Venture Pulse Daily Newsletter - Curated by Hasan Tarek
Ebang International has launched a roadshow for its U.S. initial public offering that could raise as much as $126 million, becoming the second Chinese Bitcoin mining machine maker to seek a U.S. listing. If successful, Ebang will follow in the footsteps of larger rival Canaan Inc.,
which raised $90 million in an IPO last November after abandoning a plan to raise about $1 billion in Hong Kong. Ebang itself filed twice in Hong Kong before switching to the U.S., while Bitmain Technologies Ltd. -- the world’s biggest producer of cryptocurrency mining chips -- also made a failed Hong Kong IPO attempt. [ Bloomberg ]
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1.
Mail.ru co-founder Dmitry Grishin has a new $100 million fund; he offers a look here
Grishin Robotics is an eight-year-old, Sand Hill Road venture firm that until now, has focused exclusively on the smart hardware industry. Yet a newly closed $100 million fund from family offices in the U.S. and Europe will see it widen its aperture a bit to include online gaming and interactive entertainment, productivity tools and education. It only makes sense, says firm founder Dmitry Grishin, who is also co-founder and chairman of the Russian internet and gaming company Mail.ru Group. Grishin, like the rest of the world, has seen what people can accomplish from their homes during this pandemic — and how they’ve managed to remain entertained. He doesn’t think these lessons will vanish. [ Tech Crunch ]
From now on every day we will add a BLM related pst, today's post is " Officer Charged With Murder in Rayshard Brooks Killing " [ NY Times ]
2.
Berlin’s Fly Ventures reveals €53 million fund for seed-stage enterprise and deep tech startups
Berlin-based Fly Ventures has announced its second fund at 53 million euros, dedicated to early-stage European startups in enterprise and deep tech. Led by Gabriel Matuschka and Fredrik Bergenlid, the firm will use Fund II to make initial investments between €500,000 and €1.3 million. Fund II brings the firm’s total capital to €88 million since 2017. Notable investments from Fund I include autonomous driving startup Wayve, which went on to raise a $20 million Series A led by Eclipse; clinical trials marketplace Inato, which later raised a $14 million Series A led by Obvious Ventures; and cybersecurity startup GitGuardian, where Balderton recently led a $12 million Series A follow-on round.
[ tech.eu ]
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3.
Nikola May Not Be Next Tesla, But Its Valuation Is More Extreme
It has some competition, but no stock on the auto sector is a better reflection of the equity market’s recent exuberance than Nikola Corp. The aspiring battery-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell truck maker debuted on the Nasdaq last week following a reverse merger and its stock quickly took off, doubling on Monday and rising another 28% shortly after Tuesday’s open. Trading was halted twice within the first 40
minutes due to volatility, with the shares plunging as much as 22%. They were back up almost 8% as of noon in New York. [ Bloomberg ]
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4.
DoorDash confirms $400M raise, IPO timing unclear
DoorDash has confirmed that it is raising “approximately $400 million” in a Series H round of funding. Earlier today, Axios reported that the company was looking for a roughly $400 million round at a post-money valuation of $16 billion. DoorDash clarified in a statement provided to TechCrunch that the valuation is slightly under the $16 billion mark. The round was expected, though the final valuation of the deal came in $1 billion higher than earlier reports had indicated.
DoorDash, the popular American food delivery company, has aggressively raised capital throughout its life, including a huge Series G in late 2019 that valued it near $13 billion. According to the company, new investors Durable Capital Partners and Fidelity led the round, along with what it described as “existing investors, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates.” [ Tech Crunch ]
5.
A venture capital firm's AI platform is behind $100 million of its investments
A proprietary machine-learning platform has driven more than $100 million in portfolio-company investments for the venture capital firm EQT Ventures, according to numbers first seen by Axios. Why it matters: EQT Venture's home-brewed Motherbrain platform represents a notable effort to adapt machine learning to the failure-prone process of picking and choosing early-stage tech investments. How it works: Motherbrain monitors over 10 million companies and takes data from dozens of structured and unstructured sources to identify patterns that may be useful as EQT Ventures searches for possible investments. [ Axios ]
6.
Geek+, the Amazon Kiva of China, lands $200 million Series C
Geek+, a Beijing-based startup that makes warehouse fulfillment robots similar to those of Amazon’s Kiva, said Thursday that it has closed over $200 million in a Series C funding round. That bumps total capital raised by the
five-year-old company to date to nearly $390 million. The new round, completed in two parts, was separately led by GGV Capital and D1 Capital Partners in the summer of 2019, and V Fund earlier this year. Other participants included Warburg Pincus, Redview Capital and Vertex Ventures. [ Tech Crunch ]
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7.
Germany to invest €300 million in biotech firm developing coronavirus vaccine
The German government will invest €300 million for a 23% ownership stake in CureVac, a VC-backed mRNA biotech working on a COVID-19 vaccine.
Why it matters: The deal is intended to prevent CureVac from relocating or being acquired by a foreign investor, reflecting increased global protectionism around coronavirus drugs.
The backdrop: In March, a German newspaper reported that the Trump administration had discussed buying CureVac, sparking outrage in Germany.
- CureVac is majority-owned owned by SAP co-founder Dietmar Hopp, via his VC firm, while other backers include Eli Lilly, Baillie Gifford, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. [ Axios ]
8.
E1075: Cendana Capital's Michael Kim on investing in Seed funds, would Facebook buy Robinhood & more
Cendana Capital's Michael Kim on investing in Seed funds as a serial LP, Robinhood as an acquisition target, greatest Seed funds of all time & more
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9.
Sarah Downey on psychology in venture investing and the power of founder to find the investor fit
Sarah Downey is an Operating Partner at Accomplice VC fund who are investors in Angel List, Carbon Back, Coinlist, Pill Pack, Dataxu, Draft Kings and many more unicorns. Formerly a startup person (at Ovuline and Abine) and a lawyer. Sarah is also venturing back into operator role to run a startup with Isabella Patton on personality typing systems in the Enneagram. She is a prolific angel investor.
10.
Celebrating Diversity with Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe and Thorold Barker, Wall Street Journal
In June we celebrate diversity and especially female entrepreneurship globally. We invited Marta Krupinska, Head of Google for Startups UK to talk to two female founders: Charlotte Guzzo, co-founder and COO of Sano Genetics and Shardi Nahavandi co-founder and CEO of Pexxi. We can expect an interesting insightful conversation.
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11.
New Realities For Startups | Marvin Liao | Silicon Valley VC Investor & Tech/Media Executive
Marvin was formerly a Partner at Venture Capital Fund 500 Startups, running the SF based accelerator program as well as investing in Seed stage start ups. He Invests in Digital Media, Enterprise SAAS, Marketplace, Mobile, AdTech/MarketingTech, Digital Health, Internet of Things & Fintech startups.
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12.
How VC Firms Can Partner with Black Founders
Monique Woodard, venture capitalist at Cake Ventures, discusses the state of funding for black startups and black-owned businesses on "Bloomberg Technology."
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13.
Storm Ventures principal on positives he sees for venture capital amid volatility
Volatility in the markets has ticked up again as investors monitor the coronavirus spread in the United States. Frederik Groce, principal at Storm Ventures and a co-founder at BLCK VC, joins "Squawk Box" to discuss how the private markets are faring.
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14.
Diplomacy Delivered: Accessing U.S. Venture Capital to Make an Impact – with Jenny Abramson
Join us for a virtual discussion on how start-up businesses in Australia and the United States can learn from each other, and how Aussie entrepreneurs can access U.S. venture capital opportunities to grow and develop.
15.
Masterclass: Inside The Minds of Venture Capitalists
How do Venture Capitalists think? With a special focus on the current climate, we will delve inside the minds of two Northeastern venture capital alumni to learn how they secured jobs in the field and how they think about investing in new deals.
Curated by Venture Pulse Team. Find us on : [ Venturepulse.org, CrunchBase, AngelList ]
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