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January 25, 2021
Hello!:)
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Top News
President Joe Biden said today the U.S. government will replace the entire federal fleet of cars, trucks and SUVs with electric vehicles manufactured in the country -- a commitment tied to a broader campaign promise to create one million new jobs in the American auto industry and supply chains. TechCrunch has more here.
Twitter unveiled a feature today meant to bolster its efforts to combat misinformation and disinformation by tapping users in a fashion similar to Wikipedia to flag potentially misleading tweets. NBC News has more on the project, called Birdwatch, here.
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A Look at the Soaring Valuations of Rivian and Cruise with Transportation VC Reilly Brennan
Perhaps more than most, Reilly Brennan loves cars and trucks. The native Michigander happily did grunt work for an automotive magazine as an undergrad at the University of Michigan before landing a gig as a trackside communications manager at General Motors, spending a few years as an editor and a general manager with an automotive publisher called NextScreen, then becoming a programming director for AOL's automotive properties.
His next role would be on the West Coast, as executive director of an automotive research program at Stanford, where Brennan continues to be a lecturer. Little surprise that soon after, a seed-stage fund began to make sense, too, and thus was born Trucks Venture Capital, which has since made dozens of bets out of a $20 million debut effort and is wrapping up a larger fund soon.
Late last week, we talked with Brennan about two of the fastest-soaring valuations we've seen recently in the automotive sector: that of the electric vehicle company Rivian, which raised a giant new round last week at a nearly $30 billion post-money valuation, and Cruise Automation, which also raised a giant new round last week, and also at $30 billion valuation. (Along with some other interesting bets, Trucks managed to write an early check for Cruise before it was acquired in 2016 by GM, which maintains majority ownership of the company.)
We wondered if even an auto aficionado might deem things a little bubbly. You can listen to that full conversation here. In the meantime, the excerpts below have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Who are your investors in Trucks VC? Are they individuals? Are any auto manufacturers that are trying to get a look at nascent technologies?
We have some former execs from the car industry in the tech world, and a handful of family offices and definitely some large strategic companies. Unfortunately, I can't tell you their names because I've signed documents that prevent me from doing that. But one of the cool things about our little Rolodex of [limited partners] is that our founders -- when they want to come in and do something in transportation -- it's an easy doggie door into a lot of those entities, whether they're people or businesses. One of the things I love about [the mix is] there's probably no part of a vehicle, whether you're talking about a car, truck, a bike, or a plane, that one of our investors couldn't help out with.
Do you look to be the first money into your deals?
One of the interesting learnings I had in the first fund was, we were just trying to participate; we were just happy to be at the party. So we were participating in rounds that other people were leading, and our checks [from Fund I] were anywhere from $100,000 to a few thousand dollars.
The new fund is designed to take advantage of leading rounds [because] halfway through our first fund, founders would ask us to lead rounds, and frankly, the fund wasn't big enough to do that. Our new fund is really designed so we can lead seed rounds, and that's what we do. We'll lead or co-lead and sit on the board. Usually, we're owning about 10% to 12% of a company at seed.
One of Truck's early checks went to Cruise, the self-driving car company that GM acquired for an amount that has variously been reported as more than $1 billion, as well as for closer to $500 million . . .
The Cruise investment, my [fellow general partners] Jeff and Kate made. I can't tell you specifically what the acquisition price was, but it was pretty good. That being said, if you read about the valuation of Cruise now within General Motors, or that of another [self-driving] company we invested in, Nutonomy, which was acquired by [automotive supplier] Delphi [for $450 million in 2017] and is now essentially a company called Motional, they're pretty high.
I think a lot about those early exits because they validated the space, but I also think a lot of the early investors probably wish they had more ownership. I'm not saying [the companies] shouldn't have sold. But you look at the valuation of Cruise and Motional today -- if you put those two entities together -- it's more than the valuation of General Motors, or maybe Ford Motor Company.
Is Cruise's valuation perhaps too high right now?
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Massive Fundings
Alma, a 3.5-year-old, Paris, France-based pay-as-you-go lender whose service is used by merchants and which competes with Klarna in Europe (Klarna isn't available in France), has raised $59.4 million in Series B funding. Participants include Cathay Innovation, Idinvest, Bpifrance, Seaya Ventures and Picus Capital. The company has also secured a $25.5 million credit line to finance merchant payments. TechCrunch has more here.
Klook, a nearly seven-year-old, Hong Kong-based travel activities platform, has raised $200 million in Series E funding, bringing the startup’s total funding to date to $720 million. Aspex Management, an investment fund focused on Asia Pacific, led the round. Earlier backers, including Sequoia Capital China, SoftBank Vision Fund, Matrix Partners China, Boyu Capital, as well as a handful of new investors, also participated. TechCrunch has more here.
Melio, a three-year-old, Israel-based digital payment platform focused on small and mid-size businesses in the U.S., has raised $110 million in funding at a post-money valuation of $1.3 billion. Coatue led the round, joined by earlier backers Accel, Aleph, Bessemer Venture Partners, Corner Ventures, General Catalyst and Latitude. The company has now raised $256 million overall. TechCrunch has more here.
TScan Therapeutics, a three-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based developer of T-cell therapies for cancer, has raised $100 million in Series C funding. Participants in the round include BlackRock, RA Capital and earlier investors Longwood Fund, 6 Dimensions Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, GV, Novartis and Pitango HealthTech. FierceBiotech has more here.
Uisee, a nearly five-year-old, Beijing, China-based maker of unmanned driving tech that aims to see its use in robotaxis, city buses, airports and logistics hubs, has raised $150 million from state-owned investors like the National Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrade Fund, which is a $21 billion state-backed fund set up in 2019 to promote and upgrade the manufacturing value chain in China. TechCrunch has more here.
Wolt, a 6.5-year-old, Helsinki, Finland-based online ordering and delivery company that initially focused on restaurants but has since expanded to other verticals, has raised $530 million in new funding. Iconiq Growth led the round, joined by Tiger Global Management, DST Global, KKR, Prosus, EQT Growth and Coatue. Previous backers also participated in the new round, which brings the company's total funding to $856 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Darwin Homes, a three-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based company that sells tech-enabled property management software normally used by big firms to landlords for single-family rentals, ha raised $15 million in Series A led by Mike Ghaffary of Canvas Ventures. Other participants in the round include Camber Creek and earlier backers Khosla Ventures, Wave Capital, Pear Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, Andrew Marks of TQ Ventures, and Uber cofounder Ryan Graves. Business Insider has more here.
IMVU, a 16.5-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based avatar-based social network, has raised $35 million from NetEase, the second-largest gaming company in China behind Tencent, and Structural Capital, among others. According to TechCrunch, the company has now raised $77 million across five rounds since it was co-founded “The Lean Startup” author Eric Ries. More here.
Riverlane, a four-year-old, Cambridge, England-based quantum computing startup, has raised $20 million in Series A funding. Draper Esprit led, joined by earlier investors Cambridge Innovation Capital, Amadeus Capital Partners and the University of Cambridge. More here.
Wingcopter, a nearly four-year-old, Darmstadt, Germany-based that aerospace company that makes unmanned delivery drones capable that are also capable of mapping, surveying, and inspection, has raised $22 million in Series A funding co-led by Xplorer Capital and Futury Regio Growth. TechCrunch has more here.
Smaller Fundings
BlackCart, a nearly-four-year-old, Toronto-based startup behind a try-before-you-buy platform that integrates with e-commerce storefronts, allowing customers to ship items to their home for free and only pay if they choose to keep the item, has raised $8.8 million in Series A funding. Origin Ventures and Hyde Park Ventures Partners co-led the round, joined by Struck Capital, Citi Ventures, 500 Startups and several angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Eli Science, a nearly-year-old, Montreal, Canada-based fertility-focused startup that's selling a saliva-based daily hormone tracking technology, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding co-led by Vectr Ventures and 2048 Ventures, with additional participation from Real Ventures, Techstars, and Panache Ventures, among others. BetaKit has more here.
Fashinza, a year-old, Gurgaon, India-based B2B manufacturing marketplace that aims to connect fashion brands to experienced manufacturers, has raised $2.6 million in seed funding led by Accel and Elevation Capital, with participation from Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal (co-founders of Snapdeal), and Alok Mittal (cofounder of Indifi). Your Story has more here.
Goalsetter, a nearly six-year-old, New York-based platform that helps parents teach their kids financial literacy, has raised $3.9 million in seed funding led by Astia. Other participants in the round include PNC Bank, Mastercard, U.S. Bank, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, Elevate Capital, and Pipeline Angels, among others. The company has now raised $6 million raised altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Hurdle, a nearly three-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based digital mental health platform company with a focus on culturally sensitive self-care support for people of color, has raised $5 million in seed funding co-led by 406 Ventures and Seae Ventures, with participation from F-Prime. More here.
Loupe Tech, an 11-month-old, L.A.-based streaming platform built for sports card collectors -- it allows people to live stream and sell sealed packs and single cards to collectors in real time -- has raised $3 million in funding to date, it disclosed today. Among its investors is Upfront Ventures and entrepreneur Nat Turner. Sports Collector Daily has more here.
MotoRefi, a nearly five-year-old, Arlington, Va.-based auto refinancing platform, has raised $10 million in funding led by Moderne Ventures. The company has now raised $24 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.
Pula, a 5.5-year-old, Kenya-based company that sells agricultural insurance and digital products to smallholder farmers to counter climate risks and improve their farming practices, has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by TLcom Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Sano Genetics, a nearly four-year-old, Cambridge, England-based startup that's focused on increasing clinical trial participation, including of people who experience symptoms well past the initial onset of COVID, has raised £2.5 million in seed funding led by Episode1 Ventures. Seedcamp, Cambridge Enterprise and January Ventures also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.
SpiderSilk, a 1.5-year-old, Dubai-based cybersecurity startup focused on preventing data breaches, has raised $2.25 million in seed funding co-led by Global Ventures and STV. TechCrunch has more here.
Sproud, a three-year-old, Malmö, Sweden-based maker of pea-made milks, has raised $6.5 million from VGC Partners. BevNet has more here.
Yac, a two-year-old, Orlando, Fla.-based startup that's digitizing voice messages for remote startups (it's betting that meetings will be more asynchronous in the future), has raised $7.5 million. GGV Capital led the round, joined by Slack Fund. TechCrunch has more here.
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New Funds
Octopus Ventures has added three members to its team and revealed plans to raise a €112.5 million fund focused solely on health tech. Joe Stringer, Pooja Sikka and Shamik Parekh join Octopus from TenX Health. EU Startups has more here.
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Going Public
AUTO1, the eight-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based online car trading platform, has revealed plans to sell 31.25 million shares at between €32 and €38 each on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The offering positions the SoftBank-backed company to raise at least 1.5 billion euros ($1.83 billion), notes Reuters. More here.
Decibel Therapeutics, a nearly six-year-old, Boston-based biotech that's been developing medicines to treat hearing loss and balance disorders, has filed for a $75 million IPO. The company had raised $215 million from investors, including Third Rock Ventures, which incubated the company. (You can see the rest of its major investors here.) We wrote about the company a few years ago.
Flywire, a nearly 10-year-old, Boston-based vertical payments company, has hired Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan for an IPO that could value the company at around $3 billion, says Reuters. Flywire was valued at $1 billion in a fundraising round a year ago and has raised around $260 million altogether from private investors, including Goldman, Spark Capital, and F-Prime Capital. More here.
Kuaishou Technology, an enormously popular Chinese short-video app maker that first registered plans to go public in Hong Kong in November, is looking to raise as much as $5.4 billion in the offering, reports Bloomberg. It would be the world's biggest internet IPO since Uber, observes the outlet. More here.
Latch, a nearly seven-year-old maker of smart locks and building-management software, plans to go public by merging with a special-purpose acquisition company sponsored by real-estate giant Tishman Speyer Properties. The deal, which values Latch at $1.56 billion, is expected to close in the second quarter. Latch had raised $157 million from its private investors, shows Crunchbase. The WSJ has more here.
ON24, a 23-year-old, San Francisco-based webinar marketing platform that raised $25 million from Goldman Sachs in 2019, is aiming for a valuation of about $2.22 billion in its IPO. The company, which allows people to create webinars and host virtual events on its platform, said today it will sell about 8.6 million shares priced between $45 and $50 apiece, looking to raise up to $430 million at the upper end of the range. Reuters has more here.
Qualtrics increased its IPO range to $27 to $29 per share earlier today, positioning the company to be the largest IPO to come from Utah. At the new price range, notes Crunchbase, the company could be valued at up to $15 billion and raise about $1.5 billion through its IPO. More here.
The founders behind Science, the L.A.-based venture firm that played an early role in getting Dollar Shave Club off the ground, just announced the pricing of a $270 million SPAC whose units will be listed on Nasdaq starting tomorrow. Little surprise the blank-check company intends to focus its search for a target business operating in the " direct-to-consumer brands, direct-to-consumer-services and mobile and social entertainment sectors." More here.
"Former Facebook employee and current enfant terrible of high finance, Chamath Palihapitiya, is making news again with a $1.3 billion twofer SPAC and PIPE deal into the solar energy financing company, Sunlight Financial." In TechCrunch.
Taboola, a 13-year-old, online ad tech company, is going public via a SPAC, it disclosed today, one month after Haaretz reported a deal was in the works. It's joining forces with ION Acquisition Corp., a blank-check company that went public last year with the aim of funding an Israeli tech acquisition. The deal values Taboola at $2.6 billion. Last fall, an attempt to consolidate Taboola with competitor Outbrain in a merger that would have valued the combined company at over $2 billion fell apart. Taboola had raised $160 million from its private investors, shows Crunchbase. TechCrunch has the latest details here.
Talis Biomedical, a nearly 11-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based company that's developing diagnostic tests for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, filed on Friday with the SEC to raise up to $150 million in an initial public offering. Baker Brothers advisors owns nearly 80% of the company sailing into the offering. Renaissance Capital has a bit more here.
Trustly, a 12.5-year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based payments company, is planning to take advantage of a surge in digital transactions in the COVID-19 pandemic with an IPO in the second quarter that could value it at up to 9 billion euros ($11 billion), according to Reuters. According to Crunchbase, the company has raised just €23 million from investors. More here.
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People
Leon Black plans to step down as chief executive of Apollo Global Management after an independent review revealed larger-than-expected payments to convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The review by Dechert LLP found no evidence that Black was involved in the criminal activities of the late Epstein, but it did find that Black paid Epstein an awful lot for advice on trust- and estate-tax planning: $148 million, plus a $10 million donation to his charity. The WSJ has more here.
SoftBank Vision Fund managing partner Colin Fan is leaving the outfit, according to Bloomberg. The departure comes fast on the heels of that of Jeff Housenbold, another managing director at SoftBank who recently left. Fan, who was previously head of global markets and co-head of corporate banking and securities at Deutsche Bank, will become an adviser to SoftBank Group Corp.’s investment arm, according to the outlet. It reports that Munish Varma, a managing partner based in London, is moving to San Francisco, as a result.
Dealmaker Vivek Ramaswamy, the founder and longtime CEO of Roivant, a biotech holding company that he built and from which he has since spun out and sold five subsidiaries, is becoming chairman of the company and promoting Roivant's CFO Matt Gline to the role of CEO. EndPoints News has more here.
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Jobs
AlleyCorp, the New York-based early-stage venture firm and incubator that was founded by renowned serial entrepreneur Kevin Ryan, is looking to bring aboard an associate. Learn more and apply here.
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Essential Reads
"Is there a statute of limitations in associating with a country accused of human rights abuses?" asks Dealbook of execs' return to Davos in the Desert.
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Detours
“You want to know who your kid is?” Tyler Blevins asks. “Listen to him when he’s playing video games.”
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