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Vanessa Larco, Mercedes Bent Team Up for Consumer-Focused VC Firm
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By Yuliya Chernova, WSJ Pro
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Good day. A new venture firm is in the works to invest in early-stage consumer companies, a corner of the startup world that has struggled to attract funding in recent years.
Vanessa Larco, a former partner at venture firm New Enterprise Associates, and Mercedes Bent, previously a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, are creating Premise to back consumer software and related startups, according to people familiar with their plans.
They plan to raise about $100 million for Premise’s debut fund, the people said. The firm, formally named Premise Venture Partners, was formed in March, according to a Delaware state document.
In her eight years at NEA, Larco invested in fintech Robinhood, jewelry shop Mejuri, home-swapping service Kindred and others. Before NEA, Larco was director of product management at file-sharing company Box.
Bent stepped down from her role as partner at Lightspeed earlier this year. Her portfolio at Lightspeed includes fintech Stori, apparel brand Honeylove and wealth-management company Atlas.
Axios reported earlier that the pair were planning a new fund.
Consumer startups get a fraction of the venture funding they used to. Yet some investors say the emergence of artificial-intelligence platforms is changing the sector’s prospects.
“I think we’re on the edge of the next big consumer wave,” Larco wrote in a recent post on LinkedIn, saying AI is causing a fundamental shift in consumer behavior. “In five years, I won’t be searching, scrolling and comparison-shopping when I buy something online,” she wrote, adding: “AI is going to reshape the infrastructure of commerce, and the startups that recognize this shift early are going to win big.”
Read the full article.
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And now on to the news...
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23andMe’s DNA-testing kits made a splash years ago, leading to the company going public in 2021. PHOTO: GEORGE FREY/REUTERS
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Regeneron to buy 23andMe out of bankruptcy. 23andMe, the iconic DNA-testing company that helped people learn about their ancestors and aimed to improve their medical care using genetic data, agreed to be purchased out of bankruptcy on Monday for $256 million, a steep fall from the $6 billion valutation peak it achieved in 2021, The Wall Street Journal reports. The company would live on inside biotech Regeneron, which said it would continue operating 23andMe’s DNA-testing business and use its database of roughly 15 million DNA samples to help discover new drugs.
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For a few years last decade, 23andMe had been one of the best known consumer-technology brands. But the firm, which was co-founded by Anne Wojcicki, struggled to turn its genealogical business into a bigger, more lucrative health enterprise.
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$7 Billion
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The rough amount Chinese technology giant Xiaomi plans to invest in chip design over a decade, its founder said.
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Awardco Valuation Passes $1 Billion With Latest Private-Equity Bet
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Sixth Street Partners led a $165 million minority investment alongside Spectrum Equity to back the growth of Awardco, pushing the employee-rewards company’s valuation to more than $1 billion, WSJ Pro reports. The latest cash infusion marks a step up from the Lindon, Utah, company’s roughly $900 million valuation in 2021, when it raised $65 million from venture-capital firm General Catalyst and tech entrepreneur Ryan Smith, also owner of the National Basketball Association’s Utah Jazz franchise. That deal provided the company with its first
institutional capital.
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SEC Chair Signals Investor Access to Private Markets Could Broaden
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The Securities and Exchange Commission’s new chairman signaled Monday that he is open to letting fund managers sell private-investment products to a broader swath of investors, WSJ reports. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said at an annual regulatory conference that he would direct the agency’s staff to reconsider guidance that inhibits how much closed-end funds can invest in private funds, such as hedge funds and private-equity funds.
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JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon at the bank’s investor day Monday. PHOTO: AMIR HAMJA FOR WSJ
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Ripple effects. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said Monday he didn’t think the full impact of tariffs had passed through to the broader economy and warned that the stock market could slump as companies reckoned with the new costs for goods and supplies. Dimon made the remarks during the bank’s investor day in New York, where he said the risks of an economic slowdown were underappreciated and said even the scaled-back level of President Trump’s tariffs were “pretty extreme.”
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Funds
QuantumLight closed its inaugural fund with $250 million in commitments to invest across sectors including AI, Web3, fintech, SaaS and healthtech.
People
Gaming platform Ludeo appointed Rob Schonfeld as chief business officer. He was previously global revenue officer at Activision Blizzard.
Software delivery platform Second Front Systems appointed Kathy Arcano as chief financial officer. She was most recently vice president of finance at Flock Safety.
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Miter, a San Francisco-based startup helping contractors modernize their back-office and field operations, has raised a total of $38 million in funding, including a recent $23 million investment led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Coatue Management.
Remberg, a Munich-based startup offering an AI-powered maintenance platform for industrial companies, secured €15 million in Series A+ financing led by Acton Capital and Oxx.
Barndoor AI, an agentic AI workforce platform, was seeded with a $13.6 million investment led by Crosslink Capital.
CrediLinq, a Singapore-based embedded finance platform, closed an $8.5 million Series A round led by OM/VC and MS&AD Ventures.
AskElephant, a Lehi, Utah-based platform that automates workflows for go-to-market teams, was seeded with a $6 million investment led by Jump Capital.
Final Boss Sour, a gaming-themed sour snack brand based in Los Angeles, picked up $4 million from investors including Uncommon Denominator and Melitas Ventures.
Sophia Space, a Pasadena, Calif.-based developer of solar-powered computing technology for space applications, closed a $3.5 million pre-seed round led by Unlock Venture Partners.
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Revolut plans to invest $1.12 billion in France over the next three years. PHOTO: DADO RUVIC/REUTERS
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