| Tuesday! We’re keeping things on the (slightly) shorter side today as we’re very under the weather — the product, no doubt, of spending time last week in a variety of germ-infested venues, including one giant amusement park. Below, you can see us having the bejeebers scared out of us at said park, along with one of our summer interns. (As for why it looks like we’re riding a roller coaster on the back of a stallion, we don’t have a great answer for this.) |
| Top News |
| Scooter startups Bird and Lime temporarily deactivated their scooters in Santa Monica, Ca., today in protest of the city’s move to limit the number of companies that can operate dockless vehicles there. On Friday, the city’s planning director revealed that ride-hailing companies Lyft and Uber—which don’t yet operate scooters anywhere—had submitted the top-ranked applications for a pilot program that will allow up to four companies to operate e-bike and e-scooters in Santa Monica. Elon Musk’s announcement last night about his advisers might be as “squishy as his funding,” reports Bloomberg. From a newly published report: “Goldman Sachs Group hadn’t been formally tapped as a financial adviser by Tesla’s chief executive officer when Musk revealed plans last week to take the automaker private and said he’d secured the funding for the transaction . . . The bank still hadn’t officially signed on when Musk said on Twitter late Monday that he’s working with Goldman Sachs and private-equity firm Silver Lake as financial advisers,” according to its sources. More here. |
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| New Fundings |
| Axoni, a three-year-old, New York-based developer of blockchain technology for capital markets, has raised $32 million in Series B funding. Goldman Sachs and Nyca Partners co-led the round, with additional participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Citi, Coatue Management, Digital Currency Group, F-Prime Capital, Franklin Templeton, J.P. Morgan, NEX Group, Wells Fargo and Y Combinator. Forbes has more here. Carbyne, a 4.5-year-old, Israel- and New York-based next-gen emergency response system, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Elsted Capital Partners, with participation from Founders Fund. TechCrunch has more here. Exabeam, a five-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based security intelligence platform, has raised $50 million in Series D funding from return backers Lightspeed Venture Partners, which led the round, Aspect Ventures, Cisco Investments, Icon Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Shlomo Kramer. VentureBeat has more here. MeQuilibrium, an eight-year-old, Boston-based HR platform focused around personalized training programs, has raised $7 million in Series C funding led by HLM Venture Partners, with participation from earlier backers Chrysalis Ventures and Safeguard Scientifics. More here. Profusa, a nine-year-old, South San Francisco, Ca.-based developer of oxygen-monitoring biosensors, has raised $45 million in Series C funding. Investors include VMS Investment Group, Tasly Pharma Group and Maxim Integrated Ventures and earlier backers 3E Bioventures Capital and Atinum Investment. More here. Oscar Health, the six-year-old, New York-based health insurance startup that was cofounded by Josh Kushner (brother to Jared), has raised $375 million in fresh funding from Alphabet, in a deal that pushes its total capital raised to more than $1 billion. No valuation is being disclosed this time around. The company’s last-reported valuation was $3.2 billion. TechCrunch has more here. Owl Cameras, a two-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based provider of car dash cams (to record crashes, stops, and break-ins, among other things), has raised $10 million in Series A1 funding led by Canvas Ventures, with participation from existing backers. The company — whose cofounder and CEO formerly worked on the iPod and iPhone at Apple — has now raised $28 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here. Sansoro Health, a four-year-old, Minneapolis, Mn.-based startup that’s promising a more seamless data exchange between electronic health records and administrative and clinical applications, has raised $8 million in Series B funding led by LRVHealth, with participation from existing investors Bain Capital Ventures and Healthy Ventures. Sansoro has now raised a total of $14.5 million. More here. Skupos, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based analytics platform for convenience stores, has raised $6.4 million in Series A funding led by Toba Capital, with participation from Dynamo Fund and Loup Ventures. More here. Visor, a 1.5-year-old. San Francisco-based gaming insights startup, has raised $4.7 million in Series A funding led by Accel, with participation from previous investors Y Combinator, Afore Capital and NextGen Venture Partners, as well as numerous angel investors. More here. |
| New Funds |
| Amino Capital, a six-year-old, Palo Alto, Ca.-based venture firm that funds data-driven startups, has so far raised $20.5 million for its third fund, according to an SEC filing that shows a target of $100 million. The firm had closed its second fund with $50 million two years ago. More here. GGV Capital, the 18-year-old, cross-border investment firm that specializes in U.S. and China-based startups, is raising $1.88 billion across numerous new funds, including its seventh flagship fund. Crunchbase News has more here. Openspace Ventures, a four-year-old, Singapore-based, early-stage venture firm that first made a name for itself by writing an early check to the Indonesia ride-hailing unicorn Go-Jek, has raised $135 million for its second fund. TechCrunch has more here. |
| Exits |
| BuildingConnected, a six-year-old, Bay Area-based preconstruction platform for real estate owners and general contractors to hire qualified subcontractors, has acquired TradeTapp, a three-year-old, New York-based subcontractor risk analysis platform that had raised a small amount of seed funding, per Crunchbase. BuildingConnected is backed by $53 million in funding, including from Brookfield Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Homebrew, and Bee Partners, among others. More here. Bustle, the venture-backed online publisher aimed at millennial women, has acquired Flavorpill Media, an online publisher and experiential brand focused on events. Terms aren’t being disclosed, but Bustle will acquire all current Flavorpill Media staff, and cofounder Sascha Lewis will become Bustle Digital Group’s vice president of experiential and president of Flavorpill Media. Axios has the scoop here. A week after spinning out its driver services business and giving it $1 billion in investment capital, Didi Chuxing has added to it through an acquisition. Xiaoju Automobile Solutions, which the Didi spinout is called, announced today it has bought Hiservice, a three-year-old company that provides after-service care for car owners using a digital platform. TechCrunch has the story here. |
| IPOs |
| A Tesla rival, the four-year-old, China-based electric car company Nio, has filed to raise $1.8 billion in an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. The four-year-old company was widely expected to file soon. It has so far developed two cars – the EP9 supercar and ES8 – and is backed by Tencent, Baidu, and Sequoia Capital, among others. TechCrunch has more here. |
| People |
| Matt Olsen, the former general counsel of the National Security Agency and director of the National Counterterrorism Center, was just named Uber’s new chief security officer. A group of Tinder founders and executives has filed a lawsuit against parent company Match Group and its controlling shareholder IAC of angels. Robert Townsend, current co-chair of the global M&A practice group at law firm Morrison & Foerster, is joining the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank as its chief legal officer and SVP. |
| Essential Reads |
| The staying power of megarounds. What Saudi Arabia’s interest in Tesla says about its long-term oil plans. |
| Detours |
| The 100 jokes that shaped modern comedy. An unopened stack of Pokémon cards from 1999 just sold for $56,000. Ben Carson realizes this would be a great time to ask for a raise. |
| Retail Therapy |
| A shoe deodorizer, by Panasonic. |