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December 10, 2020
Thursday!
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Top News
Well, that went pretty well for Airbnb. The company’s shares skyrocketed today, rising 113% above their IPO price of $68 to close at $144.71. That puts Airbnb’s market cap at $100.7 billion -- more than Expedia Group and Marriott International combined, notes the New York Times. Airbnb’s offering raised $3.5 billion, making it the biggest public offering this year. Even cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky couldn't hide his surprise at its performance.
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Early DoorDash Investor Saar Gur Makes the Case for 10x Growth from Here
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The stunning debut of the food delivery company DoorDash on the public market this week has plenty of people puzzled. While undeniably fast-growing, the unprofitable delivery company has come under fire numerous times over its employment practices, and its IPO, like that of other gig-economy companies, leaves a lot of economic issues unresolved.
So why is a company that lost $667 million in 2019 and $149 million in the first nine months of 2020 — during a period of hypergrowth because of the pandemic — being valued at $55.8 billion by public market investors? Have they lost their minds?
Saar Gur thinks he has answers to such questions. Gur, a longtime general partner with the early-stage venture firm CRV, was able to write a check to DoorDash in its earliest rounds, including its seed, Series A and Series B financings, and we gather the firm’s stake in the business will return multitudes of the CRV fund from which those checks came. In short, Gur is far from biased. However, in a call earlier today, he painted a picture of DoorDash wherein it not only becomes profitable but is 10 times larger than it is today. It was an interesting conversation, one that has been edited lightly for length and clarity.
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Massive Fundings
Cityblock Health, a 3.5-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based company that provides healthcare services to low-income communities, has raised $160 million in new funding at a post-money valuation of more than $1 billion, it says. The round was led General Catalyst, with participation Wellington Management and earlier investors Kinnevik AB, Maverick Ventures, Thrive Capital, Redpoint Ventures and others. TechCrunch has more here.
Hibob, a five-year-old, New York-based maker of HR software, has raised $70 million in Series B funding co-led by SEEK and Israel Growth Partners. Other investors in the round include Bessemer Venture Partners, Battery Ventures, Eight Roads Ventures, Arbor Ventures, Presidio Ventures, Entree Capital, Cerca Partners and Perpetual Ventures. The company has now raised $124 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
LeanTaaS, a 10-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based hospital management platform, has raised $130 million in Series D funding led by Insight Partners, which was joined by Goldman Sachs. More here.
Pico, an 11-year-old, New York-based quant trading tech provider, has raised $135 million in Series C funding from Intel Capital, EDBI, and CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund. CityBizList has more here.
Swell Energy, a six-year-old, L.A.-based installer and manager of residential renewable energy, energy efficiency and storage technologies, is raising $450 million to finance the construction of four virtual power plants. Ares Management and Aligned Climate Capital are among the investors in the deal. TechCrunch has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
At-Bay, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based cybersecurity insurance startup, has raised $34 million in Series C funding led by Qumra Capital, with participation from M12, among others. TechCrunch has more here.
Bionic, a 20-month-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based app analytics startup that reverse-engineers apps to create architectural and data flow breakdowns, has raised $17 million in Series A funding led by Battery Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.
Cleo, a 4.5-year-old, London-based financial digital assistant for young adults, has raised $44 million in Series B funding. EQT Ventures led the round, joined by earlier investors Balderton Capital, LocalGlobe and SBI. TechCrunch has more here.
Contractbook, a 5.5-year-old, Copenhagen-based legal tech automation startup, has raised $9.4 million in Series A funding. Bessemer Venture Partners led the round, joined by Gradient Ventures. Tech.eu has more here.
Fairmarkit, a 3.5-year-old, Boston-based sourcing platform that aims to help organization more efficiently purchase the goods and services they need, has raised $30 million in Series B funding. GGV Capital and Insight Partners led the round, joined by earlier backers 1984 VC, NewStack and NewFund. The company has now raised $42 million altogether, it says. TechCrunch has more here.
Gorgias, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based multi-channel helpdesk integrated for online merchants, has raised $25 million in Series B funding, bringing the startup’s pre-money valuation to $300 million. Sapphire Ventures led the round, joined by SaaStr, Alven, Amplify Partners, CRV and Greycroft. The company has now raised $40 million altogether. The new round was led by TechCrunch has more here.
Graphiant, a months-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based still-stealth computing networking startup, has raised $33.5 million in Series A funding co-led by Sequoia Capital and Two Bear Capital, with participation from Atlantic Bridge. More here.
Infra.Market, a 4.5-year-old, Mumbai, India-based B2B marketplace for small businesses, just raised $20 million in Series B funding from Evolence India Fund, Sistema Asia Fund, Fundamental and earlier backers Accel, Tiger Global Management and Nexus. TechCrunch has more here.
Leaflink, a five-year-old, New York-based wholesale cannabis marketplace, has raised $40 million in Series C funding. Founders Fund led the round, joined by Thrive Capital, Nosara Capital, and Lerer Hippeau. TechCrunch has more here.
Potloc, a six-year-old, Montreal-based maker of consumer survey software, raised C$20 million in Series A funding from Cap Horn, Brightspark Ventures, Desjardins Capital, EcoFuel and Investissement Quebec. More here.
Turing, a 2.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup that invites companies to hire senior pre-vetted remote software developers, has raised $32 million in Series B funding led by WestBridge Capital. Other investors in the round include Foundation Capital, Altair Capital, Mindset Ventures, Frontier Ventures and Gaingels, in addition to numerous individuals. TechCrunch has more here.
UserLeap, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based continuous research platform that aims to bridge the gap between traditional user research and analytics, has raised $16 million in Series A funding. Accel led the deal, joined by numerous angel investors, including serial founder Elad Gil and Figma CEO Dylan Field. TechCrunch has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Ava, a nearly seven-year-old, Berkeley, Ca.-based maker of live captioning software for accessibility, has raised $4.5 million co-led by Initialized Capital and Khosla Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Bigger Games, a nearly two-year-old, Istanbul, Turkey-based mobile gaming startup, has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Index Ventures; it was joined by Play Ventures and Icelandic angel investor David Helgason. More here.
Candu, a two-year-old, L.A.-based software startup that provides no-code web tools for SaaS apps, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Two Sigma Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Papercup, a 3.5 year-old, London-based machine learning start-up that aims to make the world's video content watchable in any language, has raised £8 million in funding co-led by LocalGlobe and Sands Capital Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Planet FWD, a nearly six-year-old, San Francisco-based food company that just introduced its first product (climate-friendly crackers), has raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by Emerson Collective. The company was founded by Julia Collins, who previously cofounded Zume. TechCrunch has more here.
UbiQD, a six-year-old, Los Alamos, N.M.-based company whose core technology involves a "quantum-dot" nanomaterial that's capable of manipulating color and concentrating light, has raised $7 million in Series A funding. Scout Ventures and Keiretsu Forum co-led the round, joined by Sun Mountain Capital, Epic Ventures, Plug & Play Ventures and Arcview Collective Fund. Printed Electronics has more here.
Workera, a 1.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based skills assessment platform focused on AI careers, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Owl Ventures, AI Fund and others. More here.
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New Funds
Life insurer Prudential Financial is getting into the venture game with a $300 million firm that it is funding exclusively. Ramneek Gupta, former managing director and co-head of Citi Ventures, is running the firm, joined by Travis Skelly and Victoria Cheng, former directors of venture investing at Citi. The new entity's name is PruVen Capital, which, you have to give it to them, is clever as these things go. The WSJ has more here.
Rally Ventures, an eight-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.- and Minneapolis, Mn.-based early-stage venture firm that's focused solely on enterprise tech, says it has raised $250 million in capital commitments for its fourth fund. The Star Tribune has more here.
TTV Capital, a 21-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based, early-stage, fintech-focused venture firm, has closed its fifth fund with $127 million in capital commitments. The outfit invests between $1 million and $5 million in startups and mostly focuses on seed and Series A rounds, says the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Among the firm's better-known bets is the payment processing company Bitpay and the family debt card company Greenlight. More here.
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Going Public
Softbank Group is poised to reap roughly $10 billion in profits from its investment in DoorDash's IPO, potentially offsetting the fund's losses from WeWork, suggests stock analyst David Gibson.
U.S. drug development consultancy Certara, a 12-year-old, Princeton, N.J.-based drug development consultancy, said today it has sold shares in its IPO at $23 apiece, above its target range, to raise about $670 million. The IPO values Certara, which is owned by the Stockholm-based private equity firm EQT, at $3.5 billion. Reuters has more here.
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Exits
The FTC just blocked another venture-backed razor startup from getting acquired. This time, it's suing to block Proctor & Gamble's purchase of the razor and body care company Billie. Terms of the deal were never disclosed, but Billie, founded in 2017, had raised $35 million from investors. The Verge has more here.
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People
Carl Pei, the co-founder of OnePlus who left the company two months ago, has raised $7 million from a roster of high-profile investors for his new hardware venture, though he's remaining tight-lipped about what he's building.
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Essential Reads
According to Bloomberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared new details on the company’s plan to return to the office during a virtual town hall meeting with employees on today, saying it “seems likely” that the majority of teams won’t be back before June 2021.
Mark Zuckerberg reportedly told Facebook's 50,000-plus employees at an all-hands meeting that a vaccine will not be required for people who want to come back into the office. The issue came up when Zuckerberg was asked ow the forthcoming vaccine will affect staffers' return to in-person work, says the Daily Beast.
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Retail Therapy
The L.A. mansion owned for 50 years by the late Barron Hilton is up for sale, and it is not cheap.
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