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TSVC Nets First Fund From Institutional Backers
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By Marc Vartabedian, WSJ Pro
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Good day. Partners of venture-capital firm TSVC, which focuses on seed startup investments, had only tapped entrepreneurs in their personal networks to raise past funds, such as their $25 million fourth fund, which closed in 2018.
At the end of 2021, amid a record frothy market, the Los Altos, Calif.-based firm decided to raise a larger fund from institutional investors. The timing would prove tricky as the market went cold shortly after.
Founding partner Eugene Zhang said the firm originally wanted to tap institutional investors to increase the number of investments it could make and to keep pace with inflation and the broader venture market.
TSVC targets startups in three main sectors—deep tech, which includes semiconductors and robotics, health tech and data economy, which includes artificial intelligence. The firm previously backed startups including communications company Zoom and Carta, an equity management platform for venture-backed companies.
“We went through an interesting cycle—at the end of ‘21 things were very frothy. And by the end of ‘22 things were very different,” general partner Spencer Greene said.
While the fundraise bridged two very different market environments, Greene said that no investors committed to the fund who later backed out.
“There were situations where you get to know somebody, and the process takes some time...but by the time that they reach a point of decision, they were in a different situation than when you first met them,” Greene said.
In June of this year, TSVC closed the $60 million fund and is expecting to make roughly 40 investments out of it.
And now on to the news...
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In March, Silicon Valley Bank failed and was taken over by regulators. PHOTO: BRYAN BANDUCCI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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SVB deal. SVB Financial Group, the former parent of Silicon Valley Bank, is closing in on a deal to sell its venture-capital and credit-investment arm out of bankruptcy, The Wall Street Journal reports.
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Two front-runners are vying for SVB Capital, according to people familiar with the matter: a duo of Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital and Atlas Merchant Capital, and San Francisco private-equity firm Vector Capital. A court decision on a winner is expected in the next few weeks.
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The business could fetch anywhere between $250 million and $500 million, the people said, cautioning that a transaction still isn’t guaranteed and would need to be reviewed by the creditors’ committee too. Bankers at Centerview Partners have been advising the parent company on the process.
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$1.8 Billion
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Amount managed by Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital, including roughly $580 million in digital-asset investments.
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Instacart IPO Is an Expensive Lesson for Venture Firms
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When Instacart lists, it will leave many of its later investors with significant paper losses—a sign of the pain venture capitalists are facing after years of fast-and-loose spending, WSJ reports. The grocery-delivery firm is targeting a valuation of as much as $10 billion—sharply lower than the $39 billion valuation it reached at the peak of the startup funding frenzy two years ago. Many of the investors who poured almost $1 billion into Instacart’s last three funding rounds will be underwater on those shares.
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Calpers Is Losing Its Investment Chief—Again
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The California Public Employees’ Retirement System said Friday that its chief investment officer is stepping down after a year and a half on the job, the sixth official to leave the role in 20 years, WSJ reports. In a statement released by Calpers on Friday, investment chief Nicole Musicco said she is leaving the job to move back to Toronto “to prioritize those who need me the most, my family and children.” The fund had hired Musicco with the hope that she would stay at least five years.
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The nation’s largest pension fund has struggled for decades to hang on to an investment chief. That is despite the fact that the Sacramento-based position is one of the country’s top government investment jobs, with a paycheck that often tops $1 million.
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Funds
Venture-capital veterans from Softbank, Qualcomm Ventures and M12 have launched Touring Capital, which is focused on early growth stage, AI-powered software-as-a-service startups globally.
People
Ryan Wexler joined Unusual Ventures as a vice president, where he will focus on enterprise infrastructure. He was previously at Dell Technologies Capital.
Cathay Innovation appointed Bruno Delahaye as partner, where he leads the firm’s consumer practice investing in early to growth-stage startups across Europe, the U.S. and Asia. He was previously at Walmart, Reach Analytics and SAP.
Voiceitt, a provider of speech recognition for nonstandard speech, named Alyson Pace to the post of chief executive officer, succeeding Danny Weissberg. She was previously a director at Cisco.
Snapdocs, a digital closing provider for the mortgage industry, promoted Michael Sachdev from president to chief executive, succeeding Aaron King. Prior to joining Snapdocs in 2021, Sachdev was chief product officer at Sunrun.
Conversational search startup Andi added Nick Chan as chief operating officer. He joins the company from BetMakers Technology Group.
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Mottu, a Brazilian motorcycle rental company and last-mile delivery marketplace, scored $50 million in Series C funding from QED Investors and others.
Levelpath, of San Francisco, is launching its mobile-first procurement platform after raising $44.5 million in funding. Benchmark and Redpoint Ventures led the company’s $14.5 million seed round and $30 million Series A round, respectively. Redpoint’s Alex Bard and Benchmark’s Chetan Puttagunta will join Levelpath’s board.
Prisma Photonics, a Tel Aviv-based startup that monitors large-scale infrastructure, raised about $20 million in Series C funding led by Insight Partners.
Parade, a San Francisco-based capacity management platform for freight brokers, picked up a $17 million investment led by I Squared Capital.
Exostellar, a cloud resource optimization and management platform with offices in Ithaca, N.Y., and Santa Clara, Calif., closed a $15 million Series A round led by Celesta and Cambium Capital.
CO2 AI, a Paris-based carbon management software startup, landed a $12 million investment led by Unusual Ventures. The company helps large companies measure their environmental impact and identify ways to reduce their carbon footprints.
Sonera, a Berkeley, Calif.-based startup whose sensing technology makes neural data more accessible, exited stealth with $11 million in seed funding led by Amplify Partners.
PredictionStrike, a marketplace that allows sports fans to trade shares of their favorite athletes, secured $10 million in Series A financing led by Bullpen Capital.
AuthMind, an identity security posture management and threat detection provider, collected $8.5 million in seed funding led by Ballistic Ventures. The company has offices in Bethesda, Md., and India.
Glass Health, a clinical decision support platform, fetched a $5 million seed round led by Initialized Capital.
Learn.xyz, a San Francisco-based artificial-intelligence-powered social-learning app, was seeded with a $3 million investment led by Blockchange Ventures.
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Arm designs parts of chips inside nearly all of the world’s smartphones, as well as computers, data centers and cars. PHOTO: CHRIS RATCLIFFE/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Thrive to raise $300 million from CalPERS amid dry spell for VCs (The Information)
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How angel investors lose their money, in 7 easy steps (TechCrunch)
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