1.
Chinese autonomous vehicle startup Pony.ai hits $5.3 billion valuation
Pony.ai, the Chinese autonomous vehicle startup and relative newcomer to the industry, is now valued at $5.3 billion following a fresh injection of $267 million in funding. The round was led by TIP, an innovation fund within the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board that focuses on late-stage venture and growth equity investments in companies that deliver disruptive technology. Existing partners Fidelity China Special Situations PLC, 5Y Capital (formerly Morningside Venture Capital), ClearVue Partners and Eight Roads also
participated in the round. The new funds will primarily be used for research and development, according to the company. [ Tech Crunch ]
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2.
What Intuitive is looking for through its new $100M venture fund
Surgical robots have been Intuitive Surgical's sweet spot. But a broader focus on minimally invasive care, including interest in digital tools and precision diagnostics, opens more opportunities. It's fair to say that when most people think of Intuitive Surgical, they think of da Vinci and robotic surgery. The company recently joined medtech giants before them like Johnson & Johnson and Boston Scientific in launching a corporate venture capital arm, which appears to take a broader view on
minimally invasive care in its inaugural $100 million fund. [ med tech dive ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
Special:
Best Reason to Join a Startup? Not to Get Rich
The U.S. has such an infatuation with startup culture that many have wondered: Do startup employees earn more in the long run? The answer: No. Or so says a recent study that analyzed the long-term consequences of startup employment in Denmark from 1992 to 2012. It found those who joined a startup that had been operating for four or fewer years earned 17%
less in the following decade compared with those who joined an established company. The researchers chose this particular setting because Denmark’s economy, according to their paper, is representative of other high-income countries including the United States. [ Bloomberg ]
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3.
Autonomous delivery startup Nuro hits $5 billion valuation on fresh funding of $500 million
Nuro, the autonomous delivery startup founded by two former Google engineers, has raised $500 million, suggesting that investors still have an appetite for long-term pursuits such as robotics and automated vehicle technology. Nuro now has a post-money valuation of $5 billion. The Series C round was led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., with participation from new investors including Fidelity Management & Research Company and Baillie Gifford. The round also includes existing investors such as SoftBank Vision Fund 1 and Greylock. [ Tech Crunch ]
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4.
SoftBank's big bet on listed tech stocks cost it $1.3 billion
Hong Kong (CNN Business)Billionaire tycoon Masayoshi Son's huge bets in recent months on listed tech stocks didn't pay off. SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate founded by Son, on Monday posted losses of 131.7 billion yen ($1.3 billion) "from investment in listed stocks and other instruments" for the six months ended in September. The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times reported on Son's big bets in September. The Journal said that SoftBank had bought roughly $4 billion worth of options tied to underlying shares it had earlier purchased in companies such as Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT) and Netflix (NFLX), generating an exposure of about $50 billion. [ CNN ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
5.
100 rising-star VCs who represent the future of venture capital
Atelier Ventures; Courtesy of Nikhil Basu Trivedi; CLEO Capital; Courtesy of Josh Buckley; Samantha Lee/Business Insider - Meet 100 rising-star venture capitalists who specialize in funding early-stage startups and are changing the face of the venture industry.
- These VCs include those who left the classic Silicon Valley funds to strike out on their
own and hungry angel investors starting rolling funds as a new way to finance venture firms.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
This year has been a whirlwind — with no exception for the venture-capital world. But amid the turmoil of a pandemic and seesawing fortunes for startups, a number of early-stage venture capitalists working outside the long-established Silicon Valley VC firms have made a name for themselves. They've done this with bold investments, gutsy fundraising, and gambles that have sometimes put their careers at stake. With that in mind, we present 100 rising star VCs of 2020 based on a list of highly rated venture capitalists created by VC Guide, the site where startup founders can leave anonymous reviews and ratings on venture capitalists. We threw in a few picks of our own too. Read on for Business Insider's 2020 picks for the rising-star VCs who specialize in seed and early-stage funding, organized alphabetically by their firm's name. [ Business Insider ]
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6.
Ventures Roundup: Ryder launches $50M VC fund; Caribshopper raises $1.4M
Ryder System has formed RyderVentures, a corporate venture capital fund that aims to invest $50 million over the next five years. The fund will be used to invest in and partner with startups developing new technologies and innovations in the logistics and transportation industries. Through RyderVentures, the company intends to help startups in the sector accelerate development, pilot products and quickly get products to market. It will primarily target logistics startups tackling disruptions in the supply chain amid higher demands from customers due to e-commerce, as well as asset sharing, next-generation vehicles, automation and data analytics. [ Biz Journal ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
7.
China’s cash-burning video sector: How Kuaishou lost $1B in 6 months
Rumors have been floating for months that ByteDance is going public with TikTok and Douyin separately. Just last night, Bloomberg reported that ByteDance is seeking a pre-IPO round of $2 billion at a staggering valuation of $180
billion. Before any of that materializes, ByteDance Chinese rival Kuaishou moved ahead to file for an initial public offering in Hong Kong Thursday night, and its prospectus is shedding light on a race where both growth and costs are astronomical. Launched by a former Google engineer in 2011 to share GIFs, Kuaishou has evolved into a nemesis of Douyin, TikTok’s sister in China. With 21.5% owned by Tencent, the company reported a net loss of 6.8 billion yuan ($1 billion) in the first six months of 2020 while operating loss stood at 7.57 billion yuan. In contrast, it logged an operating profit of 1.1 billion yuan in the same
period just last year. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
8.
UK insurer RSA in £7.2B takeover talks with foreign suitors
Shares in ASX-listed MedAdvisor have been placed in a trading halt today with the health-tech venture announcing plans to acquire US-based medication adherence company Adheris for US$34.5 million (AU$49m), while also raising AU$45 million to fund the acquisition. The company’s seeking a minimum of AU$35m in funds through an institutional placement at $0.45 per share, a 12.5% premium to Friday’s closing price of $0.40 cents and a 10% premium to the 30-day volume weighted average price (VWAP). The raise also includes an accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer and convertible note of US$5m (AU$7.1m) with Syneos Health. The deal includes a further US$7m in two-part earn out components based on revenues in: Q3/Q4 CY20 and CY21. [
Pitchbook ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
9.
Connecting With 5G: Cellwize Dials In $32M Series B For Mobile Networks
Cellwize Wireless Technologies, a Southlake, Texas-based company focused on mobile network automation and orchestration, raised $32 million in Series B funding. Intel Capital and Qualcomm Ventures led the investment and were joined by Verizon Ventures , Samsung Next and existing investors. Including the new round, Cellwize has raised a total of $56 million since being founded in 2013, Ofir Zemer, CEO of Cellwize, told Crunchbase News. That includes a $14.5 million Series A round back
in 2015, according to Crunchbase data. Cellwize’s CHIME platform is a cloud-based, artificial intelligence-driven radio access network (RAN) that enables mobile network operators to accelerate 5G network deployment and go-to-market, as well as improve the return on investment on their network investments, Zemer said. [ Crunchbase ]
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10.
Solving the $160 billion food waste problem: Meet Stefan Kalb of Shelf Engine
Stefan Kalb started a food brand at age 23, and that's when he discovered 30% of all perishable food goes in the garbage. He teamed up with a technical cofounder Bede Jordan in 2016 and now they're solving the problem with software. They were solving a problem they saw first hand. They had their twists and turns, and it was something I worked with Stefan and Bede on for years as they followed their own internal north star. Along the way, they figured it out. Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
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