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January 22, 2021
Friday! Hope you have a terrific weekend, all.:)
Before we go: we leave you with a piping hot new episode of StrictlyVC Download, featuring this week's guest, Reilly Brennan of Trucks VC, a Bay Area firm that is solely focused on the future of transportation.
We talked with Brennan about some of the week's biggest funding rounds -- including for electric truck maker Rivian and for Cruise Automation, a company into which Trucks squeezed an early check. We also talked about hydrogen fuel cells versus big batteries, and yes, we talked SPACs. You're going to like this one (is our bet).
Giant thanks to FarmTogether for sponsoring this episode. If you're curious about earning passive income by building a "recession-resistant portfolio of institutional quality farmland," check it out.
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Top News
Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp could be fined up to €50 million over violations of the European Union's data protection rules, reports Politico. The preliminary penalty would be one of the largest-ever fines under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, a set of privacy rules that came into force in 2018. More here.
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Sponsored By ...
Secureframe helps companies get enterprise-ready by streamlining SOC 2 security compliance. Secureframe allows companies to get secure within weeks, rather than months and monitors 25+ services, including AWS, GCP, and Azure. Customers save an average of 50% on their audit costs. Schedule a demo and learn how!
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Could Giant SPACs Be Next?
While many deemed 2020 the year of SPAC, short for special purpose acquisition company, 2021 may well make last year look quaint in comparison.
It's probably not premature to be asking: is any company too big to be SPAC'd?
Just today, we saw the trading debut of the most valuable company to date go public through a merger with one of these SPACs: 35-five-year-old, Pontiac, Michigan-based United Wholesale Mortgage, which is among the biggest mortgage companies in the U.S.
Its shares slipped a bit by the end of trading, closing at $11.35 down from their starting price of $11.54, but it's doubtful anyone involved is crying into their cocktails tonight. The outfit was valued at a whopping $16 billion when its merger with the blank-check outfit Gores Holdings IV was approved earlier this week.
Why is this interesting? Well, first, despite UWM's size, its path to going public took less than a year, beginning with Gores Holdings IV completing its IPO in late January 2020 and raising approximately $425 million in cash.
Alec Gores, the billionaire founder of of the private equity firm Gores Group, led the deal. The tie-up was announced back in September and ultimately included an additional $500 million private placement. (It's typical to tack-on these transactions once a target company has been identified and accepts the terms of the proposed merger. Most targets are many times larger than the blank check companies with which they are joining forces.)
Also notable is that UWM is a mature company, one that says it generated $1.3 billion in revenue in the third quarter of last year alone and whose CEO, whose father started the company in 1986, said last fall that the company is "massively profitable."
It's a story unlike that of most outfits to go public recently through the SPAC process.
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Massive Fundings
4Paradigm, a nearly seven-year-old, Beijing, China-based artificial intelligence startup, has reportedly raised $700 million(!) in Series D funding from investors led by Boyu Capital, Primavera Capital, and Hopu Fund. KrASIA has more here.
Imperfect Foods, a 5.5-year-old, San Francisco-based online food marketplace aimed at reducing food waste, has raised $95 million in Series D funding at a $700 million post-money valuation co-led by Insight Partners and Norwest Venture Partners. Bloomberg has more here.
VSPN, a 6.5-year-old, Shanghai, China-based e-sports competition organizer and broadcaster, has raised $60 million in extended Series B funding from Prospect Avenue Capital, Guotai Junan International and Nan Fung Group. TechCrunch has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
GlassesUSA.com, an 11-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based online eyewear retailer and subsidiary of Optimax Eyewear, has raised $45 million from Tene Investment Fund. The company says it has now raised $95 million altogether, including from Viola Growth. More here.
Marxent, a nine-year-old, Dayton, Oh.-based 3D e-commerce platform that enables enterprises to digitize and sell everything from individual furnishings to fully designed rooms, has raised $15 million in Series C funding led by Bellini Capital. VentureBeat has more here.
Sounding Board, a 4.5-year-old, Foster City, Ca.-based cloud-based coaching platform, has raised $13.1 million in Series A led by Canaan Partners. Other participants in the round include Correlation Ventures and earlier backers, including Bloomberg Beta and Precursor Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Valtix, a nearly three-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based cloud native network security platform that intends to plug gaps in application and network security across multiple cloud environments, has raised $12.5 million in venture capital from strategic partners Cisco Investments and The Syndicate Group, as well as venture firm Northgate Capital. VentureBeat has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Avesha, a 1.5-year-old, Burlington, Ma.-based company whose software helps apps disaggregate from the cloud to the edge, has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Taiwania Capital. More here.
Blobr, a year-old, Paris-based no-code startup aiming to make it easier for companies to expose and monetize their existing APIs, has raised €1.2 million in pre-seed funding.The pan-European pre-seed and seed investor Seedcamp led the round, joined by New Wave, Kima and various angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Capsule, a nine-month-old, Miami, Fla.-based video Q&A platform aimed at brands, has raised $2 million in pre-seed funding led by Array Ventures, with participation from Bloomberg Beta and other angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.
CloudNatix, a year-old, Saratoga, Ca.-based startup that provides infrastructure for businesses with multiple cloud and on-premise operations (and was founded by former Google exec Rohit Seth, who spent more than 11 years focused on infrastructure at the company), has raised $4.5 million in seed funding. DNX Ventures led the round, joined by Cota Capital and earlier backers Incubate Fund, Vela Partners and 468 Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Loop, a six-month-old, New York-based auto insurance agent that says it is leveraging AI, big data, and telematics to create more fairly priced insurance products, has raised $3.25 million in seed funding. Freestyle VC led the round, joined by Blue Fog Capital, Fontinalis Capital Partners, Concrete Rose, Uprising Ventures, and Backstage Capital. More here.
Swapp, a two-year-old, Israeli maker of construction planning software founded by former Autodesk Israel CEO Eitan Tsarfati, has raised $7 million in seed funding co-led by Point72 Ventures and Entrée Capital. VentureBeat has more here.
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Exits
Once, a six-year-old, Paris-based "slow dating" app that focused on "quality over quantity," has been acquired by the Dating Group, one of the largest companies in the dating world, for $18 million in cash and stock. Dating Group has 73 million registered users across a range of portfolio apps, including Dating.com. Clémentine Lalande, co-founder and CEO of Once, will continue leading the company under a two-year agreement. Fellow co-founder Jean Meyer retained a stake in the company after departing two years ago. Once had raised roughly $9 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.
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Going Public
The venture-backed electric passenger aircraft developer Joby Aviation is exploring a deal to go public through a merger with a blank-check acquisition firm at a valuation of around $5 billion, according to Reuters, whose sources say it has hired investment banks to solicit interest in a potential deal. More here.
Palantir stock surged as much as 25% today to all-time highs of more than $32 per share. The jump continues apost-IPO run that has seen its shares skyrocket some 251%. There was no clear catalyst for the move today, says Business Insider.
There are way too many other SPACs being raised and closed to list here, people. (Little surprise we're now seeing SPAC-focused funds.) Spac Insider has all the latest deets.
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People
Hannah Arnold and Ben Gorman has both been promoted from senior associate to principal positions with F Prime Capital, the Boston-based healthcare and tech-focused venture firm. Arnold joined the firm in 2017 after spending several years as a consultant with Bain & Co. Gorman joined the firm in 2016 after spending more than four years with IBM a a team lead and consultant. More here.
Bill Gates wants people to know he received the first dose of his COVID-19 vaccine this week; Gates was the target of conspiracy theories last year that he would use a vaccine to implant microchips in others.
Stuart Haselden is stepping down as CEO of VC-backed luggage-maker Away, with co-founder Jen Rubio to take over on an interim basis. He'll remain on the board. Co-founder Steph Korey previously resigned as CEO in 2019 before retaking the reins alongside Haselden and then resigning again soon after following a social media storm. Axios has the story here.
Tesla is suing a former employee and software engineer named Alex Khatilov, alleging trade secret theft and breach of contract. The new complaint says Khatilov began working for Tesla on December 28, 2020, and almost immediately began uploading files and scripts written in Python to his Dropbox account. CNBC has more here.
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Data
Existing home sales in 2020 rose 9% in 2020 from the year before, with the annual median price of an existing home climbing to $296,500 according to a report from the National Association of Realtors. That is the highest price on record, says CNN.
Private investors have done well overall betting on so-called unicorns. Crunchbase takes a look here.
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Sponsored By . . .
Lexicon Branding has created thousands of game-changing names for high-tech and consumer product companies, including Sonos, Azure, Pentium, BlackBerry, Impossible Foods, Swiffer, and Dasani. Here's how we start the process.
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Essential Reads
Because of a 2018 ruling, the U.S. government must obtain a warrant to compel phone companies to turn over location data about their customers. But the government can buy similar data from a broker -- and it reportedly does.
Clubhouse is reportedly fielding investor interest at a $1 billion valuation, reports The Information, which says the audio-based social platform's Series A investor, Andreessen Horowtiz, is also expected to lead its Series B. (We have questions about this one, but we should also note that we were 100% wrong about Facebook.)
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Detours
"It definitely wasn't me": Casey Affleck says he didn’t throw out Ana de Armas cutout after her split with his brother Ben.
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Sponsored By . . .
Acquity Realty develops multi-family and office projects with partners like Apple and Cigna Realty Advisors, and over its last $1.2 billion of projects has generated an IRR of 49.9%. To learn more about its newest Qualified Opportunity Zone project, situated just two blocks from Google’s new 80-acre campus in San Jose, visit Acquity or email Greg Ovalle at ov@acquityrealty.com.
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