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October 12, 2020
Monday! Welcome back.:)
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Top News
Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and other gig companies have spent nearly $200 million to knock down an employment law they don’t like - and it might work. “They are working to trick the public ... into voting in favor of [California Proposition 22]. And they’re getting traction," a University of California law professor tells the Washington Post.
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Why Are VCs Launching SPACs? One Longtime Investor Shares His Firm's Rationale
It’s happening slowly but surely. With every passing week, more venture firms are beginning to announce SPACs. The veritable blitz of SPACs formed by investor Chamath Palihapitiya notwithstanding, we’ve now seen a SPAC (or plans for a SPAC) revealed by Ribbit Capital, Lux Capital, the travel-focused venture firm Thayer Ventures, Tusk Ventures’s founder Bradley Tusk, the SoftBank Vision Fund, and FirstMark Capital, among others. Indeed, while many firms say they’re still in the information-gathering phase of what could become a sweeping new trend, others are diving in headfirst.
To better understand what’s happening out there, we talked on Friday with Amish Jani, the cofounder of FirstMark Capital in New York and the president of a new $360 million tech-focused blank-check company organized by Jani and his partner, Rick Heitzmann. We wanted to know why a venture firm that has historically focused on early-stage, privately held companies would be interested in public market investing, how Jani and Heitzmann will manage the regulatory requirements, and whether the firm may encounter conflicts of interest, among other things.
If you’re curious about starting a SPAC or investing in one or just want to understand how they relate to venture firms, we hope it’s useful reading. Our chat has been edited for length and clarity.
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Massive Fundings
Flash Express, a two-year-old, Thailand-based logistics startup that works with e-commerce firms in its home country, operating a door-to-door pickup and delivery service, raised $200 million in Series D funding. PTT Oil and Retail Business Public Company, the marquee oil and retail businesses of Thai conglomerate PTT, led the round, joined by Durbell and Krungsri Finnovate, two other top conglomerates in the Southeast Asian country. The company has now raised $400 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Razorpay, a six-year-old, Bangalore-based fintech startup that accepts, processes, and disburses money online for small businesses and enterprises, has raised $100 million in Series D funding co-led by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and Sequoia India. Earlier investors Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, Y Combinator, and Matrix Partners also joined the round, which brings Razorpay’s total funding $206.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Snapdocs, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that's used by some 130,000 real estate professionals to digitally manage the mortgage process and other paperwork involved with buying a home, has raised $60 million in new funding led by YC Continuity. Other participants in the round include DocuSign, former Stripe employee Lachy Groom, and earlier backers Sequoia Capital, F-Prime Capital and Founders Fund. TechCrunch has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Newlight Technologies, a 17-year-old, Huntington Beach, Ca.-based developer of ocean-degradable biopolymers, has raised $45 million in Series F funding led by Valedor Partners, with participation from earlier investor GrayArch Partners. More here.
Numan, a two-year-old, London-based online health clinic for men, raised £10 million ($13 million) in Series A funding from Novator, Anthemis Exponential, Vostok New Ventures, and Colle Capital. More here.
Sensei Biotherapeutics, a 21-year-old, Gaithersburg, Md.-based developer of personalized cancer drugs, has raised $28.5 million. Cambrian Biopharma and H&S Ventures co-led the round, joined by Future Ventures and Apeiron Investment Group. FierceBiotech has more here.
Spendesk, a 4.5-year-old, Paris-based spend management platform for SMBs, has raised $18 million in additional Series B funding, atop $38 million raised last year. The new capital comes from Eight Roads Ventures and brings the total funding raised by the company to date to $68.5 million. More here.
Yotascale, a five-year-old, Bay Area-based startup that employs machine learning to help balance the performance and cost of enterprise cloud computing, has raised $13 million in Series B funding led by Felicis Ventures, with participation from Engineering Capital, Pelion Ventures and Crosslink Capital. The company has now raised $25 million in total. TechCrunch has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Claravine, an eight-year-old, Lehi, Ut.-based marketing data governance platform, has raised $5 million in Series A funding. Grayhawk Capital led the round, and was joined by Next Frontier Capital and Peninsula Ventures. More here.
Doppler, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based startup that's focused on helping developers manage their access of secrets, or digital authentication credentials, has raised $2.3 million in seed funding from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Abstract Ventures and Soma Capital. Some prominent tech investors and executives like Aaron Levie, Peter Thiel, and Nat Friedman also joined the round. Forbes has more here.
Edgify, a five-year-old, London-based company that's building AI training frameworks, has raised $6.5 million in seed funding, including from Octopus Ventures and Mangrove Capital Partners. GeekTime has more here.
GetSetup, a 10-month-old, San Francisco-based interactive learning platform for older adults, has raised $10 million in funding. ReThink Education led the round, joined by AME Cloud Ventures, Work Play Ventures, and Sweat Equity Ventures. More here.
GoGet, a six-year-old, Malaysia-based on-demand work platform, has raised $2 million in Series A funding led by Monk’s Hill Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
NAG Studios, a 10-month-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based games development studio, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding led by London Venture Partners, an early-stage fund that has invested in Supercell, Unity, and Playfish. Gamasutra has more here.
The Juggernaut, a three-year-old, New York-based new media outlet catering to the South Asian diaspora, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by Precursor Ventures, with participation from Unpopular Ventures, Backstage Capital, New Media Ventures, Old Town Media, and numerous individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.
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New Funds
AC Ventures, a Jakarta, Indonesia-based early-stage venture outfit, is in the process of closing its third fund, which is targeting $80 million and already has capital commitments for $56 million. The idea is to invest the money into 30 Indonesian startups over the next three years, with first checks of up to $3 million going to seed to Series A-stage companies. TechCrunch has more here.
Gaorong Capital, a seven-year-old, Beijing, China-based venture firm, has raised $1.15 billion in capital commitments for its fifth fund, according to SEC filings. DealStreetAsia has more here.
Plus Venture Capital, a two-month-old, Abu Dhabi-based venture fund that plans to invest in the Middle East and North Africa region, says it has raised $60 million in capital commitments. The outfit intends to invest the capital in 120 early-stage start-ups, it tells Reuters. More here.
Laurence Tosi, a former chief financial officer of both Airbnb and Blackstone Group, is in the final stages of raising a $750 million fund to make wagers on marketplace-focused technology companies, according to Bloomberg. Investors in the firm, WestCap Investment Partners, reportedly include sovereign wealth funds such as Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, pension funds, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals or entrepreneurs and their family offices. More here.
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Exits
Bandwidth, a publicly traded, Raleigh, N.C.-based communications platform as a service company, has agreed to acquire Europe-based cloud communications company Voxbone, for about €446 million from investors that include Vitruvian Partners.
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Public Biz
The gaming company Roblox says it has confidentially filed paperwork with the SEC to make its public market debut. In February, the company, which operates a free-to-play gaming empire with tens of million of users, was valued at $4 billion after a Series G funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company has raised more than $335 million in venture capital funding, according to Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.
Dan Och of Och-Ziff Capital Management Group, and Glenn Fuhrman, who helped found Michael Dell’s family office, have created a blank-check company that's seeking to raise $750 million called Ajax I. Bloomberg has more here.
Lux Health Tech Acquisition, a SPAC formed by Lux Capital, filed for a $300 million IPO, shows an SEC filing. Renaissance Capital pulls out a few bullet points here.
SoftBank Vision Fund chief Rajeev Misra, speaking at the 2020 Milken Institute Global Conference today, said he’s preparing a SPAC. CNBC has more here.
Triller, a budding competitor to popular short-video app TikTok, is in discussions with blank-check acquisition companies about a merger which would take the U.S. social media company public, according to Reuters. Triller’s SPAC negotiations are happening alongside discussions with investors about a private fundraising round, led by investment bank UBS Group AG, in which the L.A.-based company is seeking to raise around $250 million, say the outlet's sources. More here.
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People
Carl Pei, who co-founded the Shenzhen, China-based smartphone giant OnePlus in his 20s, has left the company to start a new venture, sources tell TechCrunch. The outlet notes that Pei played an instrumental role in designing the OnePlus smartphone lineup over the years and has also been the face of the firm. OnePlus is expected to take the wraps off its latest high-end handset later this week. More here.
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Data
Millennials have just 4.6% of U.S. wealth, despite representing the largest segment of the workforce, with 52 million members. Boomers meanwhile hold 53% of U.S. wealth. Even more stark: the 50 richest Americans are worth as much as the poorest 165 million.
Teen spending hit its lowest levels in two decades, according to a recent survey by investment bank Piper Sandler, as teens spend less money on food, concerts and events and worry about the economy getting worse.
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