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Hope you had a happy St. Patrick's Day!
We skipped a few sections as today was busy (spent in part at a 7th grade basketball championship game that was surprisingly gripping).
We'd toast you from afar with green beer, but we think too highly of beer to drink something like that so we're having a Guinness. Cheers.:)
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Russia is leaving Ukranian cities in ruins, striking a growing number of civilians as it keeps up its siege campaign. Meanwhile, President Biden and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, will discuss the war in Ukraine and “other issues of mutual concern” tomorrow, Friday, morning, the White House said in a statement.
Amazon closed its $6.5 billion acquisition of the MGM movie and television studio today, even as the Federal Trade Commission continues to examine the deal. Politico looks at why the agency's chair, Lina Khan, an Amazon critic, never called for an official vote on a complaint against Amazon.
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| Why Aren't VCs Funding More Startups Focused on Menopause? |
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In recent years, “femtech” has attracted increasing attention and venture funding, with dozens of startups to springing into existence, from digital health apps to, more newly, regenerative medicine companies. Most of those deals tie to infertility, and it’s easy to appreciate why. Among U.S. women ages 15 to 49 years with no prior births, 26% have difficulty getting pregnant or carrying a pregnancy to term, says the CDC.
Still, founders and investors are slowly catching on to an even bigger opportunity in menopause, which impacts half the population and is becoming front of mind as the world’s demographics skew older, owing to, among other things, a shift toward smaller families that began in the late 1960s and an increase in life expectancy. (Between 1980 and 2016, average life expectancy at birth increased from 73.7 to 78.6 years).
The numbers suggest opportunity. Indeed, according to recent United Nations data, the number of older people in the total population is increasing rapidly. In 2020, there were 727 million persons aged 65 years or over in the world; by 2050, that number is expected to double to 1.5 billion people. It’s why we’re beginning to see a greater range of companies catering to an older demographic, from reverse-mortgage type lending companies to senior home care services startups.
Yet menopause — which is clearly an enormous market — continues to attract a trickling of investment dollars. According to Crunchbase data, only a dozen startups that address menopause have attracted funding over the last 12 months.
The most recent of these is Vira Health, which offers personalized digital therapeutics for women going through menopause and just this week announced a second round of funding ($12 million). The deal follows a $10 million round announced last month for HerMD, an outfit aiming to open offline centers focused on women’s sexual health and menopause (it operates two right now). Gameto, a company that aims to delay — even eradicate — menopause through regenerative medicine, meanwhile announced $20 million in funding in January.
Compared to the dollars being invested elsewhere, often in me-too companies, it’s chump change. It’s even more shocking given that women who are pre-menopausal, menopausal, or post-menopausal tend to be at the height of their spending power.
More here.
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Amagi, a 14-year-old, New York-based company that says it enables content owners to launch, distribute and monetize live linear channels on connected TV and SVOD platforms, just raised $95 million in funding led by Accel. Other backers in the round included Norwest Venture Partners and Avataar Ventures. Axios has more here.
Getir, the seven-year-old, Istanbul, Turkey-based grocery delivery company, has raised $768 million (wow) in Series E funding at an $11.8 billion valuation. Mubadala led the round, joined by new and earlier backers Abu Dhabi Growth, Alpha Wave Global, Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global. TechCrunch has more here.
Heirloom, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that says it has found a way to use cheap and widely available limestone to remove carbon dioxide directly from the air, just raised $53 million from investors. Among these was the clean tech fund Breakthrough Energy Ventures and the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund. Bloomberg has more here.
Hydrow, the five-year-old, Boston-based rowing-machine maker, has raised $55 million in Series D funding that brings the connected fitness company's total funding to $255 million. The Massachusetts-based private equity firm Constitution Capital led the round, joined by L Catterton, RX3 Growth Partners, Liberty Street, Activant Capital and Sandbridge Capital. CNBC has more here.
Policygenius, an eight-year-old, New York-based platform that invites consumers to compare and purchase insurance, has raised $125 million in fresh funding. Earlier backers joined the round, including KKR, Norwest Venture Partners and Revolution Ventures. New investors included annuity and life insurance carriers such as Brighthouse Financial, Global Atlantic Financial Group, iA Financial Group, Lincoln Financial and Pacific Life. The company has now raised $225 million altogether. Payments.com has more here.
Precirix, an eight-year-old, Brussels, Belgium-based developer of radiopharmaceuticals to treat cancer patients, raised €80 million in Series B funding. INKEF Capital, Jeito Capital and Forbion co-led the round, joined by earlier backers Gimv, HealthCap, Novo Holdings, Pontifax VC, V-Bio Ventures and BioMed Partners. FierceBiotech has more here.
SiFive, a six-year-old, San Mateo, Ca-based chip designer that uses RISC-V architecture (the design pits it directly against Arm's chip designs), has raised $175 million in Series F funding. Coatue led the round. Protocol has more here.
Webflow, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based website building startup, has raised $120 million in Series C funding led by YC Continuity, with participation from CapitalG, Accel, Silversmith and Draper Associates. Forbes has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Avive Solutions, a nearly five-year-old, San Francisco-based outfit behind an automated external defibrillator and connected response platform for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, just raised $22 million in Series A funding from Questa Capital, Catalyst Health Ventures and Laerdal Million Lives Fund. Mass Device has more here.
Canopy, a four-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based oncology care startup that aims to help cancer centers continuously engage with their patients, has raised $13 million in funding led by GSR Ventures, with participation from Samsung Next and UpWest. More here.
Curiox Biosystems, a 14-year-old, Woburn, Ma.-based biological sample prep automation company, has raised $15 million in Series C funding led by Luha Private Equity, with participation from earlier backers KB Investment Co. and Quad Investment Management. More here.
Doxo, a 14-year-old, Seattle-based bill payment platform, just raised $18.5 million in Series C funding led by Jackson Square Ventures , marking the company's first capital infusion since 2011. MDV, Sigma Partners and Bezos Expeditions also joined the round. GeekWire has more here.
Nautilus Labs, a six-year-old, New York-based ocean shipping logistics platform, has raised $34 million in Series B funding. M12 and Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund co-led the round, which brings the company's total funding to $48 million. VentureBeat has more here.
Pallet, a six-year-old, Everett, Wa.-based maker of easily erected, portable shelters for the homeless, raised $15 million co-led by DBL Partners and Citi Impact Fund. GeekWire has more here.
Protégé, a Chicago-based video audition startup whose CEO, Jackson Jhin, was previously the SVP of strategy at Cameo, just raised $8.5 million in seed funding led by Sequoia Capital. Crain's Chicago Business has more here.
Todyl, a seven-year-old, Denver, Co.-based security cloud platform, has raised $28 million in Series A funding led by Anthos Capital. Tech Operators, Blu Ventures and StoneMill Ventures also joined the round. More here.
Workhound, a seven-year-old, Chattanooga, Tenn.-based employee feedback management company that has centered on truck drivers and other employees like office staff but that plans to expand, just raised $12 million in Series A funding from Level Equity. FreightWaves has more here.
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Arcol, a year-old, New York-based company in the early stages of building a design and documentation tool that runs in one's browser for actual building design, has raised $3.6 million in seed funding. Cowboy Ventures participated in the round, along with Figma CEO Dylan Field, Figma head of corporate development and strategy Lauren Martin, and numerous others. TechCrunch has more here.
Dorian, a three-year-old, Bay Area-based interactive storytelling platform that's inviting writers to turn their tales into choose-your-own-adventure mobile games, has raised $14 million in Series A funding led by the Raine Group, with participation from March Gaming, VGames, Gaingels, Graham & Walker and London Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
Liveblocks, a year-old, Wilmington, Del.-based real-time collaboration API, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Boldstart. Atlassian, Kima Ventures and Seedcamp also joined the round. TechCrunch has more here.
Oorbit, a 15-month-old, U.K.-based entertainment metaverse startup run by brothers, has raised $5 million in seed funding from HOF Capital, Mark Cuban and deadmau5. More here.
Solo, a seven-month-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based startup helmed by alums of Waymo, Tesla and BMW who say they want to build a ground-up heavy truck platform to be compatible with any autonomous driving software (instead of trying to retrofit existing trucks for autonomous driving), has raised $7 million in seed funding. Trucks VC led the round, joined by Maniv Mobility and Wireframe Ventures. More here.
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Affinity, the relationship intelligence platform for dealmakers, launched a report analyzing investment trends that point toward future unicorn status. Affinity used their proprietary data to analyze over 925 unicorns from the last five years. Learn how top venture capital firms use relationship intelligence to spot more unicorns. Read the report.
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More than 250 of France’s most successful founders are banding together to launch a seed fund designed to further accelerate their local tech ecosystem. Dubbed Galion.exe, the group raised €30 million toward a goal of €80 million for a debut fund that will primarily target French startups. The goal is to back 12 companies a year with checks ranging in size from €1 million to €4 million. Sifted has the story here.
Hoxton Ventures, a nearly nine-year-old, London-based venture capital firm that specializes in seed and early-stage financing for European companies, has closed its third and newest fund with $215 million in capital commitments, more than doubling the size of its last fund, which it closed just two years ago. Some of its highest-profile bets to date have included the food delivery app Deliveroo and the cybersecurity firm Darktrace. Fortune has more here.
Chrysler-parent Stellantis says it's ready to begin investing in startups. The company announced earlier this month that as part of the release of its Dare Forward 2030 business plan, it would create a $329 million (300 million euros) venture capital fund. Now, Adam Bazih, the head of venture capital for the automaker, tells the Detroit Free Press that Stellantis Ventures is "ready to deploy and go ASAP."
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Berkeley SkyDeck Fund, a startup accelerator and incubator program at UC Berkeley, has promoted Brian Bordley to partner. Bordley joined the firm in 2018. More here
Forgepoint Capital, a cybersecurity-focused venture firm, promoted Ernie Bio to partner. Bio -- who began his career as an F-16 fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force -- joined the firm in 2018. More here.
Scrutiny of Barstool Sports is reportedly mounting, as gambling operator Penn National Gaming moves to acquire the media company. Regulators in Nevada and Indiana are said to be looking into both companies in the wake of sexual-misconduct accusations against Barstool founder Dave Portnoy.
Yale management professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is shaming companies with this simple list, and it's working.
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A million new millionaires were created in U.S. last year, and the richest got richer, according to a new report from the wealth research firm the Spectrem Group.
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As the U.S. corporate world continues its withdrawal from Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine, a growing stigma against anything Russian is reverberating in Silicon Valley as tech start-ups and venture capital firms reassess their exposure and limit risks. “There can be a stigma toward founders from Russia coming over to the U.S. and Russian-speaking entrepreneurs,” Julian Zegelman, a general partner at Step Ahead Capital, whose family left Russia when he was a child, tells CNBC. “We hope it’s not a witch hunt,” he
said.
Instagram yesterday began rolling out parental controls for its app for the first time. Parent company Meta Platforms will soon also let guardians supervise teens’ activity in virtual reality. Because the controls are applied on a per-account basis, they don’t prevent teens from having secret accounts, known as “finstas," notes the WSJ.
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Join The Atlantic at the Ritz Carlton, Half Moon Bay this spring to discover how to build a full and meaningful life. StrictlyVC is offering newsletter readers exclusive access to this sold-out experience. At In Pursuit of Happiness, learn and network with leaders from across sectors during conversations and workshops on how to meaningfully build and practice happiness with your teams and in your personal life. Use this link to purchase a ticket before March 27, while they’re still available.
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