| Thursday! There’ve been so very many calls today. [We’re feeling a little this.] |
| Top News |
| Amazon is increasing the price of its Prime membership in the U.S. for the first time in four years, it announced on a call with analysts earlier today. More important to Wall Street, Amazon reported that its first quarter revenue was up 43 percent over the first quarter of last year. Intel‘s earnings also beat analysts’ expectations. |
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| New Fundings |
| Africa’s Talking, an eight-year-old, Nairobi, Kenya-based developer of business APIs, just raised $8.6 million in new funding led by IFC VC, with participation from Orange Digital Ventures and Social Capital. TechCrunch has more here. Etleap, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based company creating what it describes as next-gen data pipelines, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding, including from First Round Capital, SV Angel, Liquid2, BoxGroup and other unnamed investors. TechCrunch has more here. CampusLogic, a seven-year-old, Chandler, Az.-based student financial services platform, raised $55 million in funding led by JMI Equity. More here. Cardiac Dimensions, a 17-year-old, Kirkland, Wa.-based developer of minimally invasive treatments for patients with heart failure, has raised $39 million in Series B funding, including from Hostplus, Oxford Finance, M. H. Carnegie & Co., Arboretum Ventures, Lumira Capital, LSP Health Economics Fund and Aperture Venture Partners. More here. Corvidia Therapeutics, a three-year-old, Waltham, Ma.-based drug startup focused on chronic kidney disease, has raised $60 million in Series B funding led by Venrock, with participation from Fresenius Medical Care Ventures, Cormorant and founding backer Sofinnova Partners. More here. Dosh, a two-year-old, Austin, Tex.-based app that offers cash back to consumers for shopping within its retailer network, has raised $44 million in Series A funding from Goodwater Capital and PayPal, among others. Built in Austin has more here. IFTTT, an eight-year-old, San Francisco-based company that was an early mover in API integrations b enabling developers to write easy scripts to tie together different apps, has raised $24 million in Series C funding. The round was led by Salesforce, with participation from IBM, the Chamberlain Group, and Fenox Venture Capital. TechCrunch has more here. Improvado.io, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based data aggregation company, has raised $3 million in seed funding, including from Bessemer Venture Partners, Greylock Partners and Katana Capital. More here. Innovium, a three-year-old, San Jose, Ca.-based company that makes fast data center networking chips, just raised $77 million in Series D funding from Greylock,Walden Everbright, Walden Riverwood Ventures, Paxion Capital, Capricorn Investment Group, Redline Capital, S-Cubed Capital and Qualcomm Ventures. EETimes has more here. NuMat Technologies, a five-year-old, Skokle, Ill.-based product commercialization company, has raised $12.4 million in funding led by OS Fund, with participation from Osage University Partners and Tin Shed Ventures. More here. Rallybio, a months-old, Farmington, Ct.-based biotech that’s aiming to develop therapies for patients with severe and rare disorders and was founded by veteran pharmaceutical executives, has raised $37 million in Series A funding. 5AM Ventures, Canaan Partners, and New Leaf Venture Partners led the round, with participation from Connecticut Innovations, among other investors. FierceBiotech has more here. Religion of Sports, a year-old, Santa Monica, Ca.-based sports content startup whose co-founders include Tom Brady and Michael Strahan, has raised $3 million in new funding from Advancit Capital and Courtside Ventures. American Inno has more here. Revolut, a three-year-old, London-based digital banking startup that offers a digital banking account and sprawling set of other financial services, has raised $250 million in new funding at a $1.7 billion post-money valuation. (That’s reportedly a fivefold increase in less than a year.) DST Global led that round, with participation from Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital. TechCrunch has more here. SidelineSwap, a four-year-old, Boston-based online marketplace for athletes to buy and sell sports gear and equipment, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led byGlobal Founders Capital, with participation from Admiral Capital, Peak6 Sports, RiverPark Ventures, FJ Labs and The Player’s Impact. More here. |
| New Funds |
| Pinnacle Ventures, a 16-year-old, early-stage Menlo Park, Ca.-based firm that provides startups with both venture and debt funding and was co-founded by Ken Pelowski, formerly of Redpoint Ventures, is raising its fifth fund. So shows an SEC filing that doesn’t list a target amount. More here. |
| Exits |
| Hearst Magazines agreed to acquire a minority stake in Gear Patrol, a digital media and e-commerce company that’s focused on enthusiast communities and makes nearly a quarter of its revenue from e-commerce and affiliate links The WSJ has more here. Square just announced that it’s reached an agreement to acquire Weebly, an 11-year-old company that makes website-building tools, for $365 million in cash and stock. According to Crunchbase, the company had raised less than $36 million over the years, including from Sequoia Capital. (We still remember meeting the company’s founders, then college seniors, in San Francisco, when Weebly was based on the “ninth floor in a three-bedroom apartment littered with desktop computers, mounds of cords and stray athletic shoes.”) More on the sale here. Teradyne, a company that provides automated testing equipment for industrial applications, has acquired the Danish robotics company MiR for $148 million, with $124 million on the table after meeting performance goals. The company had raised what appears to have been a very small amount of capital. (At least, we aren’t aware of further funding right now.) TechCrunch has more here. |
| People |
| Greg Coleman, a media executive whose most recent role was as president of BuzzFeed, has joined Lerer Hippeau as an executive-in-residence. More here. Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has joined TPG’s Rise Fund as a senior advisor. Fourteen women who say they were assaulted by their Uber drivers are asking Uber’s board to allow them to proceed with their lawsuit against the company in open court. They originally filed their lawsuit seeking class action status last November. While Uber employees can, as of 2016, opt-out of mandatory arbitration agreements, riders remain bound by them and don’t right now have the option of a jury trial. Recode has the story here. |
| Jobs |
| Iconiq Capital, which manages money for numerous powerful families, is looking to hire an investment analyst. The job is in San Francisco. |
| Essential Reads |
| Essential Reads Amazon has quietly launched a portal offering home security services — which include all the equipment you would need and in-person visits from Amazon consultants to advise and install the kit. Amazon’s Alexa will soon gain a memory, converse more naturally, and automatically launch skills. Snap has made a new version of its camera glasses, Spectacles, that people might actually wear. Sorry, folks. Sounds like MoviePass is ending its whole 30-tickets-for-the price-of-one offering (though for now, earlier subscribers keep the deal they made with the company). |
| Detours |
| In a medical first, drugs have reversed an inherited disorder in the womb. How sneaker brands create hype. Donald Trump called into “Fox & Friends” this morning; they hung up on him to stop him from talking. |
| Retail Therapy |
| A “new offshore living experience.” |