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Good Friday! Happy Easter to those of you who are celebrating this Sunday. If you are celebrating Passover, Chag Sameach. (Orthodox readers, let's talk next weekend.)
Before we flip the off switch, we leave you with this week's StrictlyVC Download podcast, featuring special guest Bryan Roberts of the 52-year-old venture firm Venrock. Roberts has spent his entire investing career with the firm, where he focuses on healthcare and life sciences companies (one bet is high-flying Lyra Health). We talked about everything from what's interesting to him on the genomics front, to how he's thinking about blockchains, to why he thinks the central nervous system is the next big healthcare opportunity. If you're looking for insights into the state of healthcare investing, we think you'll enjoy this one.
Giant thanks to SeedInvest, which prides itself on enabling founders to find their next investors and biggest evangelists through equity crowdfunding, Find out more about SeedInvest and its community of over 600,000 everyday angel investors at go.seedinvest.com/vc.
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Twitter's board today enacted a defensive measure meant to deter Elon Musk's $43 billion hostile takeover bid. The "poison pill" would "make it less palatable for a potential buyer to pursue the target company if the buyer accumulates shares above a certain threshold," as notes the New York Times. In Twitter’s case, specifically, it continues, if Musk tries to buy more than 15% of the company at any point over the next year, Twitter will flood the market with new stock that all shareholders except Musk can buy at a discounted
price, meaning both that his stake will be diluted and it will be more costly for him to buy the company. In the meantime, Musk can challenge the move, but Twitter can also try and line up another buyer. (Reportedly, Musk is also speaking to investors who could partner with him on a bid for Twitter, sources tell the New York Post. One possibility, say those sources, is Silver Lake, which is already a major shareholder in the company.)
Industry watchers had some great takes in the immediate aftermath of the news.
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Still, our favorite take, for the second time this week, comes from Bloomberg's Matt Levine, who, in his newest column, envisions the meeting between Musk's bankers (at Morgan Stanley) and Twitter's banker (at Goldman Sachs), should the two sides come together to evaluate whatever's on the table, real bid or otherwise. Writes Levine: "I imagine that Twitter's bankers at Goldman Sachs will sit down with Musk's bankers at Morgan Stanley and Goldman will say 'so uh where's the financing coming from' and Morgan Stanley will say 'oh
the financing is in this can' and hand Goldman a can and Goldman will open the can and a bunch of fake snakes will pop out. 'AAAHHH,' Goldman will scream, and then they will chuckle and say 'oh Elon, you got us again' and everyone will have a good laugh. Because, again, uniquely among public-company CEOs, Elon Musk has in the past pretended he was going to take a public company private with pretend financing! I am not saying that he’s joking now; I am just saying he’s the only person who has ever made this particular joke in the past."
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Be Biopharma, a two-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based outfit developing an autologous and allogeneic engineered B-cell medicine platform, has raised $130 million in Series B funding led by Arch Venture Partners. Other investors include Bristol Myers Squibb, Atlas Venture, RA Capital Management, Alta Partners, Longwood Fund and Takeda Ventures. FierceBiotech has more here.
Coda Payments, a 12-year-old, Singapore-based company that says it helps digital content providers, including game and other app makers, monetize their products and services in more than 40 markets, has given its blessing to a $690 million round of funding used to buy out earlier backers. Smash Capital, Insight Partners, and GIC invested the capital to acquire a minority stake in the outfit. VentureBeat has more here.
Obsidian Security, a Newport Beach, Ca.-based outfit that helps security and IT operations teams bridge the security and compliance gaps created when lines of business adopt SaaS applications, just raised $90 million in Series C funding. Menlo Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, and IVP led the round, joined by earlier backers Greylock, Wing and GV. SiliconAngle has more here.
Rapido, a seven-year-old, Bangalore, India-based bike taxi startup, has raised $180 million in Series D funding. Swiggy led the round, joined by TVS Motor Co. and earlier investors Westbridge, Shell Ventures and Nexus Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Beanstock, a two-year-old, Paris, France-based outfit that says it makes it easier for its customers to buy investment properties to rent out, has raised €12 million in Series A funding led by 360 Capital. Other participants in the round included Entrée Capital, PropTech1 and FJ Labs, Axeleo and Realty Corp. TechCrunch has more here.
Context, a 14-month-old, Bay Area-based web3 startup allows users to monitor other people’s wallets and transactions through an Instagram-esque feed, as well as helps users automatically find the wallets linked to people they follow on Twitter, just raised $19.5 million in seed funding co-led by Variant Fund and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The Block has more here.
Iris Telehealth, a nine-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based telepsychiatry company that matches providers to health systems and clinics, has raised $40 million in Series B funding co-led by Concord Health Partners and Columbia Pacific Advisors. Axios has more here.
RiseUp, a five-year-old, Israel-based fintech startup that aims to help its household customers to anticipate their expenses and save money, has raised $30 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Corner Ventures, with participation from Aleph, Latitude, and individual investors. Calcalist has more here.
Slope, a year-old, San Francisco-based buy-now-pay-later service for business-to-business transactions, has raised $24 million in Series A financing, co-led by Union Square Ventures and Monashees, with participation from Tiger Global Management, Global Founders Capital and a group of founders and executives. TechCrunch has more here.
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Blueshift, a two-year-old, Fort Myers, Fla.-based startup that specializes in infrastructure and data security tools for small- to medium-size businesses, has raised $6 million from WestWave Capital and CyberJunction. VentureBeat has more here.
NexWafe, a seven-year-old, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany-based maker of silicon wafers, has raised €7 million in extended Series C funding led by Ecosummit. More here.
Opus, a 22-month-old, New York-based mobile learning platform for frontline workers, has raised $2 million in funding led by Gutter Capital, with participation from Metrodora Ventures. 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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Lowercarbon Capital, the climate investment company of investor Chris Sacca, said yesterday it has raised a $350 million fund specifically to invest in carbon removal start-up companies. “There has never been a better time to start a carbon removal company,” Sacca wrote in his announcement of the fund. CNBC has the story here.
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James Anderson "has helped turn Edinburgh-based Baillie Gifford into one of the UK’s top fund managers. He is also something of a Renaissance man, as comfortable taking Tesla chief executive Elon Musk to task as discussing 19th-century French literature . . ." The Financial Times sits down with the firm's head honcho -- who has overseen investments in Amazon, Tesla, Meituan and Moderna -- describing Anderson as "affable," with a manner resembling a "maverick professor" rather than a "swashbuckling fund manager."
Faraday Future, the troubled EV startup turned publicly traded company, has taken more disciplinary action as part of its now concluded internal investigation, including removing founder and former CEO Yueting Jia as an executive officer. TechCrunch has more here.
Elon Musk is no apparent fan of Mark Zuckerberg, and reminded the world as much yesterday. When at a TED event, interviewer Chris Anderson asked Musk whether his status as the richest man and one of the platform's top influencers could pose a conflict of interest, he said: "As for media sort of ownership, I mean, you've got Mark Zuckerberg owning Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, and with a share ownership structure that will have Mark Zuckerberg the 14th still controlling those entities." The crowd laughed, but Musk added, "Like, literally. We won't have that at Twitter."
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AI is mastering language. Should we trust what it says?
Apple’s risky, years-long effort to design its own silicon paid off when supply-chain disruptions left competitors scrambling.
Facebook’s interest in podcasts is fading, barely a year after it began.
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