Tag: Eventbrite

24 September 2018 – Uber in Talks to Acquire Rival Careem

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Exits

Uber is already in talks to acquire Middle Eastern rival Careem and has now reportedly in negotiations to buy food delivery service Deliveroo. The price would need to be “considerably” higher than the $2bn valuation at which Deliveroo last raised money, but the transaction would give a nice exit to NGP Capital, the venture firm spun out of Nokia, which invested in Deliveroo at a reported $1bn post-money valuation.

Rocket Internet is in line for a series of IPO exits in the next few months. In addition to Westwing and Funding Circle, African e-commerce marketplace Jumia is looking to go public in a 2019 offering that could value it at about $1bn.

Eventbrite, the developer of an online ticketing platform it supplies to event promoters,has gone public in a $230m IPO. The company floated at the top of its range, which it increased on Tuesday, signifying some serious interest in advance of the offering.

Infosys sucks up Fluido in $76m acquisition

Equillium seeks $86m IPO balance

Airware comes crashing down

Allogene calls for $100m IPO

Qutoutiao reports news of $84m IPO

GlaxoSmithKline has chalked up an exit in a $106m initial public offering for oncology and immunology developer Principia Biopharma, which has floated at the top of its range.

Connected planning software provider Anaplan has filed for its own IPO and has set an initial target of $100m.

Funds

Insurance firm Aflac announced in March last year it planned to make up to $100m of investments through a newly formed corporate venturing vehicle, and while its investments have been secretive they’ve apparently interested the company enough to increase activity.

Ajao’s Base attracts $137m for first fund

Golden Gate closes third fund with $100m

Corporates nurture $70m Raise Ventures fund

Deals

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has agreed to invest some $1bn in Lucid Motors, the developer of a luxury plug-in electric sedan.

Tuhu, a Chinese provider of automotive after-sales services, has raised $450m in a series E round featuring Tencent, which invested in connection with a strategic partnership agreement.

Yi Jiupi E-Commerce, the operator of Chinese wine retail platform E Jiupi, has reportedly secured $200m in a series D round co-led by Meituan Dianping and Tencent that valued it at $1.1bn.

Electric bus producer Proterra has raised another $155m in a round that was co-led by Daimler, which will explore the use of Proterra’s battery and electric drivetrain technology in its school buses.

Galera Therapeutics has secured $150m in financing, $70m of which came in a series C equity portion backed by Nan Fung Life Sciences and existing investors Novo Ventures and Novartis Venture Fund.

UiPath continues to bring in big money six months after closing a $153m series B round by collecting $225m in series C funding from backers including CapitalG, which co-led the round with Sequoia Capital.

GitLab programs $100m series D

India-based social networking app developer ShareChat has added $99.2m to its coffersthanks to commitments from investors including Xiaomi, which previously led an $18.2m series B round in January this year.

Enigma has become the first portfolio company both of BB&T’s fintech-focused vehicle and MetLife’s co-investment fund MetLife Digital Ventures by attracting $95m in funding.

GUV

Immune-Onc books $33m series B

“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

17 September 2018 – Smart Car Producer Banma Completes $2.3bn Funding Round

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Deals

Banma, the smart car producer formed by carmaker SAIC and e-commerce group Alibaba, has completed a $2.3bn funding round that included SAIC investment vehicle Shangqi Capital.

Restaurant listings platform Zomato is in the process of expanding into food delivery and is raising some $400m to do so. Online travel agency Ctrip is reportedly in talks to put up $100m of that funding and will invest alongside Ant Financial at an expected valuation of $1.8bn to $2bn.

Lithia Motors has led a $140m series D round for automotive sales service provider Shift Technologies that consisted of debt and equity financing, as part of a strategic partnership deal.

Atreca is developing therapeutics based on immune response, and has just raised $125m in a series C round that increased its overall funding to more than $225m. An undisclosed healthcare-focused fund led the round, but Atreca’s earlier investors include GlaxoSmithKline, which took part in its $56m series A three years ago.

Benson Hill Biosciences, developer of a crop design platform, has raised $60m in a series C round led by GV that boosted its total funding to more than $94m since it was founded in 2012.

Advanced heart monitor developer InfoBionic has received $50m from investors including health insurers Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the latter through its Zaffre Investments vehicle. Zaffre also took part in the company’s last funding, an $8m series B1 round that closed in 2015.

Fosun has co-led a $50m series C round for distributed database software provider PingCap, with the proceeds set to go to product development and international growth.

Alexandria Venture Investments, the VC arm of life sciences real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities, has also backed a $40m series B round for immuno-oncology therapy developer OncoResponse that included Helsinn Investment Fund, a corporate venturing vehicle for Helsinn Group.

Atreca, a US-based immune-focused medicine developer based on research at Stanford University, completed an oversubscribed $125m series C round today led by an undisclosed existing investor described as a healthcare-focused fund.

Funds

US-based healthcare provider Cigna has launched a corporate venturing vehicle called Cigna Ventures with $250m of capital. Cigna provides both healthcare and health insurance but formed Cigna Ventures in order to access innovative technology that can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its services.

US-based insurance firm State Farm has formally launched a $100m corporate venture capital fund known as State Farm Ventures.

Australia-based fund manager Main Sequence Ventures has raised an additional A$132m ($94.8m) for its Csiro Innovation Fund 1 from investors including University of Melbourne, aerospace and defence company

Nanoelectronics research institute Imec announced the close of its early-stage and growth fund Imec.xpand at €117m ($135m) today, above the initial target of €100m set in June 2017. Apart from Imec itself, LPs also include several unnamed universities as well as the Flemish government and its investment company PMV, state-owned regional development agency BOM and Belgian government-owned investment firm SFPI-FPIM.

Luxembourg not only launched a space agency last week but is also seeking to launch a €100m ($117m) venture capital vehicle, called Luxembourg Space Fund, to invest in space technology developers. The money will come from the state and from private investors.

Exits

Local services platform Meituan Dianping has gone public in Hong Kong, floating toward the upper end of its range at a reported $52bn valuation and raising $4.2bn in the process.

China-based smart electric carmaker Nio has gone public in the US, raising a sliver over $1bn. As with Meituan Dianping, Tencent is the largest investor in Nio, but its other backers include Baidu, Lenovo, JD.com and Temasek as well as Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC, and in contrast to the larger company, Nio floated almost at the foot of its range, having initially targeted $1.8bn in the offering.

Augmenix, a radiation oncology technology producer backed by corporates Varian Medical Systems and Ascension Health, has been acquired by medical devices maker Boston Scientific. Boston Scientific will pay $500m in upfront cash and up to an additional $100m if Augmenix reaches sales-based milestones.

Westwing, an online home furnishings retailer backed by Rocket Internet, Tengelmann Ventures and Access Industries, plans to raise up to $139m in an initial public offering slated for Frankfurt. The company has raised some $262m in funding so far.

Eventbrite, the event ticketing platform backed by payment services provider Square, has set the price range for its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange at $19 to $21.

ViraTherapeutics, an Austria-based immuno-oncology spinout of Medical University of Innsbruck, was acquired by its existing shareholder, pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim for $245m, also allowing European Molecular Biology Laboratory to exit.

“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

27 August 2018 – Walmart Completes $16bn 77% Acquisition of Flipkart

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Exits

Walmart has completed its $16bn acquisition of a 77% stake in Indian e-commerce marketplace Flipkart, as part of an ongoing drive into e-commerce that has involved investments in JD.com and Dada-JD Daojia and full acquisitions of Jet.com and Bonobos among others.

China-based immunotherapy developer I-Mab Biopharma raised $220m just a few weeks ago in a series C round featuring corporate venturing unit Tasly Capital, but is reportedly eyeing a $500m initial public offering set for Hong Kong.

The biggest player in China’s news aggregation sector is the Bytedance-owned Toutiao, but newcomer Qutoutiao is making ground fast and has filed for its own IPO, which has a $300m target and which is set to occur in the US.

Live event promotion and ticketing software provider Eventbrite has filed to raise up to $200m in an IPO that will give Square an exit less than a year after it invested as part of an agreement that will make it Eventbrite’s payment processor in some of its biggest markets.

High-end fashion marketplace Farfetch has meanwhile raised more than $700m in funding, and is set to go public after filing for a $100m IPO in the US.

Ascentage Pharma has also raised a big round lately, pulling in $150m in its series C round last month, and its IPO plans seem to be going smoothly.

Ant Financial closed an immense $14bn of funding in June at a reported $150bn valuation, but a forecasted IPO for company, e-commerce giant Alibaba’s financial services spinoff, has now been put back until the end of 2019 at the earliest according to the FT.

Amazingly, that aforementioned flotation of Ascentage was neither the only nor the biggest exit on Global University Venturing – despite the summer holidays! – with an up to $800m acquisition of University of Bristol spinout Ziylo by pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk towering over everything else.

Deals

Alibaba acquired food delivery platform Ele.me in May at an enterprise value of $9.5bn, and its latest financial statement reveals it has merged the service with its local services spinoff, Koubei.

Slack has secured $427m in a series H round co-led by Dragoneer and General Atlantic at a valuation exceeding $7.1bn.

Car sharing platform Getaround has become the latest company to raise big money in a SoftBank-led round, taking in $300m from a series D round that included existing backer Toyota.

Primary healthcare service One Medical has raised $180m in funding from investors including GV, and three years after its last round, Carlyle Group has now come in for a $350m primary and secondary investment.

CassTime Technologies, a China-based provider of car servicing and parts to corporate clients, has raised $36.4m to increase its series B round to $95m.

Latch has developed a smart access system for buildings and has secured $70m in a series B round led by Brookfield Ventures, the venture capital arm of Brookfield Asset Management, which will begin installing the systems in buildings being developed by its Brookfield Properties subsidiary.

Upgrade has put together an online offering that combines consumer credit with credit monitoring and financial education tools. It was founded by Renaud Laplanche, also the founder of online lending platform LendingClub (a $1.6bn market cap at present), and it’s moved quickly having just closed a $62m series C round led by CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund.

Funds

Latitude Venture Partners, the Indonesia-based venture capital and business development vehicle affiliated with conglomerate Sinar Mas, has secured $200m in capital.

Drone Fund, the Japan-based venture capital firm that targets unmanned aerial vehicle technology, has now secured telecoms firm KDDI, game producer Sega Sammy, price comparison platform Aucfan, engineering consultancy Japan Asia Group, education provider Leave a Nest and Canal Ventures, the investment arm of systems integrator Nihon Unisys, among others, as limited partners in a fund that is targeting a $27m to $45m final close by the end of September.

Dating platform Bumble has launched a corporate venturing fund that will concentrate on female-founded and female-led businesses.

“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0