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January 12, 2021
Tuesday! Hi.:)
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Top News
Visa is abandoning its $5.3 billion planned acquisition of Plaid in the face of a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit that challenged the deal. The department sued to block the deal in November, alleging it would allow Visa to unlawfully maintain a monopoly in the online debit-card market. The WSJ has more here.
YouTube said today that it has taken down new video content from Donald Trump for violating its policies against inciting violence. In addition, it has issued a "strike" against the account, which means he can't upload new videos or livestream to the account for at least seven days. In a video of remarks made to reporters that was uploaded to the channel earlier, the president warned that impeaching him for inciting violence at the Capitol would be "very dangerous for the USA."
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Maryanna Saenko and Steve Jurvetson on Their New Fund, SPACs, and the Great Tech Exodus
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Future Ventures — cofounded by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson and Maryanna Saenko, a colleague of Jurvetson at his last firm, DFJ, as well as an investor previously with Airbus Ventures and Khosla Ventures — has just closed its second fund with $200 million in capital commitments, say the pair.
In a wide-ranging conversation yesterday afternoon, Jurvetson characterized the fund as “dramatically oversubscribed in a fairly short period of time,” adding that roughly one-third of its investors are venture capitalists or other investors, that the “second largest bucket [comprises] tech executives, CEOs, and former CEOs of enormous companies of relevance to our ecosystem” and that the last third of the firm’s capital is coming from institutions, including one university endowment. (He didn’t specify which.)
As with Future’s $200 million debut fund, which closed two years ago, the outfit’s newest vehicle has a 15-year time horizon, giving it more leeway to make longer-term bets. Jurvetson also confirmed that as with that debut fund, Future features fairly standard economics, including charging 2.5% in management fees and 25% in so-called carried interest (meaning the share of the profits that Future keeps from its investments).
“We tell our LPs, ‘Look, this is a long game, these companies take longer than five to seven years to come to full maturity,'” said Jurvetson, who has been on the board of SpaceX since 2009 and, along with three other directors, left the board of Tesla in September, following a 13-year run as a director.
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Massive Fundings
Checkout.com, an eight-year-old, London-based online payments platform, has raised $450 million in Series C funding at a post-money valuation of $15 billion. Tiger Global led the round, joined by Greenoaks Capital and earlier backers like Coatue, Insight Partners, DST Global, Blossom Capital and GIC. TechCrunch has more here.
Clark, a 5.5-year-old, Frankfurt, Germany-based digital insurance platform, has raised €69 million in Series C funding. Tencent led the round, joined by earlier investors Portag3 Ventures, White Star Capital and Yabeo. More here.
Cockroach Labs, a nearly six-year-old, New York-based distributed SQL database, has raised $160 million in Series E funding at a $2 billion valuation, just eight months after raising an $86.6 million Series D round. Altimeter Capital led the new financing, joined by Greenoaks, Lone Pine and earlier backers Benchmark, Bond, FirstMark, GV, Index Ventures, and Tiger Global. TechCrunch has more here.
Jedox, an 18-year-old, Breisgau, Germany-based company that sells financial modeling and analytics software, has raised more than $100 million in funding led by Insight Partners, with participation from earlier backers Iris Capital, eCAPITAL and Wecken & Cie. The company has now raised $150 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Jobber, a nine-year-old, Edmonton, Alberta-based maker of business management software for home services pros, has raised $60 million in funding led by Summit Partners, with participation from Tech Pioneers Fund and earlier investors OMERS Ventures and Version One Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
M-Files, a 31-year-old, Plano, Tex.-based company whose software automates enterprise information management, has raised $80 million led by Bregal Milestone, with participation from Partech, Tesi and Draper Esprit. VentureBeat has more here.
Open Farm, a seven-year-old, Toronto-based pet food brand, has raised $65 million in funding led by General Atlantic, with added participation from Encore Consumer Capital. More here.
Prodigy, a nine-year-old, Ontario-based educational gaming company, has raised $159 million CAD ($125 million) in Series B funding led by TPG Growth, with participation from the Canadian Business Growth Fund. BetaKit has more here.
Tessera Therapeutics, a 2.5-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based programmable genetics startup founded by Flagship Pioneering, has raised $230 million in Series B funding from Alaska Permanent Fund, Altitude Life Science Ventures, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and QIA. TechCrunch has more here.
Workato, a seven-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based business automation integration platform, has raised $110 million in Series D funding led by Altimeter Capital, with participation from Insight Partners. VentureBeat has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
AirSlate, a 14-year-old, Boston-based no-code business automation startup, has raised $40 million from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, General Catalyst and HighSage Ventures. More here.
CropIn, a 10-year-old, Bengaluru, India-based agricultural data company, raised $20 million in Series C funding led by ABC World Asia, with participation from Chiratae Ventures, Invested Development and Ankur Capital. The Economic Times has more here.
Daystar Power, a 3.5-year-old, Lagos, Nigeria-based solar energy company, has raised $38 million in Series B, mostly from development finance institutions led by Denmark's Investment Fund for Developing Countries. The company has now raised $48 million to date. More here.
Descript, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup whose tools enable creators to edit audio and video files (and was founded by Andrew Mason of Groupon fame), has raised a $30 million Series B round led by Spark Capital. Earlier backers Andreessen Horowitz and Redpoint Ventures also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.
Earli, a 2.5-year-old, South San Francisco-based bioengineering startup focused on cancer, has raised $40 million in Series A funding. Khosla Ventures led the round, joined by Perceptive Advisors, Casdin Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sands Capital, and Jim Breyer, along with other individual investors, including former Goldman exec Marty Chavez. Forbes has more here.
Employee Navigator, a 12-year-old, Bethesda, Md.-based maker of benefits administration, compliance, and HR software, has raised $34 million from JMI Equity. More here.
JumpCloud, an 11-year-old, Louisville, Co.-based cloud directory platform company, has raised $25 million in new Series E funding that brings the round to more than $100 million. BlackRock led the round, joined by H.I.G. Growth, OurCrowd and earlier investor General Atlantic. The Boulder Daily Camera has more here.
Landing, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based membership-based flexible living startup, has raised $45 million in Series B funding. Foundry Group led the round, joined by Greycroft and Maveron. It also secured a $55 million debt facility. Founder Bill Smith sold his last startup, a membership-based online grocery app called Shipt, to Target in 2017 for $550 million. More here.
Modern Treasury, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based maker of payment operations software, has raised $38 million in Series B funding. Altimeter Capital led the round, joined by earlier investors Benchmark and Y Combinator. Pymnts has more here.
Smaller Fundings
BukuKas, a two-year-old, Jakarta, Indonesia-based digital bookkeeping startup that keeps adding to its offerings, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital India. TechCrunch has more here.
Snowplow, a nearly nine-year-old, London-based behavioral data management platform, has raised $10 million in Series A2 funding. Atlantic Bridge led the round, joined by earlier investor MMC Ventures. More here.
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New Funds
Lynn Chou O'Keefe, a former Kleiner Perkins investor who rolled out her own healthcare-focused firm -- Define Partners -- and its $87 million debut fund in January of last year, has already closed a second fund with $200 million in capital commitments, shows a new SEC filing. More here.
Anorak Ventures, a 4.5-year-old, Venice, Ca.-based seed stage fund founded by Greg Castle, who was most recently a business development lead at Glassdoor, has raised $10 million in capital commitments for a second fund, shows an SEC filing. More here.
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Exits
June Oven, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based smart cooking startup that had raised roughly $30 million from investors, has been acquired by grill-maker Weber for undisclosed terms. June will operate as its own, wholly owned brand and will continue to both sell and develop the June Oven and related products, says TechCrunch. June's early backers included Lerer Hippeau, First Round Capital, and Eclipse Ventures. More here.
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Going Public
Proterra, the 16-year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based electric bus-maker, has agreed to go public via a reverse merger with ArcLight Clean Transition, a SPAC formed by the energy-focused private equity firm ArcLight. The deal valued Proterra at around $1.6 billion, including a $415 million PIPE. Proterra had raised more than $700 million from investors, including Obvious Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Cowen, Soros Fund Management, Generation Investment Management and Broadscale Group. Proterra, which has raised $1 billion in equity and debt funding to date, is reportedly being assigned an enterprise value of $1.6 billion in this new deal. The WSJ has more here.
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People
Techstars, the network of startup accelerators and a venture capital fund, has appointed Maëlle Gavet is its new CEO. Gavet was formerly the CEO of OZON.ru, Russia’s largest e-commerce site, and more recently the COO of the real estate platform Compass. Former CEO and co-founder David Brown will remain on Techstars’ board, while the group’s other co-founder, David Cohen, will become board chairman. TechCrunch has more here.
VC Michael Moritz writes in the Financial Times of the alarming parallels he sees between Germany following World War I and the United States today, and urges more companies to take action. "Now it's up to all of us in the world of business to play our part and make sure the extremism of both left and right in America is seen for what it is: a menace to our future together." Vox reported this summer that Moritz wasn't one for political donations until this year, when he became a Democratic megadonor for the first time. His column is here.
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Data
Of the existing 18.5 million Bitcoin, around 20 percent(!) — currently worth around $140 billion — appear to be in lost or otherwise stranded wallets, according to the cryptocurrency data firm Chainalysis. As one would-be Bitcoin centimillionaire tells the New York Times in a must-read piece, he years ago lost the paper where he wrote down the password for his IronKey, which gives users 10 guesses before it seizes up and encrypts its contents forever. He only has two tries left. “I would just lay in bed and think about it. Then I would go to the computer with some new strategy, and it wouldn’t work, and I would be desperate again.”
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Essential Reads
Brian Acton says the ongoing outrage over what Facebook has done to the messaging service he helped build, WhatsApp, is driving people to Signal, the privacy-conscious message app where he is executive chairman. He tells TechCrunch the user base of Signal has “exploded” in recent weeks.
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