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November 2, 2020
Hello! (We have the nervous-excitement feels right now.)
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Top News
The Securities and Exchange Commission adopted a rule today to help companies raise capital without going public. For example, startups will now be able to collect up to $5 million through online crowdfunding initiatives, up from $1.07 million currently. The WSJ has more here.
Earlier this year, Twitter cofounder and CEO Jack Dorsey faced the possibility that he would be ousted thanks to pressure from an activist shareholder. But in a regulatory filing today, Twitter's board stated it has “confidence in management and recommended that the current structure remain in place" for now. The Information has more here.
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Impact Investor Seth Bannon on How a Biden Administration Might Best Support Climate Startups
It's too soon to know who will win the U.S. election tomorrow. Tomorrow may even be too soon to know who wins the election. But it's always a good time to talk with investors about how they're thinking about the future, and some can't help but ponder the possibilities if Joe Biden wins the race.
Among these are venture capitalists who are focused on climate change and who are excited by the prospect of a president who sees climate change as an existential threat, especially after the work of the Trump administration, which has officially reversed, rolled back, or revoked 70 environmental rules and regulations over the last four years.
Seth Bannon, whose seed-stage venture firm Fifty Years is focused on impact investing, is among those willing to ponder a President Biden and how his administration could most effectively boost climate tech while simultaneously dealing with COVID-19 and the economy. We had a quick chat about it earlier today.
Joe Biden has a detailed climate plan. What do you think of it?
The overarching way the Biden campaign has said his administration would approach climate change is pretty fantastic. It would invest heavily in R&D, so we have great technological climate solutions, then use the scale of government to get technologies into the world. It wants to invest $400 billion in better, cheaper batteries for electrification, $300 billion for cleaner power plants -- it's a very exciting way of going about it. It's a modern economic job creation plan, and as a Silicon Valley builder, it's exactly what you'd want to see. It's not simply about passing more regulations, saying 'you can't do this or that.' It's predominately about building solutions that will get us out of this mess.
If you were to talk directly with his team, what are some pieces of advice you might offer, based on the plan and what you see in your day-to-day work?
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Massive Fundings
CARsgen Therapeutics, a six-year-old, Shanghai, China-based clinical-stage immune-oncology developer has raised $186 million in Series C funding led by Loyal Valley Capital, a local firm that closed its second fund with $465 million in capital commitments back in December. DealStreetAsia has more here.
Farfetch, the 13-year-old, London-based, publicly traded online luxury fashion retailer, is in discussions with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba about a $300 million investment, reports The Information. It adds that Alibaba, whose shopping apps have 874 million monthly active users in China, and Farfetch also are in talks to create a Chinese joint venture, according to its sources. More here.
Polestar, a 24-year-old, Gothenburg, Sweden-based electric vehicle maker, is in talks to raise $500 million from investors at a $6 billion valuation, says Bloomberg. More here.
REEF Technology, a seven-year-old, Miami, Fla.-based company that was formerly known as ParkJockey and which manages hubs in parking lots used for food delivery and other services such as Covid-19 testing, has raised $700 million from earlier backers SoftBank and Mubadala, with participation from Oaktree, UBS Asset Management and the European venture capital firm Target Global. TechCrunch has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
AddÉnergie, an 11-year-old, Québec City, Quebec-based startup that makes charging stations and network management software for electric vehicles, has raised the U.S. equivalent of $40 million in Series C funding. The round -- comprised of both equity and debt financing -- was led by Mackinnon, Bennett & Company, with participation from the Business Development Bank of Canada, Fonds de solidarité FTQ, Export Development Canada, and earlier backers. BetaKit has more here.
Apkudo, a nine-year-old, Baltimore, Md.-based company focused on supply chain automation for connected devices (it certifies new devices and tries optimizing the liquidation of refurbished products, among other things), has raised $14 million in Series B funding. Harbert Growth Partners and MissionOG co-led the round, joined by earlier backers Grotech Ventures and Lavrock Ventures. More here.
Arable Labs, a two-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based startup that's making connected devices for farmers (it was founded by a longtime VP of Climate Corp.), has raised $20 million in Series B funding. Prelude Ventures led the round, joined by M2O, Nassau Street Ventures, and Tridon, as well as earlier backers. VentureBeat has more here.
GAIA Design, a 6.5-year-old, Mexico City, Mexico-based high-end furniture retailer that sells online and through 15 showrooms (at the moment), has raised $15 million in new funding led by IDB Invest. TechCrunch has more here.
Marshmallow, a nearly four-year-old, London-based online car insurance broker, has raised $30 million in funding from undisclosed backers, though previous investors in the company (for what it's worth) include Outrun Ventures, Passion Capital, and Investec. TechCrunch has more here.
Stensul, a six-year-old, New York-based startup that aims to streamline the process of building marketing emails, has raised $16 million in Series B funding. USVP led the round, joined by Capital One Ventures, Peak State Ventures, earlier backers Javelin Venture Partners, Uncork Capital, First Round Capital and Lowercase Capital, and numerous individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.
TVision, a nearly seven-year-old, New York-based startup that says it can measure who watches TV and how much attention they pay at the person-level to linear and streaming video, has raised $16 million in new funding led by SIG Asia Investments, an affiliate of Susquehanna International Group. Earlier investors Accomplice, Golden Ventures and Jump Capital also participated. The company has now raised $39 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Logisly, a year-old, Jakarta, Indonesia-based digital platform that says it connects shippers with thousands of trucks from hundreds of verified corporate carriers under its network, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Monk’s Hill Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Nurami Medical, a six-year-old Haifa, Israel-based medical device company that's developing a biodegradable, synthetic graft that protects the brain after neurosurgeries by boosting dura regeneration, has raised $6 million in funding led by Almeda Ventures. More here.
Warren, a four-year-old, Tallinn, Estonia-based self-service distributed cloud platform that's helping regional cloud infrastructure service providers compete against Amazon, Microsoft, Google and other tech giants, has raised $1.4 million in seed funding led by Passion Capital, with participation from numerous notable individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Not-Saying-How-Much Fundings
Arcus, a five-year-old, New York-based startup that helps other outfits launch fin-tech arms like payments services, has raised an undisclosed amount to funding from Citi Ventures. The company's previous backers include Y Combinator, Initialized Capital, and Kapor Capital, among others. More here.
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Fund News
Air Street Capital, a nearly two-year-old, London-based AI-focused venture firm, has closed its debut fund with $17 million in capital commitments to fund early-stage founders in Europe and the the U.S. who combine AI expertise with sector-specific knowledge in the enterprise, consumer and life sciences sectors. Private Equity Wire has more here.
Trinity Ventures, the 34-year-old, Silicon Valley venture firm, tells The Information that it has paused fundraising for its 13th fund and plans to resume after the “coronavirus situation resolves” and after several of its portfolio companies go public or are acquired. Trinity closed its 12th fund five years ago. More here.
Zeal Capital Partners, a nine-month-old, Washington, D.C.-based venture that's focused on fintech, future of work, and diverse founding teams, raised $22.3 million for its debut fund that is targeting $50 million in capital commitments altogether. The new fund is anchored by PayPal and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Crunchbase News has more here.
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Going Public
Aeva, a Mountain View, Ca.-based lidar company started by two former Apple engineers and backed by Porsche, is merging with special purpose acquisition company InterPrivate Acquisition Corp., with a post-deal market valuation of $2.1 billion. The deal with InterPrivate, which is led by private equity investor Ahmed Fattouh, is expected to close by early 2021. TechCrunch has more here.
Dragoneer Growth Opportunities II, a SPAC formed by Dragoneer Investment Group, has registered plans to raise $200 million for a publicly traded blank-check company. Unlike Dragoneer’s first SPAC, this one won’t offer warrants, notes Axios. The filing is here.
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Exits
Coupa Software, a publicly traded company that helps large corporations manage spending, says it is buying Llamasoft, an 18-year-old, Ann Arbor, Mi.-based company that helps large companies manage their supply chain. The deal was pegged at $1.5 billion. Llamasoft has raised more than $56 million over the years, according to Crunchbase data. Its largest raise was a $50 million Series B in 2015 led by Goldman Sachs. TechCrunch has more here.
NerdWallet, a San Francisco-based personal finance platform that’s raised over $100 million, acquired Fundera, a New York-based online lending platform that had raised $19 million, according to Crunchbase. Fundera was backed by First Round Capital, Core Innovation Capital, Khosla Ventures, QED Investors, and Susquehanna Growth Equity. The deal represents NerdWallet's second acquisition of the year. Pulse 2.0 has more here.
Publicly traded Medtronic has acquired Ai Biomed, a six-year-old, Santa Barbara, Ca.-based developer of parathyroid detection systems. It's the seventh tuck-in acquisition this year for the medtech giant, says Fierce Biotech. More here.
IPSY, a nine-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based beauty sampling service, says it will acquire BoxyCharm, a 7.5-year-old, Miami, Fla.-based company that sells full-size beauty product subscriptions, to form BFA (Beauty For All) Industries. The duo is on track for over $1 billion in annual revenue this year. BoxyCharm investors included KarpReilly. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
Toronto-based Willful, which provides online will and estate planning and that raised a small seed round earlier this year, has acquired Ottawa-based WillowBee, an online will competitor. The purchase price of the deal was not disclosed. BetaKit has more here.
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People
Karan Mehandru, a former general partner at Trinity Ventures, is joining Steadfast Financial, a New York-based investment advisor, as managing director and head of venture capital to build out and lead the firm’s venture practice. Mehandru will be based in the Bay Area. (See "Fund News.")
Alex MacCaw, a former Stripe engineer who cofounded and led as CEO the venture-backed startup Clearbit since 2014, said today that he is stepping down and taking on the role of chairman instead. MacCaw says he believes the company needs a leader who can better help it scale. More here.
Ted Fike and Justin Wilson stepped down as partners with SoftBank Vision Fund and will focus instead on SPACs for the private equity firm Gores Group, says Axios. More here.
They aren't the only people out the door at SoftBank Vision Fund. According to Bloomberg, its COO, Ruwan Weerasekera, has retired. Penny Bodle, a partner who headed investor relations, has also departed. And Avi Golan, an operating partner, has left to become CEO of artificial intelligence software maker AnyVision. More here.
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Data
Juul, the vaping startup, has seen its valuation drop to $10 billion from nearly $38 billion back in December 2018, says the WSJ. More here.
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Essential Reads
What to expect from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube tomorrow.
Spotify will let artists give their songs a boost — and get paid less in exchange.
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