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December 16, 2020
Wednesday! Also known around here as two days before we hit the pause button on work until early January. Can . . . make it . . .so. . . .close.
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Top News
Twitter announced today that it will remove tweets making false or misleading claims about COVID-19 vaccinations. Any tweets claiming that vaccines “intentionally cause harm to control populations” or invoke conspiracy theories will be subject to removal, according to Twitter’s blog post. Tweets falsely suggesting that COVID-19 doesn’t exist or espouse “widely debunked” claims may also be removed, says The Verge.
Ten states sued Google today, accusing the search giant of running an illegal digital-advertising monopoly and enlisting growing rival Facebook in a scheme to rig ad auctions in return for guaranteed special treatment. More in the WSJ.
HBO Max will finally land on Roku devices tomorrow. (Okay, so this maybe not top news, but we know you'd want to know.)
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AutoLeap Says It Will Repair Your Lousy Relationship with Car Shops
No one likes having to go to the automotive repair shop. There's little transparency into what happens after a car is dropped off, invoices are often little more than a series of illegible bullet points, and the ordeal can feel chaotic.
AutoLeap, a six-month-old, Toronto-based startup that quietly raised $5 million in seed funding in September, thinks its team can figure out how to repair that broken experience by bringing car repair shops into the 21st century at long last. Its big idea is to help such shops organize their operations, schedule jobs, order parts, conduct digital inspections and invoice customers in a transparent and seamless way.
It's not the first to try to modernize the car repair process. Among others, a five-year-old, Seattle-based startup, Wrench, has already raised $40 million toward that end, while another entrant, RepairSmith, a two-year-old, L.A.-based car repair and maintenance service, is backed by Daimler.
Still, with a global automotive repair market that's currently valued at $700 billion, there's clearly room for more than one player and one approach, and AutoLeap has a few things going for it.
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Massive Fundings
Atsena Therapeutics, a 1.5-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based developer of ocular gene therapies, has raised $55 million in Series A funding. Sofinnova led the round, joined by Hatteras Venture Partners, the Foundation Fighting Blindness, Osage University Partners, the University of Florida (from which the company spun out), and the Manning Family Foundation. FierceBiotech has more here.
Bestow, a 4.5-year-old, Dallas, Tex.-based life insurance startup, has raised $70 million in Series C funding from Breyer Capital, Valar Ventures, NEA, Core Innovation Ventures, Morpheus Ventures and Sammons Financial. The Dallas Morning News has more here.
Bolt, a 7.5-year-old, Talinn, Estonia-based ride-hail platform, has raised €150 million led by D1 Capital Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
Boom Technology, a 6.5-year-old, Denver, Colorado-based company working to develop supersonic aircraft (some of you caught our sit-down with CEO Blake Scholl last year in San Francisco), is reportedly raising $50 million in new funding led by WRVI Capital at a valuation of more than $1 billion. Bloomberg has more here.
Lydia, a seven-year-old, France-based mobile payment app, has raised $86 million in extended Series B funding led by Accel, after closing on an initial $45 million in Series B funding led by Tencent back in January. Sifted has more here.
MinervaX, a 10-year-old, Copenhagen, Denmark-based developer of a Group B strep vaccine (amazingly, there's still not an effective vaccine against it), has raised $57 million in Series B funding from backers like Adjuvant Capital. FierceBiotech has more here.
Neuron23, a 2.5-year-old, South South Francisco-based biotech that's focused on genetically-defined neurological and immunological diseases, has raised $80 million in Series B funding led by Redmile Group. Other participants in the round include Westlake Village BioPartners, Kleiner Perkins, Cowen Healthcare Investments, Acorn Bioventures, HBM Partners, Perceptive Advisors and Surveyor Capital. FierceBiotech has more here.
StockX, the 5.5-year-old, Detroit, Mi.-based online marketplace and reseller, has raised $275 million in Series E funding led by Tiger Global Management. The round, which also included Altimeter Capital, Sands Capital and Whale Rock Capital Management, values the company at $2.8 billion. TechCrunch has more here.
Vercel, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based company that provides a platform for building front-end applications, has raised $40 million in Series B funding that brings the company's total money raised to $61 million. GV led this latest round, joined by Greenoaks Capital, Bedrock Capital, and Geodesic Capital along with earlier backers Accel Partners and CRV. VentureBeat has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Aware, a nearly four-year-old. Columbus, Oh.-based risk-mitigation platform that's been purpose-built for collaboration data, just raised $12 million in Series B funding led by Spring Mountain Capital, with participation from Blue Heron Capital and Allos Ventures. More here.
Curai Health, a 3.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based telehealth startup that provides chat-based primary care that centers around patients, has raised $27.5 million in Series B funding. Morningside Ventures led the round, joined by insiders General Catalyst and Khosla Ventures. More here.
Neo Financial, a 1.5-year-old, Calgary, Alberta-based challenger bank, ha raised $25 million CAD ($19.6 million) in Series A equity round that was led by Peter Thiel-backed firm Valar Ventures, and and another $25 million CAD in debt provided by ATB Financial. BetaKit has more here.
Provide, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that enables healthcare practices to provide financing options to their patients, has raised $34 million in Series A and B funding. QED Investors is the biggest backer to date; other participants in the rounds include Fifth Third Bank, Montage Ventures and Clocktower Technology Ventures. Crowdfund Insider has more here.
Truera, a 20-month-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based model intelligence platform that aims to help enterprises analyze machine learning and improve model quality, has raised $12 million in Series A funding. Wing VC led the round, joined by Data Community Fund, B Capital Group, Harpoon Ventures and earlier backers Conversion Capital and Greylock. VentureBeat has more here.
Zilch, a 2.5-year-old, London-based, buy-now-pay-later startup, has raised $30 million from Gauss Ventures and Seek Ventures, among others. Tech.eu has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Dash Systems, a three-year-old Hawthorne, Ca.-based high-precision commercial aerial delivery platform, has raised $8 million in seed funding led by 8VC, with participation from Tusk Venture Partners, Loup Ventures, Trust Ventures, Perot Jain and MiLA Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Hightouch, an 18-month-old, Bay Area-based SaaS service that helps businesses sync their customer data across sales and marketing tools, has raised $2.1 million in seed funding led by Afore Capital and Slack Fund, with numerous angel investors also participating. TechCrunch has more here.
Nubix, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based developer of edge-native app platforms, has raised $2.7 million in seed funding led by Tuscan Management, with participation from Chevron Technology Ventures. More here.
OpenSensors, a nearly seven-year-old, London-based air-monitoring startup that uses sensors to monitor air quality and light intensity and is building out a data platform around its findings, has raised $4 million in seed funding led by Crane Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
Runway, a 2.5-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based startup that's building a library of AI-powered tools for designers, artists, and other creators, has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding led by Amplify Partners with participation from Lux Capital and Compound Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.
Tensil, a 20-month-old, Bay Area-based startup that's building a collaborative video editing product for remote teams called Scenery, has raised $3.9 million in seed round led by Freestyle VC. Other investors in the round include Precursor Ventures, Transmedia Capital, UpHonest VC, Rembrandt VC, and numerous individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.
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New Funds
According to DealStreetAsia, Dragonfly Capital Partners, a San Francisco-based crypto focused venture fund, is raising $200 million for its second venture fund, two years after raising $100 million for its debut vehicle. The fund was originally led by managing partners Alexander Pack, a cryptocurrency venture capitalist who previously managed crypto and fund investing for Bain Capital Ventures, and Bo Feng, a VC veteran who'd previously cofounded Ceyuan Ventures. Pack left on amicable terms earlier this year, according to Haseeb Qureshi, who was previously a general partner at MetaStable Capital and is now Feng's partner at Dragonfly instead. More here.
Investor Pia d’Iribarne, formerly of Accel and Stride.VC, is heading up a new European early-stage venture capital firm co-founded with French entrepreneur and investor Xavier Niel, says TechCrunch. Dubbed New Wave, its debut fund of $56 million was raised in just three months and has already begun making investments. More here.
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Going Public
Skillz, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based startup, says it just became the first publicly traded mobile esports platform following the completion of its merger with Flying Eagle Acquisition Corp, (formed by veteran Hollywood executives Harry Sloan and Jeff Sagansky, the same duo who brought DraftKings public). The company starts trading tomorrow on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol SKLZ.
Upstart, a nearly nine-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based consumer lending platform, raised $240 million in its IPO yesterday after pricing 12 million shares at $20 for an initial market cap of $1.45 billion. The company, which reported $147 million in revenue for the first nine months of 2020, began trading today and saw its shares jump 47% to close a bit above $29. Founder and CEO Dave Girouard talked earlier with CNBC about why his company -- which had raised roughly $650 million from VCs over the years -- chose a traditional IPO over a SPAC.
Wish, the 10-year-old San Francisco-based mobile shopping app, raised $1.1 billion in its IPO yesterday, after pricing 46 million shares at $24 for a fully diluted market value of $17.1 billion. Those share slipped as much as 14% in its trading debut today, giving the company a market valuation of about $15 billion as of this writing. Business Insider has more here.
Epiphany Technology Acquisition, a new blank check company targeting the tech industry, filed yesterday with the SEC to raise up to $350 million in an IPO. The Burlingame, Ca.-based company is led by Arthur Coviello, a venture partner at Rally Ventures; Peter Bell, a general partner of Amity Ventures; and Paul Deninger, a senior managing director at Davis Partners Group and a former senior managing director at Evercore. Renaissance Capital has more here.
Tokopedia, an online shopping app that has become one of southeast Asia’s biggest start-ups and was valued at $7.5 billion when it raised new funding funding last month, tells the Financial Times that it has approached Citi and Morgan Stanley to begin work on a public listing and that it has been approached by Bridgetown Holdings, a SPAC backed by the Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li and U.S. billionaire investor Peter Thiel. “We are considering [accelerating] our plan to go public and we have appointed Morgan Stanley and Citi to be our advisers. We have not decided yet which market and method, and still considering options,” Tokopedia tells the FT.
The two-year-old venture firm Tribe Capital, cofounded by former Social Capital partners Arjun Sethi and Ted Maidenberg, is aiming to raise $200 million for a special purpose acquisition company that could go public as soon as January, reports Bloomberg. It says the tech-focused SPAC won't be prohibited from pursuing a transaction with a company affiliated with the firm's sponsors or directors, such as one within Tribe's portfolio. More here.
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Exits
MessageBird, an omni-channel cloud communications platform recently valued at $3 billion by its investors, has acquired a nine-year-old, London-based real-time web technologies company called Pusher for $35 million. CEO Max Williams and his 25-person team will reportedly join Amsterdam-headquartered MessageBird. According to Crunchbase, Pusher had raised roughly $20 million from investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Invincible Entertainment, a 14-year-old, Philadelphia, Pa.-based independent production and distribution company with operations in OTT, streaming, and other tech, has acquired eight-year-old, L.A.-based Business Rockstars for $20 million in stock. Business Rockstars produces audio and video content for entrepreneurs across a variety of platforms, including Entrepreneur.com and Delta Airlines. The company appears to have raised just $2 million from insiders. Variety has more here.
Vroom, an online used car seller that went public in June, has agreed to buy Vast Holdings, a 15-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based provider of analytics and digital services to the auto retail industry, for $120 million in cash and stock. Vast had raised $58 million over the years, including from Capital One Ventures, LeapFrog Ventures and Clearstone Venture Partners. Auto Remarketing has more here.
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