|
January 4, 2021
Hello and welcome back as we all move on (fingers crossed) from our collective annus horribilis. Hope you enjoyed the holidays.:)
|
|
("Byeeee, 2020" photo, courtesy of a Bay Area reader.)
|
|
Top News
Is Chinese billionaire Jack Ma missing? The Alibaba founder has been absent from public view since a late October forum in Shanghai, where he blasted China’s regulatory system. CNBC notes that "while news coverage of Ma’s absence from public view triggered speculation on Twitter, which is blocked in China, it was not a significant trending topic on social media in mainland China, where sensitive topics are subject to censorship." TechCrunch meanwhile notes that Pony Ma, Tencent's billionaire CEO, has not been seen for a year, not even at virtual events. (He has instead sent in voice messages.)
In a statement released late today in New York, the Big Board said “it no longer intends to move forward with the delisting action” on telecoms China Mobile, China Telecom Corp, and China Unicom after announcing five days ago that it would delist the three. What is going on over at the NYSE is an open question, though it's worth noting that on Saturday, China said it would take necessary countermeasures in response to the NYSE's initial announcement.
Wall Street began the year with a tumble today, with the S&P 500 suffering its steepest decline in more than two months as it retreated from record territory.
|
|
Silicon Valley Bank Just Made an Even Bigger Push into Wealth Management
SVB Financial Group agreed today to buy Boston Private Financial Holdings in Boston for $900 million in cash and stock.
It’s a big deal for SVB, which has earned a reputation over its 37-year history as a bank that’s friendly to startups, as well as venture and private equity investors. Boston Private, founded in 1987, has roughly $16.3 billion in assets under management, compared with SVB Asset Management’s $1.4 billion in related assets.
SVB, which formed its wealth advisory business in 2011, has been pushing more aggressively into wealth management for several years, hiring Yvonne Butler, who’d previously led wealth strategies at Capital One, in the middle of 2018.
Butler has since been adding members to the bank’s wealth management team . . .
|
|
Massive Fundings
Aeva, a 3.5-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based lidar company started by two former Apple engineers, has raised an additional $200 million in private investment from Hong Kong hedge fund Sylebra Capital ahead of its debut as a publicly traded company. The startup announced last fall that it is merging with special purpose acquisition company InterPrivate Acquisition Corp., with a post-deal market valuation of $2.1 billion. The new investment from Sylebra, which is a current holder of InterPrivate common stock, brings the total gross proceeds Aeva will have once it begins trading to more than $560 million, according to the company. TechCrunch has more here.
AMP Robotics, a five-year-old, Louisville, Co.-based robotics company focused on the waste industry (its systems pick and sort recyclables), has raised $55 million in Series B funding led by XN. Other participants in the round include Valor Equity Partners, GV, Sequoia Capital, Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners, Congruent Ventures, and Closed Loop Partners. VentureBeat has more here.
Boston Metal, an 8.5-year-old, Woburn, Ma.-based company that uses a process called molten oxide electrolysis to make steel alloys and has been backed previously by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, has raised at least $50 million as part of a new $60 million financing, shows a new SEC filing flagged by TechCrunch. The company's most recent round of $20 million was closed in 2019. More here.
Color Genomics, a nearly eight-year-old, San Francisco-based distributed healthcare and clinical testing company, has raised $167 million in Series D funding round at a post-money valuation of $1.5 billion led by General Catalyst. Other participants in the round -- which brings the company's total funding to $278 million -- includes funds managed by T. Rowe Price and Viking Global investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Flexiv, a 4.5-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.- and Shanghai, China-based adaptive robotics company, has raised more than $100 million in Series B funding from Meituan, Meta Capital, New Hope Group, Longwood, YF Capital, Gaorong Capital, GSR Ventures and Plug and Play Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Katerra, a nearly six-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based construction startup that ran into financial problems as it tried to shake up the building industry, has raised $200 million more from earlier backer SoftBank Group Corp., the WSJ reported last week. SoftBank had previously invested roughly $2 billion in the company; the new investment from SoftBank’s Vision Fund 1 will enable Katerra to avoid having to seek bankruptcy protection, according to Katerra CEO Paal Kibsgaard. More here.
Kong, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based open core API management and life cycle management company previously known as Mashape, has raised $93 million in new funding, per an SEC filing flagged by Axios. Earlier backers include Andreessen Horowitz, CRV and Index Ventures. The firm closed its Series C round in March of 2019 in a round that, at the time, brought its total funding to $71 million. More here.
Nayuki, a five-year-old, Shenzhen, China-based chain of desserts and bubble teas, has raised more than $100 million in Series C funding led by private equity firm PAG, with participation from Jack Ma’s Yunfeng Capital, says Bloomberg. The deal reportedly values the outfit (whose parent company is Shenzhen Pindao Restaurant Management Co.) at more than $2 billion. More here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Aivita Biomedical, a 4.5-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based biotech that's developing personalized vaccines for the treatment of cancer, as well as the prevention of COVID-19, has raised $25 million in extended Series B funding from unnamed investors. More here.
Oxygen, a nearly three-year-old, San Francisco-based digital banking startup, has raised $17 million in Series A funding, including from Runa Capital, S7V, 1984.vc, EFG Hermes, Rucker Park, and Inventures. More here.
Smaller Fundings
Betterfly, a 2.5-year-old, Santiago, Chile-based life insurance startup, has raised $9 million in extended Series A funding that brings the round total to $17.5 million. QED Investors led the new tranche. Crowdfund Insider has more here.
|
|
New Funds
Cycle Capital Management, an 11-year-old, Montreal, Quebec-based venture firm focused on clean-tech startups, has closed its newest fund with C$145 million in capital commitments ($113.7 million). BetaKit has more here.
Learn Capital, a 10-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based education-focused venture capital fund, filed paperwork indicating that it has closed $132 million in capital. It plans to raise a total of $250 million for this fund, which will be the firm’s fourth investment vehicle to date. TechCrunch has more here.
Madrona Venture Group, the 26-year-old, Seattle-based venture capital firm, raised $500 million across two funds. It raised $345 million for its eighth fund, and $160 million for its second Acceleration Fund, which is designed to take minority stakes in growth rounds at the Series B and Series C stages. TechCrunch has more here.
One Way Ventures, a 3.5-year-old, Brookline, Ma.-based venture capital firm that backs immigrant founders, has closed its second fund with $57.5 million in capital commitments. The firm's debut vehicle had closed with $28 million in commitments. TechCrunch has more here.
Samsara BioCapital, a four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based venture firm that was founded by Srinivas Akkaraju, formerly of Sofinnova Ventures, is raising up to $500 million for a fund, shows a new SEC filing. More here.
USV, the 17-year-old, New York-based venture firm, has raised $151.3 million for a climate-focused fund and a separate $22.4 million for an investment vehicle titled USV Bundled. TechCrunch has more here.
Afield but notable: BlackRock, the asset management giant, is drastically scaling back an ambitious plan to raise a $12 billion, with new plans to raise between $4 billion and $6 billion instead, says the WSJ.
|
|
Exits
Amazon is acquiring Wondery, the 4.5-year-old company behind podcasts such as “Dirty John,” “Dr. Death” and “The Shrink Next Door." The deal, announced last week, values the company at roughly $300 million, according to the New York Times. Judging by a look at Crunchbase, Wondery had raised roughly $15 million, including from Watertower Ventures, Advancit Capital and Lerer Hippeau. More here.
Haven, the Amazon-Berkshire-JPMorgan venture formed to lower costs and improve outcomes in health care, is disbanding after three years in a potential sign of how difficult it is to radically improve American health care, reports CNBC. More here.
Snack giant Mondelez International is nearing a deal to buy paleo chocolate-bar maker Hu Master Holdings, the "latest move by an established food company to tap into growing demand for healthier snacks," reports the WSJ. Mondelez had taken a minority stake in Hu in 2019; now it's planning to buy the rest in a transaction that values Hu at around $340 million, says the outlet. More here.
Quibi, the streaming content service that raised $1.75 billion from investors, is in talks to sell its content catalog to Roku, the publicly traded streaming-media player that is pushing aggressively into content, reports the WSJ. Terms of the deal aren't yet known but Quibi shut down its service with about $750 million on hand, the WSJ previously reported. It expects to disburse about $350 million to its early investors. More here.
Industrial sensor giant Teledyne is set to acquire sensing company FLIR in a deal valued at around $8 billion in a mix of stock and cash, pending approvals with an expected closing date sometime in the middle of this year. While both companies make sensors aimed primarily at industrial and commercial customers, they focus on different specialties that make FLIR’s business complementary to, rather than competitive with, its existing offerings, according to Teledyne. TechCrunch has more here.
Twitter has acquired the four-year-old social broadcasting app Breaker for undisclosed financial terms. The deal will see Breaker’s team joining Twitter to help “improve the health of the public conversation” on the service, as well as to work on Twitter’s new audio-based networking project, Twitter Spaces. Breaker, whose app will shut own on January 15, doesn't appear to have raised much in the way of funding (per Crunchbase). TechCrunch has more here.
|
|
Going Public
Lending company Affirm closed its $266 million acquisition of buy-now-pay-later fintech rival PayBright today, potentially greasing the skids for its delayed IPO, notes the San Francisco Business Times. Affirm has yet to set an initial pricing range for its offering, which IPO strategist Matt Kennedy believes will still happen this month, he tells the outlet. More here.
Turo, the 10-year-old, peer-to-peer car-renting marketplace, plans to go public this year, says its CEO, Andre Haddad. According to Crunchbase, the company has raised just less than $500 million over the years, including from Canaan Partners, Trinity Ventures, and August Capital. The WSJ has more here.
Bridgetown 2 Holdings, the second SPAC backed by the Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li and U.S. billionaire investor Peter Thiel, is planning to raise $200 million to focus on "new economy sectors in Southeast Asia." Bridgetown's first SPAC had raised $550 million in October and, as of last month, was reportedly talking about a tie-up with Tokopedia, an online shopping app that has become one of Southeast Asia’s biggest start-ups. Renaissance Capital has more here.
|
|
People
A group of Google employees has formed a union to organize workers across the technology company’s sprawling global operations, a rare move within Silicon Valley and one that reflects growing employee activism in the sector, notes the WSJ. More here.
DCM has just promoted David Cheng to Principal. David, who joined the firm in 2014 after a short stint with Accenture, was previously the youngest vice president in its history. More here.
|
|
Sponsored By . . .
“Pete Kazanjy’s Founding Sales is excellent. The book has a straightforward perspective on how to sell well in a modern way.” ~Tomasz Tunguz | “Sales excellence is the missing piece for a huge number of product and tech founders. Founding Sales demystifies it and shows you how to do it yourself until it’s time to hire someone else to do it. Highly recommend.” ~David Sacks | StrictlyVC subscribers can purchase the book (or in bulk for portfolio support) at 10% off with the code “StrictlySales” at the Founding Sales online store.
|
|
Essential Reads
ShareChat, an Indian social network that added Twitter as an investor in 2019, may soon receive the backing of two more American firms. The Bangalore-based startup is in advanced stages of talks to raise money from Google and Snap, as well as several earlier investors, including Twitter, three sources familiar with the matter tell TechCrunch. More here.
Indonesia's ride-hailing and payments giant Gojek is reportedly in advanced discussions about merging with online shopping platform Tokpedia and the two have signed a detailed term sheet to conduct due diligence of each other's businesses, says DealStreetAsia. The merged entity would create and "Indonesia internet powerhouse" with a combined value of more than $18 billion, notes the outlet, adding that Gojek was previously in deal talks with arch-rival Grab Holdings and that it moved on after the two reached an impasse. More here.
Brian Brooks, the former chief legal officer of Coinbase and currently acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, has given fellow cryptocurrency advocates a major gift via new guidance that enables U.S. banks to use public blockchains and dollar stablecoins as a settlement infrastructure in the U.S. financial system. More here.
|
|
Retail Therapy
Hearing aid earbuds that double as Bluetooth speakers (after your other earbuds/AirPods necessitate the need for a hearing aid).
|
|
Sponsored By . . .
Acquity Realty, which develops multi-family and office projects with partners like Apple and Cigna Realty Advisors, is looking for individuals and institutions interested in tax efficiently growing their capital. It’s developing a Qualified Opportunity Zone project just two blocks from Google’s new 80-acre campus in San Jose. Over its last $1.2 billion of projects, Acquity has generated an IRR of 49.9%. Visit Acquity or email Greg Ovalle at ov@acquityrealty.com to learn more.
|
StrictlyVC StrictlyVC, LLC, 1 Blackfield Drive, No. 239, Tiburon, CA 94920 Unsubscribe - Unsubscribe Preferences |
|
|
|
|
|
