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December 1, 2020
Decemberrrrrrrr!
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We call this one "Garage and trees." (Sent by a reader in Rocky River, Ohio.)
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Top News
Donald Trump just threatened to veto an annual defense bill authorizing nearly $1 trillion in military spending unless Congress opens the door for Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to be held legally liable for the way they police their platforms. Trump delivered the ultimatum — calling for the repeal of a federal law known as Section 230 — in a pair of tweets. The Washington Post has more here.
As expected, enterprise software giant Salesforce made it official today; it's buying the messaging company Slack in a $27.7 billion cash-and-stock deal. As the WSJ notes, the acquisition is "almost twice as large as Salesforce’s largest acquisition so far and would turn the combined company into a more formidable competitor to Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet." More here and here.
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Longtime Investor-Operator Adam Nash Jumps Into a New Role: Founder
Adam Nash, a Silicon Valley-born-and-bred operator and investor, is back in the game.
Today, on his personal blog, he announced that he has started a consumer fintech company that has already garnered initial funding from Ribbit Capital, along with other “friends and angels” who appear to have also pitched into the round, including Box CEO Aaron Levie, Mighty Networks founder Gina Bianchini, Superhuman founder Rahul Vohra, and Amy Chang, who sold her startup Accompany to Cisco in 2018.
Nash didn’t reveal many details in the post or later on Twitter, saying he’ll have more to say when the company is closer to launching. All we really know at this point is that he cofounded the company with Alejandro Crosa, an Argentinian software engineer who most recently spent five months at Slack but logged more than three years at both Twitter and LinkedIn before that.
Nash said on Twitter that the two met at LinkedIn, where Nash was himself VP of product management for four years beginning in 2007.
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Massive Fundings
Flexe, a 7.5-year-old, Seattle-based on-demand warehousing and fulfillment company, has raised $70 million in Series C funding. T. Rowe Price led the round, joined by earlier backers Activate Capital, Tiger Global Management, Madrona Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and Prologis Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.
Olive, an 8.5-year-old, Columbus, Oh.-based company that has developed an artificial intelligence workforce for the health care industry, just raised $225.5 million in new funding at a $1.5 billion post-money valuation. Tiger Global Management led the round, joined by earlier backers General Catalyst, Drive Capital and Silicon Valley Bank New investors GV, Sequoia Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group and Transformation Capital Partners also joined the round. Crunchbase News has more here.
Scale AI, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that says it accelerates the development of AI applications by helping machine learning teams generate high-quality ground truth data, has closed on $155 million in funding. Tiger Global Management led the round at a post-money valuation of more than $3.5 billion. TechCrunch has more here.
Sinch, a six-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based company that provides cloud-based “omnichannel” voice, video and messaging services to help enterprises communicate with customers (and that trades on Sweden's stock exchange), has sold 10.1% of its business to SoftBank in exchange for $690 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Tallac Therapeutics, a nine-month-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based biotech startup at work on cancer immunotherapies, has raised $62 million in Series A funding from VenBio Partners, Morningside Ventures, Lightstone Ventures, Matrix Partners China and MRL Ventures Fund. FierceBiotech has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Ankorstore, a 1.5-year-old, Paris, France-based wholesale marketplace that connects independent shop owners with brands selling household supplies, non-perishable kitchen items and more, has raised €25 million in funding led by Index Ventures, with participation from earlier backers GFC, Alven and Aglaé. TechCrunch has more here.
Databand, a two-year-old, New York-based AI-based observability platform for data pipelines, has raised $14.5 million in Series A funding. Accel led the round, joined by Blumberg Capital, Lerer Hippeau, Ubiquity Ventures, Differential Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
GoSite, a 7.5-year-old, San Diego-based website building platform for small and medium-size businesses, has raised $40 million in Series B funding led by Left Lane Capital. Other participants in the round include Longley Capital, Cove Fund, Stage 2, Ankona Capital and Serra Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
iVexSol, a young, Worcester, Ma.-based viral vector manufacturing company, has raised $13 million in Series A funding, including from Casdin Capital and BioLife Solutions. The company has now raised $15.2 million altogether. More here.
Newomics, a nine-year-old, Berkeley, Ca.-based developer of mass spectrometry devices, has raised $7.9 million in Series B funding. MSA Capital led, joined by LDV Partners, Berkeley Catalyst Fund and the Photon Fund. More here.
Pier, a two-year-old, Brazil-based digital insurer, has raised $14.5 million in Series A funding led by Monashees, with participation from Canary, Mercado Livre and BTG Pactual. Crunchbase News has more here.
Spotlight Therapeutics, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company that's developing non-viral gene editing therapeutics for direct in vivo editing of target genes, has raised $30 million in Series A funding led by GV, with added participation from unnamed investors. BioSpace has more here.
Surfline, a 35-year-old, Huntington Beach, Ca.-based media company that's focused on surfing coverage, has raised $30 million from TCG, the venture affiliate of The Chernin Group. Axios has more here.
Totum Labs, a two-year-old, San Diego, Ca.-based satellite tracking company, has raised $13 million in Series A funding. Heroic Ventures and Space Capital co-led the round, joined by Qualcomm cofounder Andrew Viterbi, among others. More here.
Vivenu, a 16-month-old, Dusseldorf, Germany-based live event ticketing platform, ha raised €12.6 million in Series A funding. Balderton Capital led the round, joined by earlier investor Redalpine. TechCrunch has more here.
Smaller Fundings
AirDeck, a 20-month-old, Madison, Wi.-based platform that helps users create narrated presentations and documents for on-demand viewing, has raised $3.4 million in funding led by Rock River Capital Partners and Cultivation Capital, with additional participation from Revolution's Rise of the Rest Seed Fund and Winnebago Seed Fund. More here.
BuildBuddy, a year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup whose software helps developers compile and test code quickly using both open-source and proprietary tools, has raised $3.15 million in seed funding from Y Combinator (it just passed through YC's accelerator), Addition, Scribble and Village Global, among others. TechCrunch has more here.
EarlyBird, an 18-month-old, Chicago-based startup that invites parents or guardians to set up custodial investment accounts for their children using its mobile app, has raised $2.4 million led by Network Ventures. More here.
Reposite, a 20-month-old, New York-based maker of a database that helps travel agents manage suppliers and clients, track proposals, and better manage their business, has raised $2.5 million in funding. Liberty City Ventures led the round. More here.
SuperNormal, a year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based work communication platform that employs video and screen recording tools to help teams create and send asynchronous video updates throughout the day, has raised $2 million in seed funding led by EQT Ventures. Tech.eu has more here.
WaveOne, a four-year-old, Bay Area-based startup working on the context-adaptive compression of digital media, has raised $6.5 million in seed funding, led by Khosla Ventures, with added participation from Vela Partners, Incubate Fund, Omega Venture Partners and Blue Ivy. TechCrunch has more here.
Not-Saying-How-Much Fundings
Lyra Health, a 5.5-year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based provider of mental health care benefits for employers that was founded by former Facebook CFO David Ebersman, has raised an undisclosed amount of extended Series D funding, three months after closing on a $110 million round led by Addition. PLUS Capital led the new tranche, joined by numerous celebrities and athletes, including Cameron Diaz, Nicole Kidman, Klay Thompson, and Tony Gonzalez. More here.
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New Funds
Zeev Ventures, a 13-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based venture fund run by one GP -- Oren Zeev, who previously spent 12 years with Apax Partners -- has raised $188.25 million for its seventh fund, shows a new SEC filing. More here.
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Going Public
Airbnb says it plans to sell 50 million shares at an expected offering price of between $44 and $50 per share in an IPO that could give the 12-year-old home-rental company a valuation of up to $35 billion. Airbnb co-founders Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk are selling about 1.9 million shares in the offering, bringing the total size of the IPO to 51.9 million shares. The trio will still hold nearly 43% of Airbnb’s voting power after the offering. The WSJ has more here.
View, a 14-year-old, Milpitas, Ca.-based maker of smart glass for buildings, will go public via a reverse merger with CF Finance Acquisition Corp II, a SPAC formed by Cantor Fitzgerald. The deal values View at $1.6 billion, including a $300 million PIPE, which is less than View had raised from investors, including SoftBank Vision Fund. We'd written about major layoffs at the company back in April. Reuters has the latest here.
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Exits
Uber completed its all-stock acquisition of the on-demand delivery company Postmates, which had raised over $900 million from firms like Founders Fund, Spark Capital, Uncork Capital, and Tiger Global Management. The all-stock deal had valued Postmates at around $2.65 billion when it was announced in July. TechCrunch has more here.
Lightspeed POS, a company that sells cloud-based point-of-sale software to restaurants and other businesses -- and which went public in Canada last year before more recently debuting on the NYSE -- says it is acquiring nine-year-old Upserve for $123 million in cash. Upserve, which makes management software for restaurants, had raised $40.5 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.
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People
Caitlin Bolnick, an investor with Boston-based OpenView for the past 20 months, announced on Twitter today that she's joining the venture firm CRV and moving to San Francisco. More here.
Elon Musk would consider leveraging Tesla’s $554 billion market cap to buy a legacy automaker but only on friendly terms, he said today in a live-streamed interview with Axel Springer's CEO. More here.
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Data
Rents have now fallen nearly 25% in San Francisco since March.
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Essential Reads
It isn't just wealthy investors leaving California for Texas. Hewlett Packard Enterprise —a descendant of the firm that Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard famously started in their Palo Alto, Ca., garage—is moving its headquarters to the Houston area, too.
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Detours
"This has to stop," says a Republican election official in Georgia who has had it.
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