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January 5, 2021
Hello! We're glued to our TV screen, watching as these *insanely* close Senate race results come out of Georgia, so no column tonight. More tomorrow.:)
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Top News
Donald Trump today signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese software applications, including Ant Group’s Alipay, WeChat Pay, and QQ, the White House said, escalating tensions with Beijing before President-elect Joe Biden takes office this month. Worth noting: the order gives the Commerce Department 45 days to act.
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Massive Fundings
Aro Biotherapeutics, a 3.5 year-old, Philadelphia, Pa.-based developer of tissue-targeted genetic medicines, has raised $88 million in Series A funding led by Northpond Ventures and Cowen Healthcare Investments. Other investors in the round include HealthCap, BVF Partners, Ridgeback Capital and earlier backers Johnson & Johnson, BioMotiv and Ionis Pharmaceuticals. More here.
BayoTech, a nearly six-year-old, Albuquerque, N.M.-based producer of on-site hydrogen for agriculture, fuel cells, and energy industries, has raised $157 million in funding led by Newlight Partners. It was joined by Fortistar and earlier backers Cottonwood Technology Funds and Sun Mountain Capital. More here.
Boat, a four-year-old, India-based lifestyle startup that sells low-cost, durable headphones, earphones and other mobile accessories, has raised $100 million in Series B funding entirely from an affiliate of the private equity firm Warburg Pincus, at a post-money valuation of roughly $300 million, says TechCrunch. The company had raised just $3 million in equity and debt financing prior. More here.
Citizen, a 4.5-year-old, New York-based mobile app that provides users with notifications of nearby emergencies and crimes, has raised around $73 million led by Greycroft per a new SEC filing flagged by Axios. It includes $23 million from a recent convertible note, per a Citizen spokesman. More here.
Divvy, a 4.5-year-old, Lehi, Ut.-based startup that focuses on corporate spend management, has raised $165 million in funding at a post-money valuation of $1.6 billion from Hanaco, Schonfeld, PayPal Ventures, and Whale Rock, along with a cadre of prior investors. TechCrunch has more here.
DXY, a 20-year-old, Hangzhou, China-based health-tech firm that operates an online platform for hospitals, physicians, medical researchers, patients, pharmaceutical companies, and insurance providers to access and share medical information, has raised $500 million in new funding led by Trustbridge Partners. Other backers in the round include Tencent Investment and GL Ventures, the venture unit of the Asia-focused private equity firm Hillhouse Capital. DealStreetAsia has more here.
Echelon Fitness, a three-year-old, Chattanooga, Tn.-based connected fitness company, has raised $65 million in funding led by Goldman Sachs Growth, with participation from earlier backer North Castle Partners. Pymnts has more here.
Fluence, a 2.5-year-old, Arlington, Va.-based global battery storage joint venture of Siemens AG and AES Corp., has sold a 12% stake in its business to the Qatar Investment Authority for $125 million. Bloomberg has more here.
Hinge Health, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that sells virtual physical therapy sessions for customers with back and joint pain, has raised raised $310 million in Series D funding led by Coatue Management and Tiger Global Management at a valuation of $3 billion, says TechCrunch. More here.
Iboss, a 17-year-old, Boston-based cloud delivered network security company, has raised $145 million co-led by NightDragon and Francisco Partners. VentureBeat has more here.
IconOVir Bio, a new, San Diego-based developer of oncolytic virus therapies, has raised $77 million in Series A funding. Nextech and Vida Ventures co-led the round, joined by Two River Group, Bellco Capital, Polaris Partners, GV, Wellington Partners and Logos Capital. FierceBiotech has more here.
Immuneering, a 12.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based cancer drug developer, has raised $62 million in Series B funding led by Cormorant Asset Management. Other participants in the round include Surveyor Capital, Rock Springs Capital, T. Rowe Price, BlackRock, Perceptive Advisors and Lyfe Capital. More here.
SimpleNexus, a nine-year-old, Lehi, Utah-based home ownership platform, has raised $108 million in Series B funding led by Insight Partners. Housing Wire has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Chronosphere, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based cloud monitoring platform, has raised $43.4 million in Series B funding led by earlier investors Greylock, Lux Capital and venture capitalist Lee Fixel, with participation from new backer General Atlantic. The company has now raised roughly $55 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Metcela, a 4.5-year-old, Kanagawa, Japan-based clinical-stage biotech startup specializing in fibroblast-based cell therapy, has raised $12.7 million in Series B funding. The University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners (UTEC) led the round, joined by the Alfresa Corporation, The Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, MAKOTO Capital and KSP Inc. More here.
Oxbotica, a six-year-old, Oxford, England-based startup that builds what it calls “universal autonomy” — technology that it says can power the navigation, perception, user interfaces, fleet management and other features needed to run self-driving vehicles in multiple environments, regardless of the hardware being used — has raised $47 million in Series B funding. BP Ventures, the investing arm of oil and gas led the round, joined by BGF, safety equipment maker Halma, pension fund HostPlus, IP Group, Tencent, Venture Science and funds advised by Doxa Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
PostHog, a year-old, San Francisco-based open source product analytics company that passed through YC last year, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by GV, with participation from Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund, along with numerous individual investors, including GitHub CTO Jason Warner and Docker founder Solomon Hykes. Pulse 2.0 has more here.
Volta Medical, a 4.5-year-old, Marseille, France-based health-tech startup, working on artificial intelligence algorithms to treat cardiac arrhythmias, has raised $28 million in funding. Gilde Healthcare led the round, joined by earlier shareholder Pasteur Mutualité. More here.
Smaller Fundings
Blue Wire, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based sports podcast company, has raised $5 million in Series A round led by earlier investor Dot Capital, with participation from Bettor Capital, Side Door Ventures and Forty5 Ventures. Axios talked with founder Kevin Jones last month.
Coral Vita, a five-year-old, Freeport, Bahamas-based based startup that aims to modernize both coral restoration techniques and the economy surrounding them, has raised $2 million in seed funding from Builders Collective, with participation from Apollo Projects and Washington Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer and his wife, Erica. TechCrunch has more here.
Emboline, an 11-year-old, Santa Cruz, Ca.-based med-tech company focused on reducing strokes during transcatheter heart procedures, has raised more than $10 million in Series C funding from unnamed new and earlier backers, says the company. More here.
Kyte, a year-old, San Francisco-based tech platform connecting professional fleet owners with rental customers, has raised $9 million from investors including DN Capital and Amplo VC. TechCrunch has more here.
NearSt, a 5.5-year-old, U.K.-based e-commerce company focused on making local in-store inventory visible to shoppers, has raised £2.2 million ($3 million) in seed funding from Grosvenor Group, True Global, YYX Capital, and Moscar Capital. More here.
NextStep, a three-year-old, Bozeman, Mt.-based health care education and job placement company, has raised $2.5 million in funding from ZOMA Capital, the ETF@JFFlabs impact fund and earlier backers Springrock Ventures and JAZZ Venture Partners. More here.
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New Funds
Ludlow Ventures, the 11-year-old, Detroit, Mi.-based seed-stage venture fund, is looking to raise up to $65 million for its newest fund, shows a new SEC filing that states the first sale has yet to occur. The outfit had closed its third fund with $45 million in 2019. More here.
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Going Public
The lending startup Affirm aims to raise as much as $935 million in its IPO, it revealed in a filing today.
Fortress Value Acquisition III, the third SPAC formed by Fortress Investment Group (owned by SoftBank), raised $200 million in its IPO. Renaissance Capital has more here.
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Exits
Nintendo today said that it is acquiring the 18-year-old, Canadian game developer Next Level Games, whose popular titles include "Luigi’s Mansion 3." It's the first studio acquisition for the company since is 2007 purchase of "Xenoblade Chronicles" developer Monolith Soft. Financial terms of the deal aren't being disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.
Pokémon GO creator Niantic has acquired a small San Francisco gaming startup that's building a league and tournament organization platform to help gamers create their own communities around popular titles. Mayhem was in Y Combinator’s winter 2018 batch and went on to raise $5.7 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.
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People
Former Goldman Sachs executive and head of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn said today that he is joining the board of IBM as its vice chairman.
Ten Eleven Ventures, a Boston-based venture capital firm specializing in cybersecurity, has promoted Kaiti Delaney to principal. Delaney joined the firm two years ago from Level 3 Communications.
Gina Raimondo, a former venture capitalist who's currently in her second term as Rhode Island governor, has emerged as a leading candidate to be President-elect Joe Biden's commerce secretary, says Axios.
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Data
Ten Austin-based tech startups that raised a collective $767 million in 2020.
The big winners from OpenDoor's IPO via SPAC last month.
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Jobs
Pathfinder, the venture capital arm of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, is looking to add a principal to its team. The job is in San Jose, Ca.
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Essential Reads
Procter & Gamble will not acquire women’s beauty products startup Billie as previously planned, following action taken by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to stop the deal from proceeding. Last month, the FTC sued to block P&G’s acquisition of the New York-based startup Billie, a maker of women’s razors and other beauty products, on the grounds that the merger would eliminate competition in the wet shave razor market. TechCrunch has more here.
China’s regulators want Jack Ma -- who has not been since in two months and is reportedly just "laying low" -- to share the troves of consumer-credit data collected by his financial-technology behemoth, reports the WSJ. Ma seemingly has no choice. As the WSJ notes, he has "little room to bargain after the business empire he has built over decades has landed in the crosshairs of regulators and even President Xi Jinping, partly reflecting Beijing’s concern that the flamboyant entrepreneur has been too focused on his business fortunes rather than the state’s goal of controlling financial risks." More here.
Epic Games, the company that created the popular videogame “Fortnite,” has agreed to purchase a North Carolina mall and plans to redevelop it as a global headquarters, the latest sign that struggling malls are evolving into new kinds of real estate.
Amazon is buying four jets from WestJet and seven from Delta as the e-commerce giant moves to beef up its delivery fleet at a time when passenger jets are no longer so in demand. Amazon launched its own air cargo fleet in 2016 and had previously leased 80 planes; this is the first time the company has bought its own. CBC has more here.
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Detours
“It’s like the Hunger Games for parking,” says a New Yorker of the surge in car ownership driven by the pandemic. “It’s not harder now — it’s relentless.”
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