Good day. The arms race to raise larger war chests to target
young startups has intensified.
San Francisco-based venture firm NFX Capital Management said
Tuesday in a blog post that it raised a $450 million fund that will
exclusively target pre-seed and seed startups. It is the firm's
largest fund raised.
The fund will focus on businesses in sectors including crypto,
fintech and gaming, according to the post. NFX invests in startups
based in the U.S., Israel, Latin America and Europe. NFX made seed
investments into companies including DoorDash Inc. and Lyft
Inc.
The fund comes as venture firms are doubling down on seed
investing amid increasing competition in the venture-capital
industry. Seed investing, which is oftentimes a startup's first
infusion of outside capital, can offer huge payouts along with the
additional risk of investing in nascent and unproven
businesses.
Andreessen Horowitz said in August it raised a $400 million seed
fund and last month Greylock Partners raised a $500 million seed
fund.
And now on to the news...
Top News
Capital Raise. The Mom Project Inc., a job board for mothers,
raised $80 million in new capital at what may be a pivotal moment
for working women and the companies that want to hire them, WSJ
Pro's Yuliya Chernova reports.
Mothers, who left the workforce in large numbers during the
pandemic, are increasingly able to return to work as schools
reopen, said Allison Robinson, co-founder and chief executive of
the Chicago-based Mom Project. At the same time, companies are
becoming more willing to offer flexible job options to them due to
talent shortages. "It's a good time for moms to get back to work,"
Ms. Robinson said.
Leeds Illuminate, a women-led growth equity investor launched
last year with a focus on education and workforce-development
companies, led the Series C round of equity for the Mom Project
that totaled $60 million and valued the company at above $300
million. The Mom Project also raised $20 million in debt from
Silicon Valley Bank.
$73.3 Billion
The trade gap in goods and services expanded to a record in
August from $70.3 billion in July as the Delta variant of Covid-19
and supply constraints weighed on global trade, according to the
Commerce Department. (WSJ)
Tech Investor Francisco Partners Targets $10 Billion for Latest
Flagship
Francisco Partners, a technology-focused private-equity firm,
plans to hit the fundraising trail later this year with the aim of
collecting some $10 billion for its seventh flagship fund,
according to people familiar with the situation, Laura Cooper and
Preeti Singh report. The San Francisco-based firm's latest
fundraising push comes a little more than a year after it raised
nearly $10 billion across three separate funds to back technology
companies focused on sectors that include healthcare, cybersecurity
and finance.
AI Startup Domino Data Lab Raises $100 Million in New
Funding
Artificial intelligence startup Domino Data Lab Inc. said
Tuesday it raised $100 million in new funding amid increased
business interest in tools that help data scientists build and
deploy AI applications, WSJ Pro reports. The funding will be used
to scale its sales organization and build out its machine-learning
platform's features and functions, said Nick Elprin, Domino Data's
chief executive and one of its co-founders. Domino Data has raised
$228 million since its founding in 2013. Private-equity firm Great
Hill Partners led the series F round with participation from
graphics-chip maker Nvidia Corp. and existing investors Coatue
Management, Highland Capital Partners and Sequoia Capital. The
company didn't disclose its valuation.
Startup 24 Exchange Seeks to Offer Round-the-Clock Stock
Trading
A startup trading platform is seeking approval from the
Securities and Exchange Commission to launch the first U.S. stock
exchange that would operate around the clock, including on weekends
and holidays, WSJ reports. The startup, 24 Exchange, said it filed
key parts of its application for a national stock-exchange license
with the SEC on Monday, including a rulebook and user manual
detailing its proposed approach to trading hours. Under decades-old
conventions, the bulk of stock trading takes place between 9:30
a.m. and 4 p.m. ET on weekdays, and exchanges shut down for
holidays, such as Good Friday and Washington's Birthday. In
contrast, 24 Exchange would operate like the foreign-exchange and
cryptocurrency markets, which run continuously.
Industry News
Funds
Growth-stage firm G Squared closed its fifth flagship fund at
$1.2 billion to continue investing in fintech/insurtech, consumer
internet, mobility and software-as-a-service. G Squared also opened
an office in Miami, adding to the firm's locations in Chicago, San
Francisco, Zurich and Greenwich, Conn.
People
Sapphire Ventures appointed Ellie Javadi to the post of chief
marketing officer. She was most recently vice president of
marketing at Norwest Venture Partners.
Hyperscience, which automates mission-critical processes and
operations for organizations and governments, named Tony Lee as the
company's first chief technology officer. He was previously at
Snapdocs. With offices in New York, London and Bulgaria,
Hyperscience has raised over $190 million from investors including
Tiger Global Management, BOND and Bessemer Venture Partners.
ArangoDB Inc., an open-source graph database startup, appointed
Frank Swain as chief revenue officer and promoted Jörg Schad to
chief technology officer. Mr. Swain was most recently CRO at
Instana. Mr. Schad was previously at Mesosphere. ArangoDB is based
in San Francisco and Germany, and is backed by Bow Capital and
Target Partners.
Exits
High-resolution digital Lidar sensor provider Ouster Inc. agreed
to acquire Sense Photonics, developer of a digital solid-state
Lidar sensor for automotive series production, in an all-stock
transaction. Sense Photonics is backed by investors including Shell
Ventures, Social Capital, Prelude Ventures, Acadia Woods Partners,
Piva Capital and Congruent Ventures.
Marvell Technology Inc., which makes infrastructure
semiconductor software, completed its acquisition of Innovium Inc.,
a provider of networking technology for cloud and edge data
centers, for an undisclosed amount. The all-stock deal was valued
at $1.1 billion when it was announced in August. San Jose,
Calif.-based Innovium was backed by investors including Greylock,
Qualcomm Ventures, Premji Invest and DFJ Growth.
Sales and marketing software provider 6sense purchased sales
intelligence platform Slintel for an undisclosed amount. Early this
year, San Francisco-based 6sense raised a $125 million Series D
round from D1 Capital Partners, Sapphire Ventures, Tiger Global
Management and Insight Partners. Slintel said it landed a $20
million funding round in June from GGV Capital, Accel, Sequoia
Capital India and Stellaris Venture Partners.
New Money
Orca Security, a Los Angeles- and Tel Aviv-based cloud security
startup, snagged $550 million in an extended Series C round,
boosting the company's valuation to $1.8 billion. Temasek Holdings
led the new funding, which included contributions from CapitalG,
Redpoint Ventures, GGV Capital, Iconiq Capital, Lone Pine Capital,
Stripes, Adams Street Partners, Willoughby Capital and Harmony
Partners.
Tekion Corp., a Pleasanton, Calif.-based automotive retail
platform, raised $250 million in Series D funding, giving the
company a valuation of $3.5 billion. Alkeon Capital and Durable
Capital co-led the round, which saw additional support from Advent
International, Index Ventures, FM Capital and others.
Sky Mavis, a game developer based in Vietnam and Singapore,
scored $152 million in Series B funding. Andreessen Horowitz led
the round, which included participation from Accel and
Paradigm.
mParticle, a New York-based customer data infrastructure
provider, secured $150 million in Series E financing. Permira's
growth fund led the round, with Principal Daniel Brenhouse joining
the company's board.
Masterworks.io, a New York-based members-only platform where
investors can buy and sell shares in works of art, landed $110
million in Series A funding at a valuation in excess of $1 billion.
Left Lane Capital led the round, which saw participation from
Galaxy Interactive, Tru Arrow Partners and others.
Sure, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based insurtech startup, closed a
$100 million Series C round. Declaration Partners and Kinnevik led
the investment, which included participation from WndrCo, Expanding
Capital, W. R. Berkley Corp. and Menlo Ventures.
Anyfin, a Stockholm-based startup that enables consumers to
refinance their existing loans, collected a 450 million Swedish
krona ($51 million) investment led by FinTech Collective. New
investors Quadrille Capital and Augmentum Fintech also participated
in the round, along with existing backers Accel, EQT Ventures,
Northzone and Global Founders Capital. The new investment will
accelerate growth in northern Europe, with a focus on Germany.
Buk, a Chilean human-resources-management platform, raised $50
million in Series A funding led by Greenoaks at a valuation of $417
million.
Duality Technologies, a Newark, N.J.-based startup providing
privacy-protecting computing to regulated industries, nabbed $30
million in Series B funding. LG Technology Ventures led the
investment, which saw participation from Euclidean Capital,
NAventures, Intel Capital, Hearst Ventures and Team8.
Neural Magic Inc., a Somerville, Mass.-based startup building a
software platform for deep learning inference, fetched a $30
million Series A round. Lead investor New Enterprise Associates was
joined by Andreessen Horowitz, Amdocs, Comcast Ventures, Pillar VC
and Ridgeline Ventures in the funding. NEA's Greg Papadopoulos will
join the board.
Adaptive Shield, an Israeli SaaS application security provider,
grabbed $30 million in Series A financing. Lead investor Insight
Partners was joined by Okta Ventures and Vertex Ventures Israel in
the round.
Pandion Inc., a Seattle-based startup using machine learning to
more efficiently transport e-commerce packages, raised an
oversubscribed $22.5 million Series A round, immediately followed
by a $7.5 million additional investment led by Telstra Ventures.
Bow Capital led the Series A funding, which included support from
Playground Global, Schematic Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures and
Innovation Endeavors.
Tech News
China leaps ahead in effort to rein in algorithms
Facebook whistleblower's testimony builds momentum for tougher
tech laws
Microsoft released Windows 11. But should you upgrade?
Twenty One Pilots in Concert -- as Roblox avatars
Singapore set to increase control over online content
Elizabeth Holmes's office romance with Ramesh Balwani now on
display in court
Facebook blames engineering error of 'our own making' for global
outage
Around the Web
What crackdown? VCs keep betting on China even as public stocks
sink (The Information)
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 06, 2021 09:38 ET (13:38 GMT)
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