StrictlyVC: July 19, 2018

Hi, happy Thursday, all.:)
Top News
Project ‘Fuchsia’: Google is quietly working on a successor to Android.
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Worried About a Slowdown? It Already Happened in 2016, Says One New Venture Study
In today’s market, it’s hard to make sense of what’s what. Deals have grown incestuous for the first time, with outfits like GV investing alongside Uber last week — just months after its parent company, Alphabet, was at Uber’s throat. A $10 million-plus round of seed funding is no longer a joke. Venture firms continue to raise record-breaking amounts of money, despite what feels like creeping uncertainty about how much longer this go-go market can continue.

Unsurprisingly, there’s been some talk lately about deal flow and the possibility that some of the most well-regarded early-stage investors in the industry have quietly applied the brakes. Yet new analysis out of Wing, the 7.5-year-old, Silicon Valley venture firm co-founded by veteran VCs Peter Wagner and Gaurav Garg, draws a conclusion that might surprise nervous industry watchers. After tracking the investment activity of what Wing considers to be the 21 leading venture firms, it discovered that a pullback already happened . . . in 2016. In fact, Wagner, who oversaw the analysis, tells us there’s been so sign of a slowdown since then.

We caught up with Wagner last week to learn more about Wing’s findings — and what might be causing some confusion in the industry right now.

First, why do this kind of study right now?

There’s been a lot of analysts and reporters and LPs and VCs asking us about our investment pace lately, and I think it owes to talk of Benchmark and Union Square Ventures slowing down, so we thought we’d look at some parameters and see what’s going on.

Why not just refer to industry-wide statistics? It seems like there are plenty of these.

They’re kind of swamped with the data of less discriminating investors, though. You really want to focus on the signal, which is why we track what the 21 leading venture firms are doing. 

More here.
New Fundings
BookMyShow, an 11-year-old, Indian online entertainment ticketing service, raised $100 million in Series D funding led by TPG Growth. TechCrunch has more here

Embark, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based self-driving trucking technology company (whose CEO, Alex Rodrigues, dazzled the crowd at one our StrictlyVC events last year), just raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital. Forbes has more here.  

Even.com, a four-year-old, Oakland, Ca.-based financial app that helps users pay their bills, balance their budgets and invest and save, has raised $40 million in Series B funding led by earlier investor Khosla Ventures. The company has now raised $50.5 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here

Fattmerchant, a four-year-old, Orlando, Fla.-based payment tech company for small business owners, has raised $10.5 million in Series C funding led by Fulcrum Equity PartnersFramebridge, a four-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based custom framing startup, has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by T. Rowe Price, with participation from earlier backers NEASWaN & Legend Venture Partners and Revolution Ventures. TechCrunch has more here

Giant Oak, a six-year-old, Arlington, Va.-based threat protection platform for government and financial services organizations, has raised $10 million in growth funding led by Edison PartnersMore here

Kenzie Academy, a 1.5-year-old, Indianapolis, Ia.-based user experience design and coding school, has raised $4.2 million in seed funding led by ReThink EducationMore here

Lifebit, a 1.5-year-old, London-based startup that’s promising reproducible genomics analysis in minutes, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Pentechand Connect Ventures, with participation from Beacon Capital and Tiny VC. TechCrunch has more here

Orbex, a three-year-old, London-based spaceflight company that’s constructing a lighter orbital launch vehicle to deliver small satellites into Earth’s orbit, has raised £30 million ($39.6 million) in public and private funding. Backers include Sunstone CapitalHigh-Tech GründerfondsElecnor Deimos Space, the UK Space Agency, the European Space Agency and the European Commission Horizon 2020 program. More here

Proggio, a two-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based maker of cloud-based project management software, has raised $2 million in funding led by Mangrove Capital PartnersMore here

Quantapore, an eight-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based high-throughput DNA sequencing platform, has raised $15.6 million in new funding led by Northern Light VC, with participation from Tsingyuan VenturesSangel Venture CapitalBaidu Ventures and Cloudstone VCMore here.  

Reali, a three-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based real estate platform that replaces traditional real estate transaction fees with a flat-fee model, has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Zeev Ventures, with participation from Signia Venture Partners. TechCrunch has more here

Swivel, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based online service where companies can find and design their own plug-and-play workspace and pay for it on flexible terms, raised $4.75 million in seed funding led by First Round Capital. Other investors in the round include Fuel CapitalCorrelation VenturesGreat Oaks Venture CapitalHack VCCapital FactoryAbstract Ventures, and earlier backers Floodgate and Next Coast VenturesMore here

The Ken, a two-year-old, Bengaluru, India-based subscription business news site, has raised $1.5 million in Series A funding led by Omidyar Network. VC Circle hasmore here.
New Funds
Insight Venture Partners, the 23-year-old, New York-headquartered venture and private equity firm, has raised $6.3 billion for its latest — and largest ever — fund, as technology investors continue to amass increasingly large war chests. TechCrunch has more here

Valor Equity Partners, the 23-year-old, Chicago-based, growth-focused private equity firm, has raised $1.05 billion for its fourth fund. Some of the firm’s venture bets include BirdHarbor, and Chowly (whose newest funding we linked to last Friday). Pensions & Investments has more here.
IPOs
China Tower, a four-year-old, Beijing China-based mobile infrastructure firm, plans to raise up to $8.8 billion in an IPO in Hong Kong, says Reuters. More here

Canadian medical marijuana company Tilray made its debut on the Nasdaq today — becoming the first pure-play marijuana company to go public on a major U.S. exchange. CNBC has more here.
Exits
Knotel, a 2.5-year-old, New York-based office rental service that has raised $95 million from investors, is reportedly on the cusp of acquiring 42Floors, a seven-year-old, Francisco-based commercial real estate search engine that had raised $17.4 million from investors, including NEABessemer Venture Partners,Initialized Capital and Thrive Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
People
Food delivery startup DoorDash has named Prabir Adarkar as chief financial officer, poaching the most senior leader of Uber’s finance department. Bloomberg has more here

L.A.-based angel investor Paige Craig has stepped down from his post at the e-scooter company Bird just four months after joining the company on a full-time basis, he tells Axios. We’d been in touch with Craig about something separately yesterday morning, and he characterized Bird as “just one of my projects. I’m spending my time with a couple of growth-stage companies these days.” 

Tom Gruber, Siri’s last remaining cofounder, is out at Apple, reports The Information. 

Alex Lim has been promoted to vice president at IVP. Lim joined the firm in 2015 as a principal focused on later-stage deals. He’d previously worked in the tech investment banking group of Credit Suisse. 
Jobs
E.ventures, the global early-stage venture firm, is looking to hire an analyst. The job is in San Francisco.
Essential Reads
Fukushima’s nuclear signature was just found in California wine made at the time. Gulp

Best Buy should be dead, but it’s thriving in the age of Amazon.
Detours
The messy future of connected bathrooms

The untold story of Lung King Heen, the world’s first Michelin three-star Chinese restaurant.
Retail Therapy
Here’s the story of the Brady Bunch home in Studio City, Ca., now for sale for$1.9 million.

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