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DoorDash, Airbnb IPOs to Cap Off Big Year for Venture Firms
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Good day. Two major initial public offerings, from DoorDash and Airbnb, are expected next week, which would cap off a blockbuster year for venture investors in some of the top startup names to go public despite the pandemic.
DoorDash's largest shareholder is SoftBank, according to its S-1 filing, with 24.9% of Class A shares prior to the IPO. SoftBank led DoorDash's 2018 $535 million Series D. Sequoia Capital, which led DoorDash's Series A in 2014, is next with 20.4% of shares before the offering. The Singapore government's Greenview Investment holds 10.5% of shares.
Other investors in DoorDash that own less than 5% of the company include Y Combinator, CRV, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, DST Global and Coatue.
Airbnb’s largest shareholder is Sequoia, which led its seed round, with 16.3% of voting power prior to the offering. Founders Fund has 5.4% of voting power pre-IPO, while DST Global has 2.3% of voting power pre-IPO. Silver Lake and Sixth Street also own substantial stakes.
Notably, Sequoia's Alfred Lin is on the board of both Airbnb and DoorDash. Other Airbnb investors include Greylock, which co-led the Series A with Sequoia, Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz, and General Catalyst.
And now on to the news...
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PHOTO: ERIC GAY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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SoftBank Group Corp. is doubling down on its bet that technology startups will reshape freight shipping and logistics, a sector that has been an ambitious focal point for the firm, WSJ Pro’s Marc Vartabedian reports.
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Through its Vision Fund 2, the Japanese firm led a $113.5 million investment in Flock Freight, a U.S. software startup that offers a service that uses algorithms to match trucks with freight headed in the same direction. The service, intended to optimize trucks’ shipping capacity, is akin to a ride-hailing company’s pooled services that match riders in the same vehicle based on their pickup and drop-off locations.
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The deal values Flock Freight at roughly $500 million, according to a person familiar with the matter.
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Volvo Group’s venture-capital arm joined SoftBank in the financing. The Swedish-based company is one of the world’s largest heavy-duty truck manufacturers and is planning to collaborate with the startup and help improve its technology, said Martin Witt, the head of Volvo Group Venture Capital.
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Salesforce Confirms Deal to Buy Slack for $27.7 Billion
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Salesforce.com Inc. agreed to buy messaging company Slack Technologies Inc. in a $27.7 billion deal that shows how the biggest players in cloud computing are racing to add muscle amid the pandemic’s remote-work boom.
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise to Leave Silicon Valley for Texas
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Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.—a descendant of the firm that Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard famously started in a Palo Alto, Calif., garage—is moving its headquarters to the Houston area, the latest sign of how the pandemic is reshaping the way Silicon Valley companies operate, WSJ reports. HPE disclosed its plan to relocate as it posted fourth-quarter earnings after a difficult year that generated a full-year loss, highlighting its need to lower costs. The departure of a company so closely linked to Silicon Valley’s origin story is a striking example of how the area once synonymous with tech innovation may be losing some of its luster.
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Exits
Sales and marketing platform Seismic acquired Grapevine6, a social and digital sales engagement platform, for an undisclosed amount. In September, San Diego-based Seismic raised a $92 million Series F round, valuing the company at about $1.6 billion. Permira, Ameriprise Financial, EDBI, Jackson Square Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and T. Rowe Price were the investors in the round.
SVB Financial Group, the parent company of Silicon Valley Bank, agreed to acquire the debt fund business of WestRiver Group, which will result in the launch of the SVB Capital Credit Platform. Terms weren’t disclosed. WestRiver is a Seattle-based venture, debt and equity investment firm with $2 billion of assets under management.
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Olive AI Inc., a Columbus, Ohio-based company that automates health-care operations, raised $225.5 million in a financing round led by Tiger Global, with participation by existing investors General Catalyst, Drive Capital and Silicon Valley Bank. New investors also include GV, Sequoia Capital Global Equities, Dragoneer Investment Group and Transformation Capital Partners. The company is now valued at $1.5 billion. Olive also hired Ali Byrd as chief financial officer and Shoshana Deutschkron as chief marketing officer.
Stockholm-based electric scooter company Voi Technology AB raised $160 million in new funding led by The Raine Group. Existing investors, including VNV Global, Balderton, Creandum, Project A, Inbox Capital and Stena Sessan, joined the round.
HungryPanda, a U.K.-based online food delivery platform serving Asian restaurants and overseas Chinese populations, raised $70 million in Series C funding led by Kinnevik. New investors Piton Capital, BurdaPrincipal Investments and VNV Global were joined by previous backers 83North and Felix Capital in the round.
Materialize, a New York-based streaming SQL database startup, fetched $32 million in Series B funding. Kleiner Perkins led the round, which included contributions from investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Aphea.Bio, a Belgian agtech startup, landed €14 million ($16.9 million) in Series B funding. Astanor Ventures led the round, and was joined by V-Bio Ventures, Agri Investment Fund, PMV, Vives Fund, VIB, Qbic II and Gemma Frisius Fund.
Infogrid, a U.K. startup that automates facilities management, picked up $15.5 million in Series A financing. Northzone led the round, which included additional support from JLL Spark, Concrete VC, The Venture Collective and Jigsaw VC.
Cast AI, a Miami-based multi-cloud platform, nabbed $7.7 million in seed funding from investors including TA Ventures.
SuperNormal, which provides a video collaboration tool for remote teams, was seeded with a $2 million investment led by EQT Ventures.
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PHOTO: GABBY JONES/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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