Welness startup Hims enters the unicorn club with $100M investmentHims, known by many for its phallic New York subway advertisements, has raised an additional $100 million in venture capital funding on a pre-money valuation of $1 billion. The round was first reported by Recode and confirmed to TechCrunch by sources with knowledge of the deal. A growth-stage investor has led the round, which is ongoing, with participation from existing investors. Our source declined to name the lead investor but did say it was a “super big fund” that isn’t SoftBank and that hasn’t previously invested in Hims. [ Tech Crunch ] Sapphire Ventures bets big on esports and entertainment with $115M fundSapphire Ventures, formerly the corporate venture capital arm of SAP, has lassoed $115 million from new limited partners (LPs) to invest at the intersection of tech, sports, media and entertainment. A majority of the LPs for the new fund, called Sapphire Sport, have ties to the sports industry, from City Football Group, which owns English Premier League team Manchester City, to Adidas, the owners of the Indiana Pacers, New York Jets, San Jose Sharks and Tampa Bay Lightning, among others. [ Tech Crunch ] Former Munchery employees sue company, blame CEO for shutdownThe Munchery saga continues. In a new class-action lawsuit, former Munchery facilities worker Joshua Philips is claiming the startup owes him and 250 other employees 60 days’ wages, citing The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, a U.S. labor law that requires employers with an excess of 100 employees to give notice 60 days ahead of mass layoffs. Munchery, a prepared meal delivery company headquartered in San Francisco, announced in an email to customers on January 21 that it would cease operations, effectively immediately. The abrupt shutdown not only came as a surprise to Munchery’s community of customers, but shocked vendors, many whom had been expecting payments from the business for several weeks. [ Tech Crunch ] Munchery's major investors : Checkout Menlo Ventures Deals, Exits and Fund Raised Data. This VR startup impressed Andreessen Horowitz so much that the VC firm flew back from Vegas to hammer out a $68 million deal at In-N-Out
Checkout Andreessen Horowitz's Deals, Exits and Fund Raised Data. How can you prepare for the future of work? The answer is not “learn to code.”On the latest episode of Recode Decode, journalist and Boston University professor Ellen Shell joined Recode’s Kara Swisher in studio to talk about her latest book, The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change. Shell explained why some of the conventional wisdom about the future of work is misguided and offered pragmatic advice for people entering an increasingly automated job market. She warned that the most at-risk jobs are “mid-skill” ones that are expensive for employers, which includes most software developers. [ Business Insider ] New Year's resolutions: Meet the startups getting you in shapeCongratulations: You've nearly survived January, widely considered be the worst month of the year. With the excesses of Christmas and New Year's Eve, many of us have started the year a little poorer, a little fatter and a lot more stressed. A New Generation of Black Founders Is Rising in Atlanta--and the Startup World Is Taking NoticeOn the 7th floor of Atlanta's historic Biltmore Hotel, high above the Bird and Lime e-scooters below, Paul Judge stands by a window. He points toward nearly every building within a few-block radius. "Five years ago, these spaces were all dirt," he says. [ Inc. ] Aiming to change the way people take medicine, Lyndra Therapeutics raises $55 million A little over two years after Lyndra Therapeutics Inc. first unveiled its technology for time-delayed drug delivery through a simple pill, the company has raised $55 million to continue developing the technology for public consumption. By creating a new kind of ultra long-acting drug delivery mechanism in pills, the company claims it can remove the need for patients to follow strict guidelines for taking their medication. [ Tech Crunch ] Fintech start-up Acorns valued at $860 million after latest funding roundInvesting and savings start-up Acorns is one step closer to a billion-dollar valuation.The six-year-old company announced a Series E funding round on Monday that brings its valuation to $860 million, the company said. The new $105 million cash injection came from Comcast Ventures, NBCUniversal, Bain Capital Ventures, BlackRock, TPG's Rise Fund, DST and Michael Dell's MSD Capital. [ CNBC ] $1B+ Market Map: The World’s 308 Unicorn Companies In One InfographicOver the past couple of years, the term "record-breaking" has frequently been used to describe the state of venture capital in the US, as the space hits new heights with deal value, mega-rounds and fundraising. In 2018, some of these records reached heights not seen since the dot-com boom. How Many Managers Will You Need This Year?Your startup is growing quickly. To hit next year’s target, you may need to hire many people. Where do you start? Bottoms up or top down? Both are viable strategies, but hiring a strong management team at every level provides some key benefits. First, they help you hire more effectively. Second, they will guide new additions to the team to success. Third, they will reduce unnecessary turnover. [ Tomasz Tunguz ] Google Investment Arm CapitalG Leads $100 Million Investment In Data Tech Firm CollibraCapitalG, an investment arm of Google parent Alphabet, has led a $100 million funding round in the data technology startup Collibra. With the investment, Collibra is valued at over $1 billion, the company told Fortune exclusively, putting it on a increasingly crowded list of startups known as unicorns that have a value of $1 billion or more. Other investors that joined in the latest funding round include ICONIQ Capital, Index Ventures, Dawn Capital, and Battery Ventures. [ Fortune ] Unity acquires Vivox, which powers voice chat in Fortnite and League of LegendsGame engine maker Unity believes voice communications are going to grow to become a critical part of gaming across platforms and it’s buying one of the top companies in the space to bolster what its customers can build on the its platform. Unity has acquired Vivox, a company that powers voice and text chat for the world’s most massive gaming titles from Fortnite to PUBG to League of Legends. The company’s positional voice chat enable gamers to hear other players chatting around them directionally in 3D space. The company also provides text-based chat. No details on deal terms. [ Tech Crunch ] Lack of transparency in healthcare startups risks another Theranos implosionAre more Theranos -style scandals looming for investors in healthcare startups? A team of researchers associated with the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford thinks so. They’ve published a paper warning investors in life sciences startups that a systemic lack of transparency exists in their portfolio companies — creating the possibility for more multi-billion-dollar implosions and scandals like the one that toppled Theranos and its charismatic founder, Elizabeth Holmes. [ Tech Crunch ] Latina VCs Are Optimistic About Opportunities In Their IndustryThere are not enough female VCs—that much is known. Unfortunately, there are even fewer Latina VCs. A 2016 survey jointly conducted by Deloitte and the National Venture Capital Association found that just two percent of all partners in U.S. venture capital firms were Latinx. It also found that Latinx employees represent only four percent of the venture workforce. [ Crunch base ] |