🤜🤛 Help us to deliver better content to you by filling out the survey here.
If you haven’t become a floral connoisseur or a plantsperson yet, have you really made the best use of your time this past year? Although people are starting to go back to their outdoor routines, many of us ex-home dwellers are still tending to our indoor gardens, showing off that ficus altissima or white orchard we’ve cultivated for so long in the background of our virtual conference calls. Post-pandemic, people have been more cognizant of their physical and mental spaces and plants have been a great way to fill the void. Plant care assistant Greg saw the public benefit of using machine learning to help people care for their plants.
This week, Greg received $5.4m in seed funding (pun intended) led by Index with participation from First Round Capital. Founded in October 2020, the app works by giving plant lovers advice on how to tend to their plants, tailoring its recommendations to its species, geographic location, sun exposure and proximity to the window. It has also cultivated a strong community amongst its users, boasting 50,000 monthly active users and subscribers and onboarding 350,000 plants across 4,000 different species.
You can’t be a plant-focused startup without having an environmentally-driven mission. Greg hopes to instill positive impact upon Earth’s ecosystems by informing people on how plants and food systems work and re-creating green spaces from the interior of our homes. The proliferation of green spaces doesn’t start and end with sustainably-designed buildings propped up in smart cities. By ordering something from services like The Sill (my favorite plant delivery service), you can become a steward and enabler for planetary life, from the confines of your living room. Just a food for thought.
Quick Bits 🌎
Recap in the West
Poparazzi might be the next viral social media sensation. Europe probes American clouds. Tesla owes Norway. Amazon, Microsoft and Google fight for a $1bn cloud deal with Boeing. ByteDance’s video editor climbs the U.S. App Store. Airbnb doubles down on guest flexibility. Microsoft launches new tools and services at its Build conference. Marketing software firm Zeta Global and investing app Acorns file for IPO. Square fights Big Finance with its own checking and savings accounts. Instagram explores subscriptions and NFTs. Ford unveils its all-electric pickup truck. Tesla can now watch you drive. Glovo buys 3 of Delivery Hero’s food delivery brands in CEE. Amazon snaps up MGM Studios for $8.45bn and readies to bring in its new CEO. German fashion e-tailer About You and UK furniture retailer Made.com prepare a public offering. Nvidia's revenue jumps thanks to gamers. Dell tops expectations. Salesforce has best first quarter in its history. Snowflake reports widening losses.
Done Deals ✍🏼
💸 London-based Paysend, a mobile-based payments app that offers global money transfers, business banking and e-commerce for SMBs, gets $125m (Series B) at a $700m+ valuation to expand its business globally, hire more people and continue building more fintech products
💁 Sweden customer engagement startup Sinch raises $1.1bn in a direct share issue from Temasek and SoftBank to shore up its financial position ahead of more M&A activity
💰 French cashflow management service Agicap bags $100m at a $500m+ valuation led by Greenoaks to further accelerate its international presence and become an European leader in this market
🚜 New York City-based vertical farming startup Bowery Farming receives $300m (Series C) at a $2.3bn valuation led by Fidelity Management to expand its indoor farms in the U.S., as well as invest in headcount and R&D
☎️ Parisian customer experience platform Contentsquare raises $500m (Series E) led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund to accelerate its growth via M&A, fuel its recruitment spree and expand into the Asian market, specifically, China
Recap in the East
Indian startups have bagged $7.8bn in the first four months, 70% of the total raised in 2020. ByteDance rival Kuaishou sees 37% bump in Q1 sales thanks to e-commerce and ads. SoftBank shrugs off its haters and bankrolls its Vision Fund 2 to $30m, claiming an IRR of 119%. Smartphone maker Huawei gives carmakers a peace of mind on its auto ambitions. Chinese companies are choosing to find a second home in Hong Kong over the U.S. Another record-breaking deal is in the works as Paytm seeks $3bn to be India’s largest IPO. WhatsApp and the Indian government disagree on privacy rights. Qiming Venture Partners’ new public fund blurs the lines between VC, PE and hedge funds. Indonesia’s Bukalapak is set to be one of the largest tech unicorns to go public in the region. GoTo isn’t taking a summer break and plans to fundraise before its IPO. India’s Blume Ventures launches fourth fund of $150m.
Done Deals ✍🏼
📱 Amid tensions between U.S. social media platforms and New Delhi, Koo, an Indian alternative to Twitter, raises $30m led by Tiger Global at a valuation of $100m+ to build a social network for the nation
🏫 Seoul-based Riiid bags $175m from SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 to expand its AI-based personalized learning offerings, including test prep, globally and to grow its products
🍔 Thailand-based restaurant management startup FoodStory closes an undisclosed amount of funding (Series B) led by Beacon VC to further product development, in its aim to improve operation efficiency for F&B businesses
⛓ Jakarta-based crypto exchange Pintu receives $6m (extended Series A) from Pantera Capital and Coinbase to teach users about cryptocurrency and facilitate these type of investments, with a mission to support and attract new crypto investors
🏪 Philippine e-commerce enabler Great Deals gets $30m (Series B) led by Fast Group, one of the Philippine’s largest logistics firms, to help brands like L’Oréal and Unilever build their online retail operations in the nation
To catch up on more deals of the week, make sure to click here!
What Else We're Following 👀
"With blockbuster listings of his risky bets on Asia, Son has defied critics who have said that his aggressive gambles on cash-burning startups would not be embraced by public market investors." Softbank and its impact on the perception of loss-making startups (KrASIA)
Amon the abundance of cash available in late stages and limited interference by LPs, here's why playing the long game is beneficial in VC (Both Sides)
Equity stakes? How about stock awards tied to share price performance? A different model of compensation results in big equity grants for founders (The Information)
With peers stocks sliding and investors hesitating, startup leaders are turning away from SPACs (Wall Street Journal)
Don't obsess over growth, focus on improving operations, use data to gain insights: how the pandemic will change customer relationships (Entrepreneur)
Not an expert? Not a problem. Here are 6 lessons on starting a company in a domain outside your area of expertise (First Round Review)
Who’s Hiring 👩🏽💼
For this week’s job postings (internships & full-time), please check out our Notion page here.
Feedback time!! 🙏
Please answer our 2-min survey here. Your feedback is invaluable! For any additional comments, feel free to email us at jeffrey.dong@insead.edu. We look forward to seeing you in the next issue!
Another week is in the books! We’ll be back in your inbox next Sunday with more quick bits on what’s happening. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, please share Wrapped Up if you enjoyed this newsletter.