👀 20/21 Vision
SoftBank's comeback season. Plus: Funding in the creator economy, community building in tech, Q1 earnings, Musk's influence + more NFTs, IPOs & SPACs
Wrapped Up Newsletter #26
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Quick Bits 🌎
Recap in the West
Elon Musk moves markets by backpedaling on Bitcoin. Lambda School might be getting schooled for misleading financial and educational practices. eBay gets in NFTs. Substack's new acquisition is all about community. Apple seems to be ahead in its Epic battle. Sequoia Games is building a NBA tabletop game. Xiaomi is no longer blacklisted by the U.S. Zuck reads the room on creating Instagram for kids. Facebook wants people to actually read articles before they share them. YouTube introduces $100m creator fund for its TikTok lookalike, Shorts. Lemonade apparently DGAF about securing its customers data. Google makes it easier to transfer money via remittances to India and Singapore. Spotify broadens social features to make music and podcasting content more engaging. Airbnb, DoorDash & Coinbase cash in in Q1.
Recap in the East
Masayoshi Son envisions a bright future for Vision Fund and plans to double portfolio to 500. China's most valuable edtech startups aren't immune to antitrust regulations. Shanghai-based Keenon Robotics' keen on bringing robot waiters to Singapore. China clamps down on tech companies seeking IPO overseas. Vietnam's largest conglomerate pivots from mobile to (electric) automobiles in the US. ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent battles for talent and presence in Singapore. Disgraced Luckin Coffee founder rallies former colleagues and gets into noodle restaurants. James Murdoch goes SPAC-crazy for media and tech in Southeast Asia. Some Filipinos are surviving on video games for income via NFTs. OnePlus co-founder plans to minimalize tech through his new venture's 'retro futuristic' products.
Done Deals ✍🏼
Funding Rounds
Chinese grocery app Dingdong Maicai bags $330m (Series D+) led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund, after raising $700m in its Series D last month
Vilnius-headquartered online marketplace Vinted packs $303m led by EQT Growth for its second-hand clothes marketplace at a $4.2b pre-money valuation
New York-based Amazon FBA buyer Acquco picks up $160m in debt and equity (Series A) to fund its aggressive growth plans after being profitable from day one
London-based Huma, a company that uses data from monitoring patients to help researchers and pharmaceutical companies run clinical trials, gets $130m (Series C) to both increase its R&D and expand geographically
Munich-based parcelLab, a final-mile fulfillment service for e-commerce vendors, raises $112m (Series C) led by Insight Partners to expand globally and develop new products
San Francisco's CircleCI, the continuous delivery pioneer, gets $100m (Series F) at a $1.7bn valuation and acquires Vamp, a release orchestration startup, to accelerate its roadmap
New York-based creator management group Jellysmack bags an estimated $50m-100m (Series C) from SoftBank to fuel its international expansion and further enhance its powerful AI technology
New York-based freelancer-focused neobank Lili picks up $55m (Series B) after seeing its usage grow by 1500% in a year
California-based corporate invoice management platform Stampli bags $50m (Series C) led by Insight Partners
London-based workplace mental health platform Unmind raises $47m (Series B) led by EQT Ventures to continue investing in R&D and expand its business reach
Munich-based vacation rental startup Holidu gets $45m (Series D) led by 83North to hire more tech talent, expand supply partnerships, and improve on product development following a ~50% YoY growth
San Francisco-based AR visual assistance platform SightCall raises $42m to help field service teams carry out technical and mechanical maintenance or repairs more effectively
London-based digital-first freight-forwarding platform Zencargo gets $42m (Series B) to open offices in the Netherlands, Hong Kong and the U.S., increase headcount and make moves into trade finance
Hong Kong-based crypto financial services provider Babel Finance bags $40m (Series A) from Zoo Capital, Sequoia Capital China, and Tiger Global and spends its fresh proceeds on product development, compliance and talent acquisition
California-based Blind, an anonymous community app for the workplace, picks up $37m (Series C) led by Mainstreet Investment
San Francisco-based Collective, a subscription-based back-office platform for the self-employed, raises $20m (Series A) led by General Catalyst
Buenos Aires-based fintech-as-a-service platform Pomelo picks up $9m (Seed) from Index Ventures and monashees to build the payments infrastructure for LatAm fintechs
London-based climate tech Sylvera grabs $5.8m (Seed) led by Index Ventures and uses machine learning to bolster transparency around carbon offsetting projects
New Funds
Indianapolis-based VC firm Sixty8 Capital launches a $20m early-stage fund aimed at underrepresented founders
Exits: Acquisitions, IPOs & SPACs
Online finance behemoth Stripe acquires Brooklyn-based Y Combinator alum Bouncer, a platform to automatically run card authentications and detect fraud in card-based online transactions
San Francisco-based expense management platform Expensify will IPO
U.S. scooter unicorn Bird is going public via SPAC merger at an implied valuation of $2.3bn
New York-based Better.com, a Softbank-backed digital mortgage lender, will take itself public in the second half of 2021 via a SPAC merger, valuing the company at nearly $8bn
UK fashion portal Lyst raises $85m in a pre-IPO round at a $700m valuation
Soulgate, which provides a gamified social networking app in China, files for a $100m U.S. IPO
Indian auto marketplace CarTrade looks to raise $272m for its financial debut, which would mark the first auto classifieds service to go public in the country
Bangalore-based e-commerce giant Flipkart plans to raise $1bn at up to a $30bn valuation in a pre-IPO financing round
What Else We're Following 👀
A sense of purpose, integrity, reciprocity: tips on gaining consumer trust for your brand (Sifted)
What does data reveal about founder CEOs vs hired CEOs? (Medium)
"Many firms are on track to have their best returns since the dot-com boom in the late 1990s": VC is doing (very) well on all fronts (Medium)
Women start more successful companies than men but struggle to get funding in Europe (TechEU)
From early recruiting to building the business, here are 5 lessons to consider when going from 0 to 1 (First Round Review)
"Many things are more efficient on-screen but some things are way better in-person": Fred Wilson's take on one of the pandemic's most debated issues (AVC)
Who’s Hiring 👩🏽💼
For this week’s job postings (internships & full-time), please check out our Notion page here.
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