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Top News
Facebook this morning asked a federal judge to dismiss antitrust lawsuits by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general, arguing that government enforcers have no valid basis for alleging the social media giant is suppressing competition. To which New York Attorney General Letitia James responded: “Facebook is wrong on the law and wrong on our complaint. We are confident in our case, which is why almost every state in this nation has joined our bipartisan lawsuit to end Facebook’s illegal conduct." The WSJ has more here.
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Massive Fundings
AgomAb Therapeutics, a five-year-old, Belgium-based biotech focused on regenerative pathway modulators, has raised $74 million in Series B funding led by Redmile Group. Other investors in the round include Cormorant Asset Management, Advent France Biotech, Andera Partners, Boehringer Ingelheim, Omnes Capital, Pontifax and V Bio Ventures. Endpoints News has more here.
Aqua Security, a nearly six-year-old, Boston- and Tel Aviv, Israel-based security startup that focuses squarely on securing cloud-native services, has raised $135 million in Series E funding at a $1 billion valuation. The round was led by ION Crossover Partners; earlier investors M12 Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Insight Partners, TLV Partners, Greenspring Associates and Acrew Capital also participated in the financing, which brings the company's total fundraising to date to $265 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Corvus, a nearly four-year-old, Boston-based startup whose commercial insurance products are "powered by AI-driven risk data," has raised $100 million in Series C funding led by Insight Partners. More here.
Snyk, a nearly six-year-old, London-based developer of cybersecurity analysis tools, has raised $300 million in primary and secondary funding at a $4.7 billion valuation. Accel and Tiger Global Management co-led the round, joined by Atlassian, Franklin Templeton and earlier backers Addition, BlackRock, Boldstart Ventures, Canaan Partners, Coatue, GV, Salesforce Ventures and Stripes. Bloomberg has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
DataGrail, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that helps customers understand where their data lives in order to help comply with a growing body of privacy regulations, has raised $30 million in Series B funding. Felicis Ventures led the round, joined by Basis Set Ventures, Operator Collective, previous investors and several strategic backers, including HubSpot, Okta and Next47, the venture firm backed by Siemens. TechCrunch has more here.
NuOrder, a 10-year-old, Los Angeles-based merchandising platform connecting fashion brands and retailers, has raised $45 million in funding at a reported post-money valuation of $800 million co-led by Brighton Park Capital and Imaginary Ventures. More here.
Pathlock, a 16-year-old, Flemington, N.J.-based app security platform company, has raised $20 million from Vertica Capital Partners. VentureBeat has more here.
Securonix, an 11-year-old, Hawthorne, Ca.-based security startup that has developed a cloud-based security information and event management platform, just raised $24 million from the venture arm of Capital One. VentureBeat has more here.
Tetrate, a three-year-old, Milpitas, Ca.-based startup that's commercializing an open-source networking project to allow for easier data sharing across different applications, has raised $40 million in fresh funding. Sapphire Ventures led the round, joined by Scale Venture Partners, NTTVC, and earlier backers Dell Technologies Capital, Intel Capital, 8VC and Samsung NEXT. TechCrunch has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Arist, a three-year-old, Boston-based text-message based learning platform, has extended its seed round to $3.9 million after adding $2 million to its prior raise. Global Founders Capital led the newest tranche. TechCrunch has more here.
Cheese, a nearly two-year-old, Pasadena, Ca.-based digital banking platform that is aimed at primarily serving the Asian-American community and will offer its banking services via a multi-language platform, says it has raised $3.6 million over the last year, including from iFly.vc; Amplify; former Wealthfront CEO Adam Nash; Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff and VC firms Wedbush Ventures, Idealab and Operate Venture Studio. TechCrunch has more here.
Heyday, a four-year-old, Montreal-based chatbot startup aiming to help retailers improve their online customer interactions, has raised $5.1 million in U.S. dollars in new seed funding from investors Innovobot and Desjardins Capital; the company had previously raised $2 million from the investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Lumu, a nearly two-year-old, Miami, Fl.-based cybersecurity startup whose cloud-based service that helps companies continually scan and react to data compromises in real time, has raised $7.5 million in Series A co-led by SoftBank Group Corp.’s SB Opportunity Fund and Panoramic Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Populus, a 3.5-year-old, San Francisco-based transportation data startup that says it has contracts with more than 80 cities that better want to understand how their streets and curbs are used, has raised $5 million in funding. Storm Ventures and contract manufacturing and supplier company Magna participated in the round, along with earlier backers Precursor Ventures, Relay Ventures and Ulu Ventures. The company has raised nearly $9 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.
Retrain.ai, a year-old, London-based startup that uses AI and machine learning to read job boards at scale and gain insight into where the job market is going, has raised $9 million in Series A led by Square Peg. The company has now raised $13 million altogether. Its founder, Shay David, previously cofounded Kaltura, a software company that sells video tech to other outfits (and that recently registered to go public). TechCrunch has more here.
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New Funds
Savannah Fund, a nine-year-old, Mauritius-based pan-African venture capital firm that started as an accelerator program in Kenya, is raising $25 million for its second and newest fund as it looks to back more early-stage startups on the continent. The outfit has already secured a first close on the fund led by International Finance Corporation, with participation from the Women’s Finance Initiative, Draper Associates and Visa Forsten, who is a co-founder of Tencent-owned Supercell. TechCrunch has more here.
SIP Global Partners, a 20-month-old, New York-based venture firm focused on helping companies accelerate their international growth (it also has offices in Boston, Tokyo, and Riyadh), says it has closed on $75 million in capital commitments for a new fund that is targeting upwards of $150 million target. The fund, which has already backed five startups, will look to back late seed to Series B-stage companies that have a product or one about to come to market. TechCrunch has more here.
Volpe Capital, founded last year in São Paulo, Brazil, has announced an $80 million first close of its fund targeting high growth technology investments in Latin America. Notably, Japanese investment conglomerate SoftBank, BTG and Banco Inter affiliates are anchor investors in the new fund, which is targeting aggregate commitments of $100 million, with a hard cap of $150 million. (Founder Andre Maciel was most recently the head of Brazil for SoftBank and a managing director with its SoftBank Latin America Fund.) Volpe also received a “large anchor investment” from its management team. TechCrunch has more here.
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Exits
Via Transportation, a nine-year-old, New York-based privately held company whose software helps cities integrate their public transportation systems by adding aspects of ride-hailing apps like those of Uber and Lyft to existing infrastructure, has acquired six-year-old, San Francisco-based mapping software maker Remix for about $100 million. The deal is the third acquisition over the past several months for Via. According to Crunchbase, Remix had raised $27 million from investors, including Sequoia Capital, Designer Fund, and Y Combinator. TechCrunch has more here.
VTS, a real estate software and data firm that's backed by Brookfield Technology Partners, is acquiring Rise Buildings, a four-year-old, Chicago-based startup that developed a mobile property management app already used in more than 130 million square feet of office space. VTS, which provides online tools for managing leases to landlords, is paying about $100 million, according to the WSJ. Rise appears to have been bootstrapped. More here.
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Going Public
BuzzFeed, the nearly 15-year-old digital media outlet, is reportedly in talks to go public through a merger with 890 5th Avenue Partners, a special purpose acquisition company, according to Bloomberg. Once public, the company may use its currency to target future acquisitions, said one of the outlet's sources. A transaction value couldn’t immediately be learned. The move would cap a tumultuous year for BuzzFeed. The SPAC 890 is led by Emiliano Calemzuk, CEO and cofounder of RAZE, a mobile-first video network in L.A. Bloomberg has the story here.
South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang and a group of existing shareholders have raised $4.6 billion in an enlarged offering, making it one of the biggest listings by an Asian company on a U.S. exchange, reports Bloomberg. The retailer’s IPO is the biggest on a U.S. exchange since Uber raised $8.1 billion in 2019 and the biggest by any Asia-based company in New York since Alibaba Group’s $25 billion listing in 2014, according to reporting by Bloomberg.
Roblox shares began trading today and closed at $69.50 apiece, giving the gaming company a market cap of $38.26 billion. Roblox, which used a direct listing, notably, was last valued in the private market at $29.5 billion in a January funding round. CNBC has more here.
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People
David Baszucki, who founded Roblox in 2004, owns shares in the company worth $4.6 billion after the company’s public market debut today. Index Ventures backed the company in 2017 and now owns a stake worth $3.7 billion, notes CNBC, which further reports that Index’s Neil Rimer has been friends with Baszucki since they were Stanford students in the 1980s -- and Baszucki was already working on the idea.
The Senate today confirmed Michael Regan, the former top environmental regulator for North Carolina, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency and drive some of the Biden administration’s biggest climate and regulatory policies. Regan will be the first Black man to serve as EPA administrator, notes the New York Times. At 44, it adds, he will also be one of President Biden’s youngest cabinet secretaries.
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Essential Reads
Russia is now slowing down Twitter for users. State agency Roskomnadzor said today it was taking the action because more than 3,000 unlawful posts have not been taken down — and warned it could implement a total block on the service.
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