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Friday! ❤️
Before we power down, we leave you with this week's StrictlyVC Download, featuring Sarah Tavel of Benchmark. Tavel is one of just five general partners running the storied venture firm, and even while we've definitely poked fun at the firm for describing itself as a "guild of artisan craftspeople," the reality is that a check from Benchmark is highly meaningful because it issues so few of them. We talked with Tavel about the decision the firm has made time and again to remain small. We also discussed the soccer NFT game Sorare (a Benchmark deal), the music NFT outfit Royal (not a Benchmark deal), and her broader views on crypto, web3, and DAOs. We enjoyed our chat; we hope you will, too.
Giant thanks to Tegus for sponsoring this episode. Tegus for Startups provides early-stage teams with arms-length feedback and insights to make better decisions and accelerate their path to product market fit. To try Tegus – totally free – visit tegus.com/strictlyvc.
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From the Financial Times: "The EU will force Big Tech companies to police content online more aggressively after approving a major piece of legislation that sets the rules for the first time on how companies should keep users safe on the internet. In the early hours of Saturday morning, after nearly 16 hours of negotiations, legislators in Brussels endorsed measures preventing companies such as Facebook and Google from targeting minors with online advertising, while manipulative techniques that force people to click on content will also be banned."
Stocks sank today as investors steel themselves for rising interest rates, putting the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 on pace for consecutive weekly declines. The tech market has plunged since its peak in November, with Netflix and Facebook hit so hard that Netflix is down nearly 68% since the Nasdaq reached a record on Nov. 19, and Facebook has lost over 45% of its value since then and is down more than 50% from its record two months earlier.
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Is your portfolio ready for a hard landing? With inflation jumping to a 41-year high, many investors are looking to protect their portfolios from inflation. Their solution? Physical assets like art. After all, contemporary art prices appreciate by 36% historically when inflation is above 3%. In fact, there’s an exclusive community of investors who are looking to take advantage of this historically inefficient market. StrictlyVC subscribers can skip the long line to start investing in artists like Basquiat and Banksy today. (See important Regulation A disclosures.)
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Agility Robotics, a seven-year-old, Tangent, Ore.-based company developing human-like robots for use in warehouses, has raised $150 million in Series B funding co-led by DCVC and Playground Global, with participation from the newly announced (yesterday) Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund. Agility has now raised $180 million to date. TechCrunch has more here.
Crusoe Energy Systems, a four-year-old, Denver-based outfit that uses waste natural gas to power bitcoin mining activities, has raised $350 million in Series C funding led by G2VP, with participation from tens of other other investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Lowercarbon Capital, Polychain Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, and Founders Fund. The outfit has also secured $155 million in new credit facilities. The Block has more here.
NexHealth, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based patient experience platform that has been called a Shopify for doctors and dentists, raised $125 million in Series C funding at a $1 billion valuation. Buckley Ventures led the Series B round, with participation from angel investors, including Lachy Groom, Jack Altman, Scott Belsky, Shreyas Doshi, Eric Glyman, Shahed Khan, Packy McCormick and Rahul Vohra. FierceHealthcare has more here.
Reify Health, a seven-year-old, Boston-based developer of clinical trials software, has raised $220 million in Series D funding at a $4.8 billion valuation. Altimeter Capital and Coatue co-led the round, joined by Dragoneer and earlier backers Iconiq, Adams Street and Battery Ventures. Bloomberg has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Basis Theory, a two-year-old, Mill Valley, Ca.-based data tokenization startup, has raised $17 million from Bessemer Venture Partners, Kindred Ventures, Conversion Capital, Offline Ventures, Ludlow Ventures, BoxGroup and Good Friends. Cofounder and CEO Colin Luce was previously VP of biz dev at Figure, the newest company by SoFi founder Mike Cagney. Axios has more here.
Leasecake, a five-year-old, Orlando, Fl.-based cloud-based operating system for lease and location management (so tenants, brokers and landlords can manage location-related services, from lease management to insurance agreements), has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by PeakSpan Capital. Las Olas Venture Capital and other earlier backers also joined the round, along with strategic investors, including Branded Strategic Hospitality. More here.
LuminWave, a four-year-old, Hangzhou, China-based developer of LiDAR products, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Anxin Capital, with participation from Value Capital and Nuoyan Capital. More here.
TvScientific, a two-year-old, Pasadena, Ca.-based performance platform for CTV ads, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from NBCUniversal and Hearst Ventures. AdExchanger has more here.
Wheelhouse, a 7.5-year-old, San Francisco-based revenue management startup that helps landlords manage their short-term rentals, has raised $16 million in funding co-led by NEA and Highgate Ventures. Other backers in the round included Signalfire, Fifth Wall, Tishman Speyer, 01 Advisors, Certares, RXR and PAR Capital. More here.
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Aunt Flow, a six-year-old, Columbus, Oh.-based startup focused on providing organic, cotton period products in public restrooms (inside companies' offices and elsewhere), has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding led by JLL Spark. Fortune has more here.
Oneio, an 11-year-old, Helsinki, Finland-based integration service provider, raised $7.9 million led by Fairpoint Capital. VentureBeat has more here.
Route Reports, a five-year-old, London-based software platform that digitizes infrastructure data for roads and rail, just raised $3.25 million in seed funding from the Urban Innovation Fund, Stanford, Ubiquity Ventures, Trucks VC, and Burst Capital. More here.
Source Health, a New York-based startup that works with healthcare offerings looking to beef up their virtual-care offerings, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by First Round Capital, with participation from Box Group. FierceHealthcare has more here.
SwatchOn, a 4.5-year-old, Seoul, South Korea-based wholesale fashion fabric aggregator, has raised $10 million from Pavilion Capital, Kakao Ventures and TBT Partners. More here.
TômTex, a 1.5-year-old, New York-based outfit trying to turn agricultural waste into leather alternatives, has raised $1.7 million in seed funding. SOSV led the round, joined by Nucleus Adventures Capital, C3 Ventures, CRCM Ventures, Gaingels, Portfolia and Chasing Rainbow. 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 Miguel Fernandez, co-founder and CEO of Capchase, an alternative finance platform for SaaS businesses. Miguel and Bradley discuss the startup ecosystem in Spain, and how Capchase works alongside venture capital dollars for startups.
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Convective Capital, a new firm led by Bill Clerico, who previously sold his company WePay to JPMorgan in 2017 (then stayed on with the banking giant until early last year), is raising $30 million for a debut fund, shows a new SEC filing. More here.
Redpoint Ventures, the 23-year-old, Silicon Valley venture firm, is raising $650 million for its ninth fund, shows a new SEC filing. It closed its eighth early-stage fund in 2020 with $500 million in capital commitments. More here.
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Amazon has acquired the four-year-old Indian social commerce startup GlowRoad in an all-cash deal as the e-commerce giant makes a bigger push into one of its key overseas markets, reports TechCrunch. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the acquisition, telling the outlet the move will help the company make inroads with its commitment to digitizing the nation’s 10 million businesses by 2025. Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed; GlowRoad had raised $32 million from investors. More here.
Ubisoft Entertainment, the video game publisher behind the “Assassin’s Creed” franchise, is attracting preliminary takeover interest from buyout funds, according to Bloomberg. It reports that several private equity firms, including Blackstone and KKR & Co., have been studying the French business. More here.
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Jack Dorsey is no longer the "CEO" of Block. In a filing with the SEC today, the company said Dorsey has changed his title to Block Head, with Block updating its bylaws to reflect Dorsey’s new role. TechCrunch has more here.
Doug Feagin has joined Paradigm after spending two years with Coatue focused on crypto and gaming and year with Goldman Sachs as an analyst before that. More here.
Dan Price, Gravity Payments’ CEO, has been charged with two counts of fourth-degree assault and one count of reckless driving in Seattle Municipal Court. The charges stem from an alleged assault with sexual motivation. More here.
George Roberts, the billionaire co-founder of KKR & Co., is giving $140 million to alma mater Claremont McKenna College, which the California school will use to fund new construction. Roberts graduated from the school in 1966.
Elon Musk says he (rightly, apparently) accused Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates of shorting Tesla recently. "I heard from multiple people at TED that Gates still had half billion short against Tesla, which is why I asked him, so it’s not exactly top secret," he tweeted tonight about a leaked exchange with Gates, wherein Gates says he has not closed his short position against the company, then says he would like to discus philanthropy possibilities with Musk, to which Musk responds: "Sorry, I cannot take your philanthropy on climate change seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change.”
Musk later tweeted out something even harsher (below) to underscore his disinterest in working with Gates on anything ever, apparently.
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Firearms overtook auto accidents as the leading cause of death in children in 2020.
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Everything you need to remember about season two of "Barry" ahead of season three.
Jon Stewart cares less about his legacy than you do.
Getting high as a teenager versus getting high in middle age.
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SeedInvest takes some of the pain out of fundraising, allowing founders to spend less time pitching investors and more time building. SeedInvest has a community of more than 600,000 individual investors, who combined have played a role in successful raises for more than 250 startups. Whether you’re raising Seed to Series B, SeedInvest is ready to help you get there. Learn more and apply to raise.
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