1.
Customer Experience Startup Sprinklr Hits $2.7 Billion Valuation With $200 Million Private Equity Cash Infusion
When Ragy Thomas last raised money for his software company Sprinklr in 2016, the startup appeared on strong footing, with more than $100 million in annualized revenue and a newly-minted unicorn valuation. But behind the scenes, the company was struggling to outgrow its social media roots. Customers and employees were heading for the exits at a disturbing rate. “We had a dark year for the company,” Thomas says. Known for its tools that help companies post messages and communicate with customers on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, Sprinklr wanted more: to be considered
a serious player in a larger, more complicated market of “customer experience,” where tech giants such as IBM, Oracle and Salesforce dominate alongside newer businesses like Qualtrics and SurveyMonkey. [ Forbes ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
2.
Snyk bags another $200M at $2.6B valuation 9 months after last raise
When we last reported on Snyk in January, eons ago in COVID time, the company announced $150 million investment on a valuation of over $1 billion. Today, barely nine months later, it announced another $200 million and its valuation has expanded
to $2.6 billion. The company is obviously drawing some serious investor attention, and even a pandemic is not diminishing that interest. Addition led today’s round, bringing the total raised to $450 million with $350 million coming this year alone. Snyk has a unique approach to security, building it into the development process instead of offloading it to a separate security team. If you want to build a secure product, you need to think about it as you’re developing the product, and that’s what
Snyk’s product set is designed to do — check for security as you’re committing your build to your git repository. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
Special:
NotCo Closes $85 Million Series C Round and Announces US Expansion
Today, NotCo, a leading food-tech company in Latin America, is announcing the closing of an $85 million Series C investment round, co-led by Future Positive, the investment vehicle of Fred Blackford and Biz Stone, and L Catterton, the largest and most global consumer-focused private equity firm. NotCo is an industry pioneer built using a proprietary technology that can match animal protein to its ideal replacement among thousands of plant-based ingredients. NotCo is the only global company to launch products disrupting massive food and beverage segments, including dairy, eggs, and meat simultaneously. The company has launched NotMilk, NotBurger, NotIceCream and NotMayo in Brazil, Argentina and Chile, and in less than three years has
become the largest and fastest-growing food-tech company in Latin America. [ Businesswire ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
3.
Xometry raises $75M Series E to expand custom manufacturing marketplace
When companies need to find manufacturers to build custom parts, it’s not always an easy process, especially during a pandemic. Xometry, a seven-year-old startup based in Maryland, has built an online marketplace where companies can find manufacturers across the world with excess capacity to build whatever they need. Today, the company announced a $75 million Series E investment to keep expanding the platform. T. Rowe Price Associates led the investment, with participation from new firms Durable Capital Partners LP and ArrowMark Partners. Previous investors also joined the round, including BMW i Ventures, Greenspring Associates, Dell Technologies Capital, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, Foundry
Group, Highland Capital Partners and Almaz Capital . Today’s investment brings the total raised to $193 million, according to the company. [ Tech Crunch ]
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4.
Payment network Thunes raises $60 million
Cross-border payment network Thunes has raised $60 million in a Series B funding round led by Africa-focused Helios Investment Partners. Additional investors in the Singaporean company include Checkout.com as well as existing investors GGV Capital and Future Shape. The new funding takes total capital raised to $70 million, following a $10 million round led by GGV Capital in May 2019.
Launched in 2016, Thunes operates as a network hub, connecting mobile wallet providers, banks, technology companies and money transfer operators in emerging economies. The company currently connects companies in 100 countries and intends to use the new funding to grow its network in Africa, Asia and Latin America. [ Finextra ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
5.
SoftBank loses $12 billion in value on concerns over its big U.S. tech bets
SoftBank shares extended their losses on Wednesday, wiping out over $12 billion in market value this week, amid jitters over the Japanese conglomerate’s latest tech investing strategy. Shares of the company fell another 3% by Wednesday’s close, leaving SoftBank with a market cap of 11.9 trillion yen ($112.1 billion). That was down sharply from the roughly 13.2 trillion yen ($124.4 billion) SoftBank was worth just three sessions earlier. The company’s sustained depreciation in value follows a Financial Times report on Friday that suggested, citing unnamed sources, SoftBank was the mystery “Nasdaq whale” buying billions of dollars in call options — which bet on stocks rising. [ CNBC ]
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6.
Sana Benefits Closes $20.8M Series A Funding Round
Sana Benefits, an Austin, Texas-based provider of self-funded health insurance for small businesses, closed a $20.8m Series A funding. The round led by Gigafund with participation from Trust Ventures and mark vc. The company intends to use the funds to scale customer acquisition. Led by CEO and co-founder Will Young, Sana Benefits covers health, vision, dental, telemedicine and maternity, in addition to benefits like ClassPass for fitness classes and more. Currently available in Texas and Kentucky, the company will expand into additional
markets by 2021. [ Finsmes ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
7.
Zymergen Takes Aim at $3 Trillion Chemical & Materials Industry With $300 Million in New Funding
Science and material innovation company Zymergen today announced $300M in new investment to accelerate its delivery of revolutionary, high performance materials. The investment includes initial Series D funding led by Baillie Gifford, joined by Baron Capital Group and one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, as well as additional growth financing from Perceptive Advisors. A number of current investors are also returning, and Zymergen expects to raise additional capital in Q4 as
part of a Series D round. This infusion of capital powers Zymergen's charge into the $3 trillion chemical and materials industries, speeding the manufacture of their groundbreaking Hyaline film, as well as the commercialization of additional breakthrough products across electronics, agriculture, consumer care and healthcare. [ PR Newswire ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
8.
Yubico Security Key That Supports USB-C and NFC Is Finally Here for $55
You can now get a security key from Yubico that supports both USB-C and NFC. Yubico has been previewing the YubiKey 5C NFC since last year, but it finally launches today for $55 to address a gap in Yubico’s catalog for security keys. The company has been selling the $70 YubiKey
5Ci, which sports a USB-C and a Lightning connector. However, the 5Ci lacks support for NFC, the wireless communication protocol that both Android and iPhone devices support. The new YubiKey 5C NFC tries to rectify the problem by swapping the Lightning connector for an NFC chip and cutting the price by $15. [ pcmag ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
9.
Deel Raises $30M in Series B Funding
Deel, a San Francisco, CA-based payroll and compliance platform for international teams, raised $30m in Series B funding. The round, which brought total funding to over $48m, was led by Spark Capital, with participation from YC Growth Fund and angel investors Nat Friedman, Ryan Petersen, John Zimmer, William Hockey and Alexis Ohanian. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its business reach. Co-founded in 2018 by MIT alumni Alex Bouaziz and Shuo Wang, Deel provides a payroll and compliance platform that solves the logistical challenges coming with moving to a distributed, global workforce. The system provides contracts and templates – legally vetted and compliant – to be used for tax forms and localized contracts, automated payment, invoicing and receipts and customer support. Both independent contractors and full-time employees are supported by Deel’s technology. [ Finsmes ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital
Data on our platform.
10.
Hasura raises $25 million Series B and adds MySQL support to its GraphQL service
Hasura, a service that provides developers with an open-source engine that provides them a GraphQL API to access their databases, today announced that it has raised a $25 million Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Previous investors Vertex Ventures US, Nexus Venture
Partners, Strive VC and SAP.iO Fund also participated in this round. The new round, which the team raised after the COVID-19 pandemic had already started, comes only six months after the company announced its $9.9 million Series A round. In total, Hasura has now raised $36.5 million. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
11.
20VC: A16Z’S ANGELA STRANGE ON WHY EVERY COMPANY WILL BE A FINTECH COMPANY, HOW FOUNDERS SHOULD THINK ABOUT NICHES AND OPTIMAL INSERTION POINTS, HOW TO TRANSITION TO BECOME THE SYSTEM OF RECORD & ARE WE ENTERING A PERIOD OF BUNDLING OR UNBUNDLING FOR FINTECH
Angela Strange is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, one of the leading venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Facebook, Github, Slack, Airbnb, Asana and more. As for Angela, she largely focuses on investments in financial services and is
currently a board member of Addi, SynapseFi, and Tally. Prior to a16z, Angela was a product manager at Google where she launched and grew Chrome for Android and Chrome for iOS into two of Google’s most successful mobile products. [ thetwenty minute vc ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
12.
Groww, an investment app for millennials in India, raises $30M led by YC Continuity
Even as more than 150 million people are using digital payment apps each month in India, only about 20 million of them invest in mutual funds and stocks. A startup that is attempting to change that by courting millennials has just received a big backing. Bangalore-headquartered Groww said on Thursday it had raised $30 million in its Series C financing round. YC Continuity, the growth-stage investment fund of Y Combinator, led the round, while existing investors Sequoia India, Ribbit Capital and
Propel Ventures participated in it. The new round brings three-year-old startup Groww’s total raise-to-date to $59 million. [ Tech Crunch ]
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13.
Bangladesh to get its first blockchain remittance service
The South Asian nation of Bangladesh will soon get its first blockchain remittance system that will allow Bangladeshi expats in Malaysia to instantly transfer wage remittances to their home country. According to a report from The Business Standard, the British national banking service firm Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) today announced the blockchain-based cross-border remittance service for Bangladesh. SCB developed the remittance service in collaboration with the Bangladesh-based mobile banking platform bKash and the Malaysian remittance provider Valyou. It utilizes the blockchain technology of Ant Group, the financial arm of the Chinese business conglomerate Alibaba Group. [ Coin Telegraph ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
14.
New Zealand’s government tips $21.5m into Blackbird’s $60m Kiwi VC fund
Elevate NZ Venture Fund – the government’s new venture capital fund run by New Zealand Growth Capital Partners (NZGCP) – is investing NZ$21.5 million into the Blackbird Ventures’ New Zealand fund. Blackbird, led by partner Samantha Wong, opened shop in New Zealand 12 months ago, and its local fund will focus on startups seeking Series A and B capital. The fund is expected to be worth around NZ$60 million and is expected to close in the next few weeks. The Elevate investment is its first since launching in March this year. Murray Gribben, Chairman of NZGCP, said Elevate will launch further investments soon. “Blackbird has a strong track record, a founder friendly approach and has shown great commitment to
supporting and growing New Zealand companies,” he said. [ Startup Daily ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
15.
E1107 The Next Unicorns E17 Caffeine's Ben Keighran on reimagining live TV & what makes Apple great
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