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Top News
Um, this is getting scary: A cyberattack on JBS SA, the largest meat producer globally, forced the shutdown of all its U.S. beef plants over the weekend, wiping out output from facilities that supply almost a quarter of American supplies. There have now been more than 40 publicly reported ransomware attacks against food companies since May 2020, Allan Liska, senior security architect at cybersecurity analytics firm Recorded Future, tells Bloomberg. The company has said it notified the White House of the ransomware attack on Sunday and followed up with the administration yesterday to say that the ransom demand came from a criminal group, likely tied to Russia. It also said late today that its systems are coming back online.
Amazon, now the second-largest private employer in the United States, is also a leader in another category: how often its warehouse workers are injured. Amazon’s serious injury rates are nearly double that of non-Amazon warehouses, reports the Washington Post (owned by Jeff Bezos).
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Massive Fundings
Bought By Many, a nine-year-old, London-based pet insurance company, has raised $350 million in a Series D round led by EQT Growth at a post-money valuation of $2 billion. The company had previously raised $123 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. Tech.eu has more here.
Chipper Cash, a three-year-old, San Francisco cross-border fintech startup that offers payments services in seven African countries, has raised $100 million in Series C funding led by SVB Capital, with participation from earlier backers Deciens Capital, Ribbit Capital, Bezos Expeditions, One Way Ventures, 500 Startups, Tribe Capital and Brue2 Ventures. The company has now raised $152 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Kushki, a four-year-old, Quito, Ecuador-based company that's building the tech infrastructure that fintech companies like Nubank use to transfer money, has raised $86 million in Series B funding at a post-money valuation of $600 million valuation. The new funding came from SoftBank, an undisclosed global growth equity firm, and previous investors DILA Capital, Kaszek Ventures, Clocktower Ventures and Magma Partners. The company has now raised $100 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Malt, an 8.5-year-old, Paris-based marketplace that helps developers, data scientists, designers, project managers and others find contract work in related fields, has raised €80 million ($97 million) in funding co-led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity and Eurazeo at a post-money valuation of €400 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Project44, a seven-year-old Chicago-based visibility platform for shippers and logistics service providers, has raised $202 million in Series E funding co-led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Emergence Capital, with participation from Girteka and Lineage Logistics. The round values the company at $1.2 billion and brings the company's total funding to $442.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Sennder, a six-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based digital freight forwarder that focuses on moving cargo around Europe, has raised $80 million in extended Series D funding at a post-money valuation of more than $1 billion. Baillie Gifford led the latest tranche of the round, which originally closed with $160 million in January. The company has now raised roughly $350 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Urban Company, a seven-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based home services marketplace, has raised $255 million in new funding at a post-money valuation of $2.1 billion, joining more than a dozen other startups in India that have earned the unicorn status this year, notes TechCrunch. The Series F round was co-led by by Prosus Ventures, Dragoneer and Wellington Management, with participation from Vy Capital, Tiger Global Management and Steadview. The company has now raised $470 million to date. More here.
Wefox, a six-year-old, Berlin, Germany-based digital insurer focused on personal insurance products, has raised $650 million in Series C funding led by Target Global, with participation from earlier backers OMERS Ventures, G Squared, Mountain Partners, Merian, Horizons Ventures, Eurazeo, and Mubadala Capital, among many others. The round values the company at $3 billion. We don't know how much this company has raised altogether (reports didn't say), though it did raise $125 million in Series C funding in 2019. TechCrunch has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Ajax Therapeutics, a two-year-old, New York-based biotechnology company that's developing novel small molecules for hematologic malignancies, has raised $40 million in funding led by EcoR1 Capital, with participation from Boxer Capital; earlier backers Inning One Ventures and Schrödinger; and research collaboration partners Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and NYU Langone Health. More here.
Belvo, a two-year-old, Latin American startup that has built an open finance API platform, just raised $43 million in Series A funding from a mix of Silicon Valley and Latin American-based venture firms and angel investors, including Future Positive, Kibo Ventures, FJ Labs, Kaszek, MAYA Capital, Venture Friends, Rappi co-founder and president Sebastián Mejía, Transferwise CTO Harsh Sinha, and Nubank CEO and founder David Vélez. TechCrunch has more here.
Cognigy, a five-year-old, Dusseldorf, Germany-based startup behind a low-code platform that enables customers to create text and voice virtual agents, has raised $44 million in Series B funding led by Insight Partners, with participation from DN Capital, Global Brain, Nordic Makers, and Inventures, among others. TechCrunch has more here.
Redacted, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based that proactively goes after hackers to recover data loss and disrupt their activities, has raised $35 million in Series B funding led by Ten Eleven Ventures, with participation from Valor Equity Partners and SVB Capital. The company has now raised $60 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Red Six Aerospace, a three-year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based startup creating what it calls “airborne tactical augmented reality systems" in order train fighter pilots, has raised $30 million in Series A funding at a post-money valuation of $130 million, says the company. Earlier backer Snowpoint Ventures contributed $25 million to the round. L.A. Business Journal has more here.
Spiff, a four-year-old, Sandy, Ut.-based automated commissions platform for businesses, has raised $46 million in Series B funding from Lightspeed Ventures Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Stripes, and Norwest Venture Partners. The company has now raised roughly $60 million altogether. VentureBeat has more here.
Truebill, a six-year-old, Maryland-based personal finance app, has raised $45 million in Series D funding a post-money valuation of $500 million, reports Crunchbase News. Accel led the round, joined by earlier backers Bessemer Venture Partners, Cota Capital and Eldridge Industries. The company has now raised $85 million altogether. More here.
Zenyum, a three-year-old, Singapore-based startup that wants to make cosmetic dentistry more affordable, has raised raised $40 million in Series B funding led by L Catterton, with participation from Sequoia Capital India (Zenyum is an alum of its Surge accelerator program), RTP Global, Partech, TNB Aura, Seeds Capital and FEBE Ventures. The company has now raised $56 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Ditto, a 20-month-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based startup focused on helping teams collaborate on copy, has raised a $1.5 million seed round from investors including Greycroft, Y Combinator, Soma Capital, Decent Capital, Twenty Two VC, and numerous individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Kudos, a two-year-old, Boston-based startup that is looking to reinvent the disposable diaper with sustainability in mind, has raised $2.4 million in seed funding, including from Foundation Capital, XFund, PJC, Precursor Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, SV Angel, Underscore VC, Alpha Bridge Ventures, investor and founder April Underwood and more. TechCrunch has more here.
Molecule.one, a 5.5-year-old, Warsaw, Poland-based startup behind a drug synthesis AI platform, has raised $4.6 million led by Atmos Ventures, with a long list of participating investors, including AME Cloud Ventures, Cherubic Ventures, and Luminous Ventures, among others. TechCrunch has more here.
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New Funds
Flori Ventures, a new, seed-stage firm led by Chartboost co-founder Maria Ribas, is raising $20 million for its debut fund, shows an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. More here.
Infinity Ventures, a four-month-old, Palo Alto-based venture firm formed by three ex-PayPal execs, is raising $125 million for its debut fund, per an SEC filing. More here.
Recast Capital, a year-old, San Francisco-based fund-of-funds focused on emerging VC managers, is raising $100 million for its debut vehicle, shows an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. More here.
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Exits
Cloudera, once one of the hottest Hadoop startups, is being taken private by KKR and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, which today announced their intention to buy the company for $5.3 billion. Cloudera, which went public in March 2017, has a market cap of roughly $3.7 billion. TechCrunch has more here.
Construction startup Katerra has told employees it plans to shut down, the Information reported earlier today. The six-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based company had raised more than $2 billion to slash the cost of building apartments and is expected to let go its 2,400 employees and to walk away from dozens of construction projects it had agreed to build, according to the outlet, which had reported earlier on the company's near collapse. An executive reportedly told employees on a video call today that the firm doesn't have enough money to pay severance packages or unused paid time off. More here.
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Going Public
Shares of SoFi, the 10-year-old, San Francisco-based lending company, were up more than 12% today after after the company went public by merging with Social Capital Hedosophia Corp V, one of numerous blank-check companies run by investor Chamath Palihapitiya. Bloomberg has more here. Meanwhile, in Yahoo Finance, a look at why it went the SPAC route instead of a traditional IPO.)
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People
CapitalG, Alphabet’s independent growth fund, announced that Jamie Rosen, Jeremy Zhu and Nina Gerson were all promoted to vice president. More here.
Facebook executive Marne Levine, who is vice president of global partnerships, has emerged as the leading internal candidate to fill the company’s newly formed chief business officer role, according to The Information. The outlet reported in March that Facebook planned to create the role after one of its top executives, David Fischer, who leads Facebook’s ad sales teams globally as chief revenue officer, announced plans to leave the company this fall.
Bribery charges against Thomas Moyer, Apple’s global head of security, were dismissed today by the judge in the case, who cited a lack of evidence. Moyer had been accused in November of offering the Santa Clara County sheriff’s office a donation of iPads in exchange for concealed-weapons permits. The Washington Post has more here.
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Data
Austin is the top beneficiary of tech-related migration in the past 12 months, according to data from Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn profiles. Nashville and Charlotte also saw noteworthy migration rates. By contrast, the San Francisco Bay area, Boston and Chicago all saw significant outflows, the data show. Bloomberg has the story here.
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Essential Reads
Want fries with your fueling station? It may be in the offing from Tesla.
Twitter is launching a local weather news service on the platform called "Tomorrow" that will be built using all of Twitter's new creator products — from paid newsletters to ticketed live audio rooms and more.
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Retail Therapy
Kyx World. It's a "Rent-the-Runway for Jordans, Yeezys and more."
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