Sourcery (6/13-6/17)
Bezos 2000 & Frank Slootman ~ Metropolis, Vendr, PayCargo, Upvest, Kinly, Capital Rx, Proximie, Sana, Sesame, Bttn, Wonder Group, AlphaSense, DataStax, Fountain, Magic Spoon, Invoca...
Welcome to Summer ☀
Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year and the official start to summer.
But it seems everything has already started to wind down for the season with a majority of asset classes hitting rock bottom last week. Ouch. Speaking of..
Is crypto okay?
This Week on Crypto Twitter: Kraken CEO on Company Culture, Plus Reactions to Celsius, 3AC, TRON. As crypto prices bottomed out at 2020 lows, several companies felt the heat more than others. Also: Does crypto’s future not include Bitcoin? Decrypt
Three crypto firms are down bad this week, and things may get worse. Babel topples, Celsius Network goes cold, and Three Arrows Capital has a target painted on it; The Verge
Infamous scammer and fake heiress Anna Sorokin is launching an NFT collection to get away from her ‘scammer persona’
Who is at NFT NYC??
Macro Perspectives
Sequoia’s Toolkit “Adapting to Endure” Laying out market conditions, forecasting & scenario planning, extending runway, and how to lead in uncertain times
HIGHLY recommend
Investing with Altimeter Capital’s Brad Gerstner, Goldman Sachs (Recorded on May 9, 2022)
(16:00) PTSD of downturns; Getting rid of grifter investors/founders;
“Going into 2023-2024 it will be the best one of the vintages in early and mid-stage investing in a long time”
(18:40) Characteristics of founders that are uniquely capable of navigating this environment
Frank Slootman as the trophy “war-time footing” leader. Shoutout to all of the Snowflake readers! Hi Kate!
Bezos' Shareholder Letter in 2000, Tomasz Tunguz @ Redpoint
Clouded Judgement 6.17.22, Jamin Ball @ Altimeter
Impact on public cloud software multiples
Inflation Is Shifting Demand To Staples, Luxury demand however remains very strong. The Daily Consumer
How Long Does it Take For Stocks to Bottom in a Bear Market? Ben Carlson
Bill Gurley gives his ultimate perspective, with another Frank Slootman plug
Follow us on Twitter Linkedin for just the top deals recap
. . .
Last Week (6/13-6/17):
Relevant deals include the 60+ deals across stages below.
I've categorized the deals below into four categories, Fintech, Care, Enterprise & Consumer, and Sustainability, and ordered from later-stage rounds to early-stage rounds. Highlighted deals include Metropolis, Vendr, PayCargo, Upvest, Cube, Able, Kinly, Capital Rx, Proximie, Sana, Sesame, Bttn, Wonder Group, AlphaSense, CoachHub, Echodyne, DataStax, Fountain, Magic Spoon, Invoca, Elevate K-12, Lightning AI, Arkestro, Prenda, PredictSpring, Xip, Knit, EcoVadis, Little Leaf Farms, Turntide Technologies, C-Zero, Xenie, Granular; Lead Edge Capital, BetterCloud, Spotify, Revlon, Highsnobiety, Spell
Final numbers on Venture-backed IPOs at the bottom.
Deals
Sources: TS, Pro Rata, FinSMEs, Pitchbook, StrictlyVC
Fintech:
- Metropolis, an LA-based developer of payment infrastructure for parking facilities, raised $167m in Series B funding. 3L Capital and Assembly Ventures co-led, and were joined by Dragoneer, Eldridge Industries, Silver Lake Waterman, UP Partners and Dan Doctoroff. http://axios.link/Dniz
- Vendr, a Boston-based SaaS buying platform, raised $150 million in Series B funding. Craft Ventures and SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the round and were joined by investors including Sozo Ventures, F-Prime Capital, Sound Ventures, Tiger Global, and Y Combinator.
- PayCargo, a Coral Gables, Fla.-based freight payment platform, raised $130m in Series C funding from Blackstone Growth. http://axios.link/1RqY
- Performio, an Irvine, Calif.-based sales commission software solution provider, raised $75 million in a funding round led by JMI Equity.
- Cirkul, a Tampa-based beverage platform, raised $70 million in Series C funding. SC Holdings led the round and was joined by investors including AF Ventures and Siddhi Capital.
- The Wildcard Alliance, the McKinney, Texas-based Web3 game franchise from Playful Studios, raised $46 million in Series A funding. Paradigm led the round and was joined by investors including Griffin Gaming Partners and Sabrina Hahn.
- Upvest, a Berlin-based investment API provider, raised $42m in Series B funding. Bessemer Venture Partners led, and was joined by Earlybird, ABN AMRO Ventures, Notion Capital, Partech, 10x Group and Speedinvest. http://axios.link/rmZY
- Narmi, a New York-based digital banking startup, raised $35m in Series B funding from Greycroft, NEA and Picus Capital. http://axios.link/H7vz
- Cube, a New York-based FP&A platform, raised $30m in Series B funding. Battery Ventures led, and was joined by GTMfund and insiders Mayfield, Bonfire Ventures and Operator Collective. http://axios.link/YuSh
- Able, a San Francisco-based loan processing platform for commercial lenders, raised $20 million in funding. Canapi Ventures led the round and was joined by Human Capital.
- Finout, a New York and Tel Aviv-based cloud cost management company, raised $18.5 million in funding. Team8 Capital, Pitango First, R Squared Ventures, Jibe Ventures, toDay Ventures, Ariel Maislos, and other angels invested in the round.
- Kinly, a neobank focused on Black millennial women, raised $15m in Series A funding, per Axios Pro. Forerunner Ventures led, and was joined by Point 72, Anthemis Group and Kapor Capital.
- Atmos Labs, a Chicago-based play-and-earn (P&E) metaverse developer, raised $11 million in seed funding. Sfermion led the round and was joined by investors including Animoca Brands, Collab+Currency, FBG Capital, Alumni Ventures, RedBeard Ventures, DWeb3, LD Capital, and others.
- Prometheus, a Los Angeles-based investing insights platform for investors, family offices, and wealth advisors, raised $5 million in Pre-Series A funding. 8VC’s Joe Lonsdale led the round and was joined by other angels.
- DAOLens, a DAO onboarding and management platform, raised $5m in seed round funding led by Nexus Venture Partners, Better Ventures and iSeed II. www.daolens.com
- Webio, an Irish developer of chatbots for the credit, collections and payments markets, raised $4m in Series A funding led by Finch Capital. www.webio.com
- Destaxa, a Brazilian payments platform, raised a $3.1m in seed funding. Quona Capital led, and was joined by Caravela and Norte Ventures. www.destaxa.com.br
- Kairos, a San Francisco-based NFT creation tools provider, raised $2.6 million in pre-seed funding. Worklife Ventures and Seven Seven Six co-led the round.
- Nume Crypto, a crypto payments processing startup, raised $2m. Sequoia Capital India led, and was joined by Beenext and Whiteboard Capital. http://axios.link/Dq6k
- Mast Technologies, a London-based mortgage origination platform, raised £1.2 million led by Antler VC. http://axios.link/lzHA
. . .
Care:
- Capital Rx, a New York-based drug pricing prescription company, raised $106 million in Series C funding. B Capital led the round and was joined by investors including General Catalyst, Transformation Capital, and Edison Partners.
- Proximie, a London-based health technology platform digitally connecting operating rooms, raised $80 million in Series C funding. Advent Life Sciences led the round and was joined by investors including Emerson Collective, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, British Patient Capital, Mubadala Investment Company, the Minderoo Foundation, F-Prime Capital, Eight Roads, Questa Capital, Global Ventures, and Maverick Ventures.
- Sana, an Austin-based health benefits company for small businesses, raised $60 million in Series B funding. Trust Ventures and Gigafund led the round and were joined by investors including American Family Ventures, mark vc, Breyer Capital, JAM Fund, and Liquid 2.
- Sesame, a New York-based health care marketplace, raised $27 million in Series B funding. GV led the round and was joined by investors including Virgin Group, TeleSoft Partners, FMZ Ventures, General Catalyst, Industry Ventures, Coefficient Capital, Giant Ventures, and Alumni Ventures Group.
- Bttn, a Seattle-based medical supplies e-commerce startup, raised $20m in Series A funding led by Tiger Global. http://axios.link/t7ts
- Pawlicy Advisor, a Scarsdale, N.Y.-based pet insurance marketplace, raised $12 million in Series B funding. StepStone Group led the round and was joined by investors including defy.vc, Rho Ignition, Slow Ventures, and ERA’s Remarkable Ventures Fund.
- AMILI, a Singapore-based gut health company, raised $10.5 million in Series A funding. Vulcan Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Pruksa Group, TVM Capital Healthcare, Emtek Group, Capital Code, Pureland Group, Blue7, SEEDS Capital, GK Goh, and others.
- Auxilius, a New York-based clinical trial financial management platform for biotech companies, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Renegade Partners led the round and was joined by investors including Bain Capital Ventures, XYZ Venture Capital, and other angels.
- Flexpa, a medical data sharing startup, raised $8.5m in seed funding led by General Catalyst, as first reported by Axios Pro. http://axios.link/1hW8
. . .
Enterprise & Consumer:
- Wonder Group, a New York-based at-home dining and food delivery company, raised $350 million in Series B funding. Bain Capital Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Accel, Alpine Group, Amex Ventures, Forerunner, General Catalyst, GV, NEA, YieldStreet, and others.
- AlphaSense, a New York-based market intelligence and search platform, raised $225m in Series D equity and debt funding at a $1.7b post-money valuation co-led by Goldman Sachs and Viking Global. No breakout of the equity vs. debt (which came from BlackRock). http://axios.link/vVvX
- CoachHub, a New York-based digital coaching platform, raised $200 million in Series C funding. Sofina and SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the round and were joined by investors including Molten Ventures, Speedinvest, HV Capital, Signals Venture Capital, and Silicon Valley Bank/SVB Capital.
- Pixellot, an Israeli provider of automated sports video and analytics solutions, raised $161m. PSG led, and was joined by insider Israeli Secondary Fund. www.pixellot.tv
- Echodyne, a Seattle-based maker of commercial radars for defense and autonomous tech, raised $135m in Series C funding co-led by Bill Gates and Baillie Gifford. www.echodyne.com
- DataStax, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based data company, raised $115 million in funding. The Growth Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management led the round and was joined by investors including RCM Private Markets fund, EDB Investments, Crosslink Capital, Meritech Capital Partners, OnePrime Capital, and others.
- Fountain, an SF-based provider of hiring automation software, raised $100m in new Series C funding. B Capital led, and was joined by SoftBank, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, DCM, Origin Ventures, Commerce Ventures, SemperVirens Venture Capital, and Uncork Capital. http://axios.link/pkfJ
- Magic Spoon, a DTC breakfast cereal startup, raised $85m in Series B funding. HighPost Capital led, and was joined by Siddhi Capital, Coefficient Capital, Constellation Capital and Carter Comstock. www.magicspoon.com
- Invoca, a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based A.I.-powered conversation intelligence for revenue teams, raised $83 million in Series F funding. Silver Lake Waterman led the round and was joined by investors including Hollyport Capital, Kingfisher Investment Advisors, Fenwick & West, Upfront Ventures, Accel, H.I.G. Capital, and Industry Ventures.
- Postscript, a remote-based SMS marketing company for Shopify businesses, raised $65 million in Series C funding. 01 Advisors led the round and was joined by investors including Twilio Ventures, Expanding Capital, m]x[v Capital, Greylock, Accomplice, Elephant, and OpenView.
- LiveView Technologies, an Orem, Utah-based surveillance camera systems provider, raised $50 million in Series B funding. Sorenson Capital, The Larry H. Miller Group, Lead Edge Capital, and Pelion Venture Partners invested in the round.
- Submittable, a Missoula, Mont.-based social impact platform, raised $47 million in Series C funding. Accel-KKR led the round and was joined by investors including Next Coast Ventures, True Ventures, Next Frontier Capital, StepStone Group, Flywheel Ventures, and others.
- Elevate K-12, a Chicago-based live-streaming instruction company for K-12 classrooms, raised $40 million in Series C funding led by General Catalyst.
- Lightning AI (fka Grid.ai), a New York-based provider of AI developer tools, raised $40m in Series B funding. Coatue led, and was joined by Index Ventures, Bain Capital, Ventures, Mantis VC and First Minute Capital. http://axios.link/qnjO
- ALICE Technologies, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based construction simulation and optimization company, raised $30 million in funding. Vanedge Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Bouygues, Gaingels, GRID Capital, JLL Spark, MetaPlanet, Future Ventures, Merus Capital, and Rising Tide
- Arkestro, a New York-based predictive procurement orchestration platform, raised $26 million in Series A funding. NEA, Construct, Koch Disruptive Technologies, and Four More Capital led the round and were joined by investors including Cervin, Correlation, El Cap, Forum, Illuminate, and Tenacity.
- Platform9, a Mountain View, Calif.-based open distributed cloud company, raised $26 million in funding. Celesta Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Cota Capital, NGP Capital, and others.
- VersusGame, a San Mateo, Calif.-based mobile gaming platform, raised $25 million in Series A funding. APEX Capital, Brightstone Capital Partners, Feld Ventures, Gaingels, Kombo Ventures, Lifeline Ventures, Moonshots Capital, NewView Capital, Republic Capital, TribeJoint Amenti, YouTuber David Dobrik, and other angels invested in the round.
- Prenda, a remote-based tuition-free microschool company, raised $20 million in Series B funding led by 776 Ventures.
- Luminai, a Pal Alto, Calif.-based workflow automation company formerly known as Digital Brain, raised $16 million in Series A funding. General Catalyst led the round and was joined by investors including Moxxie Ventures, Craft Ventures, YC Continuity, Underscore VC, and others.
- PredictSpring, a Los Altos, Calif.-based commerce platform for the retail industry, raised $16 million in Series B funding. Salesforce Ventures, Felicis, and Novel TMT Ventures invested in the round.
- Tabnine, a Tel Aviv-based A.I.-powered assistant for developers, raised an additional $15.5 million in a funding round. Qualcomm Ventures, OurCrowd, Samsung NEXT Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and Headline Ventures invested in the round.
- Tango, an LA-based workflow intelligence platform, raised $14m in Series A funding. Tiger Global led, and was joined by Slack Fund, Atlassian Ventures, Wing VC, General Catalyst, GSV Ventures, Red Sea Ventures and Outsiders Fund. www.tango.us
- Onymos, a Menlo Park-based provider of plug-in features for apps, raised $12m in Series A funding. Great Point Ventures led, and was joined by Benhamou Global Ventures, Engineering Capital and Industry Ventures. http://axios.link/oeL0
- Chain.io, a San Francisco-based cloud-based supply chain integration platform, raised $11 million in a Series A round. Fontinalis Partners and High Alpha co-led the round and were joined by investors including Mercury, Grand Ventures, Eve Atlas, and Waybury Capital.
- Clausematch, a London-based automated policy management and compliance company for regulated industries, raised $10.8 million in funding. Lytical Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Flashpoint and the Sony Innovation Fund.
- Collaborative Robotics, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based robotics company, raised $10 million in funding. Neo led the round and was joined by investors including Khosla Ventures, Calibrate Ventures, and 1984 Ventures.
- Canditech, a Tel Aviv-based online job-simulation platform, raised $9 million in seed funding. Insight Partners and StageOne Ventures led the round.
- RapidFort, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based attack surface management startup, raised $8.5m in seed funding. Felicis led, and was joined by ForgePoint Capital, Bloomberg Beta, GFC, Plug & Play Ventures and GIT1K Club. http://axios.link/S9ld
- Plobal Apps, a New York-based mobile app platform for e-commerce stores, raised $8.5 million in funding. Elevation Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners led the round.
- Ahana, a San Mateo, Calif.-based data analytics platform, raised an additional $7.2 million in funding. Liberty Global Ventures and GV invested in the round.
- Kaleidoco, a New York-based Web3 entertainment technology company, raised $7 million in seed funding. Animoca Brands, GameFi Ventures, Gemini, and others invested in the round.
- Altrio, a Toronto-based proptech startup, raised CAD $8 million ($6.19 million) in Series A funding. Whitecap Venture Partners led the round and was joined by investors including Mantella Venture Partners, Alate Partners, and Colliers.
- Just Women’s Sports, a Los Angeles-based women’s sports platform, raised $6 million in funding round. Blue Pool Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Billie Jean King, Washington Spirit owner Michele Kang, Bolt Ventures, SC Holdings, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Muse Capital, Dapper Labs, and other angels.
- OKAPI: Orbits, an A.I.-based space traffic management platform, raised €5.5 million ($5.8 million) in seed funding. MunichRe Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Dolby Ventures, Herius Capital, and APEX Ventures.
- Xip, a San Francisco-based video learning platform from creators, raised $5 million in seed funding. Reach Capital’s Jomayra Herrera led the round and was joined by investors including LinkedIn executive chairman and Next Play Ventures founding partner Jeff Weiner, MasterClass COO Mark Williamson, Next 10 Ventures Benjamin Grubbs, and Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments invested in the round.
- Knit, an Austin, Texas-based consumer insights platform for brands, raised $3.6m in seed funding. Silicon Road Ventures led, and was joined by Bread and Butter Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Bootstrappers.mn, Operate Studio and TiE Global Angels. www.goknit.com
. . .
Sustainability:
- EcoVadis, a Paris-based business sustainability ratings company, raised $500 million in funding. Astorg and BeyondNetZero led the round and were joined by investors including General Atlantic’s climate investing venture, GIC, and Princeville Capital’s Climate Technology Fund.
- Little Leaf Farms, a Devens, Mass.-based packaged lettuce company, raised $300m in equity from The Rise Fund and debt from Bank of America. www.littleleaffarms.com
- Turntide Technologies, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based electrification and sustainable operations technologies developer, raised $80 million in a funding round. OGCI Climate Investments, SDCL Energy Efficiency Income Trust, Fifth Wall and Meson Capital's Captain Planet LP fund invested in the round.
- Moleaer, a Carson, Calif.-based developer of "nanobubble" tech for water treatment, raised $40m in Series C funding. Apollo led, and was joined by Husqvarna. http://axios.link/MZ4s
- C-Zero, a Goleta, Calif.-based developer of natural gas decarbonization tech, raised $34m. SK Gas led, and was joined by Engie New Ventures, Trafigura, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Eni Next, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and AP Ventures. www.czero.energy
- XENDEE, a San Diego-based software company specializing in the planning and operation of distributed energy resources, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Anzu Partners led the round and was joined by investors including TravelCenters of America, Evergy Ventures, and Surlamer Investments.
- Ecolibrium, a London-based machine learning decarbonisation platform, raised $5 million in pre-Series A funding. Swordfish Investments and Unbound co-led the round and were joined by other investors.
- Terra.do, a Stanford, Calif.-based climate career platform, raised $5m in seed funding led by Avaana Capital. www.terra.do
- Travertine Technologies, a Boulder, Colo.-based carbon dioxide removal and industrial chemical production company, raised $3 million in seed funding. Grantham Environmental Trust and Clean Energy Ventures led the round.
- Granular, a Paris-based clean energy market provider, raised €2 million ($2.1 million) in a pre-seed funding round. Seedcamp, Revent, and Powerhouse Ventures invested in the round.
- Green Badger, a Savannah, Ga.-based provider of sustainable construction SaaS, raised $1.1m. Shadow Ventures led, and was joined by GroundBreak Ventures. www.greenbadger.com
Acquisitions & PE:
- Blue Owl Capital’s hedge fund and private equity firm financing business, agreed to acquire a minority stake in Lead Edge Capital, a New York-based growth investment firm, per Bloomberg.
- Vista Equity bought a majority stake in BetterCloud, a New York-based operations management SaaS whose existing backers include Accel, Bain Capital Ventures and Warburg Pincus. http://axios.link/wc2K
- Spotify (NYSE: SPOT) agreed to buy Sonantic, a London-based AI for creating human-sounding voices from text. Sonantic had raised around $6m in VC funding from firms like EQT Ventures. http://axios.link/TwD7
- Revlon, the New York-based cosmetics firm owned by Ron Perelman, reportedly is preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as early as this week. http://axios.link/rkyy
- Blink Charging (Nasdaq: BLNK) will pay $200m in cash and stock to buy SemaConnect, a Bowie, Md.-based EV infrastructure startup that raised $28m (plus got a PPP loan) from firms like Trilantic North America, Greenbelt Capital Management and Pear Tree Partners. http://axios.link/2A5k
- Zalando, a listed German e-tailer, acquired a majority stake in Highsnobiety, the fashion and lifestyle media brand that had raised around $10m in VC funding from firms like Felix Capital, Blue 9 Capital, Leaf Ventures, Mirabaud Asset Management and Torch Capital. http://axios.link/nisR
- Reddit agreed to buy Spell, a New York-based platform for running ML experiments. Spell had raised around $15m from firms like Ridgeline Ventures, Blossom Capital, Eclipse Ventures and Two Sigma Ventures. http://axios.link/LC1f
. . .
IPOs:
Nothing to see here…
. . .
SPACs:
Nothing to see here…
Funds:
- Amplify Partners, a Menlo Park-based enterprise tech VC firm, raised $700m for its fifth flagship and select funds. www.amplifypartners.com
- FPV, the VC firm recently co-founded by Wesley Chan (ex-Google, Felicis Ventures) and Pegah Ebrahimi (Morgan Stanley), raised $450m for its debut fund. http://axios.link/4TOe
- Kairos Ventures, a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm, raised $58 million for a third fund focused on scientists and entrepreneurs from universities and research centers.
This year is not going well. Venture-backed companies are faring the worst.
Year-to-date, shares of venture-backed companies that recently went public are collectively down more than 50% from January (For comparison purposes, the Nasdaq 100 Technology Sector index was down nearly 31% from the beginning of this year at market close on Friday). Here’s a look at the data, per Pitchbook:
And, just for fun, here’s how bad it gets if you compare the performance of newly-minted public companies to that of the roaring 2021 market. Yelp!
But I do like to leave things on a positive note. If you look back four years to 2018, both VC and PE-backed companies are up marginally, even if it’s not by a whole lot. SPACS—not so much:
Source: Fortune
The material presented on Molly O’Shea’s website are my opinions only and are provided for informational purposes and should not be construed as investment advice. It is not a recommendation of, or an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy, any particular security, strategy, or investment product. Any analysis or discussion of investments, sectors or the market generally are based on current information, including from public sources, that I consider reliable, but I do not represent that any research or the information provided is accurate or complete, and it should not be relied on as such. My views and opinions expressed in any website content are current at the time of publication and are subject to change. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Thanks I really enjoyed reading this.