Breaking : Greylock has raised another $1 billion investment fund
Venture capital firm Greylock Partners
— with a portfolio that includes Airbnb, LinkedIn, Instagram and Workday — has raised another $1 billion investment fund, the firm’s 15th fund to date. Greylock will use the fund for early stage investments, primarily A and B rounds, according to Sarah Tavel, one of Greylock’s investment partners. The fund isn’t limited to any specific industry, but Tavel says Greylock will continue to invest domestically in what it knows best: Tech software. “We are software investors,” Tavel said. “The DNA of our team is through the lens of software, so that will continue to be our focus and the kinds of opportunities we look at.” Greylock is the latest in a string of VC firms that raised big funds this year despite concern in January that things might be slowing down in the world of tech investing. Andreessen Horowitz also raised $1.5 billion back in June, and Sherpa Capital raised half a billion the same month. [ Recode ]
Related : Venture Capital Firm Greylock Announces New $1 Billion Fund
How Lemonade's founders raised a massive seed round just by talking
Three weeks ago, a highly-watched insurance startup called Lemonade opened for business in its first state, New York. Its goal is to upend the property insurance industry with something it calls peer-to-peer insurance. Lemonade didn't expect to sell any policies right away, and was delighted that within the first 48-hours it sold 142 of them, a 15% conversation rate of people who visited the site, CEO Daniel Schreiber tells Business Insider. [ Business Insider ]
Dan Primack departs Fortune’s “Term Sheet” for new content startup from Politico founders
Dan Primack, one of the best-known columnists writing about the ins and outs of the venture business, is leaving his high-profile gig at Fortune magazine to join a new content startup from the co-founders of Politico. Primack’s “Term Sheet” has become a must-read over the years in Silicon Valley, chronicling how investments are made via a mix of breaking news, industry factoids and sharp insights. Now he’ll be one the the more prominent hires for a new effort by former Politico CEO Jim VandeHei and columnist Mike Allen, who founded that online publication in 2007. It soon became a key read for the inside-the-Beltway crowd, competing with the Washington Post where the pair had previously worked. [ Recode ]
How Not to Strangle Your Unicorn. Jason Goldberg’s Fab.com was valued at $1 billion before it collapsed. What can today’s startups learn from his failure?
In June 2013, Fab.com’s chief executive officer, Jason Goldberg, dressed in all black with a red belt, arrived at the Bloomberg Television studios in New York, ready to spread the gospel of quirky home decor. Fab sold Texas-shaped coffee tables, necklaces with expletive pendants, cardboard lion heads, and other unique items, and investors loved it. Goldberg had raised hundreds of millions of dollars, and the latest round of venture capital valued Fab at $1 billion. Back then, a 10-figure valuation placed you in rare air, but Goldberg wasn’t satisfied: He wanted to be bigger. [ Bloomberg ]
LATEST FUNDING
With a €20 million Series A Snapp opens up ride-sharing in Iran
Investors have turned Iran into the latest country to embrace the ride sharing and car-hailing app phenomenon.The Iran Internet Group has secured a €20 million Series A round of financing for its ride-sharing application, Snapp. The South African mobile phone company MTN led the round and is the sole investor. MTN is also a major shareholder of Irancell and Iran Internet Holdings. The firm launched Snapp, formerly known as Taxi Yaab in 2014. €20 million is among the second largest investments in Iran’s nascent startup ecosystem this year. In March Swedish based investment firm Pomegranate invested €60 million in Sarava, an Iranian investment firm focused on e-commerce. Sarava has backed Digikala, one of Iran’s most successful e-commerce startups. [ Tech Crunch ]
Sweden’s Soundtrap raises $6 million to expand its online music recording platform
Soundtrap, an online music and audio recording studio, announced today it has raised $6 million to help it expand into new countries and languages. The latest round was led by Nordic venture capital firm Industrifonden and included money from Peter Sterky, a former executive at Spotify. Soundtrap has now raised a total of $8.5 million. The idea behind the company was to create a simple, online collaborative recording service for amateur musicians. The cloud-based service works across all mobile and desktop operating systems. [ Venture Beat ]
Vectary raises $2.5M for easy 3D modelling + community platform, moves to NYC
A space has opened up in the last few years as 3D printers have become more affordable, and that is the space for simple 3D designing tools. As VR takes off, that will also be a brand new space for such tools, in order to design new objects and environments. In this area is Thingiverse, a large online 3D printing community, although it lacks 3D modelling functionality. There is also Autodesk 123d which targets professional users and they also own Tinkercad for kids. Blender is free but it’s not a platform community. So there is an opportunity here for a platform which is both a community combined with a 3D modelling tool that aims at a wider audience. [ Tech Crunch ]
SimpleOrder raises $2.75 million to automate restaurant supply chains
SimpleOrder has raised $2.75 million in a first round of funding to help restaurants manage their supply chain with a cloud-based platform. The Tel Aviv, Israel-based company recognizes that 50 percent of restaurants fail within their first 12 months, and many don’t have a systematic way of tracking their inventory on digital platforms. To date, the company has raised $3.7 million. The round was led by Lazarus Israel Opportunities Fund and Foodlab Capital, with participation from existing investors Cyrus Angel Fund and private angel investors. [ Venture Beat ]
eve Sleep Dreaming Big Following $18.3m Series B Success
Burgeoning e-commerce start-up eve Sleep has secured a significant $18.3m boost to its war chest at the close of its Series B funding round, led by Woodford Investment Management, taking its total funding to date to over $22m, super-charging its NPD, marketing and international expansion plans.Launched by entrepreneurs Jas Bagniewski, Kuba Wieczorek, Felix Lobkowicz and James Fryer in February 2015, eve Sleep is forecasting revenues in excess of $50m for the next financial year. eve Sleep, which launched in the US in January 2016 and will soon be expanding its European presence to the
Netherlands, Italy,Poland, Austria, and Switzerland, has a number of high profile, experienced backers, including Woodford Investment Management, Octopus Ventures, DN Capital and Channel 4. [ PR Newswire ]
Tyson Foods, a Meat Leader, Invests in Protein Alternatives
Tyson Foods appears to be the first big meat company to invest in a business that, among other things, aims to reduce consumption of chicken, beef and pork by replacing it with plant proteins. Tyson, the country’s largest meat processor, announced last week that it was investing an undisclosed amount for a 5 percent stake in Beyond Meat, a company based in El Segundo, Calif., that makes “meats” from protein sources like soy and peas. Beyond Meat this year began selling the Beyond Burger, for instance, a plant-protein burger sold fresh that sizzles and oozes fats while cooking on a griddle. Whole Foods Market apparently finds it close enough to the real thing that the supermarket chain has been selling Beyond Burger next to the meat case in its stores. [ NY Times ]
OncoResponse Secures $7M in Supplemental Series A Funding
-OncoResponse, an immuno-oncology antibody discovery company, today announced that it has raised $7 million in a supplemental Series A financing, consisting of a $3.5 million investment from GreatPoint Ventures and a $3.5 million investment from the Helsinn Investment Fund. In October 2015, OncoResponse secured $9.5 million as part of an initial closing of its Series A financing co-led by ARCH Venture Partners, Canaan Partners and MD Anderson, with William Marsh Rice University and Alexandria Real Estate Equities also participating. An additional $3 million investment by Baxalta (now Shire) in May 2016, along with the recent investments by GreatPoint and Helsinn, bring the total Series A financing to $19.5 million, which will be used to support OncoResponse’s ongoing efforts to interrogate the humoral response of elite responders to cancer immunotherapy to identify antibodies and potential targets for novel therapeutic development. [ Business Wire ]
LATEST EXITS
5 interesting tidbits in iRhythm Technologies’ $86M IPO registration
Medical device company iRhythm Technologies last week filed for an $86 million initial public offering. The San Francisco-based maker of a wearable heart monitor called the Zio expects to use the cash to expand the device’s clinical reach. The FDA-cleared device is worn as a patch and continuously logs heartbeat data for 14 days to look for irregular heart rhythm. Combined with a cloud-based data platform, the device makes up one-half of an overall Zio service that enables physicians to monitor patients and diagnose arrhythmias. [ Med City News ]
FUND RAISE
EQT’S first US-dedicated fund closes at USD 726 Million
- EQT’s Mid Market US fund closes with commitments of USD 726 million
- A growth buyout investment strategy involving transformation of good companies, within the US middle-market segment, into stronger, more sustainable businesses
- EQT firmly established in the US with three investment strategies - Infrastructure, Equity and Mid Market
EQT today announces that its first US-dedicated fund, EQT Mid Market US, has been closed with commitments of USD 726 million. The closing date was September 30, 2016.
The EQT Mid Market US fund applies a growth buyout investment strategy which involves developing and transforming good companies into stronger, more sustainable businesses. The fund will make control and co-control investments in high-quality companies operating in sectors with strong underlying growth trends. The fund will also leverage EQT’s network of over 250 Industrial Advisors and apply the firm's proven governance model and alignment principles to help support portfolio company growth. Two acquisitions have already been made in the US by the fund; FocusVision (global leader in technology-enabled services in the marketing research and intelligence market) and XP Solutions (world leading provider of industry standard sustainable drainage and flood hazard software for the civil engineering and environmental sectors). The fund continues to experience a rich and robust deal flow and pipeline. [ EQT ]
