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Top News
Robinhood, the stock-trading platform that everyone loves to hate, faces dozens of class-action lawsuits and is under investigation by regulators, state attorneys general, the SEC, FINRA, and the U.S. Department of Justice(!) following the GameStop trading frenzy in January, it was revealed in the company's S-1 filing today. The filing also disclosed that Robinhood has settled a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of a 20-year-old trader who committed suicide after seeing a negative account balance of $730,000. (Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.) The company -- which agreed just yesterday to pay a record-breaking $70 million fine to FINRA “for systemic supervisory failures and significant harm suffered by millions of customers” -- also revealed in its filing the extreme to which memes are a part of its business, noting that in the first three months of 2021, “34 percent of our cryptocurrency transaction-based revenue was attributable to transactions in Dogecoin.” Indeed, Robinhood disclosed that it became profitable last year, only to have its losses soar in the first quarter amid the so-called meme stock frenzy. The silver lining: the company emerged with greater name recognition and millions of new users.
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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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Massive Fundings
Articulate, an 18-year-old, New York-based SaaS training and development platform, has raised a whopping $1.5 billion in Series A funding at a post-money valuation of $3.75 billion valuation. General Atlantic led the round, joined by Blackstone Growth and Iconiq Growth. TechCrunch has more here.
Bolttech, a year-old, New York- and Singapore-based startup whose online platform serves as a matchmaker between insurance companies, allowing them to offer customers products that may not be in their area of specialization (it was launched as the insurance arm of Pacific Century Group in Hong Kong), has raised $180 million in Series A funding led by Activant Capital. Other participants in the round include Tony Fadell, Alpha Leonis Partners, Dowling Capital Partners, B. Riley VC and Tarsadia Investments. Insurance Journal has more here.
Mercado Bitcoin, a 10-year-old, Sao Paulo, Brazil-based cryptocurrency exchange, has raised $200 million in Series B from SoftBank Latin America Fund. The round values 2TM Group, Mercado Bitcoin’s non-operating parent company, at $2.1 billion, ranking it among the top 10 unicorns in Latin America. TechCrunch has more here.
Olive, a nine-year-old, Columbus, Oh.-based developer of health care services bots, has raised $400 million in fresh funding co-led by Vista Equity Partners and Base10 Partners, with participation from Tiger Global. Olive (whose founder we interviewed in April about the company's many early pivots), has now raised roughly $900 altogether, almost of all of it over the last 1.5 years. It's now valued at $4 billion. Bloomberg has more here.
Physna, a six-year-old, Columbus, Oh.-based geometric deep-learning and 3D search company that searches, compares, and analyzes 3D models, has raised $56 million in fresh funding led by Tiger Global, with participation from Sequoia Capital and GV. The company has now raised $86 million altogether. Forbes has more here.
Rohlik, a nearly seven-year-old, Czech grocery delivery startup, has raised €100 million in Series C funding at a €1 billion valuation. Earlier backer Index Ventures led the round, joined by other earlier investors Partech and Quadrille Capital. Rohlik had raised $230 million in Series B funding only three months ago. TechCrunch has more here.
ServiceTitan, a nine-year-old, L.A.-based that makes management software for all sorts of tradespeople, has raised $200 million in Series G funding led by Thoma Bravo at a post-money valuation of $9.5 billion. It also agreed to buy Aspire Software, a seven-year-old, Chesterfield, Mo.-based company that makes software for commercial landscapers and was backed in part by the growth-equity firm Mainsail Partners. The company appears to have raised roughly $900 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.
Shogun, a six-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based platform that helps e-commerce businesses of all sizes easily design and run their own storefronts (rather than relying on, say, Shopify), has raised $67.5 million in Series C funding led by Insight Partners, with participation from Initialized Capital, Accel and VMG Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Codat, a four-year-old, London-based startup whose accounting, commerce, and bank data API aims to power the financial products and services used by small businesses, has raised $40 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global. TechCrunch has more here.
Entera, a three-year-old, New York-based platform for single-family property investors, has raised $32 million in Series A funding. Goldman Sachs led the round, joined by earlier investors Bullpen Capital, Craft Ventures and Valuestream Ventures. More here.
FloLive, a six-year-old, London-based IoT connectivity startup that's stitching together private, local cellular networks to create private global IoT 5G networks for its customers, just raised $15.5 million in funding. Intel Capital led the round, joined by Qualcomm Ventures, Dell Technologies Capital, 83North and Saban Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Karat Financial, a two-year-old, L.A.-based startup that's building financial products for digital creators and influencers who may be raking in cash but don't have credit history, has raised $26 million in Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from GGV Capital and SignalFire. TechCrunch has more here.
Juno Journey, a two-year-old, Herzliya, Israel-based AI platform that aims to enhance employees’ professional development, has raised $19 million in Series A funding led by Insight Partners, with participation from Cerca Partners and earlier investor 10D Ventures. Calcalist has more here.
Microverse, a 3.5-year-old, Bay Area-based online coding school that gets paid through income-share agreements with its students, has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding. Northzone led the round, joined by General Catalyst and All Iron Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Nowports, a three-year-old, Monterrey, Mexico-based automated digital freight forwarder, has raised $16 million in Series A funding. Mouro Capital led the round, joined by Foundation Capital and earlier investors Broadhaven Ventures, InvestoVC, Monashees, Base10 Partners and Y Combinator. TechCrunch has more here.
Singularity 6, a three-year-old, L.A.-based online game studio, has raised $30 million in Series B funding. FunPlus Ventures led the round, joined by Transcend, Anthos Capital, longtime Benchmark investor Mitch Lasky and earlier investors Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Monisnap, a four-year-old, Paris-based remittance services startup, has raised €10 million in fresh funding led by Serena. EU Startups has more here.
Ridepanda, a year-old, San Francisco-based electric micro-mobility dealership (it sells e-bikes, e-mopeds, and e-scooters), has raised $3.75 million co-led by Porsche Ventures, Yamaha Motor Ventures and Proeza Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
TestGorilla, a two-year-old, Amsterdam-based HR tech company, has raised $10 million in seed funding led by Notion Capital, with participation from Partech and Next Play Ventures. More here.
Traptic, a five-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based maker of strawberry picking robots, says it has raised $8.4 million in funding over several, previously undisclosed rounds, including from Collaborative Fund, Homebrew Ventures and K9 Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
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Exits
Publicly traded Zebra Technologies has agreed to buy Fetch Robotics, a six-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based maker of warehouse and fulfillment robots, for $290 million in cash. Fetch had raised $94 million from investors, according to Crunchbase data. Its backers included SoftBank; Fort Ross Ventures; Redwood Technologies Group; and Zebra Ventures, the venture arm of Zebra, a 50-year-old mobile computing company. TechCrunch has more here.
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Going Public
Four new blank-check companies backed by investor Chamath Palihapitiya raised a total of $880 million in their upsized IPOs yesterday. Social Capital Suvretta Holdings Corp I, II, III and IV, each sold 22 million Class A ordinary shares priced at $10 per share. Reuters has more here.
Inspirato, a 10-year-old, Denver, Co.-based travel company that packages together luxury travel to which members can subscribe, has agreed to go public via merger with Thayer Ventures Acquisition Corp. in a deal that values the company at $1.1 billion. Inspirato has raised roughly $80 million over the years, according to Crunchbase; its backers include IVP, DAG Ventures, and Tuesday Capital. Skift has more here.
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People
It's looking like Richard Branson may beat Jeff Bezos to the Kármán line with a July 11 flight on a Virgin Galactic spacecraft; the Amazon founder's trip aboard a Blue Origin New Shepard capsule is planned for July 20.
David Chen, who began his investment banking career at UBS in 1998, has just been promoted to global co-head of tech investment banking at Morgan Stanley. (H/T: Axios.)
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Data
Nearly 19% of all office space in Manhattan has no tenants — the highest on record, says the New York Times — as companies shed leases and embrace remote work.
Covid was good to the already rich, underscores new data from Wealth-X. In its ninth annual "World Ultra Wealth Report," it finds the world’s population of ultra-high-net-worth individuals -- meaning those with a net worth of more than $30 million— grew by 1.7% last year. In raw numbers, that means 4,730 more people qualified for UHNW status by the end of last year, bringing the worldwide total to 295,450. The Robb Report has more here.
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Essential Reads
Facebook is starting to warn some users they might have seen "extremist content" on the social media platform. According to Reuters, screenshots shared on Twitter showed a notice asking "Are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist?" and another that alerted users "you may have been exposed to harmful extremist content recently." Both included links to "get support." Facebook says the small test is running in the U.S. as a pilot for a global approach to prevent radicalization on the platform. More here.
TikTok said today that it's moving beyond the short-form video format that made the social-media app famous, giving users up to three minutes of airtime amid heightened competition for eyeballs.
And in electric-cars-behaving-badly news: A new Tesla Model S Plaid caught fire on Tuesday while the driver was at the wheel, according to a new report. Meanwhile, Porsche is reportedly planning a global recall of its Taycan EV over a software issue that can cause a sudden power loss. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration started an investigation in May after identifying nine related complaints, according to a filing first uncovered by Automotive News.
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Sponsored By ...
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