The Fed dangles a digital USD, the return of net neutrality, and why mathematicians hoard chalk

February 23, 2021
Top News
 
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told Congress today that the central bank is looking carefully at issuing a digital U.S. dollar. Powell called the potential digital dollar a "high priority" project, according to the testimony
 
California may soon begin enforcing its first-in-the-nation net neutrality law after a federal judge today ruled against broadband providers that had sought to scuttle the state’s open-Internet safeguards. The ruling amounts to a major victory for advocates of rules that require telecom giants to treat all web traffic equally. The Washington Post has more here.
 
Jack buys the dip.
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Massive Fundings
 
ABclonal Biotech, a 10-year-old, Woburn, Ma.-based life science research and diagnostic reagents manufacturer, has raised $93 million in Series C funding. Sequoia Capital China and LYFE Capital co-led the round, joined by Sigma Square Capital, Kinghall Ventures and Lucion Capital. More here.
 
Anuvia, a nearly 16-year-old, Winter Garden, Fla.-based developer of crop fertilizer alternatives, has raised $103 million in funding co-led by earlier investors TPG ART and Pontifax Global, with additional participation from Generate Capital and Piva Capital. Crunchbase News has more here.
 
Aviatrix, a 6.5-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based company whose platform serves as a cloud-native abstraction layer between virtual private clouds (VPCs) running in any of the major cloud provider’s networks and on premises, has raised $75 million in Series D funding at a valuation north of $700 million. General Catalyst led the round, joined by Greenspring Associates, Meritech Capital, TrueBridge and earlier investors CRV, Formation 8, Ignition and Liberty Global Ventures. SDxCentral has more here.
 
Clover Biopharma, a 14-year-old, Chengdu, China-based developer of vaccines for COVID-19 variants, has raised $230 million in Series C funding led by GL Ventures and Temasek. Other investors in the round include Oceanpine Capital, OrbiMed and earlier investor Delos Capital. Nasdaq has more here.
 
Highspot, a nine-year-old, Seattle-based company whose enterprise software aims to help make salespeople more efficient by improving how they have conversations with prospective buyers with its tech, has raised $200 million in Series E funding led by Tiger Global Management. Other investors in the round include Bain & Co. and earlier backers Iconiq, Madrona Venture Group, OpenView, Salesforce Ventures, Sapphire Ventures and Shasta Ventures. GeekWire has more here.
 
Plume, a nearly six-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company whose tech  helps improve home WiFi and internet security as everything from coffee machines to door bells go online, has raised $270 million from Insight Partners at a $1.35 billion post-money valuation. Reuters has more here.
 
Reddit, which announced a $250 million Series E earlier this month, has added over $116 million to the financing event, upping the round’s most recent total to $367 million, according to a new SEC filing flagged by TechCrunch. The document shows that Reddit is aiming to raise up to $500 million in this capital raise. A Reddit spokesperson confirmed the news, saying that the new capital is from ”new and existing investors.” More here.
 
ScienceLogic, a nearly 18-year-old, Reston, Va.-based company that sells monitoring software for hybrid cloud management, has raised $105 million in Series E funding led by Silver Lake Waterman, with participation from earlier backers Goldman Sachs, Intel Capital and NewView Capital. VentureBeat has more here.
 
TymeBank, a nine-year-old, Johannesburg, South Africa-based digital bank whose customers are typically onboarded via physical kiosks, usually in Pick n Pay and Boxer stores around the country, has raised $109 million from Apis Partners and JG Summit Holdings. It's one of the biggest rounds for a digital bank on the continent, says TechCrunch. More here.
 
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
 
Burrow, a 4.5-year-old, new York-based modular furniture startup, has raised $25 million in Series C funding. Parkway VC led the round, joined by NEARed & Blue VenturesWinklevoss Capital and Y Combinator president Michael Seibel. TechCrunch has more here.
 
Codeacademy, the 10-year-old, New York-based coding class provider, has raised $40 million in Series D funding led by Owl Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Prosus Ventures and USV. TechCrunch has more here.
 
Electric, a 4.5-year-old, New York-based company that sells IT support services for small and mid-size businesses, has raised $40 million in Series C funding led by Greenspring Associates, with participation from Atreides Management, Vintage Investment Partners and insiders Bessemer Venture Partners, GGV Capital, 01 Advisors and Primary Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
 
Heyday, a nearly six-year-old, New York-based skincare brand offering customized facial treatments both online and in stores, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Level 5 Capital Partners, with participation from Lerer Hippeau and Fifth Wall Ventures. Crunchbase News has more here.

NextCar, a six-month-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based startup for car leases and subscriptions formed by TrueCar and Fair founder Scott Painter, has raised about $30 million in seed funding from investors like Reid Hoffmann and Mark Pincus, per an internal email obtained by Axios. The round was led by a private equity firm, says the outlet. More here.
 
Platform9, a nearly eight-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based managed private and edge cloud platform, has raised $12.5 million in new Series D funding. WRVI Capital led the round, joined by earlier investors NGP Capital, Mubadala Ventures, Canvas Ventures, Menlo Ventures and Redpoint Ventures. The company has now raised $37.5 million altogether. More here.

Rows, a nearly five-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based startup startup setting out to reimagine the spreadsheet with cloud-based team collaboration in mind, has raised $16 million in Series B funding led Lakestar, with added participation from earlier backers Accel and Cherry Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.
 
Saltmine, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that has developed a web-based workplace design platform, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round. Earlier backers Jungle Ventures and Xplorer Capital led the financing, which also included participation from JLL Spark, the strategic investment arm of commercial real estate brokerage JLL. TechCrunch has more here.
 
Shippo, a nearly eight-year-old, San Francisco-based software company that provides shipping-related services to e-commerce companies, has raised $45 million investment in new funding, less than a year after raising $30 million in Series C funding. D1 Capital led both rounds, last year's round at a post-money valuation of $220 million and the new round at a post-money valuation of $495 million. TechCrunch has more here.
 
Wisetack, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that provides buy-now-pay-later services to in-person business transactions, is disclosing for the first time that raised $19 million across two rounds in 2019, a seed investment and a Series A, both of them led by Greylock (with added participation from Bain Capital Ventures). TechCrunch has more here.
 
Smaller Fundings
 
Better Origin, a six-year-old, Cambridge, U.K.-based startup that turns insects into chicken feed, has raised $3 million led by Fly Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
 
CGTrader, a 10-year-old, Vilnius, Lithuania-based maker of 3D modeling software,  has raised $9.5 million in Series B funding led by the Finnish venture fund Evli Growth Partners, alongside previous investors Karma Ventures and LVV Group. Ex-Rovio CEO Mikael Hed also invested and joins as board chairman.
 
Ellipsis Drive, a nearly three-year-old, Netherlands-based spatial data platform, has raised $2.3 million in funding led by Promus Ventures.
 
ErudiFi, a 3.5-year-old, Singapore-based education financing startup, has raised $5 million in Series A funding co-led by Monk's Hill Ventures and Qualgro. TechCrunch has more here.
 
Gophr, a six-year-old, London-based last-mile delivery courier service, has raised £4 led by the pan-European investor Nauta Capital. The company had previously raised £1 million across two rounds, including £500,000 from publicly listed Auctus Alternative Investments. TechCrunch has more here.
 
HowGood, a 13-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y-based SaaS-based sustainability intelligence platform focused on sustainable food and personal care products, has raised $6 million in funding led by Contour Venture Partners, with participation from FirstMark Capital, Danone Manifesto Ventures and Trailhead Capital. Progressive Grocer has more here.
 
Stytch, a year-old, Bay Area-based company that's building APIs that companies can use to identify and verify users through passwordless "magic links" where users click a URL to sign in to an account, one-time passcodes, and PIN for secure user authentication, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Thrive Capital. The company has now raised $25 million altogether, including from Benchmark and Index Ventures. Business Insider has more here.
 
Sunroom Rentals, a three-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based startup that leases units on behalf of property managers and apartment owners, has raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Gigafund. TechCrunch has more here
Exits
 
The 10-year-old Israeli mobile monetization firm IronSource has acquired Luna Labs, a three-year-old, U.K.-based maker of a creative management platform used to create mobile ads. Luna Labs’ technology allows app developers — from enterprises to indie developers — to create, manage and optimize their playable ad and video ads, at a fast speed and on a large scale. The purchase price wasn’t disclosed. VentureBeat has more here. According to Crunchbase, Luna Labs had raised an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding. VentureBeat has more here.
Going Public
 
On the heels of registering three SPACs on the same day roughly 10 days ago, the venture firm Khosla Ventures has registered plans to raise $200 million for a fourth SPAC. Reuters has more here.
 
Slam Corp., a blank-check company led by Alex Rodriguez, raised $500 million in its IPO and began trading publicly today. It says it is seeking a target in the sports, media, entertainment, health and consumer tech sectors and that it does not plan to buy a sports franchise. CNN Business has more here.
 
Apparent conflicts of interest are starting to pop up in SPAC deals. In the latest example, a blank-check company founded by T.J. Rodgers, the former chief executive officer of Cypress Semiconductor Corp., is merging with a 13-year-old battery technology company that counts Rodgers as a large shareholder reports Bloomberg. Rodgers Silicon Valley Acquisition Corp. said yesterday it will merge with Enovix Corp., a maker of lithium-ion batteries, in a deal that is valued at $1.1 billion including debt. Rodgers has been a director at Enovix since 2012 and was the company’s largest individual shareholder as of September. Before the SPAC deal, it had raised $239 million from investors, including $21 million from Rodgers, Bloomberg says.
People
 
Jeff Blackburn, the Amazon senior vice president who played a key behind-the-scenes role as one of Jeff Bezos’ top lieutenants for more than two decades, is leaving Amazon as of today, following a year-long sabbatical, he wrote in a message to Amazon’s senior leaders. “I’m not retiring and will have news on what’s next for me soon,” Blackburn wrote. GeekWire has more the story here.
 
Jim Patterson, the CEO of the cannabis delivery company Eaze between 2016 and 2019, has pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud in connection with an alleged scheme to deceive banks into processing more than $100 million worth of credit and debit payments for marijuana purchases, reports Marijuana Business Daily. The plea, first reported by Law360.com, comes ahead of a trial scheduled to kick off this coming Monday and which involves two businessmen who Eaze was doing business with in order to disguise purchases of its products, because Patterson “understood that if banks were aware of the nature of the transactions they would not allow them,” Law360.com reported. Marijuana Business Daily observes that such pretrial pleas "often are an indication that the individual is cooperating with prosecutors and could testify against other defendants in exchange for a lighter sentence." More here.
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Essential Reads
 
President Joe Biden is set to sign an executive order as early as this month to accelerate efforts to build supply chains for chips and other strategically significant products that are less reliant on China, in partnership with the likes of Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, reports Nikkei. "The document will order the development of a national supply chain strategy, and is expected to call for recommendations for supply networks that are less vulnerable to disruptions such as disasters and sanctions by unfriendly countries. Measures will focus on semiconductors, electric-vehicle batteries, rare-earth metals and medical products," says the outlet, per a draft it has obtained. 
 
LinkedIn is reportedly building a two-sided freelance work marketplace.
Detours
 
How to stream this year's Oscar hopefuls.

"One of the best kept secrets in the math world."
 
This Argentinian designer recently sold 10 digital-only furniture designs in less than 10 minutes for nearly half a million dollars.
 
Patatap tap.
Retail Therapy
 
Krusty collab.
 
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