|
Venture Capital and Interest Rates; Current Lands $131 Million Led by Tiger Global; CoStar to Buy Homesnap for $250 Million
|
|
By Marc Vartabedian, WSJ Pro
|
|
|
|
|
Good day. How are today's low interest rates affecting venture-capital investment?
For years, the Federal Reserve's benchmark federal-funds rate correlated with venture investment, particularly after the dot-com crash when such investment declined with interest rates and then rose when rates moved higher again, according to research from Redpoint Ventures managing director Tomasz Tunguz.
That correlation seemed to end after the 2008-09 financial crisis when rates stayed low but VC dollars invested continued to climb.
Fast forward to 2020, and Mr. Tunguz ran a new analysis that tracked a correlation with interest rates and different venture metrics.
The takeaway is that the elevation in IPO multiples is convincing more entrepreneurs to go public because public markets are providing a higher multiple than the private markets, Mr. Tunguz said.
And now on to the news...
|
|
|
|
|
Debit cards offered by mobile banking app Current. Photo: Current
|
|
|
Investors are pumping money into mobile-banking startups as more consumers open digital accounts—and New York-based startup Current is the latest beneficiary of this trend, WSJ Pro's Yuliya Chernova reports.
-
The startup, which offers free mobile-banking accounts in the U.S. and is incorporated as Finco Services Inc., raised $131 million in a Series C funding round led by Tiger Global, according to Stuart Sopp, Current’s founder and CEO.
-
Other investors in Current’s Series C round include Avenir Growth, Sapphire Ventures and prior backers such as Wellington Management, Foundation Capital and QED Investors.
-
Tiger also invested in the late-stage funding round for mobile-banking app Chime Financial Inc. earlier this year. Mr. Sopp said that Current generally doesn’t overlap with Chime in terms of the type of customer they target.
-
Current’s valuation rose to $750 million after this financing round, from about $120 million in its Series B round a year ago, Mr. Sopp said. He said the valuation bump reflects a market in which consumers have been opening mobile-banking accounts at faster rates.
|
|
CoStar to Buy Homesnap for $250 Million
|
|
CoStar Group, Inc., one of the world’s largest providers of commercial real-estate information and analytics, has taken its first major step into the residential data business by agreeing to pay $250 million for venture-backed Homesnap Inc, the Journal reports. Founded in 2012, Homesnap is a fast-growing company that provides residential real-estate brokers with apps and other technology for managing and analyzing their listings as well as the broader market. About 300,000 residential agents use it an average of 30 times a month. The all-cash acquisition is expected to close later this year, CoStar said Sunday.
|
|
|
|
|
Funds
Astanor Ventures launched a $325 million impact fund to back European and North American food, agriculture and ocean tech startups. Initial investments include French insect protein producer Ÿnsect, German vertical vegetable farmer InFarm, French farm-to-table platform La Ruche Qui Dit Oui and U.K.-based seaweed packaging startup Notpla.
People
Conversational AI startup Clinc named Mahesh Baxi as the company's chief customer officer. He was previously global vice president of customer success at Apttus. Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Clinc counts Insight Partners, DFJ Growth, Drive Capital and Hyde Park Venture Partners as investors.
Exits
Cloud data protection provider Druva Inc. acquired sfApex, a Salesforce developer tools and data migration service company, for an undisclosed amount. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Druva is backed by Sequoia Capital, Viking Global Investors, Tenaya Capital, Riverwood Capital and Nexus Partners.
|
|
|
|
National Resilience Inc., a biopharmaceutical-manufacturing technology company, said it has raised $750 million in a Series B financing and that it has collected a total of more than $800 million. National Resilience, based in San Diego and Boston, plan to invest in new technologies to manufacture complex medicines, including cell and gene therapies, viral vectors, vaccines and proteins. The company’s investors include ARCH Venture Partners, 8VC, GV, New Enterprise Associates, plus pharmaceutical companies, foundations, family offices and pensions.
Catamaran Bio Inc., a company developing cell therapies for cancer, raised a $42 million Series A round. Cambridge, Mass.-based Catamaran plans to use the capital to develop its two lead chimeric antigen receptor-NK cell-therapy programs. In addition, the funding will help it expand its technology platform for designing, genetically engineering and manufacturing off-the-shelf CAR-NK cell therapies. Lightstone Ventures and Sofinnova Partners led the round, which also included SV Health Investors, Takeda Ventures and Astellas Venture Management.
Cogito Corp., a Boston-based company that analyzes phone conversations and provides real-time behavioral guidance to help phone professionals deal with customers, picked up a $25 million investment. Goldman Sachs Growth Equity led the round, which included participation from Salesforce Ventures and others.
Abacus.AI, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence research and cloud services provider, secured $22 million in Series B financing. Coatue led the round, with additional support from Decibel Ventures and Index Partners. Yanda Erlich, general partner at Coatue, will join the company’s board.
|
|
|
|
Philip Luedtke left the Bay Area and took a job with a startup based in Utah instead of relocating with his former employer. Photo: Aaron Ens
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|