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Top News
Jeff Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, filed a complaint today in federal court against NASA, continuing its protest that the agency wrongly awarded a lucrative contract to Elon Musk’s SpaceX earlier this year. “This bid protest challenges NASA’s unlawful and improper evaluation of proposals,” Blue Origin’s lawyers wrote in its court filing. NBC has more here.
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Massive Fundings
Adverity, a six-year-old, Vienna, Austria-based online marketing company, just raised $120 million led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from earlier backer Sapphire Ventures; the company has now raised $165 million altogether. Bloomberg has more here.
Divvy Homes, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based proptech startup that buys homes that it then rents back to their would-be (and hopefully eventual) purchasers, has raised $200 million in Series D funding. Tiger Global and Caffeinated Capital co-led the round, joined by earlier backers Andreessen Horowitz, GGV Capital, GIC, and Moore Specialty Credit. The round reportedly values the company, which has now raised $490 million altogether (per Crunchbase data), at $2 billion. Crunchbase News has more here.
Figment, a three-year-old, Toronto, Canada-based blockchain infrastructure company, says it has raised $50 million in Series B funding led by Senator Investment Group and Liberty City Ventures. Other participants in the round, and there are many, include Galaxy Digital, Anchorage Digital, Declaration Partners, and Bonfire Ventures. More here.
Gelato, a 14-year-old, Oslo, Norway-based on-demand printing platform, has raised $240 million at a valuation just north of $1 billion, it says. Insight Partners led the round, joined by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, SoftBank, and earlier backers Dawn Capital and SEB Pension Fund. Bloomberg has more here.
Innovusion, a five-year-old, Sunnyvale, Ca.-based LiDAR developer, has raised $66 million in Series B funding. Guotai Junan International Holdings and Shunwei Capital led the round, joined by Shunwei Capital and earlier investors Nio Capital, F-Prime Capital, Eight Roads Ventures and Temasek. Bloomberg has more here.
QCraft, a two-year-old, self-driving tech startup with operations in the U.S. and China, has raised $100 million in Series A+ funding co-led by Yunfeng Capital and Genesis Capital. DealStreetAsia has more here. DealStreetAsia has more here.
Rapido, a six-year-old, Bangalore, India-based bike taxi aggregator, has raised $52 million in Series C funding from Shell Ventures, Yamaha, Positive Moves Consulting and earlier backers Westbridge, Nexus Venture Partners and Everblue Management. TechCrunch has more here.
Ualá, a four-year-old, Buenos Aires, Argentina-based personal finance management app, has raised $350 million in Series D funding co-led by SoftBank Latin America Fund and Tencent. Other backers in the round include Soros Fund Management, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Ribbit Capital, Greyhound Capital, Monashees, Endeavor Catalyst, D1 Capital Partners, and 166 2nd. The company has now raised $544 million altogether and is valued by its backers at $2.45 billion. TechCrunch has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Baffle, a six-year-old, Bay Area-based startup that aims to prevent data breaches by keeping data encrypted from production through processing, has raised $20 million in Series B funding. Celesta Capital led the round, joined by National Grid Partners, Lytical Ventures and Nepenthe Capital. The company has now raised $36.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
BrainIQ, a Bay Area-based company whose parent, Posit Science, was founded in 2002 and that makes a whole-brain magnetic field generator device to stimulate the damaged part of a brain following a stroke and promote self-repair, has raised $40 million in funding.
Hanaco Ventures led the round, joined by Dexcel Pharma and Peregrine Ventures participating. TechCrunch has more here.
Tropic, a two-year-old, New York-based SaaS buying platform, has raised $25 million in Series A funding. Canaan Partners led the round, joined by Founder Collective and Shine Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Ultrahuman, a two-year-old, Bangalore, India-based fitness platform that's designed for monitoring metabolic activity, has raised $17.5 million in Series B funding from Alpha Wave Incubation, Steadview Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Blume Ventures and iSeed fund, among others. TechCrunch has more here.
Smaller Fundings
Buildable, a year-old, Toronto-based low-code software development system (for developers), has raised $3 million in seed funding. Ripple Ventures led the round, joined by Golden Ventures, Richard & Michael Hyatt, and Village Global. BetaKit has more here.
Jenfi, a two-year-old, Singapore-based revenue-based financing outfit that's focused on startups in Southeast Asia, has raised $6.3 million in Series A funding. Monk’s Hill Ventures led the round, joined by Korea Investment Partners, Golden Equator Capital, 8VC, ICU Ventures and Taurus Ventures. The company previously raised $25 million in debt financing from San Francisco-based Arc Labs. TechCrunch has more here.
Orchata, a 16-month-old, Mexico-based grocery delivery app, has raised $4 million in seed funding from Y Combinator, JAM Fund, FJ Labs, Venture Friends, Investo, Foundation Capital, and angel investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Shopistry, a two-year-old, Toronto, Canada-based "headless commerce" platform, has raised $2 million in seed funding from Shoptalk founder Jonathan Weiner, Hatch Labs’ Amar Varma, Garage Capital, Mantella Venture Partners and Raiven Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
ThirdAI, a months-old, Houston, Tex.-based startup that's building tools to speed up deep learning technology without the need for specialized hardware like graphics processing units, has raised $6 million in seed funding. Neotribe Ventures, Cervin Ventures, and Firebolt Ventures led the round. TechCrunch has more here.
Not-Saying-How-Much Fundings
DistroKid, an eight-year-old, New York-based music distribution and tools company, has raised money from Insight Partners that values the music distribution and tools company at $1.3 billion, according to founder (and well-known serial entrepreneur) Philip Kaplan. Kaplan isn't saying how much Insight invested, or how large a percentage of the company it now owns. Bloomberg has more here.
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New Funds
Accolade Partners, a 21-year-old backer of traditional venture and growth equity funds, is raising $175 million for its second fund of funds focused on cryptocurrency startups. The idea is to invest in 10 crypto venture funds, Atul Rustgi, a partner at the firm, tells the WSJ. The outfit's first crypto fund of funds closed in the first quarter with $124 million in capital commitments. More here.
Eastlink Capital, a seven-year-old, Menlo Park-based venture firm launched by former Riverwood Capital managing director Steven Xi, is raising $120 million for its second fund, per an SEC filing. Alt Assets has more here.
Harpoon Ventures, a three-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca., and San Diego-based venture fund focused on helping early-stage companies secure contracts from the U.S. government, has closed its third fund with $120 million, including a capital commitment from Andreessen Horowitz, (One of the firm's cofounders worked previously for both a16z and Lightspeed Venture Partners.) The San Diego Union-Tribune has more here.
Jungle Ventures, the 10-year-old, Singapore-based venture firm, is raising its fourth fund, per an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. The outfit had closed its third fund with $240 million in capital commitments (including from Temasek) in late 2019. More here.
Swiftarc Ventures, a two-year-old, New York-based venture outfit focused on consumer and consumer health startups, announced a $10 million vehicle -- its Swiftarc Beauty Fund -- to support female founders leading the next wave of beauty and wellness brands. It is the outfit's fourth fund, Sid Jawahar, founder and managing partner, tells TechCrunch. More here.
Top Tier Capital Partners, a 21-year-old, San Francisco-based outfit that makes primary and secondary investments in venture capital funds (a16z, True Ventures, Mayfield) and co-invests in select portfolio companies (DraftKings), is looking to raise up to $600 million for its tenth venture fund-of-funds and direct investment fund, per an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. Worth noting: the outfit just closed on $1.2 billion in capital commitments as recently as February. More here.
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Exits
Roblox said earlier today it has acquired Guilded, a four-year-old startup that's been building a chat platform for competitive gamers. (one that competes with gaming chat giant Discord). Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed. Guilded had raised $10.2 million in venture funding, according to Crunchbase. TechCrunch has more here.
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People
Sir Richard Branson reportedly risks losing his grip on Virgin Galactic as he continues to sell down his stake in the space tourism venture to fund his pandemic-hit businesses. The Telegraph has more here.
Tom Brown, formerly a partner at Paul Hastings and a former adjunct professor at UC Berkeley, has joined the fintech-focused venture firm Nyca Partners as its newest partner. Business Insider has more here.
Twitter’s ambitious upstart decentralized social media working group “bluesky” today appointed crypto developer Jay Graber as the formal project lead who will direct how the protocol develops moving forward. TechCrunch has more here.
Kendra Perlitz has joined Playground Global as an operating partner. She was most recently a managing director of IR and operations with SVB Capital and was a VP at Top Tier Capital Partners for several years before that. More here.
Michael Stewart has joined M12 as an investment partner based in San Francisco, where he'll focus on early-stage investments in deeptech and enterprise software in North America. Stewart previously cofounded a consumer electronics-focused startup, JUSE, and most recently was an investment director at Applied Ventures. More here.
David Su has joined Apax Partners as a partner and co-head of its global impact unit, as noted by Axios. Su was previously a partner with Norwest Venture Partners, where he spent more than 12 years.
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Data
As institutional investors increasingly look for returns from the private market, the combined market value of Blackstone, KKR, Carlyle, Apollo and Ares has ballooned from a March 2020 low of $80 billion to about $252 billion this year, reports the Financial Times. Says the outlet: "Fundraising has been so strong that the five listed US alternative investment firms alone have 'dry powder' — money committed by investors but not yet deployed — of about $440 billion, according to Goldman Sachs. That is the highest on record, and twice their firepower four years ago. Their combined assets under management, in everything from classic leveraged buyout funds to late-stage venture capital and private debt vehicles, stood at $2.1 trillion at the end of June, up almost 37% compared with June last year." More here
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Essential Reads
How Coinbase Ventures became one of the industry's busiest crypto investors without any full-time staff. Forbes has more here.
U.S. auto safety regulators are investigating Tesla's advanced driver-assistance system known as Autopilot after a series of crashes at emergency scenes. A Duke University engineering professor tells the WSJ that cameras and radar can both have trouble recognizing parked police cruisers or other equipment such as traffic cones, and that because emergency vehicles don’t always behave in consistent ways—sometimes pulling over and partially blocking a lane—emergency situations are particularly problematic for driver-assistance programs. “The visual presentation is never the same," she says. More here.
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Retail Therapy
A $900(!) coffee table book about yachts. (Book stand not included.)
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