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December 15, 2020
Tuesday!
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Top News
Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo, which own 70% of SolarWinds, the Texas-based company whose software was breached in a major Russian cyberattack, sold millions of dollars in stock in the days before the intrusion was revealed, reports the Washington Post. The timing of the trades raises questions about whether they used inside information to avoid major losses related to the attack. Three executives from each of the investment firms -- six total -- are on SolarWinds' board.
California regulators issued a $59 million fine and threatened to suspend Uber’s license to operate in the state over the the company's refusal to hand over data on sexual assault on the platform, according to a ruling issued yesterday. As the Washington Post reports, the order comes a year after Uber released a landmark report on the prevalence of sexual assault on its app, which disclosed there had been roughly 6,000 cases of reported sexual assault between 2017 and 2018. According to yesterday's ruling, Uber has 30 days to come into compliance with a January 2020 order. More here.
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This VC Introduced Palantir's First Business Hire to Its First Engineer, Then His Business Took Off
You might not know yet of XYZ Venture Capital, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based seed-stage venture firm, but many veterans of Palantir are surely aware of it. XYZ says it has already backed 22 startups whose founders came out of the data analysis company, including most notably, Anduril, Lucky Palmer’s defense tech startup. In fact, the founder of XYZ, Ross Fubini, says his firm wrote Anduril its first check.
It all dates back to a key introduction.
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Massive Fundings
ClickUp, a 4.5-year-old, San Diego-based maker of productivity software, has raised $100 million at a post-money valuation of $1 billion valuation, says Bloomberg. The Canadian firm Georgian led the round, joined by earlier backer Craft Ventures, which led the startup’s $35 million Series A back in June. More here.
LocanaBio, a four-year-old, San Diego-based gene therapy startup, has raised $100 million in Series B funding. Vida Ventures led the round, joined by RA Capital Management, Invus, Acuta Capital Partners, SVB Leerink and earlier investors Arch Venture Partners, Temasek, Lightstone Ventures, UCB Ventures and GV. More here.
Modern Health, a three-year-old, Bay Area-based mental health platform for employers that aims to help guide employees to the right level of care, raised $51 million in Series C investment led by Battery Ventures. The company has now raised $95 million altogether. Crunchbase News has more here.
Nference, a seven-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based company whose software is designed to make it easier for scientists, researchers and doctors to look up biomedical information, has raised $60 million in Series C funding. Matrix Capital Management led the round, joined by Matrix Partners, Mayo Clinic Ventures and NTTVC. MobiHealth News has more here.
Public, a three-year-old, New York-based social investing network company that invites users to buy any stock with any amount of money and to participate relatedly in social communities, has raised $65 million in Series C funding round led by Accel. The new investment comes eight months after the company raised a $15 million Series B round. Crunchbase News has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
AIStorm, a two-year-old, Cupertino, Ca.-based developer of low-powered AI edge computing chips, has raised $16 million in Series B funding from strategic investors, including computer equipment maker AsusTek; biometrics supplier Egis Technology; Knowles Corporation, which makes advanced micro-acoustic microphones; Meyer Corporation, a maker of food-prep equipment; and Senvest Management, a New York-based venture capital firm. VentureBeat has more here.
BoxCast, a seven-year-old, Cleveland, Oh.-based company aiming to make it easy to livestream any event, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Updata Partners, with participation from audio equipment manufacturer Shure. TechCrunch has more here.
Kryo, a 13-year-old, Charlotte, N.C.-based holding company whose products are largely focused on mattress heating and cooling systems, has merged with another sleep tech company, Ebb Therapeutics, and also raised $37 million in new funding led by Ebb’s biggest investor, KKR. TechCrunch has more here.
InnoSkel, a months-old, France-based gene therapy startup focused on rare skeletal diseases, has raised €20 million in Series A funding led by Jeito Capital, with participation from Vida Ventures and Turenne Group. FierceBiotech has more here.
Iris Automation, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based startup whose camera-based obstacle avoidance system keeps drones from crashing into things, has raised $13 million in Series B funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Bee Partners, OCA Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund and Verizon Ventures. TechCrunch has more here (and we'll be talking about this deal tomorrow morning at TC's space event, too).
Noname Security, a months-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based enterprise API security startup, raised $25 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Insight Partners and Cyberstarts. Business Insider has more here.
Parsec, a four-year-old, New York-based startup that has developed an ultra-low latency interactive streaming technology, has raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from earlier investors Lerer Hippeau, Makers Fund, NextView Ventures and Notation Capital. The company has now raised $33 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Self Financial, a five-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based startup that helps consumers establish and build credit history, has raised $40 million in Series D funding. Meritech Capital Partners led the round, joined by earlier investors Altos Ventures, Conductive Ventures and Silverton Partners. The Austin-American Statesman has more here.
Taxdoo, a four-year-old, Hamburg, Germany-based startup behind an automated platform for financial compliance that's aimed at cross-border e-commerce companies, just raised $21 million in Series A funding. Accel led the round, joined by Visionaries Club, 20VC and earlier investor HTGF. TechCrunch has more here.
Tive, a 5.5-year-old, Boston-based company focused on providing more visibility into shipment tracking, including location data and condition insights like temperature, shock, light exposure and humidity, has raised $12 million Series A funding round from RRE Ventures, with participation from Two Sigma Ventures and earlier backers NextView Ventures, Hyperplane Ventures, One Way Ventures, Fathom Ventures, and others. TechCrunch has more here.
Uhnder, a five-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based digital radar imaging startup, has raised $45 million in Series C funding led by Sensata Technologies. The company’s digital radar-on-chip detects, tracks, and projects movement of objects, with potential applications including autonomous vehicles. SiliconAngle has more here.
Smaller Fundings
eXate, a five-year-old, London-based data privacy startup, has raised £2.3 million in seed funding led by Outward VC, with participation from ING Ventures and Triple Point Ventures. More here.
The Routing Company, a 2.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based on-demand vehicle routing and management platform that partners with cities, has raised $5 million in new funding led by the MIT deep tech investment fund The Engine. The company has now raised $6.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Supabase, a YC-incubated startup that offers developers an open-source alternative to Google’s Firebase and similar platforms, has raised $6 million in funding led by Coatue, with participation from YC, Mozilla and a group of about 20 angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Whirli, a two-year-old, London-based toy-sharing subscription service, has raised £4 million in seed funding led by Octopus Ventures, with participation from MMC Ventures. EU Startups has more here.
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Slack has launched its second corporate venture fund with $50 million, solely from Slack. That's a change from its debut fund, which was launched in partnership with Accel, Index Ventures, KPCB, Social Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Spark Capital. More here.
Westlake Village BioPartners, the 2.5-year-old, L.A.-based venture fund of former Kleiner Perkins investor Beth Seidenberg and her cofounder, Sean Harper, has just raised $500 million in commitments across two new funds. That brings assets under management at the young firm to $820 million. FierceBiotech has more here.
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Going Public
Blade Urban Air Mobility, a New York-based short-distance aviation company best known for helicopter rides from airports to city centers, has agreed to go public via a reverse merger with a SPAC formed by the private equity firm KSL Capital Partners. The deal values Blade at $850 million.Blade had raised nearly $50 million in VC funding from firms like Colony Capital, Lerer Hippeau, Airbus and LionTree Partners. It also secured a PPP loan. Axios has more here.
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Exits
GoDaddy, the publicly traded web hosting company, agreed this afternoon to acquire Poynt, a seven-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca-based developer of smart payment terminals and an open operating system that powers any payment terminal worldwide, for $320 million in cash and potentially up to $45 million more in deferred cash. Poynt had raised $133 million from investors, according to Crunchbase. Among its backers is Elavon, GV, Matrix Partners, National Australia Bank, NYCA Partners, Oak HC/FT Partners, Stanford-StartX Fund, and Webb Investment Network. ZDNet has more here.
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People
Steadfast Financial, a New York-based investment advisor, has hired Matt Buchwald, previously of D2iq, and Vivek Ramaswami, previously of Redpoint Ventures, as principals in the firm's new venture practice being spearheaded by managing director and head of venture capital Karan Mehandru. Mehandru was until recently a general partner at Trinity Ventures. More here.
Nicole Johnson, who joined Forerunner Ventures seven years ago and is credited with helping to source and diligence more than half a dozen closed deals, including Nécessaire, Prose and Stadium Goods, has been promoted from principal to partner. More here.
Imran Khan, a former investment banker who led Snap through its IPO as its chief strategy officer and is now CEO of his own company, Verishop, took a dig today at the investment bankers who took Airbnb and DoorDash public last week, accusing them of an "epic level of incompetency."
In her short career as one of the world’s leading philanthropists, MacKenzie Scott has made a mark through the enormous scale of her giving and also through its speed, donating nearly $6 billion of her fortune this year alone.
Greg Smithies, a former partner at BMW iVentures and a longtime investor in climate-related technologies, has joined Fifth Wall Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
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Data
Apple shares surged by up to 4% after the Japanese news outlet Nikkei reported that iPhone production is set to rise by 30% in the first half of next year. Per its report, Apple is planning to build up to 96 million iPhones between January and June next year, including the 5G compatible iPhone 12 models, as well as the iPhone 11 and the iPhone SE. CNBC has more here.
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Essential Reads
Facebook told employees today that it’s developing a tool to summarize news articles so users won’t have to read them. It also laid out early plans for a neural sensor to detect people’s thoughts and translate them into action, reports BuzzFeed.
Security researcher Vinoth Kumar tells Reuters that last year, he alerted SolarWinds that anyone could access its update server by using the password “solarwinds123.” Added Kumar of the attack, “This could have been done by any attacker, easily.”
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Detours
A Black student's mother complained about "Fences." He was expelled.
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Retail Therapy
Michael Jordan's private golf club, Grove XXIII, just opened to the public and the swanky spot -- which is just north of West Palm Beach and delivers drinks via drone -- is reportedly limiting membership to fewer than 100. But if you hurry . . .
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