Fundings and Exits

Two years ago, the African tech ecosystem saw newfound attention from global players that translated to the continent’s best year of receiving venture capital. From varying sources, it is estimated up to $2 billion went into African tech startups in 2019. With high-profile visits from the most famous Jacks (Ma and Dorsey), a long-awaited first

A few years ago, VCs were expected to perform extensive due diligence on startups. Investors dove into financials, called customers and vetted founders. But power has now shifted toward the founders after a long run of investors holding more than half the power thanks to the commoditization of capital. The pace at which deals were

Sean Fanning Contributor Sean Fanning is a vice president on OpenView’s Investment team. Before that, he led the firm’s Proactive Portfolio Management function and acted as director of corporate development, supporting the portfolio on inorganic and balance sheet related initiatives. The flow of capital in SaaS is becoming increasingly bifurcated. There are the “haves” (public

There was a lot of action in 2021 in enterprise M&A — once totaled, my top 10 deals came in at just under $121 billion. And the biggest enterprise deal of the year by far — Oracle’s bid to buy Cerner — happened as I was writing this post. The final tally doesn’t include what

Over the last two years, New Zealand’s startup scene has seen record venture and early-stage investment. Despite the pandemic, 2020 saw $158 million invested into 108 deals, representing the third year in a row of over $100 million in investment in startups. According to a PwC report, 2020 was also the third year of more

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. It’s just about Christmas, which means you may be stuck with family at the moment. Regardless of what, if any, holidays you may celebrate, there’s good chance that there are more people around

Brazilian construction tech startup Ambar announced it has raised a large Series C round: R$204 million, approximately $36 million at today’s mid-market rate. The round was co-led by Brazil-based Echo Capital and Oria Capital, with participation from TPG Capital, Argonautic Ventures, and others. Ambar was created in 2013 with the ambition to leverage technology to

Automation Anywhere, which is best known for its robotic process automation (RPA) software, plans to expand the platform. This morning, the company announced that it intends to acquire process discovery startup FortressIQ. The companies did not reveal the purchase price. FortressIQ gives Automation Anywhere this missing process discovery component, which enables AI-fueled software to map

Calibrate Ventures, a four-year-old early-stage venture capital firm backing startups leveraging artificial intelligence and automation, debuted its second fund, a $97 million vehicle that is about 25% higher than its previous fund. With Calibrate Fund II, the firm has $175 million in assets under management, co-founder and managing partner Jason Schoettler told TechCrunch. The firm

Amazon is seeking Indian antitrust watchdog’s approval to buy Catamaran Ventures’ stake in Prione, which operates one of the largest sellers on the e-commerce platform, months after the two firms said they won’t renew their joint venture after May next year. The announcement comes as a surprise as Catamaran owns 76% stake in Prione. Amazon

Serial fintech entrepreneur Walter Cruttenden founded Acorns with his son, Jeff, in 2012 with the goal of helping low- and middle-income households to invest and save responsibly. The pair wanted to simplify investing for the millions that have trouble getting started or continuing to invest. Then in 2018, Walter went live with a new company

European startup and venture capital data company Dealroom has raised a €6 million Series A, it told TechCrunch. The company’s new capital comes nearly two years after it raised €2.75 million in early 2020. Its database competes with a number of rivals in North America, including PitchBook, CB Insights, and my former employer Crunchbase. Beringea

With everything that has gone down at Better.com over the past 18 months, many of us are scratching our heads in wonder that CEO Vishal Garg remains employed. On December 10, employees of the digital mortgage lender were notified via email by the Better board of directors that Garg would be taking time off, effective

It’s my last day of work for the year, so we’re going to have some fun. Obviously, we’re talking crypto this morning. Jack Dorsey, former Twitter CEO and present CEO of Block, the company formerly known as Square, stirred the crypto pot recently, making explicit his preferences in the larger blockchain landscape by taking swipes

The early 2022 IPO cohort is beginning to take shape. Recall that Reddit recently filed to go public, albeit privately. That’s going to be a huge debut. With Samsara closing out 2021 and Reddit set to ensure fireworks, we might be content. But there are more offerings coming, including Justworks: The HR software company filed

Rocket Companies announced this morning that it will purchase Truebill for $1.275 billion in cash. Rocket Companies is best known for its Rocket Mortgage product, while Truebill is a consumer-facing app that helps consumers manage subscriptions, automate savings and budget. The deal’s price tag will prove lucrative for Truebill shareholders. PitchBook data indicates that Truebill’s

Someone’s education and work history can be similar to other resumes in a pile, but Searchlight aims to improve how companies measure a person’s soft skills to provide not only a differentiator, but also a better indicate of how well that person will ultimately fit into the organization. Kerry Wang and her twin sister, Anna

Fees on the Nubank IPO were among the lowest of the year, Bloomberg revealed this week. Of the $2.6 billion the Brazilian fintech’s parent company, Nu Holdings, raised in the operation, only 1.6% are going to its underwriters, which included Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and others. “Among 490 IPOs in the U.S. so far

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. To close out the year, Natasha and Mary Ann and Alex headed to the mic with Grace and Chris behind the scenes. We got to our favorite topics, and honestly, got a chance

Elementary, an artificial intelligence machine vision company, closed on $30 million in Series B funding to continue developing its manufacturing quality and inspection tools. We last profiled the Pasadena-based company last June when it raised $12.7 million in a financing round led by Threshold Ventures. Elementary’s tools enable customers to create no-code inspection routines and

The Exchange joked earlier this week that Christmas had come early thanks to a particular SPAC deck providing us with some good fun. Ha. Little did we know what was coming. Social hub Reddit filed to go public, TechCrunch reports. You know what that means: It’s time to ask questions. The Exchange explores startups, markets and

Working together at Uber’s risk team, Yifu Diao and Ming Fang came to realize that with the hypergrowth the company was seeing came fraud challenges. Diao’s first project at the company after starting in 2014 was building a rules engine called Mastermind to fight fraud. That engine, he says, allowed risk analysts to build and

French startup La Belle Vie announced that it has raised a $28.2 million (€25 million) Series B round led by Left Lane and Quadrille Capital, with existing investor Capagro also participating. The company operates an online grocery store in the Paris area. Online grocery delivery services and so-called quick-commerce startups are quite trendy. In fact,

Kalendar AI, a San Francisco-based startup that’s been building on top of GPT-3‘s language model — developing a SaaS for automating lead generation and sales outreach to make it easier for companies to get initial meetings with prospective customers — has raised $3.2 million in pre-seed funding from 500 Startups; The Lean Startup author, Eric

Wonder Dynamics aims to make “blockbuster-level” visual effects achievable by living-room-level creators using AI and cloud services, though it has kept its product closely under wraps. The secretive company, which boasts a star-studded set of advisors, has raised a $10M A round ahead of a planned launch later in 2022. The company was founded by

Less than a year after raising an $80 million Series C round, Anchorage is announcing that it has raised a $350 million Series D round. With today’s funding round, the company has reached a valuation of more than $3 billion. Anchorage offers a custody solution for big institutions, such as publicly traded companies or funds.

Purchasing new glasses used to be about finding the right pair that would go with everything until you needed the next set. Pair Eyewear turned that on its head with magnetic frames, called Top Frames, that enable glasses-wearers to change their style with any outfit or any occasion for as little as $25. Between 2020

If you’ve ever had to apply for a mortgage, you know that it can be a time-consuming, expensive and often painful process — both in terms of just filling out the application and then waiting for the transaction to close. In recent years, a number of digital lenders have emerged to bring more technology to

Open has acquired consumer neo-banking startup Finin for $10 million as the Bangalore-based, Google-backed business-focused neobanking platform looks to broaden its offerings and deepen relationships with banks. The deal involves both cash and stock, the two said. Launched in 2019, Finin is among the first consumer-focused neobanking startups in India. The startup, which had raised

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. It finally happened, ladies and gentleman and our non-binary friends. The Holiday News Slowdown has arrived. Late, I might add, but still here at last. But that did not stop Grace and Alex