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November 10, 2020
Tuesday! Hope yours went swimmingly.:)
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Top News
A quick zip through everything Apple announced at its "One More Thing" event today.
In a new filing, TikTok parent company ByteDance has asked the federal appeals court to vacate the United States government order forcing it to sell the app’s U.S. operations. Outgoing President Donald Trump issued an order in August requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok’s U.S. business by November 12 unless it was granted a 30-day extension by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). In today’s filing, ByteDance said it asked the CFIUS for an extension on November 6, but the order hasn’t been granted yet. More on what's going on here.
Lyft shares rose as much as 6% today as the company reported third-quarter earnings after the bell -- and this following a massive rally yesterday associated with positive news about coming vaccines. As CNBC notes, the company reported a net loss of $460 million for the quarter, nearly unchanged from the $463 million it lost a year ago. However, the company’s revenue and ridership increased significantly from last quarter’s results of $339 million and 8.7 million riders, suggesting a notable recovery in ride-sharing during the quarter, although both figures are still way down from a year ago.
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Massive Fundings
Better.com, a six-year-old, New York-based online mortgage lender, has closed a new funding round of roughly $200 million led by private equity firm L Catterton, according to an internal memo reviewed by Bloomberg News. That memo apparently stated that the company has now raised a total of $410 million, with Activant Capital, Ally Financial, American Express Ventures, Ping An and 9Yards Capital also participating in the round. The memo also said the new deal values Better.com at $4 billion, says Bloomberg. More here.
Carbon Health, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based primary care company that blends real-world and virtual visits, has raised $100 million in Series C funding led by Dragoneer Investment Group, with added participation from earlier backers Brookfield Technology Partners, DCVC and Builders VC. The company says it will use the capital to open 100 pop-up clinics across 20 U.S. markets. TechCrunch has more here.
Hopin, a nearly two-year-old, London-based startup that makes online events software, says it has raised $125 million in Series B funding (this just months after the company closed on $40 million in Series A funding). Tiger Global and earlier backer IVP co-led the round, joined by Northzone, Salesforce Ventures, Seedcamp, Accel, DFJ Growth and Coatue. The company is now valued at $2.125 billion, it says. TechCrunch has more here.
LinkAja, a year-old, Jakarta, Indonesian state-owned payments company that facilitate cashless transactions over smart phones, has raised $100 million in funding led by the Singapore multinational mobile tech giant Grab. Other participants in the round include Telkomsel, BRI Ventura Investama and Mandiri Capital Indonesia. Pymnts has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Isovalent, a nearly four-year-old, Bay Area-based startup that aims to bring networking into the cloud-native era, has raised a $29 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Google. TechCrunch has more here.
Remote, a nearly two-year-old, Braga, Portugal-based startup whose HR tech platform is built for companies with an international payroll, benefits and compliance issues, has raised $35 million in Series A funding led by Index Ventures, with added participation also from Sequoia Capital and some angel investors, including Box founder Aaron Levie. The company has now raised $46 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
R-Zero, an eight-month-old, San Francisco-based biosafety company at work on a germicidal UV device that it says offers the same or better efficacy as the systems used in hospitals, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by DBL Partners, with participation from Bedrock Capital and HAX / SOSV. VentureBeat has more here.
Venminder, a 19-year-old, Elizabethtown, Ky.-based company whose software aims to streamline third-party risk management programs through critical processes, has raised $33 million in Series C funding led by Silversmith Capital Partners, with participation from earlier backers Bain Capital Ventures and MissionOG. More here.
Smaller Fundings
Explo, a year-old, Bay Area-based startup that's helping customers build customer-facing business intelligence dashboards, has raised $2.3 million in seed funding from Amplo VC, Soma Capital and Y Combinator, along with several individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Kinetic, a six-year-old, New York-based wearable device startup that makes a Bluetooth-enabled, battery-powered pack that fastens pager-like to a waistband and whose sensors aim to detect injury-causing activities, has raised $8.25 million in Series A funding and an addition $3 million in debt. Crosslink Capital, Primary Ventures and Nationwide’s venture capital arm participated, along with numerous other investors.VentureBeat has more here.
Kuda, a two-year-old, London- and Lagos, Nigeria-based startup that operates a popular mobile-first challenger bank for consumers and, soon, small businesses, has raised $10 million in seed funding led by Target Global, with participation from Entrée Capital, SBI Investment (once part of SoftBank) and numerous founders and angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Highwing, a two-year-old, Denver-based open data platform designed to help commercial insurance brokers and carriers accelerate their workflows, has raised $4 million in seed funding. Baldwin Risk Partners and BrokerTech Ventures led the round. More here.
Maestro, a two-year-old, New York-based software-as-a-service that was built to streamline portfolio operations for private equity-backed companies, has raised $7.2 million in Series A financing led by S&P Global Market Intelligence. More here.
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New Funds
Spearhead, a fund launched in early 2018 by AngelList’s Naval Ravikant and Accomplice’s Jeff Fagnan to identify promising startup founders and give them cash to invest in startups autonomously, has just closed on $100 million in capital commitments for its fourth fund. TechCrunch has much more here.
Iaso Ventures, a two-year-old, Boston-based venture firm with an in-house venture studio that funds and consults with startups in the neuroscience and brain health sector, is looking to close its debut fund with up to $50 million, shows a new SEC filing. Founder Wasim Malik runs a lab at Harvard that develops digital health technologies for neurological diagnostics and rehabilitation. More here.
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Exits
Spotify today confirmed that it's acquiring five-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based Megaphone for a reported $235 million. The company originally produced a number of flagship podcasts for high-profile media brands, including BuzzFeed, The Wall Street Journal and Vox, but later shuttered those editorial efforts to focus on back-end concerns like hosting, ad tools and distribution. TechCrunch has more here.
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Going Public
Airbnb long-awaited filing for an IPO has slipped to next week, according to Bloomberg's sources, who say a public filing with the SEC could come as soon as Monday. The company had earlier intended to file on Thursday but decided to wait out the distracting fallout from the U.S. election, given that Joe Biden has been recognized as the president-elect and is moving ahead with plans for a transition, but President Donald Trump has cited voted fraud and is refusing to concede.
Edoc Acquisition Corp., a blank check company targeting the healthcare industries in North America and Asia-Pacific, raised $90 million by offering 9 million units at $10. The company offered 1 million fewer units than anticipated, notes Renaissance Capital. The company is led by Chairman and CEO Kevin Chen, who currently serves as CIO and Chief Economist at Horizon Financial, and CFO and Director Christine Zhao, a venture partner at healthcare venture and private equity fund YuanMing Capital. More here.
One of Israel’s biggest independent internet companies -- IronSource -- currently valued at $1.7 billion and profitable for more than a decade, is reportedly considering an IPO on Nasdaq and in preliminary talks with Goldman Sachs. The 11-year-old, Tel Aviv-based company is considering launching at a valuation of $5 billion to $6 billion. Carmel Ventures, a Viola Group affiliate, as well as CVC Capital Partners are investors in the company. Hareetz has more here.
Silverback Therapeutics, a four-year-old, Seattle-based Phase 1 biotech developing therapeutics for solid tumors and other diseases, filed on Tuesday with the SEC to raise up to $100 million in an IPO. The company uses its proprietary ImmunoTAC technology platform to develop tissue targeted therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, chronic viral infections, and other serious diseases. Renaissance Capital has more here.
Telos, a 49-year-old, Ashburn, Va.-based company that sells software-based security products and services, announced terms for its IPO today, revealing plans to raise $210 million by offering 12.4 million shares at a price range of $16 to $18. At the midpoint of the proposed range, Telos would command a fully diluted market value of $1 billion. More here.
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People
Waze CEO Noam Bardin, who joined the company nearly 12 years ago and led it through its acquisition by Google to become a crowdsourced navigation app with millions of active users, is stepping down early next year.
Senator Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, has left his role as a partner at DLA Piper as Harris continues to work on her transition into the vice presidency. The Recorder has more here.
Dave Zilberman, formerly of Comcast Ventures, has joined Norwest Venture Partners as a general partner on the enterprise investment team. More here.
President-elect Joe Biden has given few hints at how he would approach concerns around the tech industry, but his transition agency review teams are filled with several tech employees -- as well as a few prominent advocates of reform. CNBC has more here.
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Data ...
Chinese financial technology giant Ant Group, which was gearing up for the world’s biggest IPO, could see its valuation come crashing down after its public listing was suspended, experts tell CNBC. The development comes as Beijing announced there will be proposed regulations on micro-lending — a move that could force Ant Group to hold more capital, and make the company look a bit more like a bank rather than a technology company, says the outlet. Eric Schiffer, CEO of private equity firm The Patriarch Organization, told CNBC by email that: “The proposed regulation decimates Ant’s valuation to more than [half], taking it under $150 billion.”
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Essential Reads
Amazon's Ring is recalling hundreds of thousands of video doorbells after receiving reports of them catching fire. The potential fire hazard impacts around 350,000 second-generation Ring doorbells sold in the U.S and another 8,700 more sold in Canada, according to a notice posted by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission today. The doorbells were sold between June and October of this year. CNN has more here.
Misinformation about the U.S. presidential election is surging, and tech companies are struggling to keep up.
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Detours
The writer of SNL's "Celebrity Jeopardy" pays tribute to Alex Trebek.
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Retail Therapy
Going up for auction in two weeks: The Walther PP handgun used by Sean Connery as James Bond, 007, in "Dr. No," the first Bond film to come to screen.
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