Happy Friday! It's a common mantra in the venture world that big technology companies such as Google and Facebook can be existential threats to new startups. Many investors will ask a founder who is seeking funding what they would do if Google or Facebook copied their product. 

Now the Justice Department is seeking input from venture capitalists about the impact these large companies have on innovation, The Wall Street Journal reports. Some investors believe big tech companies can hurt innovation, while others essentially say that if Google or Facebook can wipe out a startup, then the startup or the idea was not very good in the first place. We've likely not heard the end of this issue from the Justice Department. 

Note: The Pro VC newsletter will not be published Monday in observance of Presidents Day in the U.S. We will be back on Tuesday. 

And now on to the news...

Antitrust and VCs. Top Justice Department antitrust officials went to Silicon Valley to ask whether industry dominance by a few large tech companies is hurting venture-capital investment in startup firms that could be tomorrow’s competitors, the Journal reports.

• “Antitrust enforcers and venture capitalists both depend on making sure that these types of bets—in good ideas and in great entrepreneurs—are encouraged and rewarded,” the Justice Department’s antitrust chief, Makan Delrahim, said at an event the department hosted Wednesday with Stanford University.
   
• Mr. Delrahim said the department was interested in issues including whether top digital platforms are so dominant that investors aren’t willing to fund the development of new products that rely on those platforms. The department also wanted the VC community’s views on the likelihood that future disruptive companies will be able to challenge today’s current technology giants, he said.
   
• In a discussion of whether big tech companies have created “kill zones” in their relevant markets, making investments in new startups in those markets no longer worthwhile, Switch Ventures founder Paul Arnold said it is often easier and more attractive to invest in fragmented industries than highly concentrated ones. For businesses looking to develop a product in a market dominated by a tech giant, “It’s a really hard barrier to overcome,” he said. Dominant tech companies “are major dampeners to innovation in certain areas,” Mr. Arnold said.
   
• Ram Shriram, an Alphabet Inc. board member who was one of Google’s early investors and is the managing partner of Sherpalo Ventures, pushed back. 

Satellite service. Astranis Space Technologies Corp. has raised $90 million as the startup preps its first commercial satellite to help provide internet service in Alaska, WSJ Pro's Marc Vartabedian reports. The financing was a combination of $40 million in equity led by Venrock and $50 million in debt from TriplePoint Capital, co-founder and Chief Executive John Gedmark said. Investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, venture firm Fifty Years Industries and Refactor Capital participated in the equity portion of the Series B. The debt will be used to cover hardware and launch costs for the satellite.

Astranis is set to lease the capacity of the satellite to Alaska-based telecommunications provider Microcom, also known as Sateo Inc. Astranis will use a Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Falcon 9 rocket to put its satellite into space at the end of this year, Mr. Gedmark said.

In addition to legacy aerospace companies and a slew of other satellite startups, Astranis faces competition from Amazon.com Inc.’s Project Kuiper and SpaceX’s Starlink project, both of which are aiming to provide internet to remote regions via satellites. 

PE for pro athletes. Indiana Pacers guard Victor Oladipo was recovering from a ruptured quad tendon last year when he met with a banker from an investment firm at a workout. Before long, Mr. Oladipo—whose injury pushed him to ponder his financial future—was also part of a new team, at Patricof Co., which helps athletes find potential private-equity investments, the Journal's Ben Mullin reports.

“I realized that I needed to start taking the necessary steps to make sure that life after basketball is still comfortable,” Mr. Oladipo said.

Flush with cash from rising salaries and lucrative endorsement deals, athletes are looking for opportunities to invest their money. Investment firms, in turn, are working to connect them with private-equity deals they might not otherwise find or have access to, across industries as varied as organic food, tech, entertainment and real estate.

PE's political lean. The private-equity industry has leaned Republican with its donations for the past decade, but so far in the 2020 election cycle it is showing a preference for the Democratic Party, WSJ Pro's Chris Cumming reports. Democrats have received 56% of the campaign contributions from individuals working for private-equity and investment firms, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Coronavirus watch. Companies that rely on China-based manufacturing expect that even when factories open, it will be difficult to get space on trucks due to the impacts of the Covid-19 coronavirus, said Tim Enwall, head of Misty Robotics, a venture-backed startup. “Everyone will be rushing to get backlog shipped and many of the truck drivers are stuck in their home provinces,” Mr. Enwall said. “Our freight partner has warned all about that bottleneck possibility,” Mr. Enwall said. He said that Misty had built up inventory before the Lunar New Year so isn’t itself feeling impacts yet. He added that the factory Misty uses, which is based in Guangdong province, just restarted.

—Yuliya Chernova

People

Redpoint Ventures named Logan Bartlett as its newest managing director. He will focus on enterprise investing in Redpoint’s early-growth fund. Mr. Bartlett is joining the firm from Battery Ventures.

New Midwest-focused firm Boomerang Ventures appointed John McDonald as a venture partner. He was previously chief executive of ClearObject.

Target PharmaSolutions, a data services provider to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, hired Neal Bibeau as chief executive. He recently served as president and chief executive of Symphony Health Solutions. Durham, N.C.-based Target is backed by Norwest Venture Partners and 22C Capital.

Exits

Publicly traded Smith Micro Software Inc. acquired assets from Circle Media Labs Inc., including customer contracts and a perpetual software license to Circle’s parental control software, for about $13.5 million in cash. Last February, Circle Media raised a $20 million Series B round from investors including Third Kind Venture Capital, Relay Ventures, Netgear and T-Mobile US.

Flywire, a Boston-based global payments platform, scored $120 million in Series E funding. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. led the round, with participation from Tiger Management and Adage Capital Management. In addition to the investment, Flywire acquired Simplee, a medical payments and financing startup, for an undisclosed amount. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company has raised over $36 million from investors including Social Capital, American Express Ventures, 83North and Heritage Group.

Intuition Robotics, an Israel-based maker of seniors-companion robot ElliQ, secured $36 million in Series B funding. Sparx Group and OurCrowd co-led the round, which included participation from Toyota AI Ventures, Union Tech Ventures, Happiness Capital, Samsung Next, Capital Point and Bloomberg Beta. Jim Adler, founding managing partner at Toyota AI Ventures, will join the board.

BlockFi, a Jersey City, N.J.-based wealth management platform for crypto investors, raised $30 million in Series B funding. Valar Ventures led the round, which included participation from Morgan Creek Digital, PJC, Akuna Capital, CMT Digital, Avon Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Winklevoss Capital and others.

GumGum Inc., a Santa Monica, Calif.-based provider of computer vision technology to the advertising and media industries, secured a $22 million Series D round from investors including NewView Capital and Upfront Ventures.

Radar, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based location data infrastructure startup, landed $20 million in Series B funding. Accel led the round, and was joined by investors including Two Sigma Ventures, Heavybit, Prime Set and Bedrock Capital. Vas Natarajan, a partner at Accel, joined the board.

Datometry Inc., a San Francisco-based database virtualization technology provider, fetched $17 million in Series B funding. WRVI Capital led the round, with Managing Founding Partner Sriram Viswanathan joining the company’s board. Investors including Redline Capital, Dell Tech Capital and Acorn Pacific were also Series B participants.

Freight Farms Inc., a Boston-based containerized vertical farming startup, pulled in $15 million in Series B financing. Ospraie Ag Science led the investment, which included a contribution from Spark Capital.

CloudCath, a San Francisco-based provider of remote monitoring for at-home dialysis, completed a $12 million Series A round. Capital Integral led the funding, with participation from FundRx, The Capital Partnership, Coconut Tree Investments, Stanford University’s StartX Fund and others.

Reggora Inc., a Boston-based home-appraisal startup, raised a $10 million Series A round. Spark Capital led the investment, with participation from existing backers including Boston Seed Capital.

MotoRefi, an Arlington, Va.-based auto refinance startup, collected an $8.6 million Series A round. Accomplice and Link Ventures led the funding, which included participation from investors including Motley Fool Ventures, CMFG Ventures and Gaingels. Rob Chaplinsky, managing director at Link; and Rachel Holt, former Uber executive and co-founder of Construct Capital, joined the board.

Esper.io, a Bellevue, Wash.-based platform for Android device deployment and application management, closed a $7.6 million Series A round. Madrona Venture Group led the investment, and was joined by Root Ventures, Ubiquity Ventures, Haystack Ventures and Pathbreaker Ventures.

Adquick Inc., a Los Angeles-based startup that enables users to buy and measure outdoor advertising, grabbed $6 million in Series A financing. Initialized Capital led the round, with participation from investors including WndrCo and Shrug Capital.

• SEC probes Tesla over financing arrangements.
   
• China’s Huawei charged with racketeering.
   
• BlackRock cashes out crisis bet to expand charitable arm.
   

• Facebook delivers long-awaited trove of data to outside researchers.

• Software engineers’ pay is rising faster outside Silicon Valley.

• Alibaba takes a hit from coronavirus.

• Stores and shoppers agree: Self-checkout is hard.

• Softbank’s $375 million bet on pizza went really bad really fast. (Bloomberg)
   
• Wayfair lays off 550 employees. (Boston Globe)
   
• 'Sloppy' mobile voting app used in four states has 'elementary' security flaws. (Vice)
   
• Larry Ellison is doing the unthinkable for a tech titan: Hosting a fundraiser for Donald Trump. (Vice)
   
• Sen. Gillibrand proposes a new government agency to protect privacy on the internet. (CNBC)

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

The Team: Tomio Geron, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley, Katie Roof and Marc Vartabedian.

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