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Energy Tech Goes From Slow Start to Heady Growth
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By Yuliya Chernova, WSJ Pro
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Good day. It took Mainspring Energy a decade to commercialize its energy-generation technology. That kind of timeline keeps many venture investors out of the energy-tech market.
But it’s easier to see a payoff today than it was when Shannon Miller, Mainspring’s chief executive, and her co-founders started working on the technology as a research project at Stanford University.
Since then, many corporations have increased their search for technologies to meet their self-imposed carbon-reduction mandates. Utilities have begun looking for ways to integrate a growing supply of intermittent power from solar and wind. The Biden administration has joined other governments in pushing a climate agenda. And growth investors, reading the trends, have entered the market.
In Mainspring’s case, all that means there’s both a market and financing available for its power generators. Earlier this year, NextEra Energy Resources entered into a $150 million deal with the startup to purchase its units and finance customer projects. Mainspring just announced raising $95 million in Series D financing that included new growth investors like Princeville Capital. The firm is deploying $300 million into climate tech, having raised its first fund focused on this sector in 2019.
Policy has shifted and technology has fundamentally changed, said Eric Kosmowski, managing partner at Princeville’s Climate Technology Fund. It is clear, he said, that there is “this grassroots support for technologies and companies that would help in the transition from existing energy sources.”
And now on to the news ...
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European tech startups such as those featured at Spain’s annual Transfiere conference have grown rapidly in number over the past decade.
PHOTO: LORENZO CARNERO/ZUMA PRESS
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Capitalizing on its innovation. European Union leaders, aiming to turn the hardship of the pandemic into opportunity, are finalizing plans to release almost $1 trillion into the bloc’s struggling economy, reshape industrial policy and strengthen trade defenses, The Wall Street Journal reports. Underpinning the plans is a push to profit more from the bloc’s brain power, which over recent years has enriched foreign investors at least as much as Europeans.
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In the venture capital world, European funds’ share of deals done in Europe fell to 62% last year from 72% in 2016, according to a report from Index Ventures, a fund operating in the U.S. and Europe. “The funding is there,” Index Ventures partner Martin Mignot said, but added, “a lot of that capital is American.”
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European officials are trying to respond. The EU recently launched the European Innovation Council, a new body endowed with €10 billion for technologies, startups and growth capital. EU officials are also pushing a raft of initiatives, dubbed Europe’s Digital Decade, that aim to foster digital industries and help old-line companies go digital.
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50,000
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The rough number of startups Europeans launched last year, compared with fewer than 10,000 a decade ago, according to GlassDollar, a consulting firm for startups in Germany.
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Mass PRIM Sets Up an Emerging Manager Program With Diversity Goal
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Massachusetts’s largest state pension manager is creating a program to increase engagement with diverse emerging managers while stepping up reporting requirements on diversity and inclusion for current investment managers, WSJ Pro’s Preeti Singh reports. The goal of the $90.1 billion pension trust fund will be to commit at least 20% of its investment capital to diverse investment managers, based on racial, ethnic, gender and disability measures, according to David Gurtz, the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board’s deputy chief investment officer and director of public markets. Mr. Gurtz outlined the planned program at a public meeting Tuesday of the investment committee of Mass
PRIM.
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Even the CEO of Zoom Says He Has Zoom Fatigue
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Some of America’s top executives, including the CEOs of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Zoom Video Communications Inc., say they are souring on some aspects of remote work, WSJ reports. After more than a year of working virtually during the pandemic, executives in banking and technology are pushing back on the idea that workers should be able to do their jobs entirely from home in the coming months. Though some said they expect more flexible work arrangements to endure going forward, they say there are clear signs of burnout in an era of nonstop video calls.
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Eric Yuan, the CEO of Zoom, told a virtual audience of The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit Tuesday that he had personally experienced Zoom fatigue. On one day last year, he said he had 19 Zoom meetings in a row. “I’m so tired of that,” Mr. Yuan said, adding that he no longer books back-to-back Zoom calls. “I do have meeting fatigue.”
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Funds
Stride.VC raised £100 million ($139 million) for its second fund, which is nearly the same amount the London-based seed fund secured for its initial vehicle. In addition to the new fund, Shane Burgess joined Stride.VC as talent partner, and Cleo Sham will join as partner next month.
Multicoin Capital launched its second crypto venture fund with $100 million in commitments. The firm also promoted Matt Shapiro, Mable Jiang and John Robert Reed to partners. The Austin, Texas-based firm invests anywhere from $500,000 in early-stage deals up to more than $100 million, including capital from its hedge fund.
People
Fifth Wall hired Jeremy Fox as a partner focused on strategic partnerships and on capital markets. He previously spent more than 20 years on Wall Street with Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank.
Nylas Inc., a provider of email, calendar and contacts APIs, appointed Waifa Chau as chief financial officer, Lou Salfi as chief revenue officer and David Ting as chief information security officer and senior vice president, engineering. Mr. Chau was most recently CFO at BirdEye. Prior to joining Nylas, Mr. Salfi was vice president of revenue at Cloud Elements. Mr. Ting previously held executive positions at Flexport and NetEase. San Francisco-based Nylas has raised over $55 million to date from 8VC, Spark Capital, Slack Fund, Citi Ventures, Round13 Capital, ScaleUP, Data Collective, Fuel Capital and SV Angel.
Fyllo, a digital marketing and compliance platform for cannabis and other highly regulated industries, appointed Mamta Patel as chief financial officer and Travis Moyer as chief legal officer. Ms. Patel was most recently executive director of finance, business development and corporate development at OneSource Virtual. Mr. Moyer was previously vice president of business development at Curaleaf. Last month, Chicago-based Fyllo raised a $30 million Series B round from investors including cannabis-focused venture firms Arcadian Capital Management and Salveo Capital.
Exits
Twitter Inc. plans to acquire Scroll, a subscription service that lets people read articles from various news sources without advertisements, for an undisclosed amount. Scroll is backed by investors including Union Square Ventures, Uncork Capital, Samsung Next Ventures and Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments.
Business data analytics company ThoughtSpot is making another purchase with an agreement to acquire Diyotta, a provider of code-free data integration for teams. Terms weren’t disclosed. In 2019, ThoughtSpot raised a $248 million round from investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sapphire Ventures that valued the company at nearly $2 billion.
OneTrust, a privacy, security and third-party risk technology platform, agreed to acquire Shared Assessments for an undisclosed sum. Atlanta- and London-based OneTrust has raised a total of $920 million in funding at a $5.3 billion valuation from Insight Partners, Coatue Management, TCV, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Franklin Templeton.
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Bitso, a crypto platform serving Latin America, scored $250 million in Series C funding at a valuation of $2.2 billion. Tiger Global Management and Coatue Management co-led the round, which included participation from Paradigm, BOND, Valor Capital Group, QED Investors, Pantera Capital and Kaszek Ventures.
HoneyBook Inc., a San Francisco-based client experience and financial management platform for service-based small businesses and freelancers, secured $155 million in Series D financing led by Durable Capital Partners. New investors Tiger Global Management, Battery Ventures, Zeev Ventures and 01 Advisors also participated in the round, along with existing backers Norwest Venture Partners and Citi Ventures.
Forge Global Inc., a private securities marketplace with offices in San Francisco, New York and Hong Kong, closed on more than $150 million in new funding. Existing backer Deutsche Börse Group was joined by new investors including Temasek Holdings, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital and LUN Partners Group in the round. Temasek International’s Jane Atherton and Deutsche Börse’s Paul Hilgers will join the company’s board.
VAST Data, a New York-based storage startup, landed $83 million in Series D funding, which brought the company’s valuation to $3.7 billion. Lead investor Tiger Global Management was joined by Nvidia and others in the round.
WorkBoard Inc., a Redwood City, Calif.-based provider of strategy- and goal-setting software for enterprises, added $75 million in growth funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Previous backers Andreessen Horowitz, GGV Capital, Workday Ventures and M12 also contributed to the round, alongside new investors Capital One Ventures and SVB Capital.
Bibit.id, a digital investment app serving Indonesia, picked up a $65 million investment. Sequoia Capital India led the round, which included support from Prosus Ventures, Tencent Holdings, Harvard Management Co., AC Ventures and East Ventures.
Persona, a San Francisco-based identity verification startup, snagged $50 million in Series B funding. Index Ventures led the round, with Partner Mark Goldberg joining the board. Existing backer Coatue Management also participated in the investment.
Vanta, a San Francisco-based automated security and compliance platform, completed a $50 million Series A round. Sequoia Capital led the investment, with General Partner Andrew Reed joining the company’s board. Y Combinator was also an investor in the new round.
Cymulate Ltd., an Israel-based cyber-attack simulation startup, nabbed a $45 million Series C round. One Peak Partners led the funding, which included support from Susquehanna Growth Equity, Vertex Ventures Israel, Vertex Growth and Dell Technologies Capital.
JupiterOne, a Morrisville, N.C.-based cyber asset management provider, collected $30 million in Series B funding. Sapphire Ventures led the round, which saw participation from Bain Capital Ventures. Anders Ranum, partner at Sapphire Ventures, joined the board.
LoanSnap Inc., a Costa Mesa, Calif.-based smart loan technology provider, grabbed a $30 million Series B investment. True Ventures led the round, which included contributions from Baseline Ventures, Virgin Group, Avanta Ventures, Thomvest Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, WorkPlay Ventures and Mantis. LoanSnap also hired Olivia Man as its new chief financial officer. She previously worked at SoFi.
StarTree Inc., a Mountain View, Calif.-based cloud analytics-as-a-service platform, fetched $24 million in Series A financing. Bain Capital Ventures and GGV Capital led the round, with participation from CRV.
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Tyrell Dukes is one of the four men behind Next Gen Investors, a Discord community that focuses on high-risk options trading.
PHOTO: RITA HARPER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Inside rounds hit record $30 billion (The Information)
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They told their therapists everything. Hackers leaked it all (Wired)
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