1.
Reid Hoffman, Zynga’s Mark Pincus aim to raise $600M for tech-focused SPAC
Reinvent Technology Partners, a new special purpose acquisition company formed by famed investor and serial entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, Zynga founder Mark Pincus and veteran hedge fund manager Michael Thompson, filed Monday for a $600 million initial public offering. The SPAC was formed by Hoffman, Pincus and Thompson, formerly of BHR Capital, with the intention of merging with a technology company. Thompson will be director, CEO and CFO. Hoffman and Pincus are co-lead directors. The company plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol RTP.U. Once, and if, the Reinvent Technology Partners raises the $600 million, the capital will move into a blind trust until its management team decides which company it wants to acquire. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
2.
Wish confidentially files to go public
E-commerce marketplace Wish said Monday that it has submitted a draft registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission for a public stock offering. The company didn’t disclose its financial information nor how many shares would be offered. Reuters first reported the news of Wish filing confidentially to go public. Wish, founded in 2010, is an online marketplace with more than a million sellers that offer its more than 70 million active users a variety of discounted goods, ranging from cheap home goods and apparel to electronics and toys. Compared with rival third-party marketplaces operated by Amazon and Walmart, Wish is targeted to shoppers of “every socio-economic status” who might not be able to afford $119 a year for Prime. [ CNBC
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Special:
Meet The Canadian Scion Who Just Scored $300 Million From Blackstone
Last week, a group of investors led by a Blackstone affiliate agreed to make a $300 million preferred equity investment in Tricon, a publicly traded Canadian firm with a major presence in the U.S. rental market. The deal is a huge boon to Tricon, which will help shore up its balance sheet and gain a brand-name partner. The deal is also a boon to Tricon’s CEO, Gary Berman, whose father, David, cofounded the business in 1988. “We went public as a very small company” in 2010, Gary Berman says. Even now, he adds, “I think we're in the early innings of what could become a much, much bigger business.” [ Forbes ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
3.
Owl Ventures’ new pair of funds gives edtech a $585 million boost
Today, Owl Ventures, a San Francisco-based education technology fund whose portfolio includes Byju’s, Labster, Masterclass and Quizlet, announced that it has closed a pair of investment vehicles totaling $585 million. Owl Ventures IV is a $415 million investment vehicle which will be used to invest in edtech startups Series A and beyond. The firm also formed its first ever opportunity fund at $170 million to work as a growth-stage bank for existing portfolio companies. The new funds allow Owl Ventures to cut larger checks. Traditionally, the firm cut checks that were between $5 million to $35 million. Now, it can write investments up to $50 million in companies. The opportunity fund will exist to back existing investments throughout their lifetime. [ Tech Crunch ]
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4.
YC startup SockSoho is using data science in a bid to become the ‘Uniqlo of India’
SockSoho is a direct-to-consumer brand that aspires to become the “Uniqlo of India.” The company launched sales 10 months ago, starting with men’s socks, and recently completed Y Combinator’s Summer 2020 program. Founded by Pritika Mehta, a data scientist who has
worked at companies including TripAdvisor, and growth marketer Simarpreet Singh, SockSoho now has more than 30,000 customers, and plans to launch into new menswear verticals soon. Before launching SockSoho, Mehta and Singh worked together on MindBatteries, a technology and content IP provider whose corporate clients included The Times of India, The Economic Times, Mercedes, Infosys, the World Economic Forum and Uber. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
5.
Clayton, Dubilier & Rice to buy Epicor Software for $4.7 billion
Clayton, Dubilier & Rice has agreed to buy Texas-based business management software company Epicor Software from KKR for $4.7 billion (including debt). Why it matters: It's the largest enterprise software deal so far in 2020. It's also a big win for KKR, which tried but failed to sell Epicor last year. - ROI: KKR
bought Epicor in 2016 from Apax Partners for around $3.3 billion (including debt), and it recently extracted $560 million via a $1.7 billion dividend recap. [ Axios ]
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6.
Tech Startup, Trying to Be Amazon for Farms, Runs Into Ag Giants
OMAHA, Neb.—Inside a packed arena last December, 2,700 farmers sipped coffee from paper cups and listened to remarks on the Midwestern economy: incomes down, costs up and bankruptcies rising. The speaker wasn’t a politician or an academic. He was Charles Baron, co-founder of Farmers Business Network, or FBN, a Silicon Valley startup that is trying to build an Amazon-like online marketplace for agricultural supplies. [ WSJ ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
7.
Cosmose AI raises $15 million to track in-store shoppers using smartphone data
Location data analytics provider Cosmose AI today announced it raised $15 million in a funding round valuing the company at over $100 million. A spokesperson told VentureBeat the capital will be used to drive customer acquisition and product R&D. Keeping apprised of shopping trends online is straightforward enough — whole categories of startups
achieve this with modeling. But what about when that shopping takes place in-store? Despite (or perhaps because of) the pandemic, physical store brands see tracking the behaviors of mall, outlet, and department shoppers as of critical importance because of its potential to boost engagement (and sales). [ Venture Beat ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
8.
InfoSum Raises $15 Million And Adds Brian Lesser As Executive Chairman
InfoSum, a UK-based data platform that allows companies to match data in a privacy compliant-way, has raised $15 million and appointed Brian Lesser as executive chairman, the company said Tuesday. The funding round was led by Upfront Ventures and IA Ventures and supported by strategics including Ascential, Akamai, Experian and AT&T’s Xandr, where Lesser was formerly CEO. The investment will be primarily focused on growing InfoSum’s sales and marketing operations in North America, which Lesser will oversee. He declined to comment for this article. “We have a couple of people in North America,
but we want to massively grow the team,” said InfoSum CEO Nick Halstead. [ AD Exchanger ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
9.
GoodRx’s 75% Profit Growth Augers Well For Its IPO
On August 28 the drug discount coupon provider GoodRx — which has been profitable since 2016 — published its IPO prospectus. Its IPO, paired with Snowflake’s, will help answer the eternal question: Do investors care more about revenue or profit growth? In contrast with money-losing cloud data analysis software provider Snowflake — about which I wrote August 27 — GoodRx’s profits are expanding much faster than its top line. Assuming its goes public on a day when market conditions are good, I think its IPO will be successful. After all, its very skilled management team is targeting a huge market with a compelling value proposition and a scalable business model. [ Forbes ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
10.
Erasca Brings In $36M More For Series B For Cancer Treatments
11.
He Built A Million-Dollar, One-Person Business That Helps Startups Raise Cash
When Evan Fisher, now 33, graduated from Villanova University in 2009 with a dual degree in finance and international business, it wasn’t easy to get a job on Wall Street. The economy was in a recession. After watching some of his very well-connected classmates struggling to find work in the U.S., the Newark, N.J. native decided to take a job offer in Geneva, Switzerland with Barons Financial Services, a boutique investment bank. Fisher didn’t know at the time that his job would teach him a valuable skill that he would eventually turn into a million-dollar, one-person business: business plan writing. [ Forbes ]
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12.
Venture Capital’s New Guard Goes Solo
Ryan Sarver left Redpoint Ventures, the firm behind Netflix and Twilio, in September with the aim of starting his own fund where he could work with a smaller team and have more flexibility to make investment decisions. “I felt like venture was changing enough that I could be a more independent player with a smaller vehicle but still go play with great companies,” said Sarver, who is restarting his venture capital plans after having spent five months setting up Frontline Foods, a not-for-profit delivery service for hospital workers and others on the front lines of the pandemic. [ The Information ]
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13.
Founded by an Impossible Foods, and Google data scientist, Climax Foods raises $7.5 million to tackle the cheesiest market
Oliver Zahn began his professional career studying the stars. The founder of Climax Foods, a startup that’s using data science to replace animal proteins with plant-based substitutes, spent years at the University of California at Berkeley with his eyes fixed firmly toward the heavens before taking up with Pat Brown and Impossible Foods as the company’s leading data scientist. That experience focused Zahn on more terrestrial concerns and undoubtedly led the founder down the path to launching
Climax Foods. Now with $7.5 million in financing from investors including At One Ventures, founded by the GoogleX co-founder Tom Chi, along with Manta Ray Ventures, S2G Ventures, Valor Siren Ventures, Prelude Ventures, ARTIS Ventures, Index Ventures, Luminous Ventures, Canaccord Genuity Group, Carrot Capital and Global Founders Capital, Zahn is ready to take on the future of food. [ Tech Crunch ]
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14.
German startup Semalytix lands €4.3 million to spotlight real-world patient experiences
Today German startup Semalytix, an AI-based solution that supports pharmaceutical companies in becoming more customer-focused, has announced closing a Series A round of approximately €4.3 million. The round was led by btov Partners, with participation from existing investor Fly Ventures and several unnamed angels. Founded in 2015, Semalytix has
gathered together 1 billion patient voices in one flagship product, ‘Pharos Suite’. This research tool both collates, processes, and cleans up millions of forum and social media posts, as well as CRM system records, which it then organises into ‘Pharos interactive living reports’. These reports enable pharmaceutical companies to focus on the actual needs of their customers, and to understand what would really improve their conditions and their lives. [ eu-startups ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our
platform.
15.
Inside Silicon Valley’s doomed creative culture
In 2014, John Roa was at a professional high point. His company, Chicago-based ÄKTA, a high-end mobile design and development consultancy, had just been included in the latest Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing private companies in the United States. It put them in the stratosphere of past recipients like Microsoft, Jamba Juice and Oracle. Roa, the company’s CEO, along with co-founder Kevin Lerash, were flown to Phoenix, Ariz., for the annual Inc. 500 awards ceremony and gala. [ NY Post ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
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