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Top News
Senators introduced legislation today that would impose new rules for app stores. The bipartisan bill by Senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn aims to boost competition and consumer protections by placing new restrictions on how the stores operate and what rules they can impose on app developers. It would also, among other things, effectively allow apps to be loaded onto Apple devices outside of the company's official app store. The WSJ has the story here.
In a strange turn of events today, roughly half of what was stolen in what is believed to be among the biggest cryptocurrency thefts ever was returned. “I think this demonstrates that even if you can steal cryptoassets, laundering them and cashing out is extremely difficult, due to the transparency of the blockchain and the use of blockchain analytics,” Tom Robinson, chief scientist of blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, told CNBC via email. More here.
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Massive Fundings
Cart.com, a nine-month-old, Houston, Tex.-based e-commerce-as-a-service platform that aims to empower brands to better compete against Amazon, has raised $98 million in Series B round, bringing the company’s total funding since its launch to more than $140 million. The round was led by Oak HC/FT; with participation from PayPal Ventures, Clearco, Raven One Ventures, G9 Ventures; earlier investors Mercury Fund, Moonshots Capital, Valedor Partners, and Arsenal Growth, and numerous individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Chrono24, an 18-year-old, Karlsruhe, Germany-based marketplace for luxury watches, has raised over €100 million ($118 million) in Series C funding. General Atlantic led the round, joined by Aglaé Ventures, Insight Partners, and Sprints Capital. The company has now raised €200 million altogether and is valued at more than $1 billion, says WWD. More here.
Gusto, the 10-year-old, San Francisco-based payroll and HR software company, has raised $175 million at a $9.5 billion valuation led by T. Rowe Price, with participation from earlier backers Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Generation and General Catalyst. Forbes has more here.
Helium, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based company that is rolling out a decentralized 5G network (it was cofounded by Shawn Fanning of Napster fame), has raised $111 million in a token sale led by Andreessen Horowitz, with additional participation from Ribbit Capital, 10T Holdings, Alameda Research, and Multicoin Capital. Bloomberg has more here.
LaunchDarkly, a seven-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based software feature management platform, raised $200 million in Series D funding led by Lead Edge Capital, with participation from Top Tier Capital Partners, Insight Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Redpoint, Threshold Ventures, Uncork Capital and Bloomberg Beta. Forbes has more here.
OneWeb, a nine-year-old, London-based global communications company that aims to connect more people to the internet through a constellation of Low Earth Orbit satellites -- it competes with Elon Musk's Starlink project -- has raised $300 million in funding from the Korean conglomerate Hanwha Systems Co. Bloomberg has more here.
OwnBackup, a six-year-old, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.-based cloud-based data protection platform, has raised $240 million in Series E funding co-led by Alkeon Capital and B Capital Group, with participation from BlackRock Private Equity Partners, Tiger Global, Insight Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, and Vertex Ventures. VentureBeat has more here.
People.ai, a five-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based revenue operations and intelligence platform, has raised $100 million in Series D funding co-led by Akkadian Ventures and Mubadala Capital, with participation from ICONIQ Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Reuters has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
AviaGames, a Mountain View, Calif.-based mobile gaming company that matches players based on their skill levels, raised $40 million in funding. Investors include ACME Capital, Washington Harbour Partners, Powerhouse Capital, Makers Fund, and Galaxy Digital. VentureBeat has more here.
Arevo, an eight-year-old, Milpitas, Calif.-based 3D printing startup, has raised $25 million in funding led by earlier backer Khosla Ventures, with participation from other earlier backers Founders Fund, GGV Capital, Alabaster, and Defy Partners. More here.
Doxel, a five-year-old, Redwood City, Ca.-based startup whose software uses computer vision to help track and monitor progress on construction job sites, has raised $40 million in Series B funding led by Insight Partners, with participation from earlier investors Andreessen Horowitz and Amplo. The company has now raised $56.5 million altogether. More here.
HopSkipDrive, a six-year-old, L.A.-based student ride-share service, has raised $25 million in Series C funding from Energy Impact Partners, Keyframe Capital, 1776 Ventures and earlier backer FirstMark Capital, and TechCrunch has more here.
Saturn, a three-year-old, New York based social app that allows friends to share and manage their calendars, raised more than $44 million in funding led by General Catalyst, Insight Partners and Coatue. Other investors in the round include Bezos Expeditions, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Forbes has more here.
Tetavi, a five-year-old, Ramat Gan, Israel-based startup focused on volumetric video and hologram technology for immersive media and gaming experiences, has raised $20 million in funding. Insight Partners led the round, joined by OurCrowd and Nimble Ventures. Forbes has more here.
XpertSea, a nine-year-old, Quebec, Canada-based company whose tech allows farmers around the world to capture reliable crop data, analyzing the status and livelihood of shrimp crops, has raised $20 million in Series B funding. QED Investors and Atlantico co-led the round, joined by Investissement Quebec, Obvious Ventures, Aqua-Spark, Tony Fadell’s Future Shape, Real Ventures, and edō Capital. Forbes has more here.
Smaller Fundings
ByondXR, a five-year-old, Israel-based virtual retail shopping platform, has raised $7 million in seed funding. Firstime and OurCrowd led the round, joined by HTC founder Peter Chu, among others. SiliconAngle has more here.
Elektra Health, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based women’s telemedicine company focused on menopause, with programs focused on managing systems and cohort support, has raised $3.75 million in seed funding co-led by Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six and Flare Capital Partners, with participation from City Light Capital, January Ventures, Human Ventures, The Fund, Community Fund, and numerous angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Fable Food, a two-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based plant-based food startup that relies on mushrooms, has raised $6.5 million AUD (about $4.8 million) in seed funding led by Blackbird Ventures. Other participants include AgFunder, Aera VC, Better Bite Ventures, Ban Choon Marketing and former Sequoia Capital partner Warren Hogarth. TechCrunch has more here.
Horizen Labs, a 2.5-year-old, Austin-based blockchain tech platform focused on developing secure and programmable blockchains, has raised $7 million in seed funding. Kenetic Capital led the round, joined by Digital Currency Group, Liberty City, Sound Ventures, Deribit, Artist Capital, Deus, and LionTree. Coindesk has more here.
Snipfeed, a three-year-old, L.A.- and Paris-based link-in-bio service that offer creators one place to host and distribute all of their content (and also charge for it if they choose), has raised $5.5 million in seed funding from investors including Charles River Ventures, Abstract Ventures, CAA founder Michael Ovitz and others. TechCrunch has more here.
Trust, a two-year-old, L.A.-based company that was founded by five Snap alums to help digital businesses make more money from their marketing investments, has raised $9 million in seed funding from Lerer Hippeau, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Upfront Ventures and Upper90. TechCrunch has more here.
Upscribe, a two-year-old, L.A.-based startup that that's developing subscription software for direct-to-consumer e-commerce merchants, has raised $4 million in seed funding. Uncork Capital led the round, joined by Leaders Fund, The House Fund, Roach Capitals’ Fahd Ananta and Shippo CEO Laura Behrens Wu. TechCrunch has more here.
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New Funds
AppWorks, a Taipei-based venture capital firm focused on Taiwan and Southeast Asia, announced today it has closed its oversubscribed third fund, raising $150 million. The new fund's limited partners include Taiwan Mobile, Axiom Asia Private Capital, Fubon Life, TransGlobe Life, Hongtai Group, Wistron, Cathay Life, Phison Electronics and Taiwan’s National Development Fund. Many of the same outfits had participated in AppWorks’ $50 million second fund in 2014. AppWorks’ total assets under management is now $212 million. TechCrunch has more here.
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Going Public
Shares of the 11-year-old electric aircraft maker Joby Aviation surged more than 20% after opening at $10.62 in their first day of trading after the company’s merger with a blank-check company headed up by Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus (Reinvent Technology Partners). Joby aims to bring its electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft into service in 2024; Bonny Simi, a pilot and the former president of JetBlue Ventures heads Joby’s air operations and is leading its efforts to win FAA certification of its aircraft, says CNBC. More here.
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Exits
Airtable, the San Francisco-based maker of a no-code relational database, announced its first acquisition today, acquiring Bayes, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based early-stage visualization startup. The idea is to enhance the data visualizations on the Airtable platform. The companies did not share the purchase price, but according to TechCrunch, Bayes’s four employees have joined Airtable and the plan is to shut down the product and incorporate its functionality into Airtable in the coming months. (Bayes appears to have been bootstrapped.) More here.
Desktop Metal has announced plans to acquire ExOne, a Pennsylvania-based firm that creates a variety of different industrial 3D printers for industries like aerospace, automotive, medical and defense. (It also develops portable 3D printing factories, which are effectively mobile additive manufacturing stations built inside of shipping containers.) The transaction, which is valued at $575 million, involves Desktop Metal purchasing all of ExOne’s common stock. TechCrunch has more here.
DoorDash held talks to buy Instacart over the past two months, according to The Information, for a price that likely would have been between $40 billion and $50 billion. It "would have combined a leading restaurant-delivery service with one of the leading grocery-delivery services. But the talks fell apart in recent weeks, at least partly due to questions about whether a combination could get approval from antitrust regulators," says the outlet. More here.
Email marketing startup Mailchimp is reportedly exploring a sale that could value the company at more than $10 billion. According to Bloomberg, the 20-year-old, Atlanta-based company is attracting interest from private equity firms and large tech firms after generating $300 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization last year. More here.
Pokémon Go developer Niantic Labs has acquired Scaniverse, an iOS 3D scanning app that will remain available on the App Store. It sounds like Niantic hopes Scaniverse will help in its goal to build a 3D map of the world, notes Engadget. More here.
Publicly traded cyber security firms NortonLifeLock and Avast are merging in a deal worth more than $8 billion. The deal will see NortonLifelock acquire all of Avast’s shares and create a much larger cyber security firm. “With this combination, we can strengthen our cyber safety platform and make it available to more than 500 million users,” says Vincent Pilette, NortonLifeLock CEO. “We will also have the ability to further accelerate innovation to transform cyber safety.” The Verge has more here.
ServiceNow, the publicly traded workflow automation platform used by businesses such as Deloitte and American Express, is extending its footprint into indoor mapping with the acquisition of seven-year-old, Lille, France-based Mapwize. Terms of the deal were not disclosed (Mapwize looks to have raised a nominal amount of outside funding), but Mapwize's tech will help enable broader service to help employees reserve seats, conference rooms, and other public spaces, as well as to navigate around large buildings and campuses. VentureBeat has more here.
Shutterfly, the 21-year-old, publicly-traded, Redwood City, Ca.-based digital retailer and manufacturing platform for personalized products, has agreed to acquire Spoonflower -- a 13-year-old, Durham, N.C.-based fabric, wallpaper and home decor marketplace -- for about $225 million. Triangle Business Journal has more here.
Spruce, a five-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based startup whose mobile app connects individuals and property managers with service providers like dog walkers and house cleaning, has acquired The Minte, a startup bringing hotel-style housekeeping to apartment buildings. The deal allows Spruce to expand its footprint into the Chicago area, while The Minte gets access to more clients (ostensibly). Both companies have received venture backing. Spruce has raised $14.6 million from investors, per Crunchbase data; it shows Minte had raised $4.6 million. More here.
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People
Aubrey de Grey, the prominent longevity personality who founded the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) Research Foundation in order to find ways to stop or reverse aging, has been placed on leave due to multiple accusations of sexual harassment by other researchers in the field, including Longevity Fund founder Laura Deming of Longevity Fund. STAT News has the story.
Arboretum Ventures has promoted Dan Kidle to managing partner. Kidle joined the outfit in 2013 as an associate after working as a financial analyst for Eli Lilly. More here.
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Essential Reads
According to a new paper authored by researchers at the Blavatnik School of Computer Science and the School of Electrical Engineering in Tel Aviv, facial recognition systems are “extremely vulnerable” and can be easily bypassed. More in Vice.
Autonomous driving startup Pony.ai has put on hold plans to go public in New York through a merger with a blank-check firm at a $12 billion valuation, after it failed to gain assurances from Beijing that it would not become a target of a crackdown against Chinese technology companies, reports Reuters. More here.
In related news, China tonight signaled that its push to regulate sweeping parts of the economy will be deep and sustained over the next five years. In a statement published by the State Council, China said it will “actively” work on legislation in areas including national security, technological innovation as well as anti-monopoly, in order to improve the legal framework “much-needed for governing the country.” Bloomberg has more here.
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Detours
How the coronavirus will evolve.
‘"Rise Up, patriots!" Rand Paul calls to intubated patients lying unconscious in hospital ICU.
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