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Federal Reserve officials signaled they could raise rates by a half-percentage point at their meeting early next month as part of their most aggressive effort in more than two decades to curb price pressures.
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| Lead Edge Capital Just Closed Its Newest Fund with an Astonishing $2 Billion (Nearly) |
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It used to take a while to amass $5 billion in assets under management. Not so for Lead Edge Capital, a 12-year-old California- and New York-based growth-equity firm that just surpassed that amount, closing its sixth and newest fund with a whopping $1.95 billion in capital commitments from roughly 500 investors.
The pool follows a $950 million fund that Lead Edge closed in October 2020 — also from around 500 investors — and which brought the firm’s assets at the time to $3 billion. (Lead Edge also runs a $150 million “public-only” fund that it created at the behest of its investors last year, according to firm founder Mitchell Green.)
Even in a day and age where money is flowing freely to tech investors — as mentioned on Monday, venture firms are managing more money than outsiders may realize — the amount is notable.
The firm credits recent exits in part, including the fashionable medical-wear retailer Figs, which went public last May; the direct listing of workplace collaboration software company Asana last September; the highly successful IPO of dating service Bumble in February of last year; and the sale in October 2020 of the security monitoring company Signal Sciences to the publicly traded outfit Fastly for $775 million in cash and stock. (According to Crunchbase data, Signal Sciences had raised roughly $60 million from investors.)
Earlier returns came via Alibaba’s IPO, Spotify’s IPO and the sale of Duo Security to Cisco. Green has said the firm invested $300 million into Alibaba in the years leading up to its IPO; more than $150 million into Spotify in the years leading up to its IPO; and more than $90 million into Duo.
Big bets aren’t unusual for Lead Edge, which has long prided itself on leaning into the investments it makes. “In the private world, we’ll run a fund with, like, 20 investments in it,” Mitchell told us during a podcast conversation in January. When it comes to public companies — which Lead Edge backs with its public company fund, the occasional special purpose vehicle, and also up to 25% of its main fund — the team takes an even more distilled approach. “You should think of our public fund as wanting to own 5 to 10 positions. We run it concentrated.”
Not all of these investments have panned out as planned.
More here.
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Clarify Health, a 6.5-year-old, San Francisco-based outfit that says it has data on more than 300 million Americans and which sells its analytics software to health insurers, health-care providers and life sciences companies, has raised $150 million in Series D funding. SoftBank led the round, joined by BlackRock, Memorial Hermann Health System and earlier backers Insight Partners, Spark Capital, KKR, Aspenwood Ventures, Rivas Capital and Sigmas Group. Bloomberg has more here.
ClimeCo, a 14-year-old, Boyertown, Pa.-based environmental commodities trading company, has raised $50 million in funding led by Warburg Pincus, with participation from The Heritage Group. More here.
Ellevest, the eight-year-old New York-based digital money management platform for women run by Wall Street veteran Sallie Krawcheck, has raised $53 million in Series B funding. BMO and Contour Venture Partners co-led the round, joined by a long list of other backers. Coverager has more here.
Enable Medicine, a three-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based biotech startup developing biological cartography tools to generate cellular maps that help in drug discovery, has raised $60 million in Series A funding. Anthos Capital and General Catalyst co-led the round, joined by Initialized Capital, Breyer Capital, Presight Capital and Axial. More here.
Fanatics, the 20-year-old, Jacksonville, Florida-based sports merchandising giant, today confirmed an earlier report that it has raised $1.5 billion in funding at a $27 billion valuation, revealing that the biggest backer in the round was the NFL, which chipped in $320 million. Other major sports organizations were also part of the financing, including the MLB. When Fanatics raised its previous round, last August, it was valued at $18 billion. TechCrunch has more here.
Fidel API, a nine-year-old, London-based financial infrastructure platform that makes identity, data and payments products to give developers a way to capture consent permissions and connect payment cards to a service or application, has raised $65 million in Series B funding. Bain Capital Ventures led the round, joined by earlier backers NYCA Partners and QED Investors. TechCrunch has more here.
Grafana Labs, an eight-year-old, New York-based company behind open source projects including Grafana and Loki, has raised $240 million in Series D funding led by GIC, with participation from JPMorgan and earlier backers Sequoia Capital, Coatue, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Lead Edge Capital. (If this sounds familiar, it's because Bloomberg reported recently this was in the works.) TechCrunch has more here.
Grover, a seven-year-old, Berlin-based outfit that enables people to subscribe to both new and used tech products monthly instead of buying them, has raised $110 million in Series C equity funding and another $220 million in debt. Energy Impact Partners led the equity portion of the round, joined by Co-Investor Partners, Korelya Capital, LG, Mirae Asset Group and earlier backers Viola Fintech, Assurant and Coparion. Fasanara Capital is providing the debt. TechCrunch has more here.
IntelyCare, an eight-year-old, Quincy, Ma.-based nurse staffing platform, has raised $115 million in Series C funding led by Janus Henderson Investors. Other backers in the round included Longitude Capital, Leeds Illuminate, Endeavour Vision, Revelation Partners and Kaiser Permanente Ventures. More here.
Lightning Labs, a six-year-old, Palo Alto-based startup that enables stablecoin transfers via its bitcoin network, raised $70 million in Series B funding led by Valor Equity Partners, with participation from Ballie Gifford, Goldcrest Capital and Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev. TechCrunch has more here.
NEAR Protocol, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based outfit behind a smart contract blockchain platform, has raised $350 million in funding led by Tiger Global, with participation from Republic Capital, Hashed, FTX Ventures and Dragonfly Capital. The Block has more here.
Nord Security, the 10-year-old, Vilnius, Lithuania outfit behind one of the bigger paid VPN providers, NordVPN, has raised $100 million in funding. The European firm Novator led the round, joined by Burda Principal Investments, General Catalyst, and individual investors, including Ilkka Paananen of Supercell, Miki Kuusi of Wolt, and Matt Mullenweg of Automattic. The round -- which represents the outfit's first outside funding -- values the company at $1.6 billion. TechCrunch has more here.
Productsup, a 12-year-old, Berlin-based commerce software startup, has raised $70 million in Series B funding. Bregal Milestone led the round, joined by earlier backer Nordwind Capital. More here.
Sweep, a two-year-old, Paris-based carbon management platform for large companies, has raised $73 million in Series B funding. Coatue led the round, joined by Future Shape and earlier backers Balderton Capital, New Wave, La Famiglia and 2050. TechCrunch has more here.
Zhiyi Tech, a four-year-old, Hangzhou, China-based startup whose software tools aim to help brands better predict what and how to sell through their live commerce stores, says it has raised $100 million across three rounds of funding. These were led respectively by GL Ventures (Hillhouse Capital’s early-stage arm); Zoo Capital; and Xianghe Capital and CE Innovation Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Allseated, a 12-year-old, San Francisco-based corporate event startup that has repositioned itself as a metaverse company, just raised $15 million in funding led by Trinity Capital, with participation from Vestech Partners, NYFF, Magma Ventures and WGG. TechCrunch has more here.
Appwrite, a 2.5-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based backend-as-a-service startup, has raised $27 million in Series A funding. Tiger Global led the round, joined by Bessemer Venture Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners, Ibex Investors and Seedcamp. VentureBeat has more here.
Ascend.io, a 6.5-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based company that sells data automation products to enterprise customers, has raised $31 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global, with participation from Shasta Ventures and earlier backer Accel. TechCrunch has more here.
Blue Current, an eight-year-old Hayward, Ca.-based solid-state battery developer, just raised $30 million in funding from Koch Strategic Platforms. Joseph DeSimone, who previously cofounded American 3D printing technology company Carbon, helms the company. The New York Times has the story here.
Cottage, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based startup whose software and marketplace connects homeowners who want an ADU with contractors who can build them, just closed on $15 million in Series A funding led by Fifth Wall. TechCrunch has more here.
Corsha, a four-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based startup that says its platform gives enterprises the ability to assign dynamic identities to trusted machines, which are then used to build one-time-use multi-factor authentication (MFA) credentials, has raised $12 million in Series A funding. Eleven Ventures and Razor’s Edge Ventures co-led the round, joined by 1843 Capital. VentureBeat has more here.
Docyt, a six-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based accounting automation software platform for small-and-medium-sized businesses, has raised $11.5 million in Series A funding led by Lobby Capital, with participation from First Rays Venture Partners and Morado Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
EnKash, a four-year-old Indian spend management startup, raised $20 million in Series B funding co-led by Ascent Capital, Baring India, and Singapore-based White Ventures. Your Story has more here.
GOALS, a year-old, Stockholm, Sweden-based startup that's building a multiplayer football (soccer) game in which users can own players as NFTs (it says it's an alternative to the iconic football video game series FIFA, though it reportedly plans *not* to license real players), has raised $15 million in seed funding. Northzone led the round, joined by previous investors Cherry Ventures, Moonfire Ventures and Banana Capital. Several high-profile angels also participated, including FC Barcelona star Gerard Pique, Axie Infinity cofounder and COO Aleksander Larsen and the Sorare cofounder Nicolas Julia. Sifted has the story here.
Loaded, a three-year-old, L.A.-based talent management and marketing startup for gaming creators, has raised $20 million in funding led by Coral Tree Partners. Axios has more here.
ReadySet, a two-year-old, Beverly Hills, Ca.-based distributed SQL cache that says it helps developers build scalable, real-time applications without code or database changes, has raised $24 million in Series A funding. Index Ventures led the round, joined by Amplify Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
Savana, an eight-year-old, Madrid, Spain-based clinical data analytics startup, has raised $25 million in funding from Conexo Ventures, Knuru Capital, Aldea Ventures and earlier backers Seaya Ventures and Cathay Innovation. Tech.eu has more here.
SmartHop, a six-year-old, Miami, Fla.-based company that says it uses AI to deliver smart load recommendations, full-service back-office support, and low-cost operational services to small trucking companies and owner-operators, has raised $30 million in Series B funding. Sozo Ventures led the round, joined by earlier backers USV, Ryder Ventures, Greycroft, Equal Ventures, Las Olas VC and The Fund. TechCrunch has more here.
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Kaleidoscope, a six-year-old, Minneapolis, Mn.-based fintech focused on educational scholarships and grants (it connects sponsoring organizations, donors and applicants), has raised $10 million in Series A funding co-led by Rally Ventures and 3x5 Partners. Pymnts has more here.
RevenueBase, a year-old, Boston-based B2B data SaaS for sales and marketing teams, has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. More here.
StackBlitz, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that uses WebAssembly and WebContainers to give software developers a full development environment in their browsers, has raised $7.9 million in seed funding. Greylock led the round, joined by GV, GitHub co-founder Tom Preston-Werner, atSpoke co-founder Jay Srinivasan and Appurify co-founder Pratyus Patnaik. TechCrunch has more here.
Sydecar, a year-old, San Francisco-based deal execution platform that says it helps people start and raise their special purpose vehicles, has raised $8.3 million in seed funding. Deciens Capital led the round, joined by Pipeline Capital Partners, Anthemis Group, and Hustle Fund VC. More here.
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Venture capitalist and political strategist, Bradley Tusk hosts Firewall, a twice-weekly podcast covering the intersection of tech and politics. Check out our recent episode with journalist, Sebastian Mallaby on his latest book 'The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future,' where he and Bradley discuss the early days of venture capital and how it's transformed over the years.
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GoTo Group, the Jakarta, Indonesia-based based outfit formed last year from the merger of Gojek and Tokopedia and whose business spans ride-hailing, e-commerce and fintech, is expected to begin trading publicly on the Indonesia Stock Exchange on April 11 and, when it does, will give a much-needed boost to early backers, including Alibaba Group and SoftBank Group’s Vision Fund, observes Bloomberg. GoTo Group, Indonesia’s largest tech company, raised 15.8 trillion rupiah ($1.1 billion) last week in one of the world’s largest IPOs this year. The pricing represents a projected market capitalization of about $28 billion after the offering, which will mean the value of the two investors’ stakes will be almost $5 billion combined. More here.
Boom, boom, boom, another SPAC bites the dust. And another one gone, and another one gone, another SPAC bites the dust . . .
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JD.com billionaire founder Richard Liu has stepped down as chief executive officer of China’s No. 2 online retailer, joining tech tycoons that exited top management roles after Beijing’s sweeping internet-sector crackdown. Bloomberg has more here.
Sydney Sykes and Faraz Fatemi have joined the consumer investing team at Lightspeed Venture Partners. Sykes cofounded BLCK VC, an expansive network of Black venture investors; she also previously managed growth and strategy for brand at the venture-backed online retailer Dolls Kill. Fatemi most recently spent a year in business operations at Clubhouse, before which he spent a year as the head of corporate development at a sports and entertainment company in L.A. called WAVE.tv. Fatemi also worked previously as an associate with Bain Capital Ventures. More here.
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A copy of the first-ever tweet -- by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey -- has been offered for almost $48 million on the NFT marketplace OpenSea, 16 times what the owner paid for it a year ago. 🤮
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The edit tweet button isn’t Twitter’s only new feature. The company has apparently changed the way it handles embedded tweets that were deleted after the fact, littering web pages across the internet with blank boxes.
Uber is becoming “superapp," or it's on the path, anyway. The firm announced today that it is adding trains, buses, planes and car rentals to its U.K. app this year.
Meta has drawn up plans to introduce virtual coins, tokens and lending services to its apps, reports The Financial Times. It says Facebook’s financial arm, Meta Financial Technologies, has been exploring the creation of a virtual currency for the metaverse, adding: "This is unlikely to be a cryptocurrency based on the blockchain . . . Instead, Meta is leaning towards introducing in-app tokens that would be centrally controlled by the company, similar to those used in gaming apps such as the Robux currency in popular children’s game Roblox."
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