Credit Suisse breaks with SoftBank, a psychedelics startup soars, and an instant cure for hiccups

June 18, 2021

Hope you have a great weekend, everyone. Happy Juneteenth! Also wishing many of you a most excellent Father's Day.:)

Top News

High hopes for Johnson & Johnson's Covid vaccine have fizzled in the U.S., owing to production problems, a brief pause and conspiracy theories embraced by millions of Americans who remain skeptical of vaccines.

U.S. stocks fell today, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average posting its worst weekly loss since October, as traders worried the Federal Reserve could start raising rates sooner than expected.

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Massive Fundings

BharatPe, a three-year-old, India-based company that has simplified accepting payments from 100-plus mobile apps on India’s UPI network, by offering businesses a single interoperable QR sticker, is reportedly in talks to raise $250 million in Series E funding led by Tiger Global Management, just four months after closing its Series D round. TechCrunch has more here.

Lenz Therapeutics, an eight-year-old, San Diego-based developer eye drops for improving near vision (the company was formerly known as Presbyopia Therapies), raised $47 million in fresh funding from Versant Ventures and RA Capital Management. FierceBiotech has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Xeneta, a nine-year-old, Oslo, Norway-based ocean and air freight rate benchmarking platform and container shipping index, has raised $28.5 million in Series C funding at a post-money valuation of just more than $130 million valuation, it says. Lugard Road Capital led the round, joined by Creandum and Investinor. The company has now raised $49 million altogether, including from Smedvig Capital, Point Nine Capital and Alliance Venture. More here.

Smaller Fundings

Crediverso, a two-year-old, L.A.-based startup that's launching a platform this summer aimed a the growing Hispanic community and which plans to offer financial products and services in English and Spanish, has raised $3.1 million in seed funding. Backers in the round include Bessemer Venture Partners, Act One Ventures, Point 72 Ventures and Clocktower Ventures. Crunchbase News has more here.

Curate, a 5.5-year-old, St. Louis, MO-based startup that sells sales and operations software small businesses, has raised $1.25 million in seed funding led by OCA Ventures, with additional funding from Square cofounder Jim McKelvey, Cultivation Capital and Stout Street Capital. Crunchbase News has more here.

Markerr, a months-old, New York-based data and insights platform for commercial real estate, has raised $5 million in Series A funding. RET Ventures led the round, joined by Continental Realty Corp. and Twin Shores Capital. Founder and CEO Brian Lichtenberger sold his last company to Vista Equity Partners in 2018. More here.

New Funds

Commerce Ventures, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based venture firm focused largely on retail tech and fintech startups, says it has closed its fourth fund with more than $150 million in capital commitments, more than twice the size of its last fund. More here.

Going Public

Shares of three-year-old Atai Life Sciences B.V., backed by billionaire investors Peter Thiel and Steve Jurvetson, surged 40% in their U.S. stock market debut today, giving the German psychedelics startup a market capitalization of $3.19 billion. Investors Business Daily has more here.

Krafton, the South Korean company behind blockbuster video game "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds", said earlier this week that it's IPO on the Korea Stock Exchange will raise up to 5.6 trillion won ($5 billion) at the top of an indicative range, which would be a record for the country. Reuters has more here.

People

Goldman Sachs has begun trading bitcoin futures with Galaxy Digital, the crypto merchant bank founded by Mike Novogratz.

The Winklevoss twins have started a band.

Data

Europe’s tech sector has already attracted more venture capital investment so far this year than it did throughout the whole of 2020, according to data shared with CNBC. Start-ups in the continent have raised a whopping 43.8 billion euros ($60.9 billion) in the first six months of 2021, figures from Dealroom show, easily surpassing the record 38.5 billion euros invested in 2020. More here.

Older messages

Lordstown's "inaccurate" statements, a massive new round for Anduril, and why you should maybe skip Hawaii this summer

Thursday, June 17, 2021

The news you need to know June 17, 2021 Happy Thursday.:) Top News Oops! According to a new regulatory filing, Lordstown Motors does *not* have binding orders from customers for its electric Endurance

Software to ID deepfakes, Satya Nadella's new gig, and the newest must-have for homeowners

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

The news you need to know June 16, 2021 Top News Amazon is appealing to social media companies to help curb the spread of fake reviews on its site. In a blog post today, the company said bad actors are

DraftKings takes a hit, the Amazon that customers don't see, and a vibrating bed by Yves Behar

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

The news you need to know July 15, 2021 Reminder, semi-vacation, no columns. More tomorrow.:) Top News The Senate confirmed big tech critic and prominent antitrust scholar Lina Khan as FTC Commissioner

LinkedIn gets another chance, Lordstown gets the Hindenburg treatment, and Bob Redford's horse ranch (one of them) is up for grabs

Monday, June 14, 2021

The news you need to know June 14, 2021 Hello! Just a quick fyi that we won't be running columns this week (we're on semi-vacation at the moment). More tomorrow.:) Top News Investors are

Beijing turns up the pressure, Facebook shops while it can, and a lost dog makes itself useful

Saturday, June 12, 2021

The news you need to know June 11, 2021 Friday! Adieu until Monday, everyone.:) Before we flip the switch, you leave you with the newest StrictlyVC Download, where you can find talk about Big Tech

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Sunday, December 10, 2023

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VC Theses #157 | Big Tech Ideas, Verticalized AI, The Global Energy Transition, & more

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Dec 3rd–10th | Insights from A16Z, Chamath, Greylock, Primary, Elad Gil, and others ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Starter Story’s Sunday Breakfast #71

Sunday, December 10, 2023

How a lousy gift became a $2M/year business ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏

Radical Candor: From theory to practice with author Kim Scott

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Listen now (87 mins) | Brought to you by Jira Product Discovery—Atlassian's new prioritization and roadmapping tool built for product teams — Kim Scott is the author of Radical Candor, currently

Don’t be the dog

Sunday, December 10, 2023

24 hours left to make 2024 hours count Hi Have you heard the story about the moaning dog? It goes a little something like this… A man sees a dog laying in the middle of the street, moaning. “Why is

What's 🔥 in Enterprise IT/VC #371

Saturday, December 9, 2023

Back to First Principles Building Startups from Inception, hands on keyboard ⌨️ - get the Google Doc now ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

🗞 What's New: An email sequence for your Product Hunt launch

Saturday, December 9, 2023

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Saturday, December 9, 2023

Skill Up In 2024 Hi There's less than 48 hours left for you to get mentored on how to build an Amazon store from scratch at the lowest price we'll ever offer it at. This is your chance to

Stinky cheese, legendary VCs, and Apple (seemingly) takes the hammer to Beeper Mini

Saturday, December 9, 2023

View in browser Vinod Khosla -- the legendary VC who is lately in the headlines for gambling big on OpenAI when it first transitioned to a for-profit company -- is coming to our StrictlyVC event in San

When that “weakness” is really a huge advantage

Friday, December 8, 2023

Plus a new episode of Design Review! This Week at YC December 8th, 2023 When you're an early stage startup founder in a world of mega companies, it's easy to see your team's size of just