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So that's that. Cloud contact center software company Five9 and video calling software maker Zoom said today they're putting the kibosh on Zoom’s earlier plans to acquire Five9 after the deal failed to receive enough votes from Five9 shareholders.
Facebook came under heavy fire today for its efforts to target young people, with members of a Senate panel accusing the company of disregarding internal research that showed its Instagram app is harmful for significant numbers of teen girls. More here.
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| AlleyCorp is Giving These Physicians $100 Million to Plug into Healthcare Startups |
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Kevin Ryan — the New York-based investor and entrepreneur who first rose to prominence as CEO of the early online ad business DoubleClick — could have launched or joined a traditional venture firm many years ago. Instead, he has launched one company after another with largely his own capital at the outset to get them going. Think Business Insider and Gilt Groupe, MongoDB and Zola.
Ryan is still at it, investing a $500 million evergreen fund with primarily personal capital through a growing team that also chips into the fund and helps him both fund startups as well as incubate them. Interestingly, despite that Ryan has no background in healthcare, more of those dollars have been moving into healthcare, too. His investment firm, AlleyCorp, has already made 20 healthcare-related bets in recent years. Now, it’s carving out $100 million for a new fund to double down on the sector.
The fund, chaired by Ryan, is being led by Brenton Fargnoli, M.D., a one-time resident physician at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston who was able to arrange a research elective with Flatiron Health back in 2015, which brought him to New York and into the world of entrepreneurship. (Fargnoli later did double duty, working as a medical director at Flatiron and also as an attending physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.)
Fargnoli is being joined by another M.D., Jeff De Flavio, a physician-entrepreneur who has launched numerous companies.
More here.
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Alloy, a 6.5-year-old, New York-based startup whose APIs help fintechs and banks to more safely onboard customers and make subsequent identity-related decisions about them, raised $100 million in Series C funding at a $1.35 billion valuation. (The company has raised a little more than $150 million altogether.) Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round, joined by Canapi Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Avid Ventures and Felicis Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
AlphaSense, a 10-year-old, New York-based market intelligence and search platform, has raised $180 million in Series C funding. Viking Global Investors led the round, joined by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citi, Bank of America, Barclays, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, Cowen and AllianceBernstein. More here.
Avo, a four-year-old, Israel-based residential and office delivery platform, raised $45 million in Series B funding. Insight Partners led the round, joined by earlier backers Kleiner Perkins and JLL Spark. Calcalist has more here.
Betterment, an 11-year-old, New York-based robo-advisor, has raised $60 million in Series F funding led by the venture firm Treasury, with participation from Aflac Ventures, ID8 Investments and earlier investors, including Kinnevik, Bessemer Venture Partners, Francisco Partners, and Menlo Ventures. It also secured a $100 million credit facility. The company say it is now valued at $1.3 billion by investors; according to Crunchbase, it has raised at least $435 million in equity funding to date. Bloomberg has more here.
ContractPodAi, a nine-year-old, London-based legal contract lifecycle management platform, has raised $115 million in Series C funding led by SoftBank. The round brings the company's total funding to roughly $170 million. VentureBeat has more here.
CredAvenue, a 1.5-year-old, Mumbai, India-based online marketplace for companies that are seeking loans and investors, has raised $90 million in one of the biggest Series A rounds in India to date. The round was co-led by Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, TVS Capital Funds and Lightrock India. The Economic Times has more here.
Konfio, an 8.5-year-old, Mexico City, Mexico-based small business lender backed by SoftBank, has raised $110 million in extended Series E funding after initially raising $125 million for the round. Leading the newest tranche, at a $1.3 billion valuation, was Tarsadia Capital and QED Investors. Reuters has more here.
Materialize, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based streaming SQL database company, has raised $60 million in Series C funding led by Redpoint Ventures, with participation from earlier backers Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company has now raised roughly $100 million altogether. VentureBeat has more here.
OfBusiness, a six-year-old, Gurgaon, India-based commerce startup that sells industrial goods and provides small businesses with credit, has raised $207 million in Series F funding led by Tiger Global, with participation from SoftBank and Alpha Wave. It's the the third round of financing for the company this year. TechCrunch has more here.
Ola Electric, a four-year-old, Bangalore, India-based e-scooter maker that was once part of the ride-share giant Ola, has raised more than $200 million at a $3 billion valuation co-led by Falcon Edge Capital and SoftBank. (We aren't seeing much the company has raised altogether.) TechCrunch has more here.
TrialSpark, a five-year-old, New York-based startup that earlier conducted research on behalf of pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and now aims to compete with them by making medications itself, is revealing it raised $156 million in funding earlier this year led by investor-entrepreneur Sam Altman. Bloomberg has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Catalog, a five-year-old, Boston, Ma.-based company developing what it claims is the world’s first DNA computer, today announced that it raised $35 million in a series B funding round led by Hanwha Impact Partners. VentureBeat has more here.
Found, a year-old, San Francisco-based weight management startup, just raised $32 million in seed and Series A funding from GV, Define Ventures and founding investor Atomic. It has also appointed former Bumble COO Sarah Jones Simmer as its new CEO, says TechCrunch.
MaestroQA, an eight-year-old, New York-based maker of omnichannel quality assurance software for support teams, has raised $25 million in Series A funding. Base10 Partners led the round, joined by SaaStr and Talkdesk Ventures. Forbes has more here.
Reachdesk, a 2.5-year-old, London-based B2B gifting marketplace, raised $43 million in Series B funding. Highland Europe led the round, joined by Highland Capital, HubSpot Ventures and RLC Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Tonic.ai, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that creates mock data that preserves characteristics of datasets so developers, data scientists, and salespeople can work without breaching privacy, has raised $35 million in Series B funding. Insight Partners led the round, joined by GGV Capital, Bloomberg Beta, Heavybit and Silicon Valley CISO Investments. TechCrunch has more here.
Zero Hash, a six-year-old, Chicago-based startup that's helping fintechs offer digital currencies, has raised $35 million in Series C funding. Point72 Ventures led the round, joined by NYCA Partners and DriveWealth. Business Insider has more here.
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GrayMatter Robotics, a year-old, LA-based maker of manufacturing robots that help humans more safely and effectively do surface treatment tasks like sanding and spraying on manufacturing lines, has raised $4.1 million in seed funding. Stage Venture Partners and Calibrate Ventures co-led the round, joined by 3M Ventures, OCA Ventures, Pathbreaker Ventures and B Capital Group. AIThority has more here.
Incident.io, a months-old, London-based incident management startup, has raised $4.7 million in seed funding co-led by Index Ventures and Point Nine. TechCrunch has more here.
Prometheus Alternative Investments, a 16-month-old, L.A.-based social network for investment pros, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by 8VC. More here.
VertoFx, a four-year-old, London-based cross-border B2B payments platform for SMEs, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. Quona Capital led the round, joined by Treasury, Middle East Venture Partners, TMT Investments, Unicorn Growth Capital, Zrosk Investments and P1 Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Toothfairy, a 2.5-year-old, London-based telemedicine app for cosmetic dentistry, just raised £3 million in seed funding from ADA Ventures, Slingshot, Seedcamp, All Iron and Haatch Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
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The Military Veteran Startup Conference hosted by Context Ventures on 2/4/22 in San Francisco is a must-attend-in-person event for military veteran entrepreneurs. The event is free for military veteran (spouses and) entrepreneurs. Practically every venture capital firm that's veteran-led or invests in veteran founders has confirmed attendance. The event is about maximizing founder growth so will primarily consist of relevant 1:1 meetings with successful military veteran founders and VCs. Enlist here.
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Silicon Valley-based venture firm Benhamou Global Ventures, known as BGV, closed its fourth fund with $110 million to support global enterprise companies. The new fund is 60% larger than its third fund and will be invested similarly, in seed and Series A enterprise startups. TechCrunch has more here.
Counterpart Ventures, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based venture fund that's focused largely on B2B startups and was cofounded by two veterans of the corporate venture world (Patrick Eggen, formerly of Qualcomm Ventures, and Joe Saijo, formerly of Recruit Strategic Partners) has closed its second fund with $110 million in capital commitments. TechCrunch has more here.
Resolute Ventures, a 10-year-old, San Francisco-based, pre-seed and seed-stage venture fund, is raising $115 million for its fifth fund, according to an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. More here.
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Marc Lasry, the billionaire investor, has stepped down as chair of Ozy Media after only three weeks in the role. Katty Kay, who had left the BBC for Ozy, also resigned, and the A&E cable network canceled the broadcast of a documentary it had co-produced with the company. The online media business has come under fire after a report in The New York Times questioned its audience figures and revealed that one of its founders had impersonated a YouTube executive on a conference call with Goldman Sachs during a fundraising process. More here.
A Facebook whistleblower who provided tens of thousands of internal documents to federal regulators that reportedly show that the company lied about its ability to combat hate, violence and misinformation on its platform is set to reveal her identity in a nationally broadcast interview Sunday on CBS. The same ex-Facebook employee plans to testify Tuesday before Congress about the company "turning a blind eye" to harm caused by its products, including the impact on teens' mental health. NPR has more here.
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Jeff Bezos, who has faced repeated and persistent criticism over working conditions at the company he formerly led, Amazon, is now facing allegations of a hostile work environment at his space company Blue Origin. TechCrunch has more here.
Apple's fortress of secrecy is crumbling from the inside.
TikTok is now flirting with NFTs, too.
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Want to meet the next generation of VCs? Request an invite for the sixth annual RAISE Global Summit (formerly RAISE in the Presidio), happening October 19-20. The RAISE Global Summit helps LPs identify and invest in emerging venture funds. 30 funds will present, 200+ fund decks will be available in the RAISE Portal. Two half-day virtual sessions + in-person gatherings in SF, LA, NYC. Click here to request an invite.
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