1.
Wish files to go public with 100M monthly actives, $1.75B in 2020 revenue thus far
This morning Wish, a well-known mobile e-commerce startup, filed to go public. It joins Affirm, Airbnb and Roblox in filing this week as many well-known and valuable private companies look to debut before the year ends and the holidays start. Wish’s S-1 (which is filed under its corporate name ContextLogic) is of particular interest given that COVID-19 and the global pandemic have changed consumer behavior around the world in 2020. As going to stores became more risky over time, many shoppers turned to buying more goods from the internet, bolstering e-commerce players like Shopify and BigCommerce, as well as companies that facilitate online payments, like Square and PayPal. How has the pandemic impacted Wish? It appears to have accelerated its growth. [ Tech Crunch ]
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2.
SellerX Raises $118M In Bid To Buy Up Amazon Sellers
Venture capital cash has been flowing this year to companies that plan to buy up sellers on Amazon and help them grow. In particular, such deals have targeted companies in the Fulfillment by Amazon program, in which the eCommerce giant
warehouses a company’s products and then takes care of packing, shipping and providing customer service. The latest such deal has Berlin-based SellerX landing 100 million euros ($118 million) of financing, reported Tech.eu. The firm will use the funds to acquire Amazon sellers and then build up their businesses. The deal follows in the footsteps of
Berlin-based Razor Group, which raised $26.7 million in venture capital this month; FBA Heroes, which netted a $65 million
seed round, also this month; and Thrasio, which announced it had raised $260 million in July. [ pymnts ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on
our platform.
Special:
Qiming Venture Partners boosts 7th fund to $1.2B, battling back against COVID-19 headwinds
China’s life science investment firm Qiming Venture Partners has tied up $1.2 billion for its Fund VII, the largest of 2020 in the country, as it looks to funnel cash into early-stage companies. That major cash haul “primarily focuses on China market investments,” the company said, with the $1.2 billion coming from the likes of managing partners Duane Kuang, Nisa Leung, William Hu and Gary Rieschel with the full support of investment and administrative teams based in Shanghai,
Beijing, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. [ Fierce biotech ]
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3.
Forter raises $125 million at a $1.3 billion valuation to combat ecommerce fraud with AI
Forter, an automated fraud detection platform for ecommerce, has raised $125 million in a series E round that values the company at over $1.3 billion. The raise comes as ecommerce transactions surge under pandemic-driven lockdowns. But the throngs of people jumping online to shop have opened the floodgates to fraud. Recent data suggests digital fraud attacks have doubled in 2020, while the U.K. reported that financial fraud attempts rose by up to a third as the country entered lockdown. Founded in 2013, New York-based Forter works with banks, online payment providers, and merchants to detect and prevent fraudulent transactions, spanning identity theft, account takeover, credit card fraud, and more. Forter’s platform is deployed between
the user payment flow (i.e. the checkout process) and the payment processor and essentially approves or rejects transactions based on various signals. [ Venture Beat ]
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4.
Ashton Kutcher's Sound Ventures targets $150M for third fund
Sound Ventures, a fund co-founded by Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary, has filed paperwork indicating plans to raise a third fund at $150 million. Notably, the firm filed paperwork for the same total in 2018 for its second fund. The firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its plans to raise a new fund. Sound Ventures was born to write bigger and later-stage checks, or at a minimum, be stage-agnostic. Despite Kutcher's fame and high-profile stakes, the firm has operated somewhat quietly in the recent past. On the firm's website, it states that it has a fund dedicated to the "next generation of clean, circular, and
sustainable businesses" titled SOUNDWaves. It's unclear whether today's filing is for SOUNDWaves or Sound Ventures' main fund, or if those two have been combined under a new direction for the firm. [ Yahoo ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
5.
New retailer payment methods; Vertical banking; Fintech x government; QR codes’ big moment?
There’s a long history of banks and financial institutions focusing on specific demographics. Bank of America got its start catering to the Italian-American immigrant community, for example, and Black-owned banks have sought to eradicate
discrimination in the banking industry for decades. Now, in a world of increasingly generic product experiences (everyone builds on the same infrastructure, after all) and rising acquisition costs, fintech companies are pursuing a marketing advantage through vertical banking: services tailored to specific customer communities. Tenth aims to erase the wealth gap for Black Americans, Crediverso provides financial products for the Hispanic community, and Squire offers back-end financial management software for independent barbers, for example. In the highly fragmented banking industry, this approach makes sense at face value — start by targeting a narrow audience, then cross-sell additional products. But there are two keys to success when pursuing this strategy: 1) the company must have a unique audience segment that self-identifies as such, and 2) the product features must have unique and purpose-built utility for that particular
audience. [ a16z ]
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6.
SR One breaks off from GlaxoSmithKline, banks $500M fund
SR One has backed biotech companies for decades as GlaxoSmithKline’s venture arm. Now, the firm is striking out on its own, having spun out from the British conglomerate and raised a whopping $500 million fund. The fund, SR One’s first, will back “elite” biotechs on both sides of the Atlantic, working on new medicines to address treatment gaps. Though the firm has left the GSK umbrella, the British drugmaker chipped into the $500 million, alongside a group of institutional
asset managers, endowments, foundations, pension funds and family offices. [ fiercebiotech ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
7.
Afresh has a $100 million valuation and a software service that keeps food fresh in grocery stores
Afresh, a company selling software to track demand and manage orders for fresh produce in grocery stores, is now worth $100 million. That hefty valuation comes on the back of a $13 million extension to the company’s latest round of funding, led by Food Retail Ventures and joined by existing investors Innovation Endeavors, Maersk Growth and Baseline Ventures, the company said. As part of the round, James McCann, the former chief executive of Ahold USA, a supermarket holding company, has joined the company’s board of directors. [
Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
8.
Medable raises $91 million for its clinical trial management software
The clinical trial management software developer Medable has raised $91 million in a new round of financing as life sciences companies struggle with how to conduct the necessary validation studies of new drugs and devices in a pandemically challenged environment. Digital and decentralized clinical trials are becoming a necessity, given the health and safety guidelines that have been adopted to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company said. And those changes are driving a shift to services
like Medable’s as companies move through the approval process, the company said in a statement. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
9.
Jay-Z Invests In Climbing Machine Start-Up CLMBR, Shortly After Beyoncé Teamed Up With Peloton
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. [ complex ]
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10.
Verbit raises $60 million to improve enterprise-focused transcription software
Verbit today announced the close of a $60 million series C round ($10 million of which is debt) that the company says will bolster its product R&D efforts. Verbit CEO Tom Livne, speaking to VentureBeat via email, said the infusion will also lay the groundwork for merger and acquisition opportunities as Verbit pursues new verticals, increases the number of languages its platform supports, and hires employees to expand its international reach. The voice and speech recognition tech market is anticipated to be worth $31.82 billion by 2025, driven by new applications in the banking, health care, and automotive industries. In fact, it’s estimated that one in five people in the U.S. interact with a smart speaker on a daily basis and that the share of Google searches conducted by voice in the country recently surpassed 30%. [ Venture Beat ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
11.
ZenBusiness Raises $55M in Series B Funding
ZenBusiness, an Austin, Texas-based company that provides a one-stop-shop for budding entrepreneurs to start, run, and grow their own micro businesses, closed a $55m Series B funding round. The round was led by global venture fund Cathay Innovation with participation from GreatPoint Ventures, Breyer Capital, and Omega Venture Partners and existing investors Greycroft, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Interlock Partners, Adam Zeplain’s mark vc, and ATX Venture Partners. The company intends to use the funds to invest in its customers by offering an
expanded suite of services and an innovative all-inclusive digital platform to create, build and run a business. [ finsmes ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
12.
Greece’s Marathon Venture Capital completes first close for Fund II, reaching $47M
Marathon Venture Capital in Athens, Greece has completed the first closing of its second fund, reaching the €40 million / $47 million mark. Backing the new fund is the European Investment Fund, HDBI, as well as corporates, family offices and HNWIs around the world (plus many Greek founders). It plans to invest in seed-stage startups from €1 million to 1.5 million initial tickets for 15-20% of equity. Team changes include Thaleia Misailidou being promoted to principal, and Chris Gasteratos is promoted to associate. Marathon’s most prominent portfolio company is Netdata, which last year raised a $17 million Series A
led by Bain Capital, and later raised another $14 million from Bessemer. On the success side, Uber’s pending $1.4 billion+ acquisition of BMW/Daimler’s mobility group was in part driven by a Greek startup, Taxibeat, which was earlier acquired by Daimler. Taxibeat was backed by an earlier fund previously created by George Tziralis. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
13.
Cross-border payments startup, Chipper Cash, raises $30 million
In a busy week on the funding front for African startups, Chipper Cash has raised $30m in a Series B funding round led by Ribbit Capital, an American based VC firm that invests in early stage startups. Chipper Cash offers cross-border P2P payments services across seven African countries. It was founded in 2018 by Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled. To date, the startup says it has 3 million users to date, impressive for a cross-border startup that launched two years ago. One of the ways it has been able to attract users is that it allows free transfers to and from the countries it operates in. Right now, those countries are Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. [ techcabal ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
14.
Apprentice.io Raises $24M Series B Led by Insight Partners to Scale Intelligent Pharma Manufacturing System
Apprentice.io, an intelligent software company for life science manufacturing that is helping to increase the speed to market on a number of COVID-19 vaccines, announced today a $24M Series B round, led by Insight Partners. Pacific Western Bank, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, GFR Fund and The Venture Reality Fund also joined the round. This round brings Apprentice's total capital to over $40M. Insight Partners previously invested in Apprentice during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to deploy the company's platform
that would help manufacture the first COVID vaccines heading for clinical trials. As customers began to scale from clinical to commercial manufacturing, Apprentice began scaling as well. The company has since seen a 20x increase in usage and 11x growth in site deployments. [ prnewswire ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
15.
a16z Podcast: Fintech for Gen Z and Millennials
Millennials and Gen Z have been hard-hit by the one-two punch of the 2008 and 2020 financial crises. That experience has radically shaped their approach to finances and their mindset around credit and debt. This episode explores how fintech founders are now designing products tailored to the financial challenges of younger consumers, from managing and avoiding student loans to building credit to saving and budgeting apps. Historically, students have largely been overlooked by traditional banks. Due to a combination of economic forces, predatory lending practices, and uninformed decisions, millennials have more outstanding student loans—and owe more money—than any prior generation. According to a poll released this week by the data intelligence
company Morning Consult, just 46 percent of millennials believe their student debt was worth attending college. Amira Yahyaoui wants to change that. She’s the founder and CEO of Mos, a platform that allows students to apply for every government college financial aid program with a single application. In this episode, Amira joins host Lauren Murrow and a16z fintech partners Anish Acharya and Seema Amble to discuss how fintech can cut through bureaucracy, downsize student debt, and optimize—and ultimately automate—consumers’ financial futures from an early age. [ a16z ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
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