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Question: How Could Antitrust Bills Affect Venture Investing?
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By Marc Vartabedian, WSJ Pro
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Good day. Last week, we asked what has, or has not, changed in the venture and startup ecosystem when it comes to efforts to promote diversity.
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Dean Newton, general partner at Relevance Ventures, a Native American-run firm, said while many top tier firms made public commitments to diversity, the progress has been limited in his view. “Our firm has invested alongside Tier 1 VCs who have pledged publicly to use a diversity rider in term sheets, yet the firms haven’t actually presented the rider in the term sheets or in connection with Board membership,” Mr. Newton wrote. The Diversity Rider is an initiative put forth by a group of venture firms, including Act One Ventures and First Round Capital, that aims to increase diversity at the cap table by calling for VC firms to bring in Black, Latinx, women and/or LGBTQ+ check writers as co-investors on deals.
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DocSend, which offers a platform for startups and investors to share pitch decks, found that when raising pre-seed or seed rounds in 2020, founder teams with minority members raised 42% more than teams with no minority members, Head of Commercial Russ Heddleston said.
This week’s question: How might venture-investing strategy shift in light of bills put forward in Congress that could affect M&A activity in the tech sector?
Please email responses to marc.vartabedian@wsj.com.
And now on to the news...
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Austin Clements, right, and his co-founder, Ajay Relan. Their diversity-focused firm, Slauson & Co., boasts investors ranging from Ashton Kutcher to PayPal. CHRIS GONZALES
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The Clubby World of Venture Capital Finds a New Bet: Black Entrepreneurs
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Long known for its insular nature, the venture-capital world has been trying to open up in the past year, WSJ reports. According to a 2020 Morgan Stanley survey of venture capitalists, 43% said finding opportunities to invest in companies with nonwhite founders was a priority, up 10 percentage points from the prior year. Another 61% said the Black Lives Matter movement had affected their investment strategy. The survey’s respondents included a higher proportion of nonwhite venture capitalists than the industry at large.
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$3 Billion+
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The amount the Biden administration will invest in developing and manufacturing antiviral pills to treat coronavirus, the Department of Health and Human Services said. (WSJ)
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Cambridge Mobile Buys Rival as Driver-Data Tech Grows
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Cambridge Mobile Telematics, one of the largest technology firms focused on the growing business of collecting information about individuals’ driving habits directly from their vehicles, has purchased TrueMotion, one of its rivals, The Wall Street Journal reports. Existing telematics technology relies heavily on smartphone apps that score behaviors such as hard braking, speeding and acceleration patterns, and some technology also monitors distracted driving. Use of the technology by car insurers has surged in recent years because of its ability to identify safer versus riskier drivers. For decades, insurers have used such factors as age and credit score to determine the prices paid by
individuals. Now many maintain that driving habits are a fairer gauge of a person’s accident risk.
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U.K. Fintech Wise to Go Public in London Direct Listing
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Wise, an online money-transfer service, kicked off plans to list on the London Stock Exchange, taking advantage of surging investor interest in financial technology companies, WSJ reports. The U.K.-based startup, formerly known as TransferWise, didn’t disclose a target valuation for the initial public offering, but it could reach between $6 billion and $7 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company was founded a decade ago by Estonian entrepreneurs Taavet Hinrikus and Kristo Käärmann. More than 10 million customers use Wise’s money-transfer service. It aims to make it easier and cheaper to move money across borders and into different currencies than with a bank.
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Green SPACs Struggle After Years of Success
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SPACs and green companies were two of the hottest pandemic investments. Combining the two—green SPACs—has been even more profitable, but there is evidence this is changing, WSJ reports. Special-purpose acquisition companies that pledge to merge with renewable-energy, electric-vehicle and other sustainable businesses raised more than $120 billion since March 2020. SPACs, known as blank-check companies, raise cash from investors with the goal of buying a private company.
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Funds
Canada-based Amplitude Venture Capital closed its first precision medicine fund with 200 million Canadian dollars ($162 million) in commitments. Limited partners joining the fund at its final close included Alexandria Venture Investments, Royal Bank of Canada and Alberta Enterprise Corp. Portfolio companies include Deep Genomics, Notch Therapeutics and Radiant Biotherapeutics.
Social Leverage raised $99 million for its latest seed-stage fund, Social Leverage Capital Fund IV LP, to continue making investments in the fintech, enterprise SaaS and consumer sectors. Recent investments by the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based firm include Nayya, an insurance benefits and healthcare management startup, and Rally, a platform for buying and selling equity shares in collectible assets.
People
Verizon Ventures named Tom Arnost as principal. He joins from Verizon’s Corporate Development team.
Base10 promoted Rexhi (“Reggie”) Dollaku to partner. He was previously an investor at Insight Partners.
Augmented Intelligence provider DataRobot Inc. appointed Elise Leung Cole as the company’s first chief people officer, and also promoted Michael Schmidt and Nick King to chief technology officer and chief marketing officer, respectively. Ms. Cole was previously vice president and deputy general counsel at Cisco. Mr. Schmidt joined DataRobot in 2017 following the company’s acquisition of Nutonian, which he founded and led. Mr. King previously held executive positions at Cisco, VMware, Google and Microsoft. Boston-based DataRobot is backed by investors including Citi Ventures, DFJ Growth, Intel Capital, New Enterprise Associates and Salesforce Ventures.
Exits
Virtual-events startup Hopin Ltd. acquired Boomset, whose technology simplifies event management for in-person and hybrid events. Terms weren’t disclosed. In March, London-based Hopin raised a $400 million Series C round at a $5.65 billion valuation co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst.
Bushel Inc., a developer of software for the agriculture industry, acquired FarmLogs, a provider of technology for row crop farms, for an undisclosed amount. In April, Fargo, N.D.-based Bushel closed a $47 million Series C round from Lewis & Clark AgriFood, Continental Grain Co., Cargill and Germin8 Ventures. FarmLogs had raised funding from investors including Drive Capital, Huron River Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners and SV Angel.
Grafana Labs, provider of an open and composable monitoring and observability stack, purchased Stockholm-based k6, which offers an open source load testing tool for engineering teams, for an undisclosed sum. Investors in New York-based Grafana include Lightspeed Venture Partners and Lead Edge Capital.
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Waymo LLC, a developer of autonomous-driving technology for passenger cars and in freight hauling, scored a $2.5 billion investment, according to the Journal. The funding for the self-driving affiliate of Google parent Alphabet Inc. came from investors including Alphabet, Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz, AutoNation Inc. and Fidelity Management & Research Co. Waymo first took outside money last year, raising $3.25 billion since Google began to develop the technology.
Anduril Industries, an Irvine, Calif.-based national security-focused drone startup, gathered a $450 million Series D round at a post-money valuation of $4.6 billion. Elad Gil led the investment, which included participation from Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Lux Capital, Valor Equity Partners and D1 Capital Partners.
Neo4j Inc., a San Mateo, Calif.-based graph database platform for developers and data scientists, raised $325 million in Series F funding, bringing the company’s valuation to more than $2 billion. Eurazeo led the round, which saw participation from GV, One Peak Partners, Creandum, Greenbridge Partners, DTCP and Lightrock. Nathalie Kornhoff-Brüls, a managing director on the growth team of Eurazeo, will join Neo4j’s board.
BrowserStack, a DevOps testing platform with offices in Dublin, San Francisco, New York and Mumbai, secured $200 million in Series B financing at a $4 billion valuation. Lead investor BOND was joined by Insight Partners and Accel in the round.
Guideline Inc., a San Mateo, Calif.-based provider of a retirement plan platform for small- and medium-sized businesses, snagged a $200 million Series E investment. General Atlantic led the funding, with Aaron Goldman, managing director and global co-head of financial services, joining the board. Existing investors including Generation Investment Management, Greyhound Capital, and Felicis Ventures also participated in the round.
KeepTruckin Inc., a San Francisco-based fleet management technology provider, picked up $190 million in new funding, valuing the company at more than $2 billion. Investors included G2 Venture Partners, Index Ventures, Greenoaks Capital Partners, IVP, Scale Venture Partners and funds managed by BlackRock.
10x Future Technologies, a London-based banking platform, completed an oversubscribed $187 million Series C round co-led by funds managed by BlackRock and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
Claroty, a New York-based industrial cybersecurity startup, secured $140 million in Series D financing. Bessemer Venture Partners and 40 North Ventures co-led the investment, which included additional support from LG Corp., I Squared Capital, Team8, Rockwell Automation, Siemens and Schneider Electric.
Vianai Systems Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif.-based enterprise AI startup, collected $140 million in Series B funding from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and others.
Beamery, a London startup that helps companies attract, engage and retain talent, landed $138 million in Series C funding. Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board led the round, which included support from Accenture Ventures, EQT Ventures, Index Ventures, M12 and Workday Ventures.
Nylas Inc., a San Francisco-based provider of email, calendar and contacts APIs, fetched $120 million in Series C financing led by Tiger Global Management. New investors including Owl Rock Capital also contributed to the round, along with existing backers Citi Ventures, Slack Fund, 8VC and Round13 Capital. John Curtius, partner at Tiger Global, will join the board.
Uberall, a Berlin-based local marketing SaaS services provider, grabbed a $115 million investment and agreed to acquire proximity search optimization software startup MomentFeed for an undisclosed amount. Bregal Milestone, Level Equity, United Internet and Uberall management led the funding round. Level Equity, Signia Venture Partners and DFJ Frontier previously invested in Santa Monica, Calif.-based MomentFeed.
Introhive, a Canada-based sales and revenue platform, nabbed a $100 million Series C round. PSG led the investment, with participation from Business Development Bank of Canada, Evergreen Capital and Mavan Capital Partners. Rick Essex, managing director at PSG, will join the board.
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Michelle Leung, founder of Xingtai Capital Management, this month.
PHOTO: KATHERINE CHENG FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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