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Atomic Just Raised $260 Million More to Build and Fund Its Own Startups
Jack Abraham has a lot of confidence in what he’s building. Then again, you can’t be immodest or unsure of yourself if you’re going to bet exclusively on your own startups as an investor, which is precisely the model that Abraham’s San Francisco-based venture studio, Atomic, has followed since it was launched nine years ago.
It all started with $10 million of largely Abraham’s own money, capital he amassed by selling his first startup, a local shopping engine called Milo, to eBay in 2010, for $75 million. Abraham had dropped out of Wharton as an undergrad with $500,000 from a professor who believed that Abraham — whose father founded ComScore — would himself be a company-building machine.
The professor had good instincts. After selling Milo at age 24, Abraham spent more than three years building products inside of eBay and learning how to lead multiple teams before beginning to look outward, making angel bets, including on Uber and Pinterest, and, he says, spreading around some of his ideas. (Among these, he says, he “invented Postmates. I gave the founders literally the idea for the company; they were working on a B2B company at the time. I was fairly early on there; that helped spawn the whole food delivery thing.”)
He had so many ideas — hundreds, he says — that not long afterward, he created Atomic, later bringing on to the founding team Andrew Dudum, a Wharton peer who is also the son of entrepreneurs and who also dropped out of college to join the startup world. (Dudum’s first stop was a then-nascent startup backed by Sequoia Capital.)
At first, Atomic worked on one company. The following year, it worked on two. By 2018, the outfit had built out a team that could handle many of the back-end functions that startups need to thrive, from recruiting to accounting, and launched 10 companies. Impressed investors gave the firm $150 million to create even more startups.
By then, Abraham and Dudum had brought in two other general partners: Chester Ng and Andrew Salamon. Salamon didn't stay long, eventually launching his own venture studio, Material, with Blue Apron founder Matt Salzberg in 2019. The same year, JD Ross, one of a handful of cofounders of the newly public company Opendoor, joined Atomic as a general partner.
The firm has only picked up speed since. Indeed, at this point, Atomic has created “dozens” of startups — including roughly one per month last year, says Abraham. It also just closed on $260 million in new capital commitments, including from a prominent university that now serves as its anchor investor but would prefer not to be named publicly.
Citing “proprietary aspects” to the model, Abraham declines to explain how Atomic’s economics work, except to acknowledge that it operates in “more of a fund context instead of a holding company” where investors would essentially be buying stakes in Atomic itself.
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Massive Fundings
Beam Dental, a nine-year-old, Columbus, Oh.-based dental benefits provider that says it rewards good hygiene with cheaper rates, has raised $80 million in Series E funding led by Mercato Partners, with participation from earlier backers Drive Capital, Georgian, Nationwide Insurance and Breakout Capital. VentureBeat has more here.
Flink, a months-old, Berlin, Germany-based on-demand grocery delivery business, has raised $52 million in seed(!!) funding led by Target Global and earlier investors Northzone, Cherry Ventures and TriplePoint Capital. Cristina Stenbeck of Kinnevik also joined the round in a personal capacity. TechCrunch has more here.
Fluid Truck, a four-year-old, Denver, Co.-based truck rental platform enabling individuals, along with small and mid-sized businesses, to rent commercial vehicles quickly via any mobile device, has raised $63 million in Series A funding. The private equity firm Bison Capital led the round, joined by Ingka Investments (part of Ingka Group, the main Ikea retailer), Sumitomo Corporation of Americas and Fluid Vehicle Owners. TechCrunch has more here.
Instacart, the nine-year-old, San Francisco-based grocery delivery company, has raised $265 million in new funding at a post-money valuation of $39 billion, more than doubling its valuation for the second time in a year. The round was led by earlier investors Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and D1 Capital Partners, and makes Instacart the second-largest U.S.-based unicorn after SpaceX, according to Pitchbook. CNBC has more here.
Xendit, a six-year-old, Jakarta, Indonesia-based startup focused on building digital payments infrastructure for the region, has just raised $64.6 million in Series B funding led by Accel in a round that brings the company's funding to $88 million. Y Combinator also participated in the financing; as TechCrunch notes, Xendit is the first Indonesian company to go through Y Combinator’s accelerator program. More here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Fuzzy, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based subscription-based pet health care startup, has raised $18 million in Series B funding led by Greycroft, with participation from Gaingels and earlier investors Crosscut Ventures and Matrix Partners. Crunchbase News has more here.
Maestro, a six-year-old, L.A.-based interactive live streaming platform for creators and content owners, has raised $15 million in Series B funding, including from NetEase, Sony Music Entertainment, and Acronym Venture Capital, alongside numerous individual investors, including Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin. Earlier backers also joined the round, including SeventySix Capital. The company has now raised $22 million altogether. More here.
WeGift, a six-year-old, London-based digital incentives platform, has raised $12 million in funding led by earlier backer AlbionVC, along with CommerzVentures and other previous backers Stride.VC, SAP.iO Fund, and Unilever Ventures. More here.
Zipline, a nearly seven-year-old, San Francisco-based company that helps retailers streamline headquarters-to-store communications and task management, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Fifth Wall, with participation from Emergence Capital, Ridge Ventures, Hillsven Capital, Veeva co-founder Matt Wallach and the Fisher Family Fund. The company has now raised $39 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Around, a three-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based video collaboration startup, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Wing VC, with participation from Forerunner Ventures, Slack Fund, Initialized Capital, Credo and Floodgate. Forbes has more here.
BurnAlong, a five-year-old, Baltimore, Md.-based startup that provides personalized corporate wellness classes online, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Triventures, with participation from earlier backers, including CR2 Ventures, TriSib, DM Wellness and Macks Managed Investments. Technical.ly Baltimore has more here.
Cipher Skin, a nearly seven-year-old, Denver, Co.-based developer of mesh sensors that detect motion in real time and can track movement, has raised $5 million in Series A funding. Boyett Group led the round, joined by Draper Capital, Tribe Capital and TKC Capital. VentureBeat has more here.
Humaans, a year-old, London-based HR platform, has raised $5 million in seed funding from Y Combinator, Moonfire, Frontline Ventures and investor Lachy Groom. TechCrunch has more here.
Outplay, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based sales engagement platform for small and medium-size companies, has raised $2 million in funding from Sequoia Capital India’s Surge program. TechCrunch has more here.
Parabol, a five-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y-based startup that makes structured meeting software for agile development teams, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by M12, with participation from earlier backers CRV, Haystack, and Techstars. TechCrunch has more here.
Not-Saying-How-Much Fundings
The robotics unit of Postmates, the San Francisco-based delivery startup that ride-hailing firm Uber acquired last year, has spun off into a new company called Serve Robotics. Serve is raising a Series A round that's being led by the venture capital firm Neo, with participation from Uber, Long Journey Ventures, Postmates’ co-founders Bastian Lehmann and Sean Plaice, and other investors. It has yet to disclose how much it has raised or how big a round it's targeting. TechCrunch has more here.
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Exits
PayPal is said to be in the process of buying Curv, a three-year-old, New York-based tech firm that powers the secure storage of cryptocurrency, according to Coindesk. The Israeli news outlet Calcalist reported earlier today that Curv was being sold for between $200 million and $300 million, without naming the buyer. More here.
TeamViewer , a 15-year-old, Germany-based maker of remote connectivity software, has acquired Upskill, a 10-year-old, Vienna, Va.-based maker of AR applications for frontline workers. Upskill had raised around $65 million from investors over the years, including from NEA, Autonomy Ventures, GE Ventures, Accenture Ventures, Boeing and Cisco. Reuters has more here.
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Going Public
Ten-year-old mobile game developer AppLovin is poised to become the latest online game provider to hit the public markets, "joining a crop of companies to capitalize on a surge in usage during the pandemic," notes CNBC. In its IPO prospectus today, AppLovin said revenue in 2020 jumped 46% to $1.45 billion. The company's biggest outside shareholder is KKR, which acquired a minority stake in the business in 2018. Co-founder and CEO Adam Foroughi is the second-biggest shareholder after KKR. More here.
Real estate tech startup Doma, formerly known as States Title, announced today that it plans to go public through a merger with the blank-check company Capitol Investment Corp. V in a deal valued at $3 billion, including debt. It appears to have arranged a cash cushion to ease the transition. Just last month, Doma, which is just two years old and based in San Francisco, announced it closed on $150 million in debt financing from HSCM Bermuda, which had previously invested in the company. It separately closed on $123 million in Series C funding at a post-money valuation of of $623 million less than a year ago, notes TechCrunch.
Revolution Healthcare Acquisition, a blank-check company formed by General Catalyst and Arch Venture Partners, has filed for a $500 million IPO. Renaissance Capital has more here.
SemRush, a 12-year-old, Boston-based online visibility management SaaS platform that invites businesses to run search engine optimization, pay-per-click, content, social media and competitive research campaigns with the promise of getting measurable results from their online marketing, registered plans today to go public. According to Crunchbase, the company has raised at least $40 million over the years, including from Siguler Guff & Company, e.ventures and Greycroft, though only Greycroft is listed on the S-1 (it owns 9.4% of the company). More here.
Vizio, the nearly 20-year-old, Irvine, Ca.-based smart TV maker backed by affiliates of Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group, has filed again to go public today, listing the size of the offering as $100 million, a placeholder amount. Vizio first filed to go public in 2015, but withdrew that plan the following year after reaching an agreement to sell the company for $2 billion. Vizio terminated that deal with an affiliate of China-based Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp. in 2017.
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People
Jack Ma, the embattled co-founder of Alibaba Group, has lost his title as China’s richest person and fallen to fourth place, according to the Shanghai-based research firm Hurun Report. In its annual ranking, it places water tycoon Zhong Shanshan at the top, followed by Tencent's Pony Ma and Pinduoduo founder Colin Huang. The WSJ has more here.
The power struggle that led to conservative social media site Parler abruptly firing its founder and CEO John Matze last month became so acrimonious that when Matze was sacked, he was also involuntarily stripped of his entire stake in the company, according to NPR. More here.
Gina Raimondo, a former governor of Rhode Island and a former venture capitalist, was confirmed today as the next U.S secretary of commerce. The New York Times has more here.
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Data
According to eMarketer, Spotify is on track to reach U.S. monthly podcast listenership of 28.2 million by the end of this year and, in the process, surpass Apple's Podcasts for the first time. TechCrunch has more here.
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Essential Reads
Twitter announced today it’s opening up its live audio chat rooms, known as Twitter Spaces, to users on Android. Put another way, Twitter has beat its rival Clubhouse — the app currently leading the so-called social audio market — to offer support for Android. Right now, Clubhouse remains iOS-only, in addition to being invite-only. TechCrunch has more here.
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