Venture Capital
It’s been 50 years since Venrock established itself to expose investors to venture capital opportunities. Today, the global venture capital industry tracks just south of $200 billion and continues to grow as new entrepreneurs, engineers, financiers, and thought leaders create the economy of tomorrow. The DailyAlts VC channel tracks the trends, opportunities, key thought leaders, and next-generation industries that will generate billions in returns.
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Revaia, Europe’s largest female-founded venture capital firm, has successfully raised €150 million ($160 million) for its second fund, Revaia Growth II. The funding was secured from sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and institutional investors across Europe, with support from existing partners like Bpifrance and new backers such as mutual insurer Carac and the European Investment Fund.
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More Stories on Venture Capital
Venture Capital: SaaS Data Protector OwnBackUp Gains $50M Funding
OwnBackup is a cloud-to-cloud backup and restore vendor that provides automated, daily backups of SaaS and PaaS data, as well as data compare and restore tools for disaster recovery. Its primary business is focused around clients needing to protect their Salesforce data. It raised $50 million in a follow-on round led by Insight Partners, with participation from Salesforce Ventures and Vertex Ventures.
Venture Capital: Food Delivery Start-Up Postmates Sells Out to Uber for $2.65B
Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER) is acquiring food delivery start-up Postmates for $ 2.65 billion in an all-stock deal, according to reports by Bloomberg and the New York Times.
Uber and Postmates had discussed a merger on many occasions over the past four years. However, the current feeding frenzy in M&A deal-making in the food delivery sector probably spurred a closure this time around.
Venture Capital: Health Data Analytics Platform Evidation Raises $45M
Evidation Health’s Achievement platform collects everyday health data for use in innovative research and health platforms. Giving due emphasis to user privacy and controlled, permissioned health data, the platform gathers health information on scale and with speed. The company just raised $45 million in a Series D round.
Venture Capital: Summit Partners Wraps Up Two Mega Funds Totalling $2.2B
Investment firm Summit Partners announced Tuesday the first and final closings of two mega-funds, targeting startups in North America and Europe, and receiving commitments of $1 billion and €1.1 billion respectively. The firm also announced its appointment of Melanie Whelan, the former CEO of SoulCycle, as a managing director.
Venture Capital: Banking-as-a-Service Provider solarisBank Scores $67.5M
solarisBank raised €60 million ($67.5 million) in a series C round led by HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, and supported by founding investor yabeo. New investors coming on board are Vulcan Capital, Samsung Catalyst Fund and Storm Ventures. Existing investors who participated included BBVA, SBI Group, ABN AMRO Ventures, Global Brain, Hegus and Lakestar.
FinTech: Zerodha, India’s Largest Discount Broker, Turns Bootstrapped Unicorn
Nithin founded Zerodha in 2010 along with brother Nikhil Kamath to overcome the hurdles he faced during his decade long stint as a trader. Zerodha bootstrapped its way to becoming India’s biggest broker in terms of active retail clients and has just turned ten years old. It’s a suitable occasion to break out the champagne – because it also achieved unicorn status.
Venture Capital: Health Insurer Oscar Raises $225M Amidst COVID-19
Direct-to-consumer health insurance provider Oscar announced Friday its raise of $225 million, bringing its total funding to $1.5 billion. Mario Schlosser and Joshua Kushner co-founded the company in 2012. New York-based Oscar focusses on simplifying health care and insurance through the use of technology.
Venture Capital: Gene Engineering Platform Poseida Therapeutics Raises $110M in Series D Round
Within a few days of filing an S-1 registration statement to raise $115 million via an IPO of its common stock, Poseida Therapeutics has switched tracks and opted to raise $110 million in a Series D round. Fidelity Management and Research Co. led the round with participation from Adage Capital Management and Schonfeld Strategic Advisors, as well as several unnamed existing investors.
Venture Capital: In-Home Health Care Company DispatchHealth Raises $136M in a Series C Round
In the hands of DispatchHealth founders Mark Prather and Kevin Riddleberger, the rather “old-school” service of a doctor’s house call combines with mobile technology to provide high acuity, lower cost, in-home medical care. Venture capitalists continue to like the idea and have backed DispatchHealth with $135.8 million in the latest C round of funding.
Venture Capital: What COVID-19 Did To VC Investing in the U.S. (Report)
An article by Itay Sagie, co-founder of VCforU.com, which helps over 17,000 startups, uses Crunchbase data for the period March 18-June 17, 2020, to assess how the pandemic changed the venture capital investment landscape in the U.S.
Venture Capital: Andreessen Horowitz Leads $102M Funding in Cedar, a Medical Billing Startup
Cedar has just raised $77 million in Series C equity funding led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Other participants in the round included Kaiser Permanente and Concord Health Solutions, as well as existing investors, Kinnevik, Thrive Capital, Lakestar, and Founders Fund. Cedar raised an additional USD 25m in venture debt provided by JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM).
FinTech: UK-based Checkout.com Lands $150M at a $5.5B Valuation
Checkout.com has done it again. Last year it made waves with its Series A round worth $230 million, gatecrashing the unicorn party with a valuation tag of $2 billion. Today, it followed that up with an announcement of a Series B round, picking up $150 million at a stunning $5.5 billion valuation.
Venture Capital: Palantir Scores Another $500M From Japanese Insurer
Palantir Technologies, the secretive data analytics firm led by billionaire and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, raised $500 million from Japanese insurer Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Holdings Inc according to Bloomberg. On June 10, Palantir had raised $50 million from another Japanese company Fujitsu Limited pursuant to a strategic partnership between the companies. There’s speculation this might be the data analytics company’s last raise before an IPO.
Venture Capital: DoorDash Nabs $400M as COVID Pushes its Valuation to $16B
According to CNBC, which quoted data from Edison Trends, food delivery company DoorDash grabbed 45% of delivery orders after the lockdowns started in the US in mid-March. UberEats at 28%, Grubhub at 17% and Postmates at 7% were the also-rans in the food delivery sweepstakes.
Venture investors obviously liked the numbers, because they just forked over $400 million to DoorDash, valuing it at an impressive $16 billion in a Series H round.
Venture Capital: GreenLight Biosciences Notches $102M to Expand RNA-based Products
GreenLight Biosciences, which is pioneering technology to create cell-free, high-performing natural RNA products, announced its raise of $102 million in an oversubscribed Series D funding round led by Chinese investment firm Morningside Ventures.
Venture Capital: Monzo, The Poster Child of UK Fintech, Raises £60M in Down Round
Online challenger bank Monzo has raised £60 million at a valuation of £1.25 billion, a 40% down round that has brought the industry face-to-face with the harsh fallout from the virus outbreak. The neo bank laid off 80 employees earlier this month, raising speculation about a valuation cut in the latest funding. However, the bank faced some inertia from investors suffering “challenger bank fatigue” even before the lockdowns.
Venture Capital: Epic Games, Maker of Fortnite, to Raise $750M at $17B Valuation
Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, said to be the world’s most popular multi-player battle royale game with 350 million users, is raising $750 million. Deal valuation is placed at a whopping $17 billion, post-money.
FinTech: Digital Islamic Investment Platform Wahed Invest Lands $25M
Wahed Invest, a digital Islamic investment platform aimed at Muslim investors with a sharia-compliant offering, has raised $ 25 million. Saudi Aramco Entrepreneurship Ventures (also known as Wa’ed Ventures) led the round. Existing investors such as BECO, CueBall Capital, Dubai Cultiv8, and Rasameel also participated.
Venture Capital: Andreessen Horowitz’s Thesis – “Multiplayer Game Experiences are the Next Social Networks”
Worldwide gaming has become serious business with the number of gamers estimated to run in the billions and industry revenues topping $160 billion. In February, a16z led an investment of $150 million in Roblox, an online game platform and game creation system that allows users to program games and play games created by other users. Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, the billion-dollar venture capital firm, is stepping up investments in games. Its thesis: “Multiplayer Game Experiences are the Next Social Networks”
Venture Capital: Palantir, Last Valued at $20B, May Finally Bite The IPO Bullet
Palantir Technologies Inc., one of the venture world’s most anticipated IPOs, may soon hit the markets, according to a report by Reuters. The company processes big data for the U.S. government, including for some of its highly sensitive projects. Its clients also include global banks as well as the CIA. Reportedly, its technology was instrumental in locating Osama bin Laden. Reuters’ sources said the company was working towards a September time table, market conditions permitting.
Venture Capital: API Development Platform Postman Raises $150M at a $2B Valuation
Insight Partners led a $150 million Series C funding round in API development and collaboration platform Postman. The startup, which was founded in Bengaluru in 2014, is now valued at an impressive $2 billion valuation.
Venture Capital: Collab Capital Makes Profit-Sharing Investments, and Only in Black Founders
The founders at Collab Capital want to change the diminutive amounts that flow to black entrepreneurs as venture capital – with a $50M fund.
Collab Capital calls it the “growing US racial wealth gap.” Founded by Jewel Solomon Burks, Justin Dawkins, and Barry Givens, the firm wants to address the problem by helping black founders build sustainable, technology-enabled businesses. It guides early-stage start-ups to higher revenue and profitability instead of building up valuations.
Venture Capital: Israeli Start-Up Nanox, Which Is Reinventing X-Ray, gets $20M
Israeli company Nanox wants to bring inexpensive and quick medical imaging services to the vast majority of the world’s population that currently has no access to these facilities. “Early detection via medical imaging may potentially save millions of lives annually for cancer patients alone,” says the company on its website. South Korean telecom major SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM) has invested $20 million in Nanox.
Artificial Intelligence: This Indian Startup Helps Enterprises Connect With Customers
Yellow Messenger addresses a new trend – the shift of user engagement for enterprises to new age channels such as WhatsApp, Google Assistant and Alexa. Founders Raghu Ravinutala and Jaya Kishore Reddy Gollareddy were far-sighted enough in 2014 to see the potential of conversational AI as a conduit between enterprises and mobile customers.