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Top News
Lyft today said it has sold its self-driving car development arm to a subsidiary of Toyota in return for $200 million now, plus another $350 million in cash that will be paid out over a five-year period. The news comes on the heels of a recent decision by Uber to park its self-driving car unit elsewhere and is expected to help Lyft turn a profit sooner than previously expected. TechCrunch has more here.
Tesla reported first-quarter results after the bell this afternoon. The company beat expectations handily, buoyed by sales of bitcoin and regulatory credits, but the stock dipped as much as 3% after hours as investors digested the numbers. CNBC takes a look here.
Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos, this morning filed a 50-page protest with the federal Government Accountability Office, challenging a $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX from NASA to build a lander for American astronauts to return to the moon. The New York Times has more here.
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Cloudflare Rallies the Troops to Fight Off Another Patent Troll
Nearly four years ago, we wrote about a battle between Cloudflare, the San Francisco-based internet security and performance company, and Blackbird Technologies, a firm that quickly amassed dozens of patents, then began using them to file dozens of patent infringement lawsuits against companies, including Cloudflare.
The suit was typical in every way, except how Cloudflare responded to it. Unlike many targets of similar lawsuits that opt to settle, Cloudflare fought back, asking very publicly for help in locating prior art that would not only invalidate the broad patent that Blackbird was using to sue Cloudflare, but to invalidate all of Blackbird’s patents. The public answered the call, and two years and 275 unique submissions later, the case against Cloudflare was dismissed and Blackbird’s operations were diminished.
One might surmise that given the stink that Cloudflare raised, other patent trolls might choose an easier target. Yet last month, Cloudflare was sued yet again, this time by Sable Networks, a "company that doesn’t appear to have operated a real business in nearly 10 years — relying on patents that don’t come close to the nature of our business or the services we provide," says Doug Kramer, general counsel of Cloudflare.
Unsurprisingly, Cloudflare isn't going to take this newest action lying down. This morning, after revealing the lawsuit publicly, it invited the engineering community to again "turn the tables" on patent trolls by inviting them to participate in a crowdsourced effort to find evidence of prior art to invalidate the "ancient, 20-year-old patents" that Cloudlflare says that Sable is "trying to stretch … light-years beyond what they were meant to cover."
Cloudflare is also offering a $100,000 bounty to be split among entrants who provide the most useful prior-art references that can be used in challenging the validity of all of Sable’s patents, not just those being asserted against Cloudflare. The idea is to deal a big enough blow to Sable that not only is its case against Cloudflare hobbled but also future cases against other entities.
"We feel fortunate that we didn't run into one of these cases earlier in our history, where it might have really taken us off our path," Kramer tells us. "Blackbird came along when we had a bit more stability," he notes. With Cloudflare even stronger today, the company is even better positioned to "force [Sable] to define their claims and stand on their claims in a way that leaves something behind for other folks, particularly smaller companies that may come behind us. We want to put [Sable's] entire patent portfolio under scrutiny."
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Massive Fundings
Brex, the four-year-old, San Francisco-based startup looking to disrupt the corporate card market, has raised $425 million in a funding round led by Tiger Global Management, which was joined by TCV and Ribbit Capital. The deal assigns the company a post-money valuation of $7.4 billion. Brex last year raised $150 million at a $3 billion valuation and one week later, cut staff, citing the impact of the pandemic on its bottom line. More here.
Mighty Networks, a 10-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based community platform for creators and brands that was founded by serial entrepreneur Gina Bianchini, has raised $50 million in Series B funding. Owl Ventures led the round, joined by Ziff Capital Partners, LionTree Partners and earlier backers, including Intel Capital, BBG Ventures, Lucas Venture Group and Reid Hoffman. More here.
Spire Global, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based company that sells space-based data and analytics, will raise $70 million in growth financing from Francisco Partners. More here.
UpGrad, a six-year-old, Mumbai, India-based higher-ed and 'up-skilling' platform, has raised $120 million from Temasek in what represents the company's first ever outside investment. Bloomberg has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Current Health, a six-year-old, Boston-based FDA-cleared patient management platform that employs wearables and vital signs monitoring to track a person's health trends, has raised $43 million in Series B funding. Northpond Ventures led the round, joined by LRVHealth, OSF HealthCare, Section 32 and Elements Health Ventures. FierceBiotech has more here.
Glytec, a 15-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based insulin management software company, has raised $21 million in equity and debt financing. Savitr Capital led the equity piece, and Silicon Valley Bank provided the debt financing. The company has now raised $65 million altogether since its founding. Crunchbase News has more here.
LEAD School, a nine-year-old, India-based company helping to digitize the curriculum of private schools to better serve students from middle and low-income groups of families, has raised $30 million in Series D funding co-led by GSV Ventures and WestBridge. TechCrunch has more here.
Securrency, a six-year-old, Washington D.C.-based company that develops digital infrastructure for banks and other financial service providers, has raised $30 million in Series B funding, including from WisdomTree Investments, Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners, State Street, and U.S. Bank. Reuters has more here.
StashAway, a five-year-old, Singapore-based robo-adviser app, has raised $25 million in Series D funding led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from earlier backers Eight Roads Ventures and Square Peg. TechCrunch has more here.
Unsupervised, a four-year-old, Boulder, Co.-based customer data analytics startup, has raised $35 million in Series B funding co-led by Cathay Innovation and Signalfire. Earlier backers Coatue, Eniac Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners and investor Elad Gil also joined the round. VentureBeat has more here.
Vivrelle, a three-year-old, New York-based membership club that provides users access to a shared closet of designer handbags and jewelry for a monthly membership fee, has raised $26 million in Series A led by Origin Ventures. More here.
Willow, a seven-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based wearable breast pump company, has raised $26.8 million in extended Series C funding, capital that brings the round total to $81.8 million. Endeavour Vision led the round, joined by NEA, Pura Vida Investments, Purple Arch Ventures, Logos Capital, and Gaingels. More here.
Smaller Fundings
Cuckoo Internet, a 20-month-old, London-based broadband provider, raised $6 million. RTP Global led the round, joined by JamJar Investments. Sifted has more here.
RAKwireless Technology, a seven-year-old, Shenzhen, China-based maker of connectivity software for IoT devices, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. Hong Kong NWS Holding led the round, joined by Shunwei. More here.
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Going Public
The IPO plans of TikTok parent ByteDance have been put on hold as it seeks to comply with regulatory demands from both China and the U.S., the South China Morning Post reported, citing unidentified sources. The company faces difficulties in finding a business structure that can please both Beijing and Washington, the SCMP report said. More here.
Cybersecurity company Darktrace, the eight-year-old, Cambridge, England-based cybersecurity company, is targeting a valuation of as much as 1.9 billion pounds ($2.6 billion) in a London IPO next week. It could boost confidence in the city's ability to attract technology listings post-Brexit and after Deliveroo Holdings "recent flop," observes Bloomberg. More here.
The Honest Company, the consumer goods company co-founded by Jessica Alba, could raise as much as $439 million if its IPO prices at the high end. The L.A.-based outfit set terms for its IPO earlier today, revealing plans to raise roughly 25.8 million shares at $14 to $17 each, per its prospectus said. It plans to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker HNST. Barron's has more here.
Impel NeuroPharma, a 13-year-old, Seattle-based biotech that's developing drugs for central nervous system diseases, has raised $80 million in an offering of 5.3 million shares priced at $15 apiece. The company had raised $140 million in private funding, including from 5AM Ventures, KKR, and Norwest. GeekWire has more here.
Chinese bike-sharing startup Hello has "become the first major company in its class to launch an IPO, betting investors will buy into its growth story even as it continues reporting large but progressively shrinking losses," as notes Caixin. The five-year-old outfit, formerly known as Hellobike and backed by fintech giant Ant Group, on Friday submitted its prospectus to the SEC for proposed Nasdaq IPO with the apparent placeholder amount of of $100 million. More here.
Mapbox, an 11-year-old, San Francisco-based mapping platform built for designers and developers (who've used it to create maps for apps and sites like Foursquare, Snap, and Lonely Planet), is reportedly in talks to merge with a SoftBank Group-backed SPAC in a deal that could value the company at $2 billion. Mapbox was valued at more than $1 billion and was on track for revenue of more than $100 million this year, Bloomberg News reported in March. More here.
TScan Therapeutics, a three-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based preclinical biotech company that's developing cancer therapies, filed to raise $100 million. Renaissance Capital has more here.
Zeta Global Holdings, a 14-year-old marketing software firm co-founded by former Apple CEO John Sculley, has filed paperwork for a U.S.IPO, according to a regulatory filing by the company today. It didn't the number of shares it plans to offer or its target price range. Reuters has more here.
ZipRecruiter, an 11-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based job search app and service, has filed for a direct listing on the heels of four other companies choosing the same path to becoming publicly traded over the last year, including, most recently, Coinbase. Bloomberg has more here.
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Exits
Private equity firm Thoma Bravo is acquiring Proofpoint, a publicly traded company that sells cloud-based cybersecurity and regulatory compliance software, for $12.3 billion in cash. It's reportedly the largest cloud company buyout to date by a PE firm. TechCrunch has more here.
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People
GV just added to new members to its life sciences team: executive venture partner Dan Lynch and entrepreneur-in-residence Mojca Skoberne. Endpoints News has more here.
Ajit Pai, the controversial former FCC chairman, has joined the private equity firm Searchlight Capital Partners as a partner. Axios has more here.
The run-up in GameStop's share price has enabled four executives -- including CEO George Sherman, who joined in 2019 and steps down at July's end -- to depart with vested stock now valued at roughly $290 million. The WSJ has more here.
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Essential Reads
In case you missed the memo: SPAC sponsors can make millions, even when the company they take public struggles.
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Detours
People named Josh battle it out. (Ugh, this could have been a dance-off!)
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Retail Therapy
An iPhone 12 case by Hermes.
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