Reese Witherspoon sells her media company, Bill and Melinda French Gates finalize their divorce, and the secret to bushy brows

August 2, 2021
We're back! Well, we're not entirely back. We're happily surrounded by extended family this week (which doesn't happen so often, unfortunately), so for one more week, we're not doing any original reporting and these missives might be slightly abbreviated.
 
Hope you're enjoying your summer. More tomorrow.:)
Top News
 
One of the largest divorces in history is officially complete just five months after it was announced. Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates finalized their divorce today, according to filings submitted in King County, Washington. It was not immediately clear how they planned to divide their assets; the pair signed a “separation contract” that was not filed with the court. Melinda French Gates will retain her last name. As of today, Bill Gates’s net worth was around $152 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which means he and French Gates could each be worth around $76 billion following the divorce, notes CNN.
 
Masks are fast returning in the U.S. San Francisco just mandated them again, effective tomorrow. Louisiana is giving its residents until Wednesday. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. renewed its mask mandate over the weekend. More here.
Sponsored By ...
 
Death of Doge? Shares of the canine-themed coin jumped 11% last week, after Elon appeared to signal his support. But buyer beware: cryptocurrency is too volatile to be money. That’s why smart money is on hard asset classes like art: Contemporary art prices rose 14% annualized from 1995–2020 - that's more than 2x the returns of gold and real estate over the same period. The only problem? You needed millions to build a portfolio of blue-chip art. Until now. This startup has fractionalized an asset class estimated at $6 trillion. Explore today. *See disclaimer.
Massive Fundings
 
Bolt, the seven-year-old, Tallinn, Estonia-based European ride-hailing firm formerly known as Taxify, has raised $713 million in fresh funding at a post-money valuation of $4.75 billion, more than double its last private valuation of $2 billion. Sequoia Capital and fund managers Tekne and Ghisallo participated in the round, alongside earlier investors G Squared, D1 Capital and Naya. CNBC has more here.
 
Infra.Market, a four-year-old, Mumbai, India-based company that says it helps construction and real estate companies procure materials like ready-mix concrete and fly ash for their projects, has raised a fresh $125 million in funding from earlier backer Tiger Global at a post-money valuation of $2.5 billion, according to Bloomberg. The startup was last valued at about $1 billion in a funding round earlier this year, according to its source. More here.
 
Modern Animal, a two-year-old, L.A.-based membership-only chain of upscale vet clinics, whose cofounder previously founded (and sold) the dog-tracking startup Whistle, has raised $75.5 million in funding across a Series A and B round, it's now disclosing. The $35.5 million Series A round was co-led by True Ventures and Addition; the $40 million Series B was led by Founders Fund. Dot.LA has more here.
 
Nozomi Networks, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based industrial cyber security startup whose software monitors machines, including valves and pipelines for anomalies, has raised $100 million. Investors in the round include Honeywell Ventures and In-Q-Tel. Reuters has more here.
 
Prime Trust, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based crypto custody firm, has raised $64 million in Series A funding. Mercato Partners led the round, joined by Samsung Next, Nationwide, Commerce Ventures, Ayon Capital, Kraken Ventures, STCAP, s20 Capital, Seven Peaks Ventures, Diverse Angels, University Growth Fund, and Nevcaut Ventures. Coindesk has more here.

Unacademy, a six-year-old, Bangalore, India-based online learning platform, has raised $440 million in fresh funding led by Temasek, with participation from Mirae Asset, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, General Atlantic, Tiger Global, Zomato co-founder Deepinder Goyal, and Oyo founder Ritesh Agarwal. (As TechCrunch suggests, expect to see more of the same as investors double down on the South Asian market and elsewhere following the recent regulatory crackdowns in China that Protocol has an interesting explainer about here.)

Zentera Therapeutics, a Shanghai, China-based biopharmaceutical company aiming to bring cancer therapies to China, has raised $75 million in Series B funding. OrbiMed Advisors Asia and Tybourne Capital Management led the round, joined by Avidity Partners, Casdin Capital, and Surveyor Capital. FierceBiotech has more here.
 
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
 
Catch, a two-year-old, New York-based finance and benefits app for freelance workers, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Crosslink Capital led the round, joined by Khosla Ventures, Kindred Ventures, Nyca Partners, and Urban Innovation Fund. TechCrunch has more here.
 
Mixlab, a four-year-old, New York-based digital pet pharmacy that enables vets to prescribe medications and have them delivered to pet parents, has raised $20 million in Series A funding. Sonoma Brands led the round, joined by Global Founders Capital, Monogram Capital, Lakehouse Ventures and Brand Foundry. The new investment gives Mixlab total funding of $30 million. TechCrunch has more here.
 
NovaKid, a four-year-old, Warsaw, Poland- and San Francisco-based edtech startup that offers virtual-only, English language immersion for kids between the ages of four through 12, has raised $35 million in Series B funding. Owl Ventures and Goodwater Capital co-led the round, joined by earlier backers PortfoLion, LearnStart, TMT Investments, Xploration Capital, LETA Capital and BonAngels. NovaKid had announced $4.25 million in Series A funding in December. TechCrunch has more here.
 
Planted, a two-year-old, Switzerland-based alternative protein company, has raised its second round of the year, a $21 million “pre-B” fundraise. The funding came from Vorwerk Ventures, Gullspång Re:food, Movendo Capital, Good Seed Ventures, Joyance, ACE & Company (SFG strategy) and Be8 Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
 
Yaydoo, a four-year-old, Mexico City-based business-to-business software and payments company whose products help companies manage cash flow, tap capital sources, and get connected to an ecosystem of digital tools, has raised $20.4 million in Series A funding. Base10 Partners and monashees co-led the round, joined by SoftBank’s Latin America Fund and Leap Global Partners. The company has now raised $21.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
 
MoEngage, a seven-year-old, San Francisco-based customer management platform, has raised $32.5 million in funding led by Multiples Alternate Asset Management, with participation from Eight Roads Ventures, F-Prime Capital, and Matrix Partners. LiveMint has more here.

Talview, a nine-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based hiring and proctoring tech maker (its video AI platform ostensibly helps organizations analyze "talent interactions"), has raised $15 million in Series B funding. Eileses Capital led the round, joined by Storm Ventures, Inventus Capital, and Emergent Ventures. More here.
 
Smaller Fundings
 
DoNotPay, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based robot lawyer company aiming to make legal help more widely accessible, raised $10 million in Series B funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Lux Capital, Tribe Capital, and Day One Ventures. Bloomberg has more here
 
Juno Medical, a year-old, New York-based startup building membership-only doctors' offices focused on whole families, beginning in Harlem, has raised $5.4 million in seed funding. Vast Ventures led the round, joined by Atento Capital, Company Ventures, humbition, RareBreed Ventures, and Lafayette Square. More here.
 
MGA Thermal, a nearly three-year-old, Newcastle, Australia-based startup focused on thermal energy storage, has raised $5.9 million in funding led by Main Sequence, a venture firm founded by Australia’s national science agency. Alberts Impact Capital, New Zealand’s Climate Venture Capital Fund, The Melt and earlier investor CP Ventures participated, along with angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.
 
Revel, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based community for middle-aged women, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by August Capital; it also acquired Woolfer, a community for those over 40, for undisclosed terms. More here.

Trading.TV, a year-old, New York-based social live-streaming platform for traders and financial content creators, has raised $6.1 million in seed funding, including from L Catterton Growth, Activant, Navy Capital, and Tribe Capital. More here.
New Funds
 
Former Airbnb employees have raised an early-stage venture-capital fund. AirAngels is deploying a $20 million pool whose investors include Airbnb co-founders Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk; DCM Capital; WestCap; Marc Andreessen, Andrew Chen, and Chris Dixon of a16z; hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman; Lee Fixel of Addition; David Sacks of Craft; Phin Barnes (formerly of First Round Capital); Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke and others. Airbnb itself isn’t an investor. The WSJ has more here.
Exits
 
In a blockbuster deal, payment processing giant Square announced over the weekend that it is acquiring the Australian buy-now-pay-later company Afterpay in a $29 billion all-stock deal. The purchase price is based on the closing price of Square common stock on July 30, which was $247.26. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022, contingent upon certain closing conditions. It values Afterpay at more than 30% premium to its latest closing price of A$96.66. (The now seven-year-old company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange back in 2016.) TechCrunch has more here.
 
MuleSoft today announced that it’s buying Servicetrace, a German software company with a robotic process automation platform for making enterprises’ business operations more efficient. Financial terms were not disclosed. MuleSoft is a subsidiary of Salesforce, which it joined in 2018 through a $6.5 billion deal. As SiliconAngle explains it, Servicetrace’s RPA platform observes how a company’s employees perform a given task in a business application and, with time, learns how to perform the task automatically. More here.
People
 
Elon Musk took to Twitter on Friday to shoot down a reported conversation that he had with Apple CEO Tim Cook, one Musk says never took place. "Cook & I have never spoken or written to each other ever. There was a point where I requested to meet with Cook to talk about Apple buying Tesla. There were no conditions of acquisition proposed whatsoever. He refused to meet. Tesla was worth about 6% of today’s value." (Cook has separately confirmed that he has never met Musk, which does blow the mind, though on the other hand, you can imagine Apple's stock tanking if this meeting did take place and the market caught wind of it.)
 
GV has hired Rhys Hughes to advise its founders on organizational growth and scale. Hughes was formerly chief talent officer at the cloud data management company Rubrik.
 
Peter Rojas, who sold his venture-backed social commerce startup gdgt to AOL in 2013, stayed on as an exec for a couple of years, then joined Betaworks, where he was a partner with Betaworks Ventures for the past five years, says in a new post that he is "moving on" and taking some "long overdue time off." He adds that he doesn't have anything to announce about his future plans at the moment.
 
Jake Storm has joined Felicis Ventures as a VP. Storm was previously an investor at IVP, focused on everything from digital health to infrastructure software. He also spent several years across investment banking at Jefferies and enterprise software sales at Qualtrics and Zuora.
 
Reese Witherspoon’s media business, Hello Sunshine, is selling itself to a firm backed by Blackstone Group, the companies said today, as part of a plan to build an independent entertainment company. Terms weren't disclosed, but the WSJ's sources peg the price at about $900 million and it reports that the as-yet-unnamed media venture will be run by former Walt Disney Co. executives Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs. More here.
Sponsored By ...
 
SaaStr, the world's largest non-vendor B2B software community, is back - in person! Don't miss this year's Annual on Sept 27-29 at the San Mateo County Event Center. The three-day conference will bring together more than 10,000 global SaaS founders, executives, and venture capitalists for a series of high-quality content sessions and networking opportunities. Across five stages more than 300 SaaS leaders will share their hard-earned learnings and actionable insights to help you scale up and grow your company faster. Readers can grab 20% off tickets with code StrictlyVC.  
Data
 
At least 23 private Latin American companies have now crossed the $1 billion valuation threshold, per an analysis of Crunchbase data. Collectively, they’ve raised over $15 billion in sectors ranging from fintech to food. Crunchbase News has more here.
Settlements
 
Zoom has agreed to pay $85 million to settle a lawsuit that accused the video conferencing giant of violating users’ privacy by sharing their data with third parties without permission and enabling “Zoombombing” incidents. Zoombombing, a term coined by TechCrunch last year, describes unapproved attendees entering and disrupting Zoom calls by sharing offensive imagery, using backgrounds to spread hateful messages, or spouting slurs and profanities. More here.
Essential Reads
 
How contagious is the Delta variant?
 
 
A move toward greater pay transparency in the creator world.
 
Theranos patients are the emerging wild card in the trial of Elizabeth Holmes.
Detours
 
A succession drama grips Scholastic.
 
 
The benefits of swearing at work.
 
The case for ice cream sandwiches.
Retail Therapy
 
A new astro-tourism experience that will set you back $95,000.
 
The armored Mercedes S-Class; perfect for you 'dark web' entrepreneurs.
Sponsored By ...
 
Short social videos have transformed the way businesses market and sell products and services, but businesses are struggling to keep up using traditional linear-editing tools. Capsule, the collaborative video platform that helps automate professional content fast, with no expertise, allowing companies to collaborate with anyone to create high-quality, brand-approved videos. Capsule’s customers include Google, Samsung, Salesforce, Deloitte, and The Wall Street Journal, plus hundreds of small and medium-sized businesses. Check out Capsule today!
Subscribe!

StrictlyVC

StrictlyVC, LLC, 1 Blackfield Drive, No. 239, Tiburon, CA 94920

Unsubscribe - Unsubscribe Preferences

Older messages

An Ethereum cofounder packs it in, a giant new climate fund, and a whatmosa now?

Saturday, July 17, 2021

The news you need to know July 16, 2021 Friday! We mentioned this on Monday, but in case you missed our news bulletin: we're turning this thing off for a couple of weeks beginning this Monday so

The most active VCs, a public safety bet by a16z, and Apple is jumping onto the buy-now-pay-later train

Friday, July 16, 2021

The news you need to know July 13, 2021 Top News According to Bloomberg, Apple is working on a new service that will let consumers pay for any Apple Pay purchase in installments over time, rivaling the

Facebook's complaint, Netflix's new venture, and a look inside Teslatown

Friday, July 16, 2021

The news you need to know July 14, 2021 A game 7! (Woot.) This day has been bonkers, so no column, but more tomorrow. We also had an interesting catch-up with TechCrunch founder-turned-crypto investor

Intel's big buy (maybe?), more headaches for Didi, and tech workers bound back to the Bay Area

Friday, July 16, 2021

The news you need to know July 15, 2021 Hello! Top News Intel is reportedly exploring a deal to buy GlobalFoundries -- one of the largest specialist chip-production companies -- in a move that would

Bytedance's scrapped IPO plans, Klarna goes shopping, and another Thiel protege jumps into politics

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

The news you need to know July 12, 2021 Hello! Welcome back.:) Also, a quick mention that we are pulling the plug for a couple of weeks beginning next week. (Longtime readers know we turn this thing

You Might Also Like

The Growth Newsletter #167

Friday, March 29, 2024

Wallet Opening Words that increase conversions ‌ ‌ ‌ Demand Curve Read on demandcurve.com The Growth Newsletter #167 Wallet Opening Words that increase conversions Copywriting is one of the most

The maturation of Munich

Friday, March 29, 2024

Does Europe need the "next Silicon Valley"? The frantic search for buried hydrogen and a big raise for industrial automation. View in browser Morgan Stanley flagship logo Good morning there,

Inside Grindr's plan to squeeze its users

Friday, March 29, 2024

The company's bet on AI boyfriends and other paywalled features is making some employees nervous Platformer Platformer Inside Grindr's plan to squeeze its users By Zoë Schiffer • 28 Mar 2024

Inside Grindr's plan to squeeze its users

Friday, March 29, 2024

The company's bet on AI boyfriends and other paywalled features is making some employees nervous Platformer Platformer Inside Grindr's plan to squeeze its users By Zoë Schiffer • 28 Mar 2024

SaaSHub Weekly - Mar 28

Thursday, March 28, 2024

SaaSHub Weekly - Mar 28 Featured and useful products Loach logo Loach Say goodbye to unachieved OKRs with Loach, an OKR management solution that empowers your team to seamlessly align their daily work

84 new Shopify apps for you 🌟

Thursday, March 28, 2024

New Shopify apps hand-picked for you 🙌 Week 12 Mar 18, 2024 - Mar 25, 2024 New Shopify apps hand-picked for you 🙌 What's New at Shopify? 🌱 New login requirements for the Order Status Page Changed ⸱

We've Been Tinkering

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Join Our Beta! ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏

AMA with Chiedo John, Director of Growth @ GitHub

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Live on Wednesday, April 3rd, starting at 9 AM PST͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌

red hot startup intel

Thursday, March 28, 2024

FULL SWOT analysis on Ramp, Databricks, Cohere, Devoted Health, and Coalition inside Scouting Reports on 🔥 Startups Download Now Hi there, Psst. Want competitive intel on the top 5 industry leading

The Ultimate Amazon Guide: Strategies For Sellers In 2024

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Learn from Melisa Vong for FREE in the Start Your Ecommerce Business Summit ! Another day, another exciting opportunity to introduce you to one of our 20+ ecomm trailblazers in the Start Your Ecommerce