1.
Laser Sensor Startup Aeva May See $2 Billion Valuation From NYSE Listing
The stock listing frenzy in 2020 by high-tech transportation companies via SPAC mergers isn’t yet finished as Silicon Valley startup Aeva, a maker of sensors for self-driving vehicles that blend capabilities of laser lidar, cameras and radar, is heading for the New York Stock Exchange in a deal that pushes its valuation to just over $2 billion. The Mountain View, California-based company, founded by two former Apple -0.1%AAPL engineers, is merging with InterPrivate Acquisition Corp., and should be trading on the NYSE with the ticker “AEVA” by the first quarter of 2021. The deal will provide up to $343 million of gross proceeds, and investors including Adage Capital and Porsche SE. Previous investors including Lux Capital, Canaan Partners and Lockheed Martin LMT +0.7% will retain equity stakes in the company after it’s publicly listed. [ Forbes ]
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2.
Venture capital favors a Joe Biden victory with record 2020 election donations
A Joe Biden win and a blue wave have emerged as the preferred outcome for venture capital investors—earning full-throated endorsements from investors like Revolution CEO Steve Case and donations from the likes of SV Angel founder Ron
Conway and Sequoia partner Michael Moritz. The 2020 elections seem to have struck a nerve with venture capitalists. Political donations from the VC industry have reached a record $69.7 million in the 2020 election cycle as of Oct. 23, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit that tracks campaign finance data. That total was nearly double the previous record of $37 million spent by the industry during the 2016 election. As the donations have grown, they've also become bluer: Democrats received 79% of the funds contributed by the VC industry, up from 70% in the 2016 election cycle, Center for Responsive Politics
data shows. [ Pitchbook ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
Special:
Coupa Software snags Llamasoft for $1.5B to bring together spending and supply chain data
Coupa Software, a publicly traded company that helps large corporations manage spending, announced that it was buying Llamasoft, an 18-year-old Michigan company that helps large companies manage their supply chain. The deal was pegged at $1.5 billion. This year Llamasoft released its latest tool, an AI-driven platform for managing supply chains intelligently. This capability in particular seemed to attract Coupa’s attention, as it was looking for a supply chain application to complement its spend management capabilities. Coupa CEO and chairman Rob Bernshteyn says when you combine that supply chain data with Coupa’s spending data, it can produce a powerful combination. [ Tech Crunch ]
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3.
SPAC veteran Gores poaches pair from SoftBank Vision Fund
Ted Fike and Justin Wilson have quietly stepped down as partners with SoftBank Vision Fund, in order to focus on SPACs with private equity firm Gores Group. Why it matters: Gores Group is one of the most experienced blank-check investors, having bought Hostess Brands in 2016, and these hires suggest its new SPACs will kick the tires on high-growth tech unicorns. The big picture: Both Fike and Wilson will be senior managing
directors with Gores Group. - Fike, who joined SoftBank after stints at Google and Airbnb, was either a board director or observer with Vision Fund portfolio companies like DoorDash, Memphis Meats, and Plenty.
- Wilson, also a former Googler, was either a director of observer with such companies as Alto Pharmacy, Clutter, and Opendoor (which recently agreed to be aquired by a SPAC). [ Axios ]
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4.
Twilio wraps $3.2B purchase of Segment after warp-speed courtship
It was barely a month ago we began hearing rumors that Twilio was interested in acquiring Segment. The $3.2 billion deal was officially announced three weeks ago, and this morning the communications API company announced that the deal had closed, astonishingly fast for an acquisition of this size. While we can’t know for sure, the speed with which the deal closed could suggest that it was in the works longer than we had known, and when we began hearing rumors of the acquisition, it could have already been signed, sealed and delivered. In addition, the fact
that Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson and Segment CEO Peter Reinhardt knew one another before coming to terms might have helped accelerate the process. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
5.
Nielsen to sell consumer goods data arm to Advent for $2.7 billion
Nielsen Holdings Plc said on Sunday it will sell its consumer goods data unit for $2.7 billion to private equity firm Advent International, as the market research firm narrows its focus to its media arm. Advent will buy Nielsen’s Global Connect unit in partnership with James Peck, a former chief executive officer of credit reporting company TransUnion, Nielsen said. The sale of its Connect business, which provides research data to consumer goods companies, will help the firm reduce its debt load, it added. In 2019, Nielsen had announced its intention to split into two publicly traded companies, but with the Advent deal, that plan has come to an end. [ Reuters ]
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6.
Apollo's Leon Black offers mea culpa for paying Jeffrey Epstein millions
Facing pressure from investors, Apollo Global Management CEO and co-founder Leon Black used the firm's Thursday earnings call to present a history of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein and issue another apology for paying the convicted sex offender tens of millions of dollars for various consulting and professional services. The intense scrutiny of Black's business dealings with Epstein is a sign that the billionaire, long considered one of private equity's founding fathers, could face an uncertain future at the firm he helped launch more than 30 years ago. [ Pitchbook ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
7.
UK’s Marshmallow raises $30M on a $310M valuation for more ‘inclusive’ car insurance
When it comes to using algorithms and other formulae to determine what kinds of services you might offer to specific customers and at what price, the insurance industry is one of the oldest in the book. But that legacy position masks the fact that some of its determinations might leave a lot to be desired, with customers who don’t fit typical profiles unable to get competitive rates. Now, a U.K. startup called Marshmallow that’s aiming to take on those larger legacy insurance giants
with a new approach to determining risk is announcing a $30 million round of funding. Starting first with car insurance, Marshmallow
uses a wider set of analytics and a simple mobile and web-native interface to target underserved segments of the market, and it plans to use the Series A funding to continue expanding its business with an emphasis on diversity and inclusion, with the plan being to launch in further countries, and more types of insurance, in the next 18 months. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
8.
SoftBank CEO under fire for text messages on business turmoil
Someone should tell SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son he could use encrypted apps like Signal and Telegram when communicating with his lieutenants. Driving the news: Former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann won a Delaware court motion to remove redactions on select text messages between Son and Marcelo Claure, the SoftBank COO and WeWork executive chairman, as part of his lawsuit against SoftBank for bailing on its $3 billion tender offer for WeWork shares. - The vast majority of tender proceeds would have gone to Neumann and WeWork investor Benchmark, which also is suing SoftBank.
The most explosive message was related to SoftBank's desire to delay the $3 billion payable in the tender by one month, which SoftBank had blamed on regulatory approval delays. [ Axios ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
9.
Endurance International to be bought by Clearlake in a deal valued at $3 billion, including debt
Endurance International Group Holdings Inc. EIGI, +61.96% announced Monday a deal to be acquired by private-equity firm Clearlake Capital Group L.P., in an all-cash deal valued at $3 billion, including debt. The stock is halted for news until 8:00 a.m. Eastern. Under terms of the deal, Clearlake will pay $9.50 for each Endurance share outstanding, which is 63.5% above Friday's closing price of $5.81. With about 140.74 million shares outstanding, the bid price values the cloud hosting and
digital marketing company Endurance at about $1.34 billion. The stock has rallied 23.6% year to date through Friday, while the S&P 500 SPX, +1.23% has gained 1.2%. [ Market Watch ]
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10.
Future of immigrant entrepreneurship hinges on the next US president
The outcome of Tuesday's US presidential election could have a monumental impact on how foreign-born founders and employees view the country's venture capital ecosystem.
Many in the industry feel that the raft of immigration restrictions imposed by the Trump administration has hampered opportunity among immigrant entrepreneurs. But if Joe Biden captures the White House, those concerns may ease. "Over the past four years, it has been harder for immigrants in this country to be optimistic about building the next world-changing company," said Lex Zhao, partner at One Way Ventures, which provides seed and early-stage funding to tech companies founded by immigrants. [ Pitchbook ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
11.
The Parallels in the Culture Between the Two Category Defining Companies
12.
The European VC Female Founders Dashboard
Venture capital funding overall has surged in recent years, but the numbers haven't leapt forward for female founders at the same pace. Last year, companies founded solely by women garnered just 1% of the total capital invested in venture-backed startups in Europe. But that number doesn't tell the whole story. VC funding for female-founded or co-founded companies in Europe has been trending up in recent years, and 2019 saw the creation of several women-led funds, incubators for female founders and more new companies. We took a deep dive into European investment trends for women in VC over the last 12 years, diving into deal counts by country, industry and stage. The data below is sourced from the PitchBook Platform and will be updated monthly. [
Pitchbook ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
13.
TVision raises $16M to measure viewer attention on connected TVs
TVision is building what its team hopes will become the standard for measuring streaming viewership — and to accelerate those efforts, it’s raised $16 million in new funding. The New York City startup started by measuring traditional TV viewing, using webcams to determine whether viewers were actually paying attention to the ads. More recently, it’s launched a solution focused on connected TVs, where co-founder and CEO Yan Liu said there’s no standard measurement. “What I’ve found is that in streaming,
there’s no such thing called a TV rating,” he said. “There’s no good currency, per se, in the industry.” [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
14.
Stensul lands $16 Million in funding to help email marketing teams become more agile
stensul, Inc., the first agile email creation platform for the enterprise, announced it has raised $16 million in Series B funding, led by USVP, with participation from Capital One Ventures, Peak State Ventures, as well as existing investors Javelin Venture Partners, Uncork Capital, First Round Capital and Lowercase Capital. The funding round also included a number of executives from leading enterprise software firms including Okta co-founder, Executive Vice Chairman and COO Frederic Kerrest, Okta CMO Ryan Carlson, former Marketo/Adobe SVP Product Aaron Bird, Avid Larizadeh Duggan OBE, Gary Swart, Talend CMO Lauren Vaccarello and others. The funding will go toward product innovation and scaling go-to-market functions to accelerate stensul’s adoption
among enterprise marketing organizations. [ Globe News Wire ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
15.
Bio Eats World: The Thermodynamics of Life
Where does life truly begin? How do we understand the fundamental nature of what is “alive” and what is “not alive”? In this episode of Bio Eats World, Professor Jeremy England discusses his new book, Every Life is on Fire, all about how what we might use physics to understand to be the origins of life—and how we define what being alive is. As biologists, we are taught that life evolved as the result of Darwinian natural selection. But what happens if instead, you use a physicist’s lens to examine what life looks to be—and define it as a specialized order and relationship between matter and the patterns of it’s an environment? England—a senior director in artificial intelligence at GlaxoSmithKline,
principal research scientist at Georgia Tech, former associate professor of physics at MIT, and one of Forbes’ “30 Under 30 Rising Stars of Science”—describes this new idea as “dissapative adaptation”. The conversation covers how looking at “life” in these terms changes what we understand to be alive and what the nature of “life” is; sheds new light on the “queasy middle ground” between those definitions, especially in areas like machine learning and AI; and allows us to ask new questions about things like what makes DNA so special, and what life can do. [ a16z ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
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