Good day. Preliminary figures show a deepening pullback in venture-capital investment activity for the year’s second quarter, which ended yesterday.

Venture investment fell 37% to roughly $19 billion compared with the first quarter and fell 36% from the second quarter of 2019, according to an analysis by Ernst & Young U.S. Venture Capital Leader Jeff Grabow who used data from analytics firm Crunchbase Inc. The analysis compared data up to June 15 with prior full quarters. While final figures are still being compiled, the data offers early insight into a quarter that took place entirely during the pandemic.

The number of venture-capital financing rounds in the second quarter dropped 53% to 867 rounds compared with the year’s first quarter and 63% from the second quarter of 2019, according to the analysis.

The consumer-goods sector suffered the largest drop in venture investment, plunging 73% from the year’s first quarter and down 63% from last year’s second quarter. Out of seven sectors, only “energy and utilities” and “industrial goods and materials” notched investment gains relative to the first quarter, rising 34% and 23% respectively.

And now on to the news...

Early-stage venture. Cendana Capital has raised $278 million in fresh capital to invest in early-stage venture funds globally, WSJ Pro’s Yuliya Chernova reports. The fundraising for its latest vehicles exceeded the San Francisco firm’s previous totals raised in 2017 but also took longer than originally anticipated, said Michael Kim, Cendana’s founder and managing partner. Cendana planned to complete its fundraising on March 30 but extended the deadline by a quarter to allow its investors more time for due diligence given the pandemic-related lockdowns.

• Mr. Kim said numerous venture funds, especially recently formed firms, have had a more difficult and drawn-out fundraising process because of the pandemic and recession. “Our advice to new fund managers is, close what you can and start investing it and come back to the market next year. Everyone will give you a free pass if you didn’t raise the target,” Mr. Kim said. 
   
• Founded in 2010, Cendana now has about $1.2 billion under management. It has backed funds from some 37 firms, including seed investors Founder Collective, Freestyle Capital and IA Ventures, and pre-seed firms such as Mucker Capital and PivotNorth Capital.

Funds

Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital Group closed its second fund with $820 million. B Capital Fund II LP will typically make Series B through Series D investments of between $10 million and $60 million per deal in business-to-business startups across the U.S., Europe and Asia. Recent B Capital investments include cybersecurity testing platform Synack, and Khatabook, which digitizes local businesses’ bookkeeping and online payments. The firm’s first fund closed with $360 million in 2018.

Education investor Reach Capital is raising $150 million for its third fund, according to a regulatory filing. Earlier this year, the firm participated in a funding round for educational support system Paper. Reach II LP closed with $82 million in 2018.

Exits

Technology-focused Carrick Capital Partners is acquiring Flatiron School LLC, a technical bootcamp, from WeWork for an undisclosed amount. The New York-based business, which provides training in software engineering, data science, user experience and interface design and cybersecurity, was bought by WeWork in 2017.

Pocket Outdoor Media purchased the healthy living, fitness and outdoor divisions of Active Interest Media. The Boulder, Colo-based active lifestyle content creator also raised a Series A funding round from JAZZ Venture Partners, Next Ventures and Zone 5 Ventures. The financial details of both transactions were not disclosed.

SolarisBank AG, a Berlin-based banking platform, raised €60 million ($67.5 million) in Series C funding led by HV Holtzbrinck Ventures. New investors Vulcan Capital, Samsung Catalyst Fund and Storm Ventures also participated in the round, along with existing backers including Yabeo, SBI Group, ABN Amro Ventures, Global Brain and Lakestar.

Scalefast Inc., a Los Angeles-based e-commerce services provider, scored a $22 million Series B round from Xplorer Capital, Stereo Capital, FJLabs, Benhamou Global Ventures, Crédit Mutuel Equity and Adara Ventures. Keith Nilsson, managing partner at Xplorer, joined the board.

Sundae, a San Francisco-based real-estate marketplace for distressed property, landed $16.6 million in Series A funding. QED Investors led the investment, with participation from Founders Fund, Susa Ventures and others.

Hunters, a Tel Aviv-based enterprise breach detection and response startup, secured $15 million in Series A funding. M12 and U.S. Venture Partners led the round, which included support from YL Ventures, Blumberg Capital and Okta Ventures.

Upsolver, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based big data management startup, nabbed $13 million in Series A financing. Vertex Ventures US led the round, which included contributions from Wing Venture Capital and Jerusalem Venture Partners. In Sik Rhee of Vertex and JVP’s Gadi Porat will join the company’s board.

Elementary Robotics, a Los Angeles-based maker of robots for manufacturing and logistics automation, raised a $12.7 million Series A round. Threshold Ventures led the funding, and was joined by Fika Ventures, Fathom Capital, Ubiquity Ventures and Toyota AI Ventures. Mo Islam, partner at Threshold, joined the board.

Capital, a New York-based provider of fundraising technology to businesses, closed a $9 million seed round. AME Cloud Ventures led the investment, with participation from Future Ventures, Greycroft, Wavemaker Partners, Partech and others.

Hi Marley Inc., a Boston-based conversation platform for the insurance industry, collected $8 million in Series A1 funding. True Ventures and Underscore VC led the round, with Bain Capital Ventures and Greenspring Associates also participating.

PlayBrain Inc., a Tokyo-based esports content provider, completed a $6 million Series A round from return investor Bitkraft Esports Ventures.

RIOS, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based maker of assembly line automation robots, fetched a $5 million investment. Valley Capital Partners and Morpheus Ventures led the round, which included participation from Grit Ventures, Motus Ventures, MicroVentures and Alumni Ventures Group. Valley Capital’s Steve O’Hara, Morpheus’ Howard Ko and Grit’s Jennifer Gill Roberts joined the board.

Willa, a Los Angeles- and Stockholm-based freelancer payment management startup, was seeded with a $3 million investment led by EQT Ventures.

Pattern89, an Indianapolis-based digital advertising software developer, raised $2 million in growth capital from Break Trail Ventures, Elevate Ventures, F&M Investments, High Alpha Capital and Vitalize.

• Netflix to invest $100 million in Black community’s financial institutions
   
• Apple’s virtual event gives hope for online-only conferences in Covid-19 era
   
• Microsoft aims to train 25 million workers free in 2020
   
• Raising a free-range child in 2020? Try a Smartwatch

• The startup taking on Apple and Snapchat in a mini-app war (Protocol)
   
• Google buys startup North to support ‘ambient’ computing quest. (Bloomberg)
   
• Uber bus just around the corner on post-pandemic public transit map. (Reuters)

This newsletter was compiled by Matthew Strozier and Zachary Cole.

WSJ Pro Venture Capital is a premium service of The Wall Street Journal. We cover venture capital and the global startup ecosystem. Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The Team: Matthew Strozier, Tomio Geron, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley and Marc Vartabedian.

Follow us on Twitter: @wsjvc, @tomiogeron, @ychernova, @BrianPGormley, @marcvarta.