Peter Thiel-Backed Fund Hits the Jackpot With $12 Billion Tilray StakeThe massive surge in pot stock Tilray Inc. has delivered a multi billion dollar windfall for a little-known private equity fund backed by investor Peter Thiel. Privateer Holdings Inc., a Seattle-based fund started seven years ago to focus on the marijuana business, holds 76 percent of Tilray, a stake now worth more than $12 billion after the stock soared more than 10-fold from its July public offering. 'Shame on the LPs': Insiders say the unravelling of Silicon Valley's hottest VC firm, Social Capital, could have been avoided
Checkout Social Capital Deals, Exits and Fund Raised Data. Jessica Rovello is frustrated. The CEO and cofounder of Arkadium, the gaming company that works with publishers such as Time, Gannett, CNN, and TMZ among others, says, “This moniker of disruptor is considered the highest form of praise [in the tech industry].” Yet everywhere she looks, Rovello sees companies that pursue cookie-cutter templates of growth. “If I had a dime for every time I heard, ‘I met my cofounder
in B school,'” who then go on to detail a laundry list of predictable goals including securing funding from VCs, Rovello observes, “I don’t feel like there are a lot of alternatives presented.” [ Fast Company ] India’s Livspace raises $70M for its one-stop-shop for interior designLivspace, an India-based startup that helps consumers manage home renovations and interior design, has pulled in a $70 million Series C deal that’s led by Goldman Sachs and TPG Growth. Existing investors Jungle Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Helion Ventures also took part in the round, which takes Livspace total funding to date to over $100 million. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout Bessemer Venture Partners Deals, Exits and Fund Raised Data. A Silicon Valley VC Pioneer Ponders a Smaller-Is-Better Future. Kleiner Perkins is in crisis with star partner Mary Meeker leaving.Late last year the exterior of one of the most storied offices on Silicon Valley’s venture capital-studded Sand Hill Road got a makeover. But employees at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers are having a hard
time putting a fresh face forward. Marred by a gender-discrimination lawsuit, bad bets on environmental technology, and perhaps most alarming, dwindling relevance, the firm has been attempting to reinvent itself as it confronts the most severe crisis in its 46-year history. That challenge became more urgent in mid-September when Kleiner lost high-wattage partner Mary Meeker—aka the Queen of the Internet for her early calls on transformative web trends such as search and e-commerce. She and her team announced they were leaving to raise their own fund and bankroll late-stage tech companies in China and other global hot spots. [ Bloomberg ] What's up with that VC-backed football league?Every February, a nation of football fanatics hangs its collective head as a post-Super Bowl malaise sets in. How to satiate a hunger for touchdowns and pancake blocks during the seven months of the NFL offseason? Other leagues have attempted and failed to fill the void. In about five months, a new effort with serious VC connections will get underway. [ Pitch Book ] Galera Therapeutics Raises $150 Million for GC4419 Phase 3 Trial and Pre-Commercialization Activities in Lead IndicationGalera Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the development of drugs targeting oxygen metabolic pathways with the potential to transform cancer radiotherapy, today announced it has secured $150 million in a joint, oversubscribed Series C financing and royalty purchase agreement. [ Market Watch ] New Enterprise Associates Wove raises $9M to help companies form strategic marketing partnershipsAfter rebranding earlier this year and scrapping pretty much their whole mobile ads business, Wove, formerly known as TapFwd, has a fresh plan to disrupt the marketing industry. Co-founders Eddie Siegel and Alex Wasserman have built what they call a brand collaboration network, a new way for companies to form marketing partnerships with similar brands. They say sourcing and closing a deal with another company on Wove is as easy as sending a Facebook friend request. [ Tech Crunch ] AngelPad Instacart needs to treat its delivery workers ‘much, much better’Grocery delivery startup Instacart has had a complicated relationship with its shoppers, the people it hires to pick up and deliver users’ groceries. Instacart was sued by some shoppers — and ultimately settled for $4.6 million — in early 2017. It has messed with shoppers’ tips, and earlier this year even withheld some of those tips by accident due to a software “bug.” Instacart CEO Apoorva Mehta knows his company has some work to do in order to gain shoppers’ trust. [ Crunch Base ] Y Combinator Code collaboration and DevOps platform GitLab has raised $100 million in a series D round of funding led by Iconiq Capital, with participation from existing investors GV and Khosla Ventures. [ Venture Beat ] Iconiq Capital Entrepreneurs: It’s time to put corporate VCs back on your short listThe startup media is awash with stories of corporate venture capital prioritizing their own interests over those of their portfolio. While acknowledging that some of these stories may have a basis in truth, it’s critical to recognize there is much more to the story. [ Tech Crunch ] Meet the invisible workers of Silicon Valley |