| Hello and happy Tuesday.:) |
| Top News |
| According to Reuters, ZTE reportedly just signed an agreement in principle that would lift a ban instituted in April that keeps it from buying from U.S. suppliers. |
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| New Fundings |
| Bungie, a 27-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based games studio whose hits include “Halo” and Destiny,” has taken $100 million from the Chinese tech and gaming company NetEase in exchange for minority stake and seat on its board of directors. The Verge has more here. Coya, a two-year-old, Berlin-based insurance tech startup, has raised $30 million in new funding that brings its total funding to $40 million, says TechCrunch. The company’s backers include Valar Ventures, eVentures and La Famiglia. More here. Dataminr, a nine-year-old, New York-based startup that analyzes public data about events in real time (including, presumably, Donald Trump’s tweets and their impact), has raised $221 million in new funding, according to an SEC filing first flagged by Axios. Dataminr had previously raised around $185 million, including a $130 million round in 2015 led by Fidelity. Others of its investors include IVP, Venrock, Wellington Management and Goldman Sachs. More here. EV Hive, a three-year-old, Jakarta, Indonesian-based co-working space operator, has raised $20 million in Series A funding from Softbank Ventures Korea, H&CK Partners and Tigris Investment, among numerous others. DealStreetAsia has more here. Genetesis, a five-year-old, Mason, Oh.-based biomagnetic imaging startup that’s focused on chest pain triage, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding led by CincyTech, with participation from Mark Cuban, Ohio Innovation Fund andRaptor Group. More here. GLXSS, a Beijing, China-based developer of augmented reality glasses, has raised $15.6 million in additional Series B funding, including from CCB International, BlueRun Ventures and Matrix Partners China. China Money Network has more here. Hailo, a year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based a company that’s developing a chip for deep learning on edge devices, has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding from Ourcrowd.com, Maniv Mobility, the Drive accelerator fund, Next Gear, and numerous angel investors. TechCrunch has more here. Hellobike, a two-year-old, Shanghai, China-based bike-sharing company, is the third company of its kind to reach so-called unicorn status, following a $321 million investment from earlier backer Ant Financial investment, the Alibaba affiliate. The investment was reportedly made at a post-money valuation of $1.47 billion. China Money Network has more here. Lime, a 15-month-old, San Francisco-based e-scooter and e-bike company, is reportedly in the process of sealing up around $250 million in fresh funding led byGV, with participation from earlier backers Coatue Management and Andreessen Horowitz. Axios had the scoop earlier today. TechCrunch has more here (including about a new filing from Lime competitor, Bird). Marqeta, an 8.5-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based open API payment card issuing platform, has raised $45 million in new funding led by ICONIQ Capital, with participation from Goldman Sachs and existing backers. The company has now raised $116 million altogether. Bloomberg has more here. Mews, a five-year-old, Amsterdam-based hotel property management platform, has raised €6 million in Series A funding led by Notion Capital, with participation from HenQ and Thayer Ventures. Tech.eu has more here. Motorway, a two-year-old, London-based platform for selling used cars, has raised £2.75 million in seed funding co-led by LocalGlobe and Marchmont Ventures. More here. OneLogin, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based enterprise security startup that tries making it safer for companies to access the apps and data they need, just raised $22.5 million in Series C funding. It did not disclose its investors. GeekWire has more here. OutSystems, a 17-year-old, Atlanta, Ga.-based platform that helps organizations build enterprise-grade apps, just raised $360 million from KKR and Goldman Sachs. TechCrunch has more here. Science 37, a four-year-old, Playa Vista, Ca.-based clinical trial startup that helps researchers find participants for medical trials, is reportedly in talks with SoftBank‘s Vision Fund about a $150 million round that would value the company at $300 million. Recode has more here. Vetsource, a 13-year-old, Portland, Ore.-based platform designed to empower veterinarians to deliver better care to their patients, has raised $50 million in Series D funding led by Bain Capital Ventures. The Oregonian has more here. |
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| New Funds |
| Logan Allin, who joined the lending company Social Finance (SoFi) last year to spearhead its investments and roll out a corporate venture fund, is now trying to raise his own, $150 million, early-stage fund to in the U.S. and abroad, including Asia, Europe and Israel, according to Bloomberg. Mike Cagney, the former SoFi CEO who quit amid allegations of sexual harassment at the fintech firm (and now heads up a new lending startup called Figure), will reportedly be a senior adviser to the fund, called Fin Venture Capital. More here. Grab, the six-year-old. Singapore-based ride-hail company, has launched a venture unit focused on Southeast Asia startups; it plans to fund between 8 and 10 startups over the next 24 months. TechCrunch has more here. JLL Spark, a relatively new division of 235-yr-old commercial real estate services and investment firm JLL, announced the launch of a $100 million venture fund called JLL Spark Global Venture Fund, to invest in real estate startups. Vator has more here. Stride.VC, a months-old, London-based venture firm led by former Accel Partners investor Fred Destin and Harry Stebbings of the “20 Minute VC” podcast, has reportedly has already closed on £40 million ($53.5 million) in capital commitments, with a final target of £50 million ($67 million) or more. TechCrunch has the skinny here. |
| IPOs |
| After announcing its intention to go public in May, Adyen today published more details. The Netherlands-based payments startup — which competes against the likes of PayPal and Stripe to power payment services both to online and physical retailers — said that it will be raising between €922 million and €947 million (approximately $1 billion and $1.1 billion) before it opens for trading on the Euronext Amsterdam on June 13 trading. If all goes as planned, the sale will give Adyen a market capitalization of between €6.5 billion and €7.1 billion ($7.6 billion – $8.3 billion). TechCrunch has more here. |
| People |
| Github‘s founders — Tom Preston-Werner, Chris Wanstrath and PJ Hyett — whose company just sold to Microsoft for $7.5 billion in Microsoft stock, will become some of Microsoft’s biggest individual shareholders. In fact, the windfall won’t just make the three billionaires; according to data compiled by Bloomberg, they’ll own 10 times more shares than Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and roughly 14 times more than Microsoft President Brad Smith(!). More here. Howard Schultz, the outspoken executive chairman of Starbucks, announced yesterday that he’ll leave the company at the end of this month, a move that some suspect (hope?) indicates that he may run for U.S. president in 2020. Valerie Szczepanik , a longtime attorney with the SEC who has worked on cyber crimes most recently, is assuming a new position with the agency, overseeing digital currency issues. She is the agency’s first “crypto czar,” as the outlet Coindesk describes her. Szczepanik nabbed her law degree from Georgetown, after studying engineering at the University of Pennsvylvania. According to the SEC, she will “coordinate efforts across all SEC Divisions and Offices regarding the application of U.S. securities laws to emerging digital asset technologies and innovations, including initial coin offerings and cryptocurrencies.” |
| Data |
| Holy smokes. Apple Podcasts currently hosts more than 550,000 active shows.More here. The 15 largest global funding rounds last month. |
| Essential Reads |
| Inside the messy, expensive split between Facebook and WhatsApp’s founders. While a number of large financial institutions have discussed trading Bitcoin, one firm — Susquehanna International Group of Bala Cynwyd, Pa. — has been doing it for some time, very quietly. |
| Detours |
| Terrible newscasting gone viral. How bacteria actually eat penicillin. RIP, Kate Spade. |
| Retail Therapy |
| We’re just going to say it. If you need this to keep your shirt tucked in, there is something wrong. |