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June 29, 2021
Happy Tuesday, dear readers, and also, a quick favor: As many of you know, a few times a year, StrictlyVC hosts intimate evening events in San Francisco where we meet up for cocktails and listen to some of the savviest people in the startup universe. With our last event, in March 2020, we had to switch gears at the last minute and host a Zoom "experience" (with Alexis Ohanian and Garry Tan and a number of other speakers who nicely hung in there with us as the world began hunkering down).
We've held off on hosting another event until it was possible to meet again in person; now, we could use help with a venue. If you happen to work from -- or own -- an event-friendly space that you're looking to put to more use this fall and would like to host an evening of top-notch content and schmoozing, please do let us know (you can just respond to this email) and thank you!
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Top News
After a federal judge threw out state and federal competition cases against Facebook yesterday, Congress is facing renewed pressure to modernize U.S. antitrust laws.
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Sponsored By ...
Founded by serial tech entrepreneurs, this little-known startup has become the premiere platform for art investing. Demand is up and it’s no surprise why: contemporary art prices rose 14% per year from 1995 through 2020. Over 175,000 have signed up and when we see that much demand, our ears perk up. Discover more with this private StrictlyVC link.* See disclaimer.
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Toca Football -- Which is Fast Opening Soccer Centers Across the U.S. -- Just Raised $40 Million More
Toca Football, a nine-year-old, Costa Mesa, Ca.-based company that operates 14 sports centers across the U.S. that are focused on soccer training, has raised $40 million in Series E funding to roughly double the number of facilities that are now up and running in the U.S., as well as to open a site in the U.K. that CEO Yoshi Maruyama describes as a “highly themed game-experiences-based dining and entertainment facility focused on soccer training.”
Maruyama knows a thing or two about building destinations to which people gravitate. Before joining Toca — which was founded by the American former soccer player Eddie Lewis (“toca” refers to the first touch of the ball in soccer) — Maruyama spent six years as the global head of location-based entertainment for Dreamworks. He spent 14 years before that as an SVP with Universal Parks & Resorts.
Indeed, he was brought into Toca in 2019 to transform it from a manufacturing business that sells Major League Soccer teams a ball-tossing machine that Lewis had developed, to the services business it has become.
On its face, its new model seems like a pretty smart one, given soccer’s growing popularity in the U.S. According to Statista, the number of participants in U.S. high school soccer programs recorded an all-time high in the 2018/19 season, with more than 850,000 playing the sport across the country.
But Toca isn’t built just for kids, even if kids — and their parents –are its primary customers.
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Massive Fundings
4G Clinical, a six-year-old, Wellesley, Ma.-based company that creates software to run the back-end of clinical trials, has raised more than $200 million in a new growth equity round led by Goldman Sachs. TechCrunch has more here.
Grofers, an eight-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based online grocery delivery company, has taken $100 million from fellow privately held company Zomato, in exchange for around 10% of the business, reports TechCrunch. It says the investment -- which still needs to be approved by the Competitive Commission of India -- values Grofers at more than $1 billion. More here.
Gympass, a nine-year-old, São Paulo, Brazil-based company that TechCrunch likens to a Classpass on steroids, has raised $220 million in Series E funding from SoftBank, General Atlantic, Moore Strategic Ventures, Kaszek Ventures and Valor Capital Group. The company is now valued at $2.2 billion. According to Crunchbase, it has raised $520 million altogether. More here.
HealthVerity, a seven-year-old, Philadelphia, Pa.-based medical data marketplace, has raised $100 million in Series D funding led by Durable Capital Partners, with participation from Flare Capital Partners, Foresite Capital and Greycroft. FierceBiotech has more here.
Orum, a 21-month-old, New York-based fintech whose products include a control center that directs which payment rails a transaction should travel on given a financial institution’s preferences for speed and cost, has raised $56 million in Series B funding. Accel and Canapi Ventures co-led the round, joined by earlier backers Bain Capital Ventures, Inspired Capital, Homebrew, Acrew, Primary, Clocktower and Box Group. The round comes barely three months after Orum announced a $21 million Series A, and brings its total raised to over $82 million. TechCrunch has more here.
ShipBob, a seven-year-old, Chicago-based company that has built an operation and tech platform that works with some 5,000 e-commerce businesses to run shipping and logistics like their bigger rivals, has raised $200 million in Series E funding. Bain Capital Ventures led the round, joined by new and earlier backers, including SoftBank, Menlo Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, Hyde Park Angels and Silicon Valley Bank. TechCrunch has more here.
Visier, an 11-year-old, Vancouver-based analytics platform enabling HR professionals to develop more accurate profiles of people and departments, has raised $125 million in Series E funding from Goldman Sachs Asset Management exclusively. Previous investors include Sorenson Capital, Foundation Capital, Summit Partners, and Adams Street Partners. The company has now raised just less than $220 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Babson Diagnostics, a four-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based diagnostic blood testing company, has raised $31 million in Series B funding led by Emerald Development Managers, with participation from earlier investors Siemens Healthineers, Prism Ventures, and Lago Consulting Group. Austin-American Statesman has more here.
Bowery Valuation, a six-year-old, New York-based commercial real estate appraisal startup, has raised $35 million in Series B funding. Goldman Sachs led the round, joined by Capital One Ventures and earlier backers Builders VC, Fika Ventures, Navitas Capital, Camber Creek, Nine Four Ventures, Greenspring Associates and Alpaca VC. More here.
Forum Brands, a year-old, New York-based company looking to roll up third party sellers on Amazon (yep, another one of these), has raised $27 million in funding led by Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers NFX and Concrete Rose. TechCrunch has more here.
Kikoff, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based online lender positioning itself as a credit-building platform for millennials and Gen Z, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Portage Ventures. The company has now raised $42.5 million in funding, including from Lightspeed Venture Partners, GGV Capital, Coatue and Core Innovation Capital. More here.
Nansen, a nearly two-year-old, Singapore-based startup that analyzes public blockchain information across some 90 million Ethereum wallets to help users spot evolving investment opportunities, has raised $12 million led by Andreessen Horowitz. Other investors in the round include Coinbase Ventures, Skyfall Ventures, imToken Ventures, Mechanism Capital and QCP Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Quizizz, a six-year-old, Bengaluru, India-based learning platform that uses gamified quizzes to help people learn or teach anything on any device (it says), has raised $31.5 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global. Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang and earlier investors Eight Roads Ventures, GSV Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners also participated in the new round, which brings the company's total funding to $47 million. TechCrunch has more here.
TCGplayer, a 13-year-old, Syracuse, New York-based online marketplace for trading card games, has raised $35 million from Vista Credit Partners. VentureBeat has more here.
Wellthy, a nearly seven-year-old, New York-based family care concierge service that aims to help families managing complex or ongoing care situations, has raised $35 million in Series B funding. Rethink Impact led the round, joined by Hearst, Polaris Partners and Eldridge. More here.
Worldcoin, a new San Francisco-based startup that wants to give its users a type of cryptocurrency in exchange for allowing the outfit to scan their eyeballs and construct a unique personal identifier, has raised $25 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Day One Ventures. The company was backed initially by Sam Altman, who remains an advisor. (It also already has critics.) Bloomberg has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Beeflow, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based startup focused on improving crop yields with bees, has raised $8.3 million in Series A led by Ospraie Ag Science, with participation from Future Ventures’ Steve Jurvetson, former Amazon exec Jeff Wilke, Vectr Ventures, SOSV and Grid Exponential. TechCrunch has more here.
Givingli, a two-year-old, L.A.-based gifting app centered around digital greetings, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Seven Seven Six, with participation from Snap’s Yellow Accelerator and Pipe Co-CEO and co-founder Harry Hurst. TechCrunch has more here.
IAGON, a four-year-old, Norway-based blockchain startup, has raised $3.4 million in seed funding, including from LedgerLink Labs, Blockchain Israel and AU21 Capital. Coinspeaker has more here.
Jetstream, a three-year-old, Tema, Ghana-based data-driven vertical broker for cross-border trade in Africa, has raised $3 million in seed funding from local and international investors. They include Alitheia IDF, Golden Palm Investments, 4DX Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Asia Pacific Land, Breyer Labs, and MSA Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Native.AI, a three-year-old, New York-based startup that uses natural language processing to analyze consumer feedback from e-commerce reviews, social media and more for its customers, has raised $1.75 million in pre-seed funding from unnamed investors. More here.
Soft Robotics, a nine-year-old, Bedford, Ma.-based company that designs and builds automated picking machines using proprietary soft robotic grippers and 3D machine perception, has raised $10 million in extended Series B funding (adding to a round that closed with $23 million last year). Material Impact, Scale Venture Partners and Calibrate Ventures led the newest tranche, joined by earlier backers Tekfen Ventures and industrial robotics giant ABB. The company has now raised $58 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Tribe, a nearly three-year-old, Toronto-based company that's building a platform that enables both individuals and enterprises to spin up community sites for their fans, customers, or any relevant stakeholder, has raised a $7.5 million seed round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. More here.
Virti, a three-year-old, Bristol, England-based digital training platform that uses research into cognitive decision-making under pressure and an immersive video platform combined with augmented reality to help professionals prepare for real-life high-pressure environments including surgery, sports, emergency response, and military training, just raised $10 million in Series A funding. IQ Capital led the round, joined by Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Descenture Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
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New Funds
Accel today announced the close of three new funds totaling $3.05 billion, money that it will be using to back early-stage startups, as well as growth rounds for more mature companies. Specifically, today Accel has closed its 15th early-stage U.S. fund with $650 million in capital commitments; its seventh early-stage European and Israeli fund with $650 million, and its sixth global growth stage fund with $1.75 billion. TechCrunch has more here.
Eight Roads, the venture capital group backed by Fidelity Investments, has launched a $400 million China-focused healthcare startups. According to the firm, the vehicle will tap early-stage opportunities in therapeutics, medtech, healthcare services, healthcare IT, and digital health. DealStreetAsia has more here.
Forum Ventures, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based startup accelerator that's focused on nascent business-to-business software-as-a-service startups and was formerly known as Acceleprise, has raised two funds totaling $30 million in commitments, including a $17 million pre-seed fund and a $13.2 billion seed fund. TechCrunch has more here.
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Exits
Everyone's favorite video conferencing company, Zoom, said today it intends to acquire German startup Karlsruhe Information Technology Solutions (or Kites, for short) to bring real-time machine-learning-based translation to the platform. Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed, but TechCrunch notes that the deal appears to be an acqui-hire, with its dozen researchers being absorbed into Zoom's engineering group. More here.
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Going Public
Chinese ride-hailing goliath Didi priced its IPO at $14 this afternoon, according to the WSJ, setting the stage for the company to begin trading tomorrow. More here.
Outbrain, one of the top purveyors of clickbait ads, filed today to raise at least $100 million through an IPO — one day before its top competitor (Taboola) starts trading publicly. The New York Times has more here.
Foresite Capital's second special purpose acquisition company has landed on its target: Pardes Biosciences, a biotech working on antiviral treatments for COVID-19. Pardes will add about $276 million to the bank through the merger, which will help get its lead candidate into the clinic later this year. FierceBiotech has more here.
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People
Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen now have equity stakes in crypto exchange FTX, with Brady serving as a brand ambassador and Bündchen becoming an environmental and social initiatives adviser to the company. Forbes has more here.
The latest in the Silicon Valley fight over Governor Gavin Newsom: Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison has donated the legal maximum ($32,000) to Caitlyn Jenner, notes Teddy Schleifer of The Stratosphere.
Anant Vidur Puri, a Bangalore, India-based investor with Bessemer Venture Partners, has been promoted to partner. He joined the firm in 2014. More here.
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Uber is the latest company to offer more permanent flexibility for a workforce that has gotten very comfortable with telecommuting, walking back an earlier announcement that it expected employees back in the office at least three days per week as of September. The decision was made after gathering "feedback from employees."
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Detours
What won't the Nelk Boys do?
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Sponsored By . . .
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Shareworks by Morgan Stanley services are provided by Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC, member SIPC, and its affiliates, all wholly owned subsidiaries of Morgan Stanley. CRC 3614741-6/21
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