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October 14, 2020
Hello and happy Wednesday (night).:)
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Top News
Facebook and Twitter made the controversial decision today to limit the distribution of a dubious New York Post story based on unverified material that claims to show “smoking gun” emails related to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son. “While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook’s third-party fact checking partners,” tweeted Andy Stone, a spokesman for Facebook. “In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform.” CNBC has more here.
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True Ventures Has $840 Million More to Plug Into Startups
True Ventures, the now 15-year-old firm with offices in Palo Alto, Calif., and San Francisco, is taking the wraps off two new funds this morning: it has closed its seventh early-stage fund with $465 million, and capped its fourth opportunity-type fund — used to back its own breakout portfolio companies — with $375 million.
It’s a lot of committed capital for True, which was founded and continues to be led by Jon Callaghan and Phil Black. Then again, the firm is larger than it once was, with 35 people across the firm, including 10 others on the investing side, as well as other colleagues across the firm’s finance, operations, and platform teams.
It’s especially easy to understand why True would raise another, slightly larger opportunity fund (its last closed with $285 million in 2018, and its last early-stage fund closed with $350 million at the same time). It was through one such vehicle that True was able to invest so much in the consumer fitness company Peloton, including its Series F round.
When the company went public last fall, pricing at $7.2 billion, True was the company’s second-largest outside shareholder. Roughly one year later, Peloton is now valued at more than $38 billion by public market investors — and True is still involved.
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Lead Edge Capital Just Closed on $950 Million from a Whopping 500 Investors
Lead Edge Capital, a software-focused venture firm with one office in New York and another in California, was founded just 11 years ago. Yet it’s already managing $3 billion in assets through a process that founder Mitchell Green half-kiddingly refers to as “rinse and repeat.”
As he describes its model, Lead Edge raises money from wealthy, networked individuals, then claws its way into companies, helps them, turns them into valuable references, and when those companies sell or go public, the firm raises more money from people who like the firm’s returns.
It sounds simple, but it isn’t, says Green, who cut his teeth as an associate at Bessemer Venture Partners and at a Tiger Fund-affiliate called Eastern Advisors.
Managing 500 investors, which is now the case, is “harder than it looks.”
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Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Alfred, a six-year-old, New York-based residential services company, has raised $42 million in new Series C funding led by 166 2nd LLC, the family office of WeWork cofounder Adam Neumann, which reportedly invested $30 million. Earlier backers Spark Capital, New Enterprise Associates and Greystar also joined the round. The Real Deal says Alfred has now garnered nearly $100 million in funding altogether and that it and operates in more than 100,000 apartment units. More here.
Casai, a 1.5-year-old, Mexico City, Mexico-based startup that rents apartment units, beautifies them with hotel-like amenities that guests can buy, then shares the revenue with the units' landlords, has raised $23 million in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Other backers in the round include Kaszek Ventures, Monashees Capital, Global Founders Capital, Liquid 2 Ventures and individual investors. Casai separately closed on a $25 million debt facility from TriplePoint Capital. Crunchbase News has more here.
Matroid, a four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based computer vision platform, has raised $20 million in Series B funding round led by Energize Ventures, with added participation from NEA, Intel Capital and other, earlier investors. More here.
M1, a five-year-old, Chicago, Illinois-based automated personal money management platform, has raised $45 million in Series C funding. Left Lane Capital led the round, joined by Jump Capital and Jump Technology Ventures. More here.
Vivun, a two-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based startup that wants to help companies keep better track of pre-sales data, has raised $18 million in Series A round. Accel led the round, joined by earlier backer Unusual Ventures. The company has now raised $21 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Cove.tool, a 3.5-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based startup selling building performance analysis (so buildings can comply with changing energy codes without it costing an arm and a leg), has raised $5.7 million in Series A funding. Mucker Capital led the round, joined by Urban.us, Knoll Ventures and Atlanta’s own TechSquare Labs. TechCrunch has more here.
Frontegg, a year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based company that aims to free up developers’ time by providing a set of pre-built product capabilities that easily integrate with any other SaaS application, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Pitango, with additional backing from i3 Equity and Global Founders Capital. Tech.eu has more here.
Grata, a four-year-old, New York-based SaaS platform that automates the B2B research process on tens of million businesses in the U.S. in order to help business development professionals, has raised $3.2 million in seed funding. Bling Capital led the round, joined by Accomplice and Alumni Ventures Group. AlleyWatch has more here.
Osmind, a months-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that's building software for mental health providers, patients and researchers, has raised $2 million in seed funding. The fundraising round was led by General Catalyst, with participation from What If Ventures, 20|20 Fund, and numerous individual investors. Crunchbase News has more here.
River, a nearly three-year-old, New York-based content discovery platform, has raised $10.4 million in seed and Series A funding. Investors include Founders Fund, .406 Ventures, Box Group, Scooter Braun, Josh Kushner, and Raised in Space. More here.
Sanity, a nearly three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup whose content management tools aim to help developers structure how and where content gets created, input, and eventually presented, has raised $9.3 million in Series A funding led by Threshold Ventures. Other investors in the round include serial entrepreneur Ev Williams, former Heroku CEO Adam Gross, and Monochrome Capital, among others. TechCrunch has more here.
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(Other) New Funds
Brighteye Ventures, a three-year-old European edtech VC firm, says it has held a first close of its second fund with $54 million in capital commitments. The fund’s second close is expected to take place next year. TechCrunch has more here.
First Round Capital is raising $220 million for its eighth flagship fund, shows an SEC filing. More here.
Khosla Ventures, the now 16-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based venture firm founded by renowned VC Vinod Khosla, is raising its seventh fund and targeting $1.1 billion for the effort, shows a new SEC filing that lists four general partners: Khosla, David Weiden, Samir Kaul, and Sven Strohband. TechCrunch has more here.
OpenView Venture Partners, the Boston-based venture firm, says it has closed $450 million for its new, sixth fund. which is around 50% bigger than its fifth fund. TechCrunch has more here.
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Going Public
5:01 Acquisition, a life sciences-focused SPAC formed by 5AM Ventures, raised $80 million in its IPO. The company is led by co-CEOs Andy Schwab and Kush Parmar, who both serve as managing partners at life science venture firm 5AM Ventures. The SPAC plans on targeting a company in the biotech industry. Renaissance Capital has more here.
Bridgetown Holdings, a blank check company formed by Pacific Century and Thiel Capital targeting "new economy" sectors in Southeast Asia, raised the proposed deal size for its upcoming IPO on Wednesday. The Hong Kong, China-based company now plans to raise $550 million by offering 55 million units at $10. The company had previously filed to offer 50 million units at the same price. Renaissance Capital has more here.
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People
Terri Burns has been promoted to partner at GV, the venture arm of Alphabet. She is now the youngest partner on the team, at age 26. She is also the team's first Black female partner. Burns joined the team in 2017 from Twitter, where she was an associate product manager. Fortune has more here.
Angela Chou, who was most recently a product marketing manager at Facebook, and Joseph Pizzolato, who was formerly a senior associate with Vitruvian Partners, have both joined the London-based venture firm Felix Capital as investors. More here.
Jaclyn Freeman Hester, who nabbed her JD/MBA from the University of Colorado in 2014 and spent time at law firms Baker & Hostetler and Perkins Coie before joining Foundry Group in 2016, has just been promoted to partner at the venture firm, where she has been working on direct investments, as well as on the firm's fund of funds strategy. Foundry Group has more here.
Robert Smith, the billionaire chief executive of Vista Equity Partners, has reached a $140 million settlement with the Justice Department, ending a years-long criminal tax probe, according to the WSJ. As part of the settlement, Smith will admit liability for additional taxes owed and not properly filing foreign bank account reports, but he won’t be prosecuted. The settlement includes a penalty of $85 million, back taxes of roughly $30 million and about $25 million of interest, reports the WSJ. More here.
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Essential Reads
Dozens of brokerage log-ins are for sale on the dark web with portfolios ranging in the low thousands to a half million dollars, according to security analysts and listings seen by CNBC. Robinhood accounts tend to list at higher prices, which analysts say might suggest hackers view these accounts as easier to break into. More here.
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Detours
All right, all right: a memoir by Matthew McConaughey.
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Retail Therapy
The Tesla Model S is about to cost a bit less.
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