-business payment platform, has raised $11.4 million from the Latin American investment firm Movile. More here.
Blueboard, a 6.5-year-old, San Francisco-based rewards and recognition platform to engage employees, has raised $9.3 million in Series A funding. Origin Ventures led the round, joined by Greycroft, Bullpen Capital, Gaingels, and TriNet founder Martin Babinec. More here.
BookClub, a seven-month-old, Salt Lake City, Ut.-based platform that will allow authors to join personal book groups, share exclusive video-based interviews and engage in questions readers might have, has raised $6 million in a seed round led by Maveron. Other investors in the startup, which is preparing to launch its service, includes Signal Peak Ventures, Pelion Venture Partners, and GSV. TechCrunch has more here.
Camera IQ, a seven-year-old, L.A.-based company that's helping beauty brands and others to create augmented reality marketing campaigns, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Shasta Ventures. Other participants in the round include Waverly Capital, Betaworks Ventures, Sway Ventures, Grand Ventures, Space Capital, and Gingerbread Capital. More here.
Data Gumbo, a four-year-old, Houston, Tex.-based industrial blockchain network, has raised $4 million in Series B funding led by new investor L37, a Bay Area and Houston-based venture capital company, with return investments from Equinor Ventures and Saudi Aramco Energy Ventureso. The Houston Chronicle has more here.
Laika, a 16-month-old, New York-based compliance-as-a-service startup that helps fintechs and health-tech companies manage the due diligence processes required by enterprise clients, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Canapi Ventures, a venture firm backed by incumbent banks. Business Insider has more here.
Rephrase.ai, a two-year-old, Bangalore-based technology that makes it easy to create personalized sales videos, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and AV8 Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Spectrum Labs, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based startup whose algorithms and a set of APIs help brands moderate, track, flag and stop harassment, hate speech, radicalization and some 40 other profiles of toxic behavior, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. Greycroft led the round, and was joined by Wing VC, Ridge Ventures, Global Founders Capital, and Super[set]. TechCrunch has more here.
Silo, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based cloud-based platform for streamlining supply chains in the perishable food system, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from earlier backers Initialized Capital and Haystack. Crunchbase News has more here.
Spiceology, a nine-year-old, Spokane, Wash.-based direct-to-consumer spice maker, has raised $4.7 million. Grocery executive Ty Bennett led the round, and was joined by Kickstart Funds, Cowles Co. and angel investors. Food Navigator has more here.
Rediscovery Life Sciences, a 4.5-year-old, Raleigh, N.C.-based company that's focused on rapidly developing new treatments by identifying and repurposing existing drugs with strong safety profiles, has raised $4.5 million in Series B funding co-led by REX Health Ventures and Orlando Health Ventures. More here.
WhyLabs, a 10-month-old, Seattle-based company that's spinning out of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence to provide a platform for running A.I. models, has raised $4 million. Madrona Venture Group led the round, joined by Bezos Expeditions and Defy. GeekWire has more here.
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New Funds
GGV Capital, the 20-year-old cross-border venture firm, is talking with investorrs about plans to raise $2 billion across three new funds focused on tech investments in the U.S. and China at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries, reports the WSJ. GGV is reportedly targeting $1.2 billion for its seventh flagship fund, $300 million for a new overage fund, and $500 million for a Series A fund. More here.
Longitude Capital, a 14-year-old, venture capital firm based in the Bay Area, Boston and Greenwich, Ct., has closed its biggest fund to date with $585 million in capital commitments. The firm invests in areas that its partners hope will increase life expectancy and patients' quality of life, as they tell FierceBiotech. More here.
Koh Boon Hwee, a former chairman of Singtel and one of Singapore's most prominent executives, is teaming up with four fellow investors to raise up to $100 million for a new venture firm targeting Southeast Asia. Altara Ventures is launching as China's tech behemoths expand into Southeast Asia in the face of growing hostility from the United States and other major markets. The Straits Times has more here.
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Exits
Airship, an 11-year-old, Portland, Ore.-based company that allows companies to generate custom messages to consumers via push notifications and SMS messaging, has acquired mobile commerce startup ReplyBuy, a younger company that works with customers like entertainment venues and professional sports teams to send messages and sell tickets to fans via SMS. Terms aren't being disclosed; ReplyBuy had raised $4 million in funding from Sand Hill Angels, among others, according to Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.
DeepCode, a four-year-old, Switzerland-based machine learning code review startup that bills itself as ‘Grammarly for coders,’ has been acquired by Snyk, a cybersecurity startup that is focused on helping developers secure their code (and is currently valued by its investors at $2.6 billion). Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed; DeepCode had raised around $5.2 million from investors, according to Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.
Vector Capital, a private equity firm specializing in tech businesses, has acquired Patron Technology, a 10-year-old event technology platform that that had raised roughly $3 million fro investors, according to Crunchbase. Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed. More here.
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IPOs
Ahead of a debut planned for September 30, Palantir’s bankers have told investors its shares could start trading around $10 apiece, according to the WSJ. That equates to a market valuation of nearly $22 billion on a fully diluted basis. More here.
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People
ViacomCBS acknowledged today that the company had conducted a review of a complaint by a former employee against CEO Bob Bakish -- a development that The Information reported earlier in the day -- but it said it found no ground to support it. Deadline has more here.
Daniel Ek, the founder of Spotify, has committed to investing €1 billion of his fortune in European deeptech ”moonshot projects,” he said today.
Alyssa Jaffee has been promoted from vice president to partner at 7wireVentures, a Chicago-based venture firm focused on digital health startups. Before joining the outfit, Jaffee was a senior associate with Pritzker Group Venture Capital. More here.
Alexander Nix, the former boss of Cambridge Analytica, has been banned from serving as a company director for seven years over “potentially unethical” behaviour linked to his position at the centre of a global scandal. The Guardian has more here.
Bob Rosin has joined the early-stage venture firm Defy as a partner. Rosin was previously the head of partnerships at Stripe and, before that, a VP of global business at LinkedIn (and before that, a VP in business development within Microsoft's Skype division). More here.
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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 this coming Tuesday. Head to the website now 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 – it’s only 5 days away!
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Essential Reads
"It's like being in a sci-fi nightmare film": Whole Foods employees say Amazon workers are crowding stores, ignoring virus protocols, and hounding them for help as online orders surge.
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Detours
The 500 greatest albums of all time.
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