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SoftBank is spinning off its SoftBank Latin America Fund months after its biggest advocate, longtime former SoftBank Group International CEO Marcelo Claure, left the company over a dispute about billions in dollars of pay he believed he was owed. Claure reportedly took off with his stake intact in the Latin American fund. (That stake was valued at about $300 million in late January per a WSJ source.) According to SoftBank, it continues, for now, to be the largest
shareholder in the new entity, named Upload Ventures. The firm will continue to be led by the investors who led it previously under the direction of Claure -- Rodrigo Baer and Marco Camhaji -- and it will continue to invest $100 million per year in startups, according to everyone involved, though the overall amount they have to work isn't being disclosed publicly. Certainly, one wonders, as one does, if SoftBank is thumbing its nose at Claure, or whether SoftBank's woes of late are the driving force behind this move, as the Japanese conglomerate is forced to scale back its investments across the board.
TechCrunch has more here, and here is a chat we had with Claure about investing in Latin America in September of last year. At the time, he told us that SoftBank was on target to invest $8 billion in LatAm as of the end of
2021 and that he expected it would invest another $8 billion to $10 billion in the region this year. Notably, all of that money was off SoftBank's balance sheet. ("It's pretty much our capital," he answered when we'd asked about outside investors.) Assuming SoftBank is scaling way back here, we'll be curious to see if other investors fill that sizable void. Stay tuned?
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Ansa Biotechnologies, a four-year-old, Emeryville, Ca.-based startup that says it has developed a new way to produce DNA needed to develop medicines and other products made through genetic engineering, has raised $68 million in Series A funding. Northpond Ventures led the round, joined by RA Capital, Blue Water Life Science Advisors, Altitude Life Science Ventures, Fiscus Ventures, PEAK6 Strategic Capital, Carbon Silicon Ventures, Codon Capital and earlier backers Mubadala Capital, Humboldt Fund, Fifty Years and Horizons Ventures. The WSJ has more here.
Choco, a four-year-old, Berlin-based meshes mobile commerce and messaging into a single platform to help restaurant owners and food suppliers take all their orders and communications online, has raised $111 million in extended Series B funding, six months after securing $100 million initially for the round. G Squared led the newest tranche. TechCrunch has more here.
Cocos Technologies, a 12-year-old, China-based game engine company that's best known for its cross-platform, open source engine for 2D mobile games, has raised $50 million in Series B funding, including from CCB Trust, GGV Capital and software maker Agora. TechCrunch has more here.
Ensem Therapeutics, a year-old, Boston-based oncology biotech, has raised $67 million in Series A funding. GGV Capital led the round, joined by Pavilion Capital, Cenova Capital, Mitsui & Co. and CBC Group, which is a large health-care focused Singapore-based investment firm that incubated the company. More here.
Epic Games, the 31-year-old, Cary, N.C.-based maker of "Fortnite," has raised $2 billion in new funding at a $31.5 billion post-money valuation from earlier backer Sony Group and new investor KIRKBI, owner of the Lego toy and entertainment brand. (aka LEGO Group). Last year, the company was valued by its investors at $28.7 billion. The Hollywood Reporter, which says CEO Tim Sweeney remains the company's controlling shareholder, has more here.
Stenn, a seven-year-old, London-based lending outfit that fills in the funding gaps that arise in international supply chains, has raised $50 million from the private equity firm Centerbridge. TechCrunch has more here.
Triana Biomedicines, a year-old, Boston-based biotech startup that's looking to discover and develop novel small molecules to treat diseases, has raised $110 million in Series A funding co-led by Atlas Venture, Lightspeed Venture Partners and RA Capital. Other backers in the round include Pfizer Ventures, Surveyor Capital and Logos Capital. More here.
Tive, a six-year-old, Boston-based company developing supply chain visibility tools, has raised $54 million in Series B funding. AXA Venture Partners led the round, joined by Sorenson Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Fifth Wall, SJF Ventures and Floating Point Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Voyager Innovations, an eight-year-old, Manila, Philippines-based digital services tech company that owns the regional payment and financial services app PayMaya and the platform Maya Bank, has raised $210 million in fresh funding. SIG Venture Capital led the round, joined by EDBI, First Pacific Company, and numerous earlier backers, including KKR, Tencent, and International Finance Corporation. TechCrunch has more here.
Vytalize Health, an eight-year-old, Cleveland, Oh.-based company whose tech looks at patient data and helps schedule care or flag issues and gets preventative -- as well as virtual in-home -- visits scheduled, has raised $53 million in Series B funding. Enhanced Healthcare Partners led the round, joined by Kittyhawk Ventures, Kawn Ventures and North Coast Ventures. Cleveland.com has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Creative Juice, a two-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based creator economy banking startup whose cofounder, Ezra Cooperstein, is also the president of Night, which manages YouTube star MrBeast, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Acrew Capital. TubeFilter has more here.
The Fabricant, a six-year-old, Amsterdam-based metaverse digital fashion house, has raised $14 million in funding led by Greenfield One, with participation
from Sound Ventures and Red DAO. VentureBeat has more here.
Leaft Foods, a three-year-old, Lincoln, New Zealand-based plant-based protein producer, has raised $15 million in Series A funding from investors, including Khosla Ventures, NBA player Steven Adams, investor Ngāi Tahu, and ACC Climate Change Impact Fund. Axios has more here.
Terradepth, a four-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based startup that's trying to map the ocean floor with robots, has raised $20 million in fresh funding led by Giant Ventures and Nimble Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
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Sigo Seguros, a three-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based insuretech focused on Latinx and immigrant communities, has raised $5.4 million in seed funding co-led by Listen Ventures and Chingona Ventures. Other backers in the round include Rise of the Rest, Remarkable Ventures and Kern Venture Group. More here.
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Venture capital firms and their investors have realized that a fund administrator without best-in-class technology is no longer acceptable. But experienced firms also know that when it’s crunch time and that capital call needs to go out now, no technology can replace the need for an expert, highly responsive fund accountant working with you. Meet Juniper Square, the first technology-driven fund admin built for sophisticated venture capital firms.
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Atomic, a 10-year-old, Miami-based startup studio and associated venture fund spearheaded by serial founder Jack Abraham, has raised $300 million in capital commitments for its fourth fund; the firm closed its previous fund with $270 million. We sat down with Abraham at our StrictlyVC event in November. More here.
FirstMark Capital, the 14-year-old, New York-based early-stage venture firm, is is raising $600 million for its sixth flagship fund and $600 million for its fourth opportunities fund, per SEC filings first flagged by Axios. More here
Imaginary Ventures, the four-year-old, New York-based consumer-focused venture firm co-run by Natalie Massenet, who founded the e-commerce fashion company Net-a-Porter, and investor Nicholas Brown, has raised $500 million for its third fund. It also promoted Kelly Dill and Logan Langberg to partner, according to a press release. The outfit now has $1 billion in assets under management, says Brown. More here.
JamJar Investments, a 10-year-old, London-based seed and early-stage venture firm that invests in U.I. and continental Europe startups, has closed its second fund with more than £100 million, it says, The outfit typically writes checks of between £500,000 and £3 million. Tech.eu has more here.
Osage University Partners, a 12-year-old, Bala Cynwyd, Pa.-based venture firm that invests exclusively in startups that are commercializing university research, is raising $350 million for its fourth fund, according to an SEC filing. More here.
Silas Capital, a 10-year-old, New York-based investing outfit that describes itself as a "specialist investing in early-stage consumer products companies under $30 million in revenue," is raising $150 million for its second fund, according to an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. More here.
Uniswap Labs, the company behind the popular decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, has launched a venture capital arm to invest in web3 projects. Uniswap Labs Ventures, the new division, will invest in companies across various stages and areas within web3, from infrastructure to developer tools and consumer-facing applications, according to the company. Investments will be made directly from the company’s balance sheet, The Block first reported, though the company did not share any details on how large these checks will be or how much balance sheet capital will be dedicated to the fund. More here.
Wireframe Ventures, a six-year-old, Mill Valley, Ca.-based, early-stage venture firm focused on health and climate tech, says it has raised $77 million in capital commitments for its second fund. Impact Alpha has more here.
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Datto, a 15-year-old, disaster recovery service that was acquired by Vista Equity in 2017 for $1.5 billion and taken public in 2020, has just been acquired by Kaseya, a provider of security and management services for internal IT departments and managed servers providers, for $6.2 billion. TechCrunch has more here.
Sonos is spending $100 million to acquire Mayht, a Dutch startup best known for co-creating a Bluetooth speaker powered by light. Mayht specializes in an audio technology called Heartmotion. The company claims to have reinvented the "core of the speaker driver” to allow for speakers that can be up to 10 times more compact than other models without sacrificing sound quality or bass output. And it’s that expertise Sonos is shelling out to own, Engadget has more here.
Private equity firm Thoma Bravo will acquire publicly traded SailPoint Technologies for $6.12 billion, the cybersecurity firm said today, a deal that underscores the heightened interest in the security software market. Reuters has more here.
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The US IPO market had its slowest first quarter in six years, as just 18 IPOs raised $2.1 billion. Only seven IPOs raised more than $50 million, led by TPG’s billion-dollar deal, which alone accounted for almost half of 1Q proceeds. Renaissance Capital has more here.
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Elon Musk’s surprise decision not to join Twitter's board gives the company less control over its largest shareholder, paving the way for him to press for changes and speak out freely about the company as an activist investor. Certainly, over the weekend, he was playing the part, tweeting to his 81.4 million followers that the most-followed accounts on Twitter -- including former President Barack Obama, Taylor Swift, and Justin Bieber -- "tweet rarely and post very little content," then asking, "Is Twitter dying?" “This now goes from a Cinderella story with Musk joining the Twitter board and keeping his stake under 14.9% helping move Twitter strategically forward to likely a ‘Game of Thrones’ battle between Musk and Twitter,” Dan Ives, a managing director with Wedbush Securities, wrote in a note to clients. More here.
Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke wants to cement control over the company, the company unveiled today, via a "proposed update to its governance structure" that would fix Lütke's voting power at 40% of the total, up from 34% currently, by giving him a special class of founder shares with a variable number of votes. In other words, as notes The Information (which doesn't think much of this plan), if his actual shareholding drops, his special class would kick in and top off his vote so it doesn’t decline. The proposal
is being packaged with a 10-for-1 stock split.
Exorbitantly wealthy technologists are finding midlife satisfaction in shitposting. (It's not just the a16z crew.)
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TikTok’s advertisement revenue is likely to triple in 2022 to more than $11 billion, according to research firm Insider Intelligence. By way of comparison, Twitter and Snapchat are expected to generate $5.58 billion and $4.86 billion, respectively. Nearly $6 billion of TikTok's ad revenue is expected to come from the U.S, despite regulatory concerns over user data from U.S being passed on to China. Reuters has the story here.
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The war in Ukraine and the ensuing economic sanctions imposed on Russia will cause far bigger shifts for Europe’s economy and markets than previous crises like the coronavirus pandemic, say economists.
As remote work becomes permanent, can Manhattan adapt?
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VC Bob Pavey is selling a Big Sur mansion shaped like an airplane wing.
Meet Darling, the sky-top lounge serving caviar grilled cheese sandwiches on New York City's Billionaires’ Row.
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