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October 15, 2020
Hello! We had to race through the news today, but we'll have more tomorrow, including this week's just-recorded StrictlyVC Download interview with the always engaging Bradley Tusk.
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Top News
In Bloomberg: "U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said today the agency will consider Donald Trump’s request to weaken a legal shield for social media companies such as Twitter after Trump intensified his call to strip companies of their protections. The FCC will begin a rulemaking to 'clarify' the meaning of a law that gives broad legal immunity to social media companies for their handling of users’ posts, Pai said in an emailed statement."
That was fast. GOP lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee plan to issue a subpoena to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey after the social-media company blocked a pair of New York Post articles yesterday that made new allegations about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, which his campaign has denied. More in the WSJ.
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Menlo Ventures Closes Its Fifteenth Fund with $500 Million
Menlo Ventures, the 44-year-old venture firm with offices in Menlo Park and San Francisco, is taking the wraps of its fifteenth early-stage fund today, a vehicle it closed with $500 million in capital commitments.
It’s the same amount that Menlo announced last year for a growth-stage fund, the second in the firm’s history.
We talked with managing director Venky Ganesan earlier this week about the new fund. It will not, notably, include longtime Menlo managing director Mark Siegel, who joined the firm 24 years ago after a business development stint at Netscape, and who — like peers Bill Gurley of Benchmark and Todd Chaffee of IVP — is now making room for some of the firm’s more recent additions.
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Massive Fundings
98point6, a five-year-old, Seattle-based on-demand digital primary care service, has raised $118 million in Series E funding co-led by L Catterton and Activant Capital, with added participation from Goldman Sachs. GeekWire has more here.
Fivestars, a 10-year-old, San Francisco-based company whose software supports small business payments and marketing (and unlike some rivals, enables its business customers to build a database of their own customers), has raised $52.5 million in new funding, combining a Series D equity round as well as debt and bringing its total funding to $145.5 million. The round was led by Salt Partners, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, DCM Ventures, Menlo Ventures and HarbourVest Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
Proterra, a 16-year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based electric bus-maker, has raised $200 million. Cowen Sustainable Advisors led the round, joined by Soros Fund Management, Generation Investment Management, and Broadscale Group. TechCrunch has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Agility Robotics, a five-year-old, Albany, Ore.-based maker of legged, walking robots for use in warehouses, has raised $20 million in Series A funding co-led by DCVC and Playground Global. Other participants in the round, which brings the company's total funding to $29 million, included TDK Ventures, MFV Partners, Industrial Technology Investment Corp., Sony Innovation Fund and Safar Partners. FreightWaves has more here.
Argyle, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based startup aiming to give companies and institutions – such as banks, lenders and insurance companies – a quick and easy way to access an applicant’s employment records, has raised $20 million in Series A funding. Bain Capital Ventures led the round, joined by Bedrock and F-Prime. FinLedger has more here.
Cribl, a three-year-old, San Francisco Bay area-based data observability company, has raised $35 million in Series B funding. Sequoia Capital led the round, joined by CRV. SiliconAngle has more here.
Dataloop, a 3.5-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup behind an AI data management platform, platform, has raised $11 million in Series A funding. Amiti Ventures led the round, joined by F2 Venture Capital, OurCrowd, NextLeap Ventures and SeedIL Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
DYPER, a two-year-old, Scottsdale Az.-based maker of eco-friendly diapers made of bamboo that it sells on a subscription basis, has raised $20 million in funding. The Craftory led the round, joined by HCAP, among others. More here.
Extend, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup focused on product warranties, has raised $40 million in Series B funding. Meritech Capital led the round, joined by PayPal Ventures, Great Point Ventures and Shah Capital Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
FOSSA, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based open source management company, has raised $23.2 million in Series B funding. Investors included Bain Capital Ventures, Canvas Ventures and Costanoa Ventures. Business Insider has more here.
Ori Biotech, a five-year-old, London-based gene therapy manufacturing platform, has raised $30 million in Series A funding. Northpond Ventures led the round, joined by Octopus Ventures, Amadeus Capital Partners, Delin Ventures, and Kindred Capital. Crunchbase News has more here.
Popmenu, a four-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based all-in-one digital marketing and ordering SaaS platform for restaurants, has raised $17 million in Series B funding. Bedrock Capital led the round, joined by Mantis Ventures, Chapter One Ventures and earlier backers Base10 Partners and Felicis Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Temporal, a year-old, Seattle-based startup that is building an open-source, stateful microservices orchestration platform (we do not understand what that means but we're hoping you do), has raised an $18.75 million Series A round led by Sequoia Capital. Earlier investors Addition Ventures and Amplify Partners also joined the round, as did new investor Madrona Venture Group. The company has now raised a total of $25.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Whisper, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of a hearing aid system, has raised $35 million in Series B funding led by Quiet Capital, with participation from previous investors Sequoia Capital and First Round Capital. The startup has now raised a total of $53 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Arist, a two-year-old, Boston-based text message learning platform, has raised $1.9 million in funding, including from Acadian Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Craft Ventures, Y Combinator and numerous others. BostInno has more here.
Azitra, a six-year-old, Branford, Ct.-based clinical-stage medical dermatology biotech company, has raised $8 million in funding led by Leaps by Bayer, the impact investment arm of Bayer AG. More here.
Balsa, a six-month-old, San Francisco-based startup building tools for developers, beginning with a single app that pulls together all of their tickets from tools like Jira, code reviews from GitHub, and designs from Figma into one spot, has raised $4.5 million in seed funding, says Fortune. Andreessen Horowitz led the round, joined by Operator Collective, BoxGroup, 20VC, Chapter One, Work Life Ventures, Stewart Butterfield, Drew Houston, Howie Liu, April Underwood, Scott Belsky, and Jason Warner. More here.
Coa, a 17-month-old, San Francisco-based platform offering therapy-led classes and one-on-one therapy, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Crosslink Ventures, with participation from RedSea Ventures and Alpaca VC, among others. More here.
Findem, a 19- month-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based maker of an HR recruiting and retention platform, has raised $7.3 million in Series A funding led by Wing Venture Capital. Business Insider has more here.
Nabis, a 3.5-year-old, Oakland, Ca-based cannabis distribution platform, has raised $5 million in Series A funding from Y Combinator, Doordash co-founder Stanley Tang, Gmail creator Paul Buchheit, Twitch co-founder Justin Kan, Babel Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, and Soma Capital. The company has now raised $10 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
NeuraLegion, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based application security platform, raised $4.7 million in seed funding. DNX Ventures led the round, joined by Fusion Fund, J-Ventures, and Incubate Fund. Business Insider has more here.
Playbook, a nearly five-year-old, New York-based fitness platform that helps personal trainers stream their content (and charge a monthly fee for it), has raised $9.3 million in Series A funding from e.ventures, Michael Ovitz, Abstract, Algae Ventures, Porsche Ventures and FJ Labs. The company had closed a $3 million seed round back in June. TechCrunch has more here.
Twentyeight Health, a two-year-old, New York-based health tech company offering access to women’s sexual and reproductive healthcare, has raised $5.1 million in seed funding. Third Prime led the round, with added participation from Town Hall Ventures, SteelSky Ventures, Aglaé Ventures, GingerBread Capital, Rucker Park Capital, and Predictive VC. TechCrunch has more here.
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Exits
When Stripe announced earlier this year that it had picked up another $600 million in funding, it said one big reason for the funding was to expand its API-based payments services into more geographies. Toward that end, the company is now acquiring Paystack, a startup out of Lagos, Nigeria that, like Stripe, provides a quick way to integrate payments services into an online or offline transaction by way of an API. TechCrunch dives in here.
Pluralsight, an online learning company that went public in 2018, has acquired DevelopIntelligence, a Louisville, Co.-based developer of skills consulting and training for tech teams at enterprise companies. Terms were not disclosed. According to Crunchbase, DevelopIntelligence had raised just $250,000. More here.
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People
Billionaire investor Ron Baron believes Tesla, whose shares have surged more than 400% this year, will be a $2 trillion company.
CircleUp co-founder Ryan Caldbeck opened up today about the emotional hardship driving his decision to step down as CEO from his firm, which backs consumer companies. Institutional Investor has more here.
Chelsea Clinton is now a venture capitalist with a new firm called Metrodora Ventures, Clinton's office confirmed to Business Insider. The fund will reportedly focus on health and learning businesses, and its first publicly announced investment is in Fiveable, an edtech startup that provides online test prep resources. More here.
Daphne Koller -- who is the founder and CEO of Insitro, a venture-backed company that's using machine learning and high-throughput biology in an effort to transform drug discovery, and also a cofounder of the venture-backed online course provider Coursera -- has cofounded yet another company that just received venture funding. It's called Engageli and TechCrunch has more here.
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Lawsuit!
Peloton was just hit with a patent-infringement lawsuit by the maker of NordicTrack bikes, escalating the legal battle between the two at-home fitness brands.
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Essential Reads
YouTube is cracking down on QAnon conspiracy theories, after playing a bigger role in moving QAnon from the fringes to the mainstream than most platforms.
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