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Top News
As the White House considers raising taxes on corporations for the first time in more than 25 years, the head of one of America's largest companies is backing such a plan. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement today that the company is "supportive of a rise in the corporate tax rate." CNN has more here.
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Massive Fundings
OneStream, an 11-year-old, Rochester, Mi.-based startup that provides a toolkit of services to enterprises to help them run financial operations, has raised $200 million in new funding at a post-money valuation of $6 billion led by D1 Capital Partners, with participation from Tiger Global and Investment Group of Santa Barbara (IGSB). OneStream raised an undisclosed amount of money from KKR in 2019 at a billion-dollar valuation. TechCrunch has more here.
Patreon, an online platform that connects musicians and other creators with fans, has raised $155 million in fresh funding at a $4 billion post-money valuation as venture capitalists bet on startups that serve content creators. Tiger Global Management led the round, joined by Woodline Partners and several earlier investors, including Wellington Management, Lone Pine Capital and New Enterprise Associates. Patreon had raised $90 million in funding in September at a valuation of $1.2 billion, so this new valuation is a massive jump. The WSJ has more here.
Pharmeasy, a six-year-old, Mumbai, India-based online pharmacy, is raising $350 million in funding co-led by Prosus Ventures and TPG Growth, in a deal that reportedly assigns the company a post-money valuation of $1.5 billion. The Economic Times has much more here.
Sendbird, an eight-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based messaging-as-a-service API that provides chat, voice, and video messaging to a long list of customers, including Reddit, Hinge, Paytm, and Delivery Hero, has raised $100 million in new funding. Steadfast Financial and SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 co-led the round, joined by ICONIQ Capital, Tiger Global Management and Meritech Capital. It comes about two years after Sendbird raised $102 million in Series B funding at a $550 million valuation; the startup appears to have nearly doubled its valuation since then. TechCrunch has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Empathy, a 10-month-old, Israel-based app that aims to help families through all the financial, legal, and logistical challenges after losing a loved one, has raised $13 million in funding co-led by General Catalyst and Aleph. TechCrunch has more here.
Fyllo, a two-year-old, Chicago-based cannabis startup with a suite of cloud-based software designed to help cannabis companies with things like marketing, analytics and regulatory compliance, has raised $30 million in Series B funding co-led by JW Asset Management and Sol Global. The company has now raised $60 million altogether. Built In Chicago has more here.
Inbox Health, a 6.5-year-old, New Haven, Ct.-based medical billing platform that also handles follow-up communication and other support for billing companies, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Commerce Ventures. Other investors in the round include Vertical Venture Partners, Healthy Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Fairview Capital, CT Innovations, I2BF Global Ventures, as numerous individual investors, including WePay cofounder Bill Clerico. MedCity News has more here.
Prosimo, a two-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based startup that says it gives cloud architects and operations teams a single, vertically integrated infrastructure stack to secure and deliver multi-cloud applications, has raised $25 million in Series A funding co-led by General Catalyst and WRVI Capital. CRN has more here.
Rapid Robotics, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based today announced a $12 million Series A. The new round, led by New Enterprise Associates, brings the company’s total funding up to $17.5 million. Earlier investors Greycroft, Bee Partners and 468 Capital also participated in the round. TechCrunch has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Aporia, a 20-month-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based company today announced that it has raised a $5 million seed round for its monitoring platform for ML models. The investors are Vertex Ventures and TLV Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
Casted, a two-year-old, Indianapolis, In.-based auto and video podcast product aimed at business-to-business marketers, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Revolution Ventures. Earlier backers High Alpha Capital, Elevate Ventures and Tappan Hill Ventures also participated in the round; the company has now raised $9.3 million in funding altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Mem, a 20-month-old, Bay Area-based note-taking app, has raised $5.6 million in funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with additional participation from the firm's Cultural Leadership Fund, Will Smith’s dreamers.vc, Floodgate, Unusual Ventures, and numerous individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Real, a two-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based startup that employs full-time therapists to lead group therapy sessions, inviting users to pay $28 per month to access these so-called pathways, has raised $10 million in Series A financing, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from other new and earlier investors, including Megan Rapinoe and Minnesota Vikings linebacker Eric Kendricks. TechCrunch has more here.
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New Funds
Canada's largest pension fund, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) announced today that it is creating what it's calling its Sustainable Energy Group (SEG), a new unit focusing entirely on renewables, conventional energy and new technology and service solutions. More on the news here.
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Going Public
Michael Eisner’s Tornante Company, which acquired the sports trading card company Topps back in 2007 for $385 million, is now set to take it public by merging it with the blank check company Mudrick Capital Acquisition Corp. in a deal that will value the combined company at $1.3 billion. (Interesting related detail: Eisner has said Topps currently derives a quarter of its revenue from digital sources). Deadline has much more here.
Sarcos Robotics, a 38-year-old, Utah-based company that has raised roughly $100 million from investors to build its robotic exoskeletons, announced plans today to merge with a blank-check company called Rotor Acquisition Corp. in a deal that could potentially value the combined company at $1.3 billion, including debt. More here and here.
Indian online insurance platform Policybazaar is planning to file a draft prospectus as soon as next month for its Mumbai IPO that could raise about $500 million, according to Bloomberg. The company is backed by SoftBank, Tiger Global, and Temasek, among others. More here.
In preparation for its debut on the Nasdaq next week, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said today that first-quarter revenue climbed about nine-fold from last year, driven by a historic rally in the price of bitcoin, which is up 700% in the last year. CNBC has more here.
The Financial Times is reporting that Goldman Sachs bought £75 million of Deliveroo shares to prop up its IPO price. More here.
Flipkart, the Indian e-commerce giant controlled by Walmart, is aiming for an IPO in the fourth quarter, says Bloomberg, whose sources add that it is leaning toward a traditional IPO in the U.S. and that its valuation could top $35 billion as it goes public. More here.
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People
There were several investment team promotions at Norwest Venture Partners this week, including Kathryn Weinmann to vice president, Chris Sondej to vice president, Yoni Braun to vice president, Connor Pike to vice president and Hannah Kim to senior associate. More here.
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Essential Reads
The European Union may investigate Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of customer service platform Kustomer after concerns were referred to it under EU merger rules. TechCrunch has more here.
Wired confirms our earlier hunch -- that the encrypted messaging app Signal is beginning to use a cryptocurrency called MobileCoin as a way to test out and likely develop a new peer-to-peer payments system. The service is only available for now to users in the U.K. In the meantime, fans of Signal are disappointed in the move for a wide number of reasons.
Clubhouse, the nearly year-old, San Francisco-based audio-based social network, is in talks to raise funding from investors in a round valuing the business at about $4 billion, according to Bloomberg. A deal at that price would quadruple its value from January, despite that the company doesn't yet generate revenue and has seen a slow-down in sign-ups. More here.
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