BREAKING:
Lululemon to buy at-home fitness startup Mirror for $500 million
As the appeal of at-home workouts has become more ubiquitous during the pandemic, Lululemon, the athletic apparel company, is going all in on the craze. The company said Monday that it has entered into an agreement to buy home exercise startup Mirror for $500 million. The startup sells an immersive mirror through which customers can participate in fitness classes and personal training sessions. In a statement, Lululemon CEO Calvin McDonald said the company looks forward to working with Mirror to
"accelerate the growth of personalized in-home fitness." Mirror, which launched in September 2018 and has raised $72 million from investors including Lululemon, is one of several companies changing the fitness landscape by making it easy for anyone to engage in live or on-demand interactive workout classes from the comfort of their home — with a substantial price tag. [ CNN ]
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1.
Personal Capital, a Robo Hybrid, to Be Sold for Up to $1 Billion
Personal Capital, a highly digitalized registered investment advisory firm that manages more than $12.2 billion of client assets, agreed to be sold for $825 million to Empower Retirement, a large retirement plan administrator owned by Canada’s Great West Lifeco. The deal, which is expected to close by yearend, includes an earnout incentive that can bring the purchase price to $1 billion in cash if Personal Capital hits certain targets, the companies said on Monday. In combining an RIA with an asset-management retirement plan giant (Great-West Lifeco owns Putnam Investments and says it is the second-largest defined contribution plan recordkeeper), the deal continues a trend in which wealth firms expect to gain inside advantages in sourcing future
customers from plan participants while asset management firms hope to leverage tech-savvy advisory firms’ appeal to young investors. [ Advisor Hub ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
Banking platform solarisBank raises $67.5 million at $360 million valuation
Despite the Wirecard fallout, German fintech startup solarisBank has raised a Series C funding round of $67.5 million (€60 million). Following today’s funding round, solarisBank is now valued at $360 million (€320 million).
solarisBank doesn't have any consumer product directly. Instead, it offers financial services to other fintech companies through a set of APIs. With solarisBank, you can build a fintech startup and leverage solarisBank’s line of products to do the heavy lifting. It’s an infrastructure company in the banking space. While solarisBank might not be a familiar name, some of its clients have become quite popular. They include challenger banks, such as Tomorrow, Insha and a newcomer called Vivid, business banking startups, such as Penta and Kontist, trading app Trade Republic, cryptocurrency startups Bison and Bitwala, etc. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
2.
Private Unicorn Board Now Above 600 Companies Valued At $2T
Now that we are halfway through 2020, we thought it would be a good time to check in and report on the latest unicorn data. Leading industries for new unicorn companies this year include education–with four new unicorns; Quizlet, Udemy, ApplyBoard, Course Hero–and software service companies, including Notion (workplace
collaboration), Figma (design collaboration), and Podium (local customer communication). Software services and online education have grown as new unicorn candidates while fintech and branded e-commerce take a back seat in the 2020 crop of new unicorns so far. [ Crunchbase ]
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3.
How $20 billion health care behemoth Blue Shield of California sees startups
In the two years since Jeff Semenchuk took the reins in the newly created position of chief innovation officer for Blue Shield of California, the nonprofit health insurer with $20 billion in revenues has stepped up its investments in startup companies. As one of California’s largest insurance providers with more than four million members, Blue Shield plays an outsized role in technology adoption among physicians, hospital networks and patients. With that in mind, and with the acceleration of entrepreneurial activity around the multitrillion health care market, Semenchuk was brought on board after
serving as chief executive of Yaro (now Virgin Plus) and CIO of Hyatt Hotels and co-founder of Citi Ventures. [ Tech Crunch ]
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4.
KKR Backs Artlist’s $48M Financing Round
Royalty-free digital music provider Artlist said Monday it has raised $48 million in a financing round led by KKR. Existing investor Elephant Partners, which led a previously unannounced investment in 2018, also joined the round, the company said. Ira Belsky, Artlist co-founder and co-CEO, said in a written statement that new funds will be used to add tens of thousands of new and original stock digital assets to its platforms to meet demand, as well as expand into new categories of assets, either organically or through acquisitions. [ Crunchbase ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
5.
EVEN THOUGH LESS THAN 1% OF VENTURE CAPITAL GOES TO BLACK FOUNDERS, HERE’S HOW I RAISED $11 MILLION
As an African American entrepreneur, I can tell you that you’ll face tremendous obstacles in building your vision. But there is nothing more personally liberating than seeing your dream come true—and right now, as an African American entrepreneur, your platform for change is growing exponentially as VCs are slowly starting to understand that they need to be more inclusive and that there are vast opportunities outside of their small network. [ Black Enterprise ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
6.
A startup sees a business opportunity in all those returns by online shoppers
Online shopping has made a lot of things easier, but it may have exacerbated one problem: the dreaded return. Instead of unwanted items piling up in the house until a shopper makes a trip they were trying to avoid in the first place, entrepreneur Evgeny Kostromskoy wants to make it just as easy to return that shirt, book or vacuum cleaner as it was to order it online. His startup, PorchShip, which launched in Pittsburgh earlier this year, is meant to work like Uber or DoorDash in reverse. Rather than dropping off a delivery, a driver picks up packages and takes them to the proper location to complete the
return. [ Post-Gazette ]
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7.
Self-Driving Truck Maker TuSimple Hires Morgan Stanley To Help Raise $250M In Fresh Funding: Report
TuSimple is looking to raise up to $250 million in a fresh funding round, TechCrunch reported late Friday. The self-driving-truck maker has hired Morgan Stanley MS 0.4% to help raise the funds, according to TechCrunch. The investment
bank is already sending out proposals to potential investors on why TuSimple is poised to succeed as a company. [ Benzinga ]
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8.
Square’s former Australian boss is launching a business payments fintech with $6.3m seed raise
A former executive from Jack Dorsey’s payments company Square is launching a new payments and financial services fintech targeting business. Melbourne-based Zeller, founded by Ben Pfisterer and Dominic Yap, has landed $6.3 million in seed funding led by Square Peg Capital, which previously invested in fintechs such as Stripe, Airwallex, Prospa and Athena, alongside Apex Capital. Square Peg co-founder Paul Bassat, will join the Zeller board. Pfisterer previously led the APAC Square team as well as holding leadership roles at Visa, NAB and JetStar, while Yap worked with PwC and other consulting firms. [ Startup Daily ]
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9.
Sovereign funds pile into venture capital investments in 2020
Sovereign wealth funds have participated in $17 billion of venture capital deals so far this year, already more than the entirety of 2019, as their appetite for long-term investment appears undimmed by the coronavirus outbreak. The investments are against a backdrop of a generally subdued deal-making environment across the venture capital industry in the aftermath of the pandemic. With their deep-pockets and longer investment horizons than many other investors, sovereign funds have increasingly sought out start-ups, particularly in technology in the hope they will yield outsized returns. Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala has
been involved in one of the largest deals so far this year, participating in a $3 billion investment in Waymo, the self-driving technology company owned by Alphabet, parent of Google (GOOGL.O), according to PitchBook data. The deal, which closed last month, included investment from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Magna International and Andreessen Horowitz. [ Reuters ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
10.
Startup Istanbul Interview - Dave McClure - Founder of Practical Venture Capital, 500 Startups
Dave McClure: A Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor for over 25 years. He has founded Practical Venture Capital and 500 Startups, and previously worked at Founders Fund and PayPal. He's invested in hundreds of startups all over the world, including 15 unicorns and 5 IPOs. Forbes named him one of the top 100 VCs in the world in 2016 and 2017. He has a BS in Engineering and Applied Mathematics (*nerd alert!) from the Johns Hopkins University.
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11.
Pomp Podcast #325: Michael Arrington On The Future Of Crypto
This is an episode of The Pomp Podcast with host Anthony "Pomp" Pompliano and guest, Michael Arrington, the founder of Arrington XRP Capital. He is also the founder and former co-editor of TechCrunch, a blog covering the Silicon Valley technology start-up communities. Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
12.
Baltics Private Equity and Venture Capital Market Overview
13.
Where Does Australia’s Top Venture Firm See Opportunities?
Paul Bassat, co-founder and partner at Melbourne-based Square Peg Capital Pty, Australia’s largest venture firm, talks about the investment opportunities he sees at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is creating volatility in financial markets. Square Peg won the backing of Australia’s largest pensions in its latest funding round as it looks to boost investments in startups joining the wave of innovation sparked by the virus. Bassat speaks on "Bloomberg Daybreak: Asia."
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14.
Private Equity Roundtable: Raising Capital Amidst COVID-19
Consero's Private Equity Roundtables enable Investors & Portfolio CEO's/CFO's the opportunity to gain valuable understanding and share actionable information for the middle-market tech and PE community. In our next Roundtable, we’ll have an insightful discussion on "Raising Capital Amidst COVID-19 – Investors Perspective". Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
15.
Baltics Private Equity and Venture Capital Market Overview 2010-2019
View an in-depth presentation of the The first Baltic Private Equity overview for the 2010-2019 followed by a panel discussion with VCA representatives from Latvia (Normunds Igolnieks), Lithuania (Rokas Peciulaitis) and Estonia (Kristjan Kalda) on the situation in PE and VCA markets in all Baltic states.
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