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It is Friday, and we are, poof, outta here. We hope you have a wonderful long weekend if you are here in the U.S. and planning to observe President's Day. Note that we will be publishing an issue on Monday, but there may not be a lot of there there, depending on what's happening in the industry. Possibly, a horrifying new scandal will be bubbling up by then!
In the meantime, we leave you with this week's StrictlyVC Download, with guest Brendan Wallace, the cofounder of Fifth Wall, a roughly six-year-old, L.A.-based "proptech"-focused venture firm that has quickly amassed $3 billion in assets under management -- including through a new European fund -- as investors bet on a reordering of how we live, work, and play. Wallace was the first person we knew to self-quarantine in early 2020, following a trip he made to Singapore; we talk in our interview about the changes brought about since then, and what Fifth Wall's many real estate partners see as must-have technologies right now. We enjoyed the conversation; we hope you will, too.
Major thanks to Tegus for sponsoring this week's episode. The platform offers one-on-one expert call transcripts, helping corporate development teams harness research from top VCs at Redpoint, Thrive Capital, and elsewhere on thousands of startups. To get smart, fast, check out tegus.co/strictlyvc.
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Bill Gates told CNBC today that the risks of severe disease from Covid-19 are now “dramatically reduced” but another pandemic is all but certain from a "different pathogen."
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Cohere, a three-year-old, Toronto, Ontario-based natural language processing startup, has raised $125 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global, with participation from Radical Ventures and earlier investors Index Ventures and Section 32. BetaKit has more here.
Evolve, an 11-year-old, Denver, Co.-based rental management platform, has raised $100 million in funding led by Durable Capital Partners, with participation from Winslow, Arrowmark, Foxhaven, and PAR Capital. The company, which says it now manages more than 19,000 vacation rentals, has raised $235 million altogether so far. More here.
Bloomreach, a 12-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based company that uses data science and machine learning to optimize the web presences of its customers, just raised $175 million led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, says Fortune, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures and Sixth Street Growth. More here.
Helium, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based decentralized network of hotspots that provides bandwidth for and collects data from nearby internet-of-things devices, just raised $200 million in Series D funding from investors.Tiger Global and FTX Ventures are among them. Axios has much more here.
MindMaze, a 10-year-old, Lausanne, Switzerland-based neurotherapeutics company, has raised $105 million in funding led by Concord Health Partners, with participation from AlbaCore Capital Group and Hambro Perks. FierceBiotech has more here.
Volta Trucks, a three-year-old, Stockholm, Switzerland-based cmpany developing 16-ton electric delivery trucks, says it has raised $260 million n Series C funding round led by Luxor Capital. Electrek has more here.
Voltron Data, a year-old, San Francisco-based data analytics standardization startup, has raised $110 million in seed and Series A funding from Walden Catalyst, BlackRock, Anthos Capital, Battery Ventures, Coatue, GV, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Nepenthe Capital, Redline and The Factory. TechCrunch has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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AKHAN Semiconductor, a nine-year-old, Gurnee, Ill.-based tech company specializing in lab-grown diamond materials (one of their applications is display screens), has raised $20 million in funding from investor Zahid Group Holdings, among others. ZDNet has more here.
Anvyl, a five-year-old, New York-based platform for supply chain relationship management, just raised $15 million in Series B funding led by B Capital Group. Other backers in the round include a mix of new and earlier backers, including AlleyCorp, Company Ventures, First Round Capital, and Redpoint Ventures. More here.
Arcion, a four-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based company whose tools help customers to migrate, replicate, and perform analysis on platforms like Databricks and Snowflake, just raised $13 million in Series A funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Databricks, among others. VentureBeat has more here.
Classiq, a two-year-old, Tel-Aviv, Israel-based quantum computing software company, raised $33 million in Series B funding from Hewlett Packard Pathfinder, Phoenix, Spike Ventures, Samsung NEXT, and individual investors, including Walden International founder and chairman Lip-Bu Tan. GeekTime has more here.
Coast, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based company aiming to help companies control fuel and fleet spending with its expense management software, has raised $27.5 million in a Series A financing co-led by Accel and Insight Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
Convictional, a five-year-old, Dover, Del.-based B2B e-commerce platform that helps retailers to quickly onboard vendors, has raised $40 million in Series B funding led by YC Continuity. TechCrunch has more here.
Exodigo, a nine-month-old, Tel-Aviv, Israel-based image mapping platform that wants to end the era of blind digs with underground mapping drones, just raised $29 million in seed funding led by Zeev Ventures and 10D Ventures. Drone DJ has more here.
Heygo, a 16-month-old, London-based live-streaming platform that invites users to experience guided tours delivered from hundreds of locations across the world, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Northzone. Forbes has more here.
Kubecost, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based cost monitoring and managing company, raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Coatue Management, with participation from First Round Capital and Afore Capital. More here.
Protecht Group, a 22-year-old, Sydney, Australia-based enterprise risk management software company, has raised AUD $42 million ($30.29 million) from Arrowroot Capital. More here.
Vanilla Vida, a two-year-old, Ashdod, Israel-based outfit that's focused on growing vanilla beans in climate-controlled environments to meet the world's demand naturally (versus through synthetic alternatives), has raised $11.5 million in Series A funding led by Ordway Selections, with participation from FoodSparks. TechCrunch has more here.
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HerMD, a three-year-old, Cincinnati, Oh.-based startup that's opening healthcare centers that focus on women's sexual health and menopause, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by JAZZ Venture Partners. MedCity News has more here.
Multis, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based application aiming to help web3 organizations to manage their crypto finances, has raised $7 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital. Other participants in the round included Long Journey Ventures, Sound Ventures, MakerDAO, White Star Capital, eFounders, and Y Combinator. More here.
Qualifi, a three-year-old, Indianapolis, In.-based on-demand phone interview platform, has raised $2.5 million of funding led by Rally Ventures. Other participants in the round included Techstars, Sixty8 Capital, Elevate Ventures, Debut Capital, Flywheel Fund, gener8tor, Converge, and Service Provider Capital. More here.
Returnity, a six-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based maker of reusable shipping and other packaging, has raised $3.1 million from Brand Foundry Ventures, with additional investments from XRC Labs and others. TechCrunch has more here.
Spoke, a two-year-old, London-based music mindfulness app, has raised £1.1 million ($1.25 million) in funding led by Ada Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Uni, a three-year-old, L.A.-based maker of refillable care products like shampoo, conditioner, and body serum, has raised $4 million in funding led by SOUNDWaves. More here.
Viva Translate, a seven-month-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based software startup that translates email and other written communications from around the world, has raised $4 million in funding from investors including General Catalyst, AIX Ventures, Fellows Fund, Hyphen Capital, and First Check Ventures. More here.
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Venture firm General Catalyst quietly announced it has raised a whopping $4.6 billion across three funds. The largest fund in the new General Catalyst family is a $2.7 billion vehicle called General Catalyst Group XI-Endurance LP. The fund will be dedicated to investing in later-stage private companies with valuations north of $150 million. It also raised a $1.1 billion Ignition fund that will focus on seed and early-stage companies. Last and least (in terms of dollars), GC closed an $800 million Creation Fund that will be used to incubate startups, as well as work with founders and execs to transform companies that fit into GC's broad areas of interest. More here.
Meanwhile, from the filings: Kapor Capital has secured $97 million for third fund that lists a $125 million target; Scribble Ventures, led by Elizabeth Weil, is raising $50 million for its second fund and $25 million for a "breakout" fund; and Shine Capital, a VC firm led by Mo Koyfman (long of Spark Capital), is raising $175 million for its second fund. (H/T: Axios.)
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Better.com is preparing for another massive layoff.
Virgin Galactic announced today that Chairman Chamath Palihapitiya is stepping down from the space-tourism company’s board of directors, effective immediately. CNBC has more here.
Today's plunge in DraftKings shares is a reflection of an unstable stock market and not the sports betting company’s performance, CEO Jason Robins suggested on the heels of releasing the company's quarterly results. “It’s a wild market right now. I think what we’re doing has been very consistent since day one.”
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Galaxy Digital Holdings, the crypto platform run by billionaire Mike Novogratz, is accelerating its pace of hiring to capitalize on a boom of talent moving into digital assets. The company’s headcount expanded more than 200% last year to almost 285 people, according to Jen Lee, Galaxy’s chief people officer who joined in recent months from BlackRock. That number doesn’t include the staff of BitGo, the custodian firm it agreed to acquire in 2021. Bloomberg has the story here.
Inside Facebook's $10 billion break-up with advertisers.
Late-stage startups could be in trouble.
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