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August 19, 2021
Thursday! Hope yours went well.:)
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Top News
The Federal Trade Commission is again taking aim at Facebook in a fresh lawsuit that beefs up its accusations that the company is a monopoly that illegally crushes competition. The agency is attempting to overcome the skepticism of a federal judge who threw out the agency’s original case two months ago; it's also making pretty clear that FTC chair Lina Khan will not recuse herself from the case. The New York Times has more here.
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Arianna Simpson of Andreessen Horowitz on the Firm's Newest Bets on Crypto + Gaming
As one of four general partners at Andreessen Horowitz who are now investing the venture firm's third crypto fund, a $2.2 billion vehicle, Arianna Simpson is highly focused on how to return that capital and much more to the firm's limited partners.
Toward that end, she has been following more startups that combine crypto with gaming. Last month, for example, her team co-led an investment in Virtually Human Studio, the startup behind a digital horse racing service Zed Run, wherein users buy, sell and breed virtual horses whose value rises depending on their performance against other virtual horses. (Each is essentially a non-fungible token, or NFT, meaning it is unique.)
Simpson is relatedly intrigued with NFT-based "play-to-earn" models, wherein gamers can earn cryptocurrency that they can then cash out for their local currency if they so choose. Indeed, a16z is announcing today that it just led a $4.6 million investment in the tokens of Yield Guild Games (YGG), a decentralized gaming outfit based in the Philippines that invites players to share in the company's revenue by playing games like "Axie Infinity," a blockchain-based game where players breed, battle and trade digital creatures named Axies in order to earn tokens called "Small Love Potion" that they can eventually cash out. (YGG lends players the money to buy the Axies and other digital assets to start the game so they can start earning money. The obvious hope is that they earn more than they have to pay YGG for the use of its assets.)
We talked yesterday about the intersection of crypto and gaming with Simpson -- who joined a16z after first backing some of the same startups as the firm, including the blockchain infrastructure company Dapper Labs and the global payment platform Celo.
She also shared which platforms a16z tracks most closely to identify up-and-coming crypto startups. Our chat, edited for length, follows.
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Massive Fundings
Ample, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based a battery-swapping company that invites cars to visit its automated charging pod locations to swap out depleted batteries for charged ones, has raised $160 million in Series C funding. Moore Strategic Ventures led the round, joined by PTT, a Thai state-owned oil and gas company, and Disruptive Innovation Fund. Earlier investors Eneos, a Japanese petroleum and energy company, and Singapore’s public transit operator SMRT also participated. Ample’s total funding is now $230 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Breeze Airways, a two-year-old budget airline in the U.S. that began flights in late May between smaller cities to which larger carriers don't offer direct flights, has raised $200 million in new Series B equity funding. Entities managed by BlackRock and Knighthead Capital Management led the round. The startup, led by former JetBlue founder David Neeleman, has raised more than $300 million in total so far. CNBC has more here.
Cars24 Services, a five-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based used car marketplace, is reportedly in talks to raise around $350 million at nearly a $2 billion valuation from investors that include DST Global, Falcon Edge Capital and SoftBank. Bloomberg has more here.
Databricks, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based unified data analytics platform, is reportedly raising at least $1.5 billion in Series H funding led by Morgan Stanley at a $38 billion valuation. Existing backers include Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, Whale Rock, AWS, CapitalG, Microsoft and Salesforce Ventures. Bloomberg has the story here.
Nacelle, a two-year-old, L.A.-based startup in “headless” commerce, which means it is disconnecting the front end of a website from the back end, where all of the data lives, to create a better shopping experience, has raised $50 million in Series B funding from Tiger Global. The company has now raised roughly $73 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Reali, a five-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based home buying and selling platform, has raised $75 million in equity funding led by Zeev Ventures, with participation from Akkadian Ventures and Signia Ventures. The Real Deal has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Enable, a 1.5-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that's developing a cloud-based software tool for business-to-business rebate management, has raised $45 million in Series B funding led by Norwest Venture Partners. Earlier backers Menlo Ventures and Sierra Ventures also participated in the round. TechCrunch has more here.
DigiSure, a three-year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based digital insurance startup that caters to mobility and sharing-economy companies, has raised $13.1 million in what it calls pre-Series A funding. Morado Ventures led the round, joined by Xplorer Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Clocktower Technology Ventures, True North Cos and former Upwork CEO Fabio Rosati. TechCrunch has more here.
RepairSmith, a 3.5-year-old, El Segundo, Ca.-based mobile auto repair service, has raised $42 million in Series B funding from TI Capital, Porsche Ventures, Spring Mountain Capital and Mercedes. TechCrunch has more here.
Balance Re, a seven-year-old, Cologne, Germany-based life reinsurance startup focused on asset-liability management, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Anthemis Group. Earlier backers Roland Berger Industries and Talabot Finance also joined the round. Intelligent Insurer has more here.
Diamond Age, a three-year-old, Pleasanton, Ca.-based full stack robotics startup that is automating new home construction through end-of-arm robotic tools that offset much of the manual labor that's typically involved, has raised an $8 million seed round led by Prime Movers Lab and Alpaca VC. Additional investors include Dolby Family Ventures, Calm Ventures, Gaingels, Towerview Ventures, GFA Venture Partners, and Suffolk Construction. TechCrunch has more here.
Launch House, a 1.5-year-old, L.A.-based startup that's offering physical space and digital community to entrepreneurs and creators (it all started with a shared house in Tulum last year during the pandemic), has raised $3 million in seed funding. Flybridge Capital Partners led the round, joined by Day One Ventures and Graph Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Lifepal, a two-year-old, Jakarta, Indonesia-based direct-to-consumer insurance marketplace, has raised $9 million in Series A funding led by ProBatus Capital, with participation from Cathay Innovation, Insignia Ventures Partners, ATM Capital and Hustle Fund. The company has now raised $12 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Regology, a four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based regulatory compliance platform that says it simplifies regulation discovery, implementation, and ongoing audit and reporting for its customers, has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Acme Capital. Gagarin Capital and Pine Wave Investments also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.
Role, an 18-month-old, L.A.-based digital tabletop role-playing game studio, has raised $2.75 million in seed funding co-led by Konvoy and London Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
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New Funds
Fontinalis Partners, a 12-year-old, Detroit-based venture firm that was among the earliest early-stage venture outfits to focus squarely on mobility, has collected $104 million in capital commitments for its third and newest fund. Investors in the vehicle include Ford Motor Corp., whose executive chairman, Bill Ford, cofounded Fontinalis and continues to help manage the fund. It also collected commitments from roughly 30 other limited partners, ranging from corporate partners in the automotive and insurance industries to family offices. We talked with the team here.
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Exits
Adobe announced today it is acquiring Frame.io, a video review and collaboration platform used by over a million customers, for $1.275 billion in cash. Founded in 2014, New York-based Frame.io was created to solve the workflows challenges filmmakers faced. It raised $90 million over the years, including from Insight Partners that included participation from Accel, FirstMark, SignalFire and Shasta Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
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People
Hank Azaria will play Tim Cook in "Super Pumped," the Showtime series based on New York Times reporter Mike Isaac's book of the same name. More here.
David Feinberg, who led Google’s ambitious and sometimes controversial push into healthcare, is leaving the search giant to become CEO of the publicly traded software company Cerner Corp. More here.
Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky, 61, is stepping aside, handing over the reins of the world’s largest health-products company to a longtime lieutenant after nearly a decade at the helm. More here.
Olaf Sakkers, who left the Tel Aviv-based venture firm Maniv Mobility in April after a six-and-a-half-year run, has cofounded RedBlue, a Tel Aviv-based venture firm that, like Maniv, is looking to back leading mobility startups. More here.
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Essential Reads
OnlyFans is getting out of the pornography business. Starting in October, the company will prohibit creators from posting material with sexually explicit conduct on its website, which many sex workers use to sell fans explicit content, notes Bloomberg. The move aims to make it easier for OnlyFans to raise outside funding; it could also create opportunities for newer platforms to emerge, argues TechCrunch.
After destroying brick-and-mortar businesses, Amazon is now planning to remake them in its own image by opening large retail locations akin to department stores. The WSJ has the story here.
The founder of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, needs investors for the company’s U.S. unit after a recent venture capital deal fell through. More in the New York Times.
Tesla will build a humanoid robot called Tesla Bot, CEO Elon Musk said today at a series of tech talks hosted by Tesla to recruit machine learning talent. “We’re also good at sensors and batteries and we’ll probably have a prototype next year that looks like this,” Musk reportedly said after an actor in a body suit designed to look like the Tesla robot gyrated wildly on stage. Musk apparently joked afterward that the actor wasn't a real robot but that “the Tesla Bot will be real.” CNBC has more here.
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