Samsung loses its leader, Grab explores a U.S. IPO, and how much damage could a cheese puff do in space?

January 18, 2021

Hello! Just some quick end-of-day notes to kick off a big week. More tomorrow.:)

Top News

The U.S. Capitol attack on January 6th has set the stage for a political reckoning between Washington and Silicon Valley, says the Washington Post, as frustration with Facebook, Google, Twitter and their digital peers threatens to unleash the most aggressive regulatory assault against the tech industry in its history.

Samsung is without a leader. Its de facto chief, Lee Jae-yong, 52, returned to prison today after received a 30-month prison sentence from a South Korean appeals court in a retrial of his 2017 conviction for bribing South Korea’s former president. The WSJ has more here.

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Massive Fundings

Bloom & Wild, an 8.5-year-old, London-based online flower delivery business, has raised £75 million ($102 million) in Series D funding. General Catalyst led the round, joined by Index Ventures, Novator, Latitude Ventures, D4 Ventures along with earlier backer Burda Principal Investments. TechCrunch has more here.

Jiliguala, a nearly seven-year-old, Shanghai, China-based English learning platform for elementary-age school children, has nearly completed $100 million in Series C funding from Tencent and earlier backer PE Trustbridge Partners. DealStreetAsia has more here.

Maps.me, a 10-year-old, Belarus-based offline mapping application, has raised $50 million in a funding round led by Alameda Research, a Hong Kong-based investment firm and liquidity provider. Genesis Capital and CMS Holdings also participated in the round. Decrypt has more here.

Personio, a nearly seven-year-old, Germany-based startup that sells small- and mid-size businesses on an all-in-one HR platform, has raised $125 million in Series D funding at a $1.7 billion post-money valuation. Index Ventures and Meritech co-led the round, joined by earlier backers Accel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Northzone, Global Founders Capital and Picus Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Agriwebb, a nearly nine-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based SaaS-based livestock-management platform, has raised $23 million (U.S.) in Series B funding led by the venture arm of Canadian telco TELUS, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Financial Review has more here.

Darwinbox, a 5.5-year-old, Hyderabad, India-based HR management platform, has raised $15 million in Series C funding led by Salesforce Ventures. Earlier backers Lightspeed India and Sequoia Capital India also joined the round, which brings the amount the company has raised to date to $35 million. TechCrunch has more here.

DeHaat, a nearly nine-year-old, Gurugram, India-based online platform that offers full-stack agricultural services to farmers, has raised $30 million in funding, led by Prosus Ventures. The round also saw participation from earlier investors Sequoia Capital India, FMO, Omnivore, and AgFunder. Your Story has more here.

Dianxiaomi, a six-year-old, China-based company that sells enterprise resource planning software to small- and mid-size sellers which connects them to global e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Shopee, Shopify, eBay, and AliExpress, has raised $23.1 million in Series B funding. GGV Capital and CDH Investments co-led the round, joined by Kunlun Fund. Tech in Asia has more here.

Jellyfish, a four-year-old, Boston-based engineering management platform, has raised $31.5 million in Series B funding. Insight Partners led the round, joined by Accel and Wing Venture Capital. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Smaller Fundings

Capsule, a brand new, Paris-based project being launched by cryptography researcher Nadim Kobeissi, has pulled in $100,000 in pre-seed funding for a decentralized social media solution where each user hosts his or her own microservice, then connects to others in a mesh. Angel investor and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan is among the backers, along with Bill Pulte (grandson of the late founder of home-building giant PulteGroup) and Wamda Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

ProSapient, a nearly four-year-old, London-based machine learning expert network and research platform, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Smedvig Capital, with participation from investor Guy Hands and earlier backer 24 Haymarket. The company has now raised $18 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.

Udayy, a 2.5-year-old, Gurugram, India-based edtech startup that teaches English and math to elementary-age school children, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by Alpha Wave Incubation, InfoEdge Ventures and Better Capital, among others. Your Story has more here.

Volopay, a two-year-old, Singapore-based recent Y Combinator alum that's building a “financial control center” for businesses, has raised $2.1 million in seed funding led by Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen. Other participants in the round include Soma Capital, CP Ventures, YC, VentureSouq, the founders of Razorpay and other angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.

Going Public

RLX Technology, a nearly three-year-old, Chinese e-cigarette maker, is looking to raise as much as $1.17 billion from a U.S. IPO, reports Bloomberg. Backed backed by Sequoia Capital China, it's selling 116.5 million American Depositary Shares at $8 to $10 each, according to a U.S. filing, and will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. More here.

Southeast Asian ride-hailing and food delivery giant Grab is exploring a listing in the United States this year, encouraged by robust investor appetite for IPOs, reports Reuters. The offering could raise at least $2 billion, one of its sources said, which would likely make it the largest overseas share offering by a Southeast Asian company. More here.

People

Defending his company's takedown of the controversial Parler app from the App Store, Apple CEO Tim Cook told Fox News yesterday: “We obviously don’t control what’s on the Internet. But we’ve never viewed that our platform should be a simple replication of the internet. We have rules and regulations, and we just ask that people abide by those.”

A GitHub internal investigation has revealed the company made “significant errors of judgment and procedure” in the firing of the Jewish employee who cautioned his coworkers about the presence of Nazis in the Washington D.C. area on January 6th. TechCrunch has more here.

The Chicago-based firm, Sandbox Industries, just named promoted two of its investors to the role of managing director. Kelsey Maguire and Binoy Bhansali. Maguire, who has worked as a banking analyst (Deutsche Bank), growth equity associate (TA Associates), and was more recently employed by Collective Health, joined Sandbox in 2019. Bhansali, a former banking analyst (Citi) and consultant (Accenture), joined Sandbox in 2015. More here.

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Essential Reads

Hike, India’s answer to WhatsApp (and backed by Tencent, Tiger Global, and SoftBank), has moved on from messaging, and its founder says India will never have a homegrown messaging app that makes inroads unless it chooses to ban Western companies from operating in the nation. TechCrunch has more here.

Tesla has reportedly started delivering locally made Model Y crossovers in China, marking another milestone for the electric carmaker in the world’s largest vehicle market. The company wants to increase its vehicle sales volume from about 500,000 in 2020 to 20 million annually over the next decade. CNBC has more here.

Facebook will temporarily stop showing ads that “promote weapon accessories and protective equipment in the U.S. at least through Jan. 22,” two days after Inauguration Day, according to a statement by the company. The New York Times has more here.

Detours

The pros and cons of the most popular encrypted chat apps.

What you should know before leaking a Zoom meeting.

Debate rages over whether single speeding Cheeto could destroy the International Space Station.

Retail Therapy

An Art Deco moto masterpiece.

“The One" (in Bel Air) is reportedly coming to market with a $340 million price tag.

Middle Child candle.

Samsung loses its leader, Grab explores a U.S. IPO, and how much damage could a cheese puff do in space?

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