One of Goop’s Earliest Investors Says Gwyneth Paltrow Is ‘a Creative Force’. Felix Capital has invested in companies including FarFetch (which just IPOed), Peloton, Mejuri, Highsnobiety — and the one I’m personally most intrigued by — Goop.Felix Capital founder Frederic Court likes to invest in founders long before their ventures are considered real businesses. The London-based venture firm backs “digital lifestyle” companies with a customer base that exhibits cult-like loyalty to the brand. [ Fortune ] SoftBank is considering taking a majority stake in WeWork - an investment between $15 billion and $20 billionSoftBank may soon own up to 50 percent of WeWork, a well-funded provider of co-working spaces headquartered in New York, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. SoftBank is reportedly weighing an investment between $15 billion and $20 billion, which would come from its $92 billion Vision Fund, a super-sized venture fund led by Japanese entrepreneur and investor Masayoshi Son. [ Tech Crunch ] Jennifer Garner’s baby food company Once Upon a Farm raises $20M Series B led by CAVU Venture PartnersCAVU Venture Partners has led the $20 million Series B for Once Upon a Farm, which sells organic, cold-pressed baby food in 8,500 grocery stores in the U.S. The Berkeley-based startup was originally founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneurs Cassandra Curtis and Ari Raz. Today, it lists actress Jennifer Garner and former General Mills president John Foraker as co-founders, too. [ Tech Crunch ] Divvy, an interesting new fractional home ownership startup, just raised a Series A round led by Andreessen HorowitzTech startups have found all kinds of ways to lend money to those hampered by either too little or not very good credit. The approach of a nearly two-year-old, 15-person San Francisco-based startup called Divvy Homes is among the more creative we’ve seen, even while we question (for now) whether it’s good over the long term for potential customers. [ Tech Crunch ] Venture capital investment in US companies to hit $100B in 2018So many new unicorns valued at $1 billion-plus, countless $100 million venture financings, an explosion of giant funds — it’s no surprise 2018 is shaping up to be a banner year for venture capital investment in U.S.-based companies. There are more than 2.5 months remaining in 2018 and already U.S. companies have raised $84.1 billion — more than all of 2017 — across 6,583 VC deals as of Sept. 30, 2018, according to data from PitchBook’s 3Q Venture Monitor. [ Tech Crunch ] A day in the life of a startup CEOThe lightbulb moment came when I was moving country, and the removal men said we had to throw away all our food. I wasn't going to do that, so I set out on the street to try and find someone to share my food with and failed. It was very frustrating because I knew that there would be people who would've loved that food, but they just didn't know about it, and that was where the idea for OLIO came from. [ PitchBook ] Kirsten Green, founder and managing partner of Forerunner Ventures, has been an enthusiastic supporter of the direct-to-consumer business model, making early-stage investments in eyewear purveyor Warby Parker, beauty companies Glossier and Birchbox, and luggage vendor Away, among many others. (Her prescience paid off in a big way in 2016 with blockbuster acquisitions of two of her portfolio companies: Walmart bought Jet.com for $3.3 billion, and Unilever acquired Dollar Shave Club for $1 billion.) [ Fast Company ] Tencent VC Arm Is Said to Seek a New Fund of Over $650 MillionTencent Holdings Ltd.’s investment team is in discussions to raise a new dollar-denominated fund of at least $650 million, according to people familiar with the matter. China’s largest gaming and social media giant has begun negotiations with limited
partners and family offices on a new round of funding surpassing the $600 million raised last year, the people said, requesting not to be named because the matter is private. The money is earmarked for existing startups in its portfolio, although it hasn’t decided on a final amount as it’s still gauging investor appetite, the people added. [ Bloomberg ] |