🤝 SEA's Golden Moment
Plus: Apple's feud with EU and FB, Netflix & Spotify's latest features, TikTok's newest CEO, Fintech for kids + India's booming edtech scene
Wrapped Up Newsletter #24
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Quick Bits 🌎
Recap in the West
Facebook dislikes Apple’s newest privacy feature. Lyft sells its self-driving unit to Toyota. Tesla finds utility in utilities and wants to make your home a distributed power plant. Spotify matches Apple and launches paid subscriber-only podcasts. No need to worry anymore about finding a movie on Netflix if you’re indecisive. E-commerce brick-and-mortar stores are making a comeback. Big Tech's revenues go wild. EU slams Apple with antitrust violations. Gopuff's revenues grow amid the pandemic but see new challenges. Tickets to space will be available near you, thanks to Blue Origin. EU takes a stance against facial recognition in public.
Recap in the East
Grab, Sea Group and GoTo can open doors for SEA M&A, with >700 startups exits predicted by 2025. Ant sees ant-sized drop in valuation to as low as $29bn from $320bn and is offering zero-interest loans to employees to boost morale. China continues to clamp down on Meituan and Tencent for antitrust rules. TikTok has a new CEO. ByteDance goes all-in on e-commerce and shakes off rumors of IPO. Tesla rival Nio shakes off concerns about rising competition. Myanmar reinstates access to e-banking and Microsoft Office services. JP Morgan, Temasek and DBS partner up to create a blockchain payments platform. Facebook temporarily hides all #ResignModi posts amid the resurgence of COVID-19 cases in India.
Done Deals ✍🏼
Funding Rounds
San Francisco-based corporate spend fintech Brex raises $425m (Series D) at a $7.4bn valuation led by Tiger Global – more than double its most recent private valuation
Swedish telehealth startup Kry bags $312m (Series D) led by CPP Investments and Fidelity to keep up its impressive growth
Atlanta-based fintech Greenlight, a startup that pitches parents on kid-friendly bank accounts, raises $260m (Series D) led by a16z and nearly doubling its valuation to $2.3bn
Barcelona-based B2B travel management firm TravelPerk bags $160m (Series D) in equity and debt, hinting that VCs are again warming up to travel-related firms
Mumbai-based edtech startup upGrad raises $120m from Temasek, raising its valuation at $575-675m
Canadian legaltech company Clio raises $110m (Series E) at a $1.6bn valuation to expand in EMEA, boost its headcount and improve its product offering
San Francisco-based developer-focused video platform Mux bags $105m (Series D) led by Coatue and becomes a unicorn
Teen-focused digital bank Step raises $100m (Series C), counts NBA star Stephen Curry as an investor, and seeks to accelerate its growth
San Francisco-based Alchemy, a developer platform that helps companies to build reliable decentralized applications, raises $80m (Series B) at a $505m valuation led by Coatue and Addition
Kaia Health, a New York-based company offering AI-assisted digital therapy, pockets $75m (Series C) to improve its computer vision capabilities
Germany's VividMoney, a Eurozone-oriented Revolut challenger, gets $73m (Series B) at a $436m valuation to build a 'financial super app'
Palo Alto-based Mighty Networks, an online platform for creators and brands to build communities, picks up $50m (Series B) led by Owl Ventures after stellar growth in 2020
Indian edtech startup LEAD School raises $30m (Series D) led by GSV Ventures and WestBridge to scale its efforts in the world's second most populous nation
Indonesian social commerce platform Super bags $28m (Series B) to expand into the eastern provinces of Indonesia and grow its new white label fresh grocery brand SuperEats
Singaporean robo-advisor StashAway gets $25m (Series D) led by Sequoia Capital India to accelerates its product and feature developments
Berlin's Finoa, a digital asset custody and financial services platform, raises $22m (Series A) to provide a way for institutional investors and corporations to manage digital assets
Rhode Island-based consumer fintech Splitwise raises $20m (Series A) to boost its product cadence while maintaining its robust, free experience for its users
Berlin-based workflow automation tool n8n picks up $12m (Series A) led by Felicis Ventures, with Sequoia Capital participating, to continue expanding its team and platform
Estonian AI negotiation platform Pactum raises $11m (Series A) to scale up its operations due to increased demand
New Funds
Main Sequence, the venture firm founded by Australia’s national science agency, announces a new $194.3m fund to invest in deep tech startups
Banana Capital, Turner Novak's new VC firm that will seed and source consumer tech founders from the corners of the web, closes its oversubscribed debut fund at $9.99m – LPs include Andreessen Horowitz GP Sriram Krishnan, GGV managing partner Hans Tung and meme account VC Starter Kit
Basis Set Ventures, a fund merging venture capital and software development, yields a $165m new fund
Dutch-German growth capital firm Endeit Capital raises its third and largest investment fund with $295m to invest in B-stage European startups
Andreessen Horowitz looks to raise a fund of as much as $1bn to invest in cryptocurrencies and crypto start-ups, after the success of its investment in Coinbase
Exits: Acquisitions, IPOs & SPACs
Dutch cloud communications platform MessageBird acquires US email delivery and optimization platform SparkPost for $600m using $800m Series C extension — enabling MessageBird to get a stronger foothold in the US market
IBM acquires cloud app and network management firm Turbonomic for up to $2bn to deepen its reach into providing enterprises with AI-based services to manage their networks and workloads
Private equity giant Thoma Bravo buys SaaS cybersecurity vendor Proofpoint for $12.3bn in cash
China's bike-sharing giant Hello targets an initial fundraising target of $100m for its IPO
Indian food delivery startup Zomato plans to raise $1.1bn from an IPO and may consider raising an additional $200m ahead of public listing
What Else We're Following 👀
"The stress on relationships could come from a number of fronts" - An interesting take on how crypto is impacting personal lives (Bloomberg)
Buy, buy, buy: Acquisitions and their effect on Big Tech (The Washington Post)
We know a lot about winner-takes-all markets, but what about many-winner markets? (Next Big Thing)
"Today, true innovation in fintech is far and few in between" - Are fintech's glory days over? (Sifted)
VC 3.0 and a crash course on VC history (Medium)
"Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, Discord, Telegram and even LinkedIn have plans for live audio" - Spotify's Daniel Ek on the rising fame of live audio (TechCrunch)
Who’s Hiring 👩🏽💼
For this week’s job postings (internships & full-time), please check out our Notion page here.
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