1.
China’s Future Capital Raises $187 Million Fund to Expand Firm’s Tech Investments
China’s Future Capital Discovery Fund said Wednesday it closed its fourth and largest fund, raising $187 million from global investors entirely from virtual roadshows amid deepening consolidation in the country’s venture-capital industry. The USD Fund IV received commitments from several university endowments, including those in the U.S., as well as family offices, fund of funds, and high-net-worth individuals, according to the company. Founded in 2014, Future Capital focuses on early-stage investments. [ WSJ ]
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2.
Quid raises $320M to loan money to startup employees using their equity as collateral
Startups that take time to scale before going public or getting acquired can represent big, if long-term, returns for employees that hold equity in them. Big, because tech companies have proven to be some of the most valuable in the world when it comes to exits; long-term, because it might take years for a startup to have a liquidity event to give those equity-holding employees some money off the table. Today, a company called Quid, which has built a business out of giving those employees another option
— taking out loans and using their equity as collateral — is announcing a new fund to target that growing opportunity. After providing loans to employees at some 24 companies, including Unity, Palantir, Crowdstrike, Uber, and Lyft, Quid now has raised a new $320 million fund that it plans to deploy both by collaborating directly with more startups to run programs for their employees, as well directly with employees themselves. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
Special:
Silicon Valley loses another tech icon
Silicon Valley is losing another tech heavyweight: Keith Rabois, prolific startup investor, early exec at powerhouses such as Square, LinkedIn, Yelp, and PayPal, and longtime Bay Area resident. He tells me he is "moving imminently." Rabois revealed his decision to decamp during our conversation at the Meridian conference, an event hosted by the cryptocurrency-focused group Stellar Development Foundation. (Rabois, an investor in Stripe, joined Stellar's board after Stripe made an investment in
Stellar six years ago.)
"I think San Francisco is just so massively improperly run and managed that it's impossible to stay here," Rabois said. He believes he is not alone in giving up on the Bay Area, a place he has called home for two decades. He cited anecdotal evidence about many people in his social circles leaving, and noted, "COVID sort of masks this stuff. It's not quite as obvious where people are moving to and if they've actually moved since everybody's working remotely." [ Fortune ]
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3.
Duolingo Valued at $2.4 Billion in Fundraising Round
Duolingo Inc. raised new money in a fundraising round that values the fast-growing language-learning app maker at $2.4 billion. The round, which totals roughly $35 million, is led by Durable Capital Partners LP and General Atlantic, according to Duolingo officials. Durable Capital is run by Henry Ellenbogen, a former portfolio manager at T. Rowe Price, who was key to many of the mutual-fund company’s pathbreaking investments in private tech startups. Mr. Ellenbogen founded Durable in 2019. [ WSJ ]
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4.
Shamrock scoops up part of Taylor Swift's catalog in $300M deal
Taylor Swift just can't seem to shake off private equity. Los Angeles-based Shamrock Capital has reportedly acquired the rights to the pop star's first six albums for around $300 million from a group including Ithaca Holdings, a media holding
business led by famed music manager Scooter Braun and a portfolio company of The Carlyle Group. Variety first reported the deal, with Swift later confirming the sale through a statement on Twitter.
Swift's involvement with private equity began in June 2019, when Ithaca paid a reported $300 million for Big Machine Label Group, the label with which she recorded her first six albums. Swift reacted by publishing a note describing the deal as her worst-case scenario. She then published a tweet in November 2019 claiming Braun—who formerly managed longtime Swift antagonist
Kanye West—was trying to prevent her from performing some of her old music, and calling on Carlyle for help. [ Pitchbook ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
5.
Construction tech startups are poised to shake up a $1.3-trillion-dollar industry
In the wake of COVID-19 this spring, construction sites across the nation emptied out alongside neighboring restaurants, retail stores, offices and other commercial establishments. Debates ensued over whether the construction industry’s seven million employees should be considered “essential,” while regulations continued to shift on the operation of job sites. Meanwhile, project demand steadily shrank. Amidst the chaos, construction firms faced an existential question: How will they survive? This question is as relevant today as it was in April. As one of the least-digitized sectors of our economy, construction is ripe for technology disruption. [ Tech Crunch ]
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6.
Heyday Raises $175M in Series A Funding
Heyday, a San Francisco, CA-based platform accelerating consumer product brands on digital marketplaces like Amazon, closed a $175M Series A funding round. The financing comes from General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures and Arbor Ventures, with participation from Amazon, eBay, PayPal and Magento executives. Co-founded by Sebastian Rymarz and Adam Gerchen in August 2020, Heyday partners with entrepreneurs to acquire, launch and incubate brands, and is developing a marketplace-native technology, data and operations stack to empower those brands to
grow. [ finsmes ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
7.
Cato Networks raises $130 million as demand for remote workforce security soars
In a rush to scale and meet pandemic-driven demand for online security, Cato Networks announced that it has raised a $130 million round at a valuation of over $1 billion. Founded in 2015, Cato has developed a cloud platform, dubbed secure access service edge (SASE), that centralizes the management of security across a company’s various networks and remote access points. The rapid shift to remote working during the pandemic has further boosted demand for Cato, which helps companies quickly
change and scale their security systems. [ Venture Beat ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
8.
Payment company Affirm files to go public with revenues doubling year-over-year
Payments company Affirm filed its IPO prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, and plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol “AFRM.” The San Francisco-based company, founded and led by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, offers online installment loans. Affirm has been one of the more popular start-ups in the space. It announced a partnership with Shopify earlier this year, allowing merchants to offer installment loans on products they sell, and works with 6,500 merchants including Peloton, Expedia and Walmart. The eight-year-old company brought in roughly $510 million in revenue for the fiscal year ended on June 30 -- a 93% jump from last year, according to the
filing. In the three months ending Sept. 30, revenue grew 98% year over year, while net losses fell by roughly half to $15.3 million. [ CNBC ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
9.
Spring Health Raises $76 Million in Series B Financing
Spring Health, a leading provider of behavioral health benefits with the most comprehensive solution for employee mental well-being, today announced the closing of a $76 million Series B led by worldwide investment firm Tiger Global. GingerBread Capital and Operator Partners (a newly formed fund by Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg, the cofounders of Flatiron Health) also joined this round. Existing investors Northzone, Rethink Impact, William K. Warren Foundation, Work-Bench, SemperVirens, Able Partners, and True Capital also participated. New individual investors in the
Series B round also include six-time NBA all-star and NBA champion Kyle Lowry of the Toronto Raptors, and two-time WNBA all-star and 2018 WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart of the Seattle Storm. [ PR Newswire ]
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10.
Marissa Mayer’s startup launches its first official product, Sunshine Contacts
Former Yahoo CEO and early Google employee Marissa Mayer’s startup Lumi Labs is today rebranding to Sunshine and releasing its first official product. Its new app, Sunshine Contacts, aims to be a better tool for organizing, updating and sharing contact information with others. In time, the company envisions a portfolio of consumer-facing applications that simplify common tasks in areas like events, organization, family sharing, scheduling and more. Founded in 2018 by Mayer and fellow Yahoo and Google vet Enrique Muñoz
Torres, Sunshine has been focused on using sophisticated technologies, like AI, to improve the common applications people use every day. Or, as Mayer puts it, “if technology can drive a car, how come it can’t just organize my contacts, make scheduling easier or do some things that seem a lot more straightforward?” She says the goal with Lumi Labs — or now Sunshine, as it’s called — is to make those everyday apps better and more frictionless. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
11.
Umoja banks $53M to develop triple-threat immunotherapies
As colleagues at Seattle Children’s Hospital, Andy Scharenberg, M.D., and Michael Jensen, M.D., knew they wanted to build a startup with a mission. Although cell therapies like Novartis’ Kymriah and Gilead’s Yescarta have transformed treatment for certain blood cancers, Scharenberg, a pediatric immunologist by training, was struck by the numbers of patients who can’t get those treatments. “I wanted to create something where the impact would be absolutely the biggest possible swing you could take,” he said. [ Fiercebiotech ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
12.
Telemed Startup K Health Partners With Mayo Clinic, Closes $42M Funding Round
New York-headquartered Tel Aviv telemed startup K Health announced that it has partnered with Mayo Clinic and separately closed a $42 million Series D funding round led by Valor Equity Partners, according to a VentureBeat report on Wednesday (Nov. 18). The new investment raises K Health’s total funding to $139.3 million. Additional new investors included Jay-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners, Atreides Management, and PICO Venture Partners. Previous investors participating in the Series D
included 14W, Mangrove Capital, Lerer Hippeau and Max Ventures. The startup’s collaboration with Mayo Clinic adds to its existing partnerships with Anthem health insurance and the Israeli health maintenance organization (HMO) Maccabi. K Health is also funded in part by Maccabi, the second largest HMO in Israel, and its tech incubation arm, Morris Kahn Institute for Research and Innovation. [ pymnts ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
13.
CloudBolt Announces $35 Million in Series B Funding Led by Insight Partners
CloudBolt Software, the enterprise leader in cloud management and integration solutions, today announced $35M in series B funding, consisting of both equity and venture debt. The equity was led by Insight Partners, a global venture capital and private equity firm. The venture debt is issued by Hercules Capital Inc. (NYSE: HTGC), widely recognized as the largest non-bank source of venture lending financing for technology, life sciences, and renewable energy companies, and Bridge Bank, a lender to industry-leading SMBs and emerging
technology-focused ventures. “As enterprises accelerate their investments in hybrid cloud, they face growing challenges around shadow IT, lack of visibility, and complex integrations across their IT and DevOps toolsets,” said Jeff Kukowski, chief executive officer of CloudBolt Software. “These factors require a bold, new vision for cloud management where enterprises must continuously automate, secure, and optimize their cloud workloads while using their tools of choice. We are thrilled to have the support of Insight Partners, Hercules, and Bridge Bank as we build out our technology vision, accelerate our international expansion, and invest in new partnerships to support enterprises anywhere on their hybrid cloud, multi-tool journey.” [ globe newswire ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
14.
Headway raises $26M to expand insurance coverage for mental health
COVID has really done a number on the nation's already ongoing mental health crisis: over 40 percent of respondents to a survey in June "reported at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition," including anxiety and depression, according to the CDC. Yet, actually getting insurance to cover mental health services is still difficult, despite legislation from congress, as well as provisions in the Affordable Care Act, which require insurance companies to cover mental health. That is the problem that Headway is solving: the company not only matches patients with therapists, but it also uses its software to help those therapists accept insurance from those patients. Headway is "building the first national network of therapists who accept insurance," Andrew Adams,
the company's co-Founder and CEO, wrote in a blog post on Wednesday which announced a $26 million Series A funding round. [ vator ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
15.
Abacus.AI raises another $22M and launches new AI modules
AI startup RealityEngines.AI changed its name to Abacus.AI in July. At the same time, it announced a $13 million Series A round. Today, only a few months later, it is not changing its name again, but it is announcing a $22 million Series B
round, led by Coatue, with Decibel Ventures and Index Partners participating as well. With this, the company, which was co-founded by former AWS and Google exec Bindu Reddy, has now raised a total of $40.3 million. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
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