NordicNinja launches a €100 million VC fund to invest in the Nordics and BalticsNordicNinja VC has launched a €100 million VC fund in partnership with Panasonic, Honda, Omron, and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), to invest in scale-ups in the Nordics and Baltics. The fund will also focus on helping the startups to enter the ecosystems in Japan and across Asia. The new fund will write checks from €2 million to €5 million and focus on the areas of autonomous mobility, AI, VR, and IoT. [ Tech.eu ] Last Week In Venture: A Tongue Un-twister App, Farmers’ Marketplace, And Next-Gen Department StoresHello and welcome back to Last Week In Venture, Crunchbase News’s weekly rundown of venture deals that may have flown under your radar over the past few days. The Crunchbase News team has been hard at work this week. We checked in on all the companies that went public so far in 2019. We covered reports of Lyft’s developing IPO plans and what its valuation could mean for the ride-hailing industry. [ Crunchbase ] Recode Daily: Pinterest filed for a late-June IPO that could value it at $12 billionPinterest confidentially filed paperwork for an initial public offering. The social network popular among home-renovation voyeurs and mid-century modernists is eyeing a late-June listing; aided by its main underwriters, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, the company is expected to seek a valuation of at least $12 billion. Pinterest follows Slack, which filed its own confidential IPO paperwork earlier this month, ramping up buzz in what’s expected to be a banner year of public offerings, including Lyft, Uber, and Airbnb. Recent tech IPOs have had a good run of it: The Journal reports that stocks are up about 33 percent, according to Dealogic; outpacing major indexes and all 2018 U.S. IPOs, which are up 11 percent. Meanwhile, Pinterest earned some goodwill among critics of social networks, announcing that it has stopped returning vaccine-related search results, as most of them spread anti-vax disinformation; it’s part of the company’s broader approach against “false cures.” [ Re/Code ] The Toughest Roadblocks When Breaking Through to $15M ARRMatt Turck talks with three hyper-growth stage Co-Founders and CEOs on three roadblocks when scaling past $15M ARR: hiring, culture, and sales. Each provides their perspective, lessons learned and pro tips along the way. Cofounder Of 3-D Printing Unicorn Formlabs Raises $18M For Manufacturing Software Company TulipNatan Linder, cofounder and chairman of 3-D printing unicorn Formlabs, founded Tulip five years ago to give factory workers the same access to digital tools as office workers. Now he’s raised $18 million for that firm’s expansion led by Vertex Ventures, which is backed by Singapore state fund Temasek. That brings Somerville, Massachusetts-based Tulip’s total funding to $31 million. The company’s valuation after the previous funding round, in June 2017, was $39 million, according to Pitchbook; Linder declined to disclose the new valuation. [ Fortune ] Urovant Sciences Enters into Flexible Agreement for up to $100 Million Debt Financing with Hercules CapitalUrovant Sciences (Nasdaq: UROV), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing innovative therapies for urologic conditions, today announced it has entered into a debt financing agreement with Hercules Capital, Inc. (NYSE: HTGC) (“Hercules”) for up to $100 million. Urovant plans to use the proceeds to fund ongoing development of its lead compound vibegron, for business development opportunities, and for general corporate purposes. [ Business wire ] Opening Tech: The Diversity Challenge | Fortt KnoxThe venture capital industry is sorely lacking in women, African Americans and other minorities. According to one study, black women-led startups have raised just .0006% of the $424.7 billion in venture funding since 2009. What will it take to change that statistic for better? Jon Fortt and a panel of experts discuss. A day in the life of a VC MDIn this regular series, we're speaking to various players in the private equity and venture capital spaces—including startup founders, investors and noteworthy dealmakers—to see what daily life looks like for them. This week, we talked to Joerg Rheinboldt (pictured), managing director of APX Axel Springer Porsche. What does a typical day look like for you? It always starts with reading. I read newspapers, digital versions of them and blogs, usually for about half an hour before I wake up my kids. I don't get to have too many typical days, but usually it's a combination of spending time with startups we have already invested in, meeting some companies that we should be invested in and then working with everyone here on all the topics we deal with. Also, some evenings per week I spend at an event and meeting new people. I also sometimes meet with our shareholders and networks. [ Pitchbook ] 50 Women-Led Startups That Are Crushing TechEvery year we talk about how this will be the Year of the Woman because of the incredible advances women are making. There's no doubt that 2019 will go down in history as the first time we saw a record number of diverse women serving in the US Congress and announcing their candidacy for President of the United States. But you know what isn't budging for the 12.3 million women US entrepreneurs who founded companies? Access to capital. [ Forbes ] With The Help Of Loyal Talent And New Programs, Detroit’s Startup Scene AcceleratesWhen Patti Glantz joined the tech industry over 20 years ago, she said there were maybe three venture capital firms in the entire state of Michigan. But in the past five years, she explained, Michigan’s focus on entrepreneurship and the importance of retaining youth has become commonplace across multiple cities. Glantz, now the managing director of seed venture fund Invest Detroit Ventures, has seen innovation efforts in Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Flint, and Detroit. According to a recent report by EntryPoint, there has been a 54 percent increase in the number of Detroit-based venture-backed startups in the last four years. [ Crunchbase ] Clearbank and Tide Combo Wins £60 Million Grant from RBSClearBank, a challenger clearing bank (the UK’s first new clearing bank in more than 250 years), has been awarded a grant from the RBS Alternative Remedies Package of £60 million. The grant is one of three from Pool A of the Capability and Innovation Fund that forms part of the £775 million package, backed by the UK Government, and overseen by Banking Competition Remedies Ltd (BCR). ClearBank is a Tide partner and the combination of the two entities plan
to “seize a substantial share of the UK SME banking market.” [ Crowd fund insider ] It's raining mega-rounds in Southeast AsiaSoutheast Asia has long been known for its pristine beaches, inventive cuisine, royal temples and floating markets. And by now, it's common knowledge that the subcontinent boasts some of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Its rapid infrastructure and digital development have helped spark VC interest, and investors have poured billions of dollars into companies headquartered in the region in sectors such as ecommerce, ridehailing, gaming, travel and fintech. [ Pitchbook ] Recode’s Code Commerce event returns to Shoptalk with Tim Armstrong, Poshmark, and the CEO who is reinventing SaksFor the fourth straight year, Kara Swisher and I are hosting some of the brightest minds in e-commerce and retail for a night of live journalism at An Evening With Code Commerce during the Shoptalk conference in Las Vegas. The three-hour event, slated for Sunday, March 3, at The Venetian, will feature Recode’ssignature brand of unscripted interviews, as well as a cocktail party where you’ll have the chance to chat up 200 of your smartest peers. [ Re/Code ] Silicon Valley loves Cory Booker. That could be a problem for himHe is the intermittent faster, the Tim Ferriss podcaster, the first-generation tweeter, the startup founder, the college pal of Reid Hoffman and other Stanford graduates of the early ’90s who built the modern Internet. If any Democratic presidential candidate has tapped into the Silicon Valley zeitgeist over their careers, it is Cory Booker. And in 2019, that could be as much a political liability as it is a financial asset. [ Re/Code ] Amazon’s Alexa Fund joins $28M round for CTRL-labs, makers of neural interface technologyCTRL-labs, the New York-based startup that is reimagining how the human brain can connect with machines, has closed another big funding round, with Amazon’s Alexa Fund pitching in on the $28 million haul. The round was led by GV, according to a news release on Friday, and Amazon was joined by Lux Capital, Spark Capital, Matrix Partners, Breyer Capital, and Fuel Capital. A previous round last May also raised $28 million and included the late Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital among investors. [ Geek Wire ] Daimler and BMW invest $1.1 billion in urban mobility servicesDaimler AG and BMW Group officially agreed to merge their urban mobility services into a single holding company back in March 2018 with a 50 percent stake each. And now, they want to unify their services under five categories by creating five joint ventures — Reach Now, Charge Now, Park Now, Free Now and Share Now. [ Tech Crunch ] Disclosed VC funding to autotech startups hits $8 billionThe latest Automotive Technology M&A Market Report from international technology mergers and acquisitions adviser, Hampleton Partners, reveals that disclosed venture capital funding to automotive startups totalled $8bn in 2018. [ UK Tech ] Six big things: Lyft takes the spotlight ahead of IPO roadshowLyft and Uber have now been engaged for nearly seven years in a battle for the hearts and minds of America's urban travelers. And this week, Lyft may have assumed an insurmountable position in the latest front of their ridehailing war. [ Pitchbook ] Draper: Is the Midwestern definition of Venture Capital wrong?During a surprisingly candid Moneyball-esque discussion in Chicago, a number of proposals on how to change venture so it better serves Midwestern startups concluded with: “but that’s not venture.” Hours later, after exhausting nearly every metaphor comparing the Oakland Athletics’ sabermetrics precision to the San Francisco Giants’ home run flash, the intriguingly unanswered question became: so what IS “venture”? [ clayandmilk ] How to Invest in Startups like a Venture CapitalistLearn how to invest in early-growth stage companies without incurring the high fees that are typical of venture capitalist funds. |