Tag: Farfetch

01 October 2018 – ByteDance in Funding Talks with SoftBank

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Deals

Reports that China-based digital media company ByteDance was seeking funding at a $75bn valuation emerged a few weeks back, but now they’ve been fleshed out with news that it is in talks with SoftBank, which could provide $1.5bn of a $3bn round that also looks set to include KKR and General Atlantic.

Another Indian unicorn, ride hailing platform Ola, is reportedly in talks with Naspers and Temasek over a $1bn round that could value it at between $7bn and $8bn.

Short-term accommodation platform Oyo has raised $800m from investors including SoftBank Vision Fund and has reportedly secured commitments for a further $200m.

Swiggy is looking to establish itself as the market leader in India’s on-demand food delivery segment and has reportedly opened talks with investors including Tencent over a funding round that could reach $700m and value it at up to $2.5bn.

SoftBank Vision Fund continues to make its presence felt in the venture capital space, its latest deal being a $400m investment in real estate transaction marketplace Opendoor.

SoftBank’s Vision Fund has also invested in the latest round for online real estate brokerage Compass, which secured $400m in a series F round that valued it at $4.4bn post-money.

Butterfly Network, the developer of a handheld ultrasound device, has meanwhile received $250m in series D funding from investors including Fosun Pharma at a $1.25bn valuation.

Payment technology provider Stripe has taken a big step forward, securing $245m in a round that more than doubled its valuation to $20bn in less than two years.

Trucking services platform Manbang Group has been one of the recent success stories in China’s VC space, and now Convoy is aiming to become the sector’s market leader in the US.

UBiome, a US-based microbial genomics technology developer backed by the Stanford-StartX Fund, has raised $83m in series C funding from investors including Dentsu Ventures, the corporate venturing vehicle formed by marketing firm Dentsu.

Funds

Despite its name, SoftBank Ventures Korea hasn’t limited itself to Korean deals, and the unit is looking to establish itself more thoroughly in China with a $300m fund it has formed in partnership with TPG Growth.

The Engine Fund, a tough tech-focused VC vehicle associated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Engine incubator, has reached a final oversubscribed close of $205m.

Exits

2018’s really turning into a banner year for IPOs, with fashion e-commerce marketplace Farfetch the latest tech company to launch a successful offering, floating above its range to raise $885m.

Baxalta Ventures has scored one of the year’s big M&A exits, after Alexion agreed to acquire autoimmune disease drug developer Syntimmune for $400m upfront and up to $800m in milestone-related payments.

Asarina Pharma, a Sweden-based biotechnology spinout of University of Umeå, floated on the Nasdaq First North stock exchange last week after raising more than Skr142m ($16.3m) in an initial public offering.

“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

19 February 2018 – Wells Fargo-backed Venture Firm NVP Closes $1.5bn Fund

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Funds

NVP, the Wells Fargo-backed venture firm has closed its largest ever fund, having secured $1.5bn to invest from seed to late stage.

The mobile advertising platform Calldorado App Growth Fund will provide marketing funds for app developers using its software.

Exits

Pharmaceutical firm Roche agreed yesterday to acquire cancer research technology provider and portfolio company Flatiron Health, paying $1.9bn for the remainder of the company’s shares.

OpenText has paid an undisclosed sum for file sharing service provider Hightail, which had raised $83m from investors including Western Digital Capital.

Luxury fashion e-commerce platform Farfetch is seeking banks for an initial public offeringthat could take place before the end of this year at a valuation of up to $5bn. Strategic investors in line for an exit in the IPO include media group Condé Nast, a shareholder since 2013, and e-commerce firm JD.com, which invested $397m in the company eight months ago.

China-based Huami produces smart wearable devices such as watches and activity tracking bands for its strategic partner, consumer electronics maker Xiaomi, and has just raised $110m in a US initial public offering. Xiaomi, which invested in the company at series A stage, held a 19.3% stake pre-IPO, and the proceeds will be put toward R&D, sales and marketing.

Video sharing platform AcFun, which had raised at least $110m from backers including Youku Tudou and SoftBank, has shut down its operations.

University

MIT spinout Twine Health has agreed to an acquisition by Fitbit and will join the wearable device manufacturer’s Health Solutions group.

Deals

Lightmatter and Lightelligence both emerged out of MIT earlier this month and are exploiting research into photonic computer chips initially conducted jointly by the respective co-founders.

One company feeling the love is JD Logistics. China-based e-commerce firm JD.com had been running its own logistics for 10 years when it officially formed JD Logistics in April 2017, and the latter is now raising $2.5bn in funding that will help it grow on its own.

Celularity, the placenta-based regenerative therapy developer’s investors include Celgene, United Therapeutics, Sorrento Therapeutics, Human Longevity and Genting.

Kakao Games, a multi-platform game developer spun out of Kakao last year, has raised $130m in a round that included strategic backers Tencent, Netmarble Games, Actozsoft and Bluehole Studio. Tencent provided almost $47m of the funding according to Nikkei, and the proceeds will support international expansion as Kakao Games gears up for its own IPO.

Mastercard has participated in a $71m series C round for Yapstone, a provider of payment processing software for online and mobile marketplaces, which took its total financing to about $180m. Mastercard has been unafraid to invest in big rounds, but this is the largest in which it has featured since June last year, when it contributed to a $300m round for another payment processor, AvidXchange.

Rani Therapeutics has now raised $142m in total, its latest investors including GV, Ping An Ventures, GeneScience, AstraZeneca, Shire and Novartis.

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

9 May 2016 – Ford invests in Pivotal Software, Chehejai gets charged up, Adobe buys RayVio, Lenovo establishes a fund and many people moves

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Investments

Ford led a $253m round for Pivotal Software, a spinout of EMC and VMWare. These two corporates also joined the most recent round, alongside Microsoft and existing backer GE.

Chehejia is now $120m better off after investors including water pump producer Leo Group injected capital.

A deal that was simultaneously the biggest for Global Government Venturing and one of the largest on Global Corporate Venturing is Farfetch’s $100m series F round.

On Global University Venturing, the week’s most significant deal was Boston spinout RayVio, which closed a $26m series C round featuring semiconductor manufacturing equipment producer Applied Materials through its corporate venturing arm Applied Ventures.

Exits

Adobe originally backed content curator Livefyre as part of a $32m series D early last year and has obviously been so impressed it’s now acquired the company outright – a decision that allows Salesforce to exit.

Over on GGV, 3D printing designs marketplace Pinshape has been purchased by 3D printers manufacturer Formlabs, giving an exit to investors such as BDC Capital, the investment arm of government-owned Business Development Bank of Canada, who had contributed to Pinshape’s $850,000 seed funding.

Ecomachines Ventures has decided to sell its stake in Warwick spinout Recycling Technologies to an unnamed private investor.

Funds

Lenovo established a $500m corporate venturing fund dubbed Lenovo Capital that will seek out up to 20 investees per year. That’s in addition to plans to spin out up to 10 startups this year.

Heritage Group has received $220m for its latest Healthcare Innovation Fund, which has the rare privilege of being entirely backed by 15 strategic investors in the form of regional US care systems.

Over on GGV then, we have news that sovereign wealth funds now hold $6.51 trillion in total assets.

On the university side, the largest fund this week is a $6m vehicle set up by a graduate of UC Berkeley.

People

On GCV, news emerged that 7-Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of retailer 7-Eleven, is in limbo following the departure of its two co-founders Rob Chumley and Raja Doddala.

Derek Norman has stepped up to take over from Alex Steel as head of agricultural company Syngenta’s investment unit. Norman has been selected for the GCV Rising Stars 2016 list, and we recommend heading on over to globalcorporateventuring.com to read more about his impressive career.

Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, the corporate venturing subsidiary of Merck & Co, has hired Francesca Domenech Wuttke as a managing director.

And then we have Paul Ark, who’s been appointed head of venture capital for SCB Ventures, the $50m strategic investment fund formed by Thailand-based financial services firm Siam Commercial Bank.

Daniel Balmisse moves on from his executive director role at BPIfrance to join Cathay Capital Private Equity as its chief operating officer.

Temasek has reshuffled its firm significantly following internal restructuring and the establishment of new units. The appointments include Chia Song Hwee and Dilhan Pillay as presidents and Fidah Alsagoff, Michael Buchanan, Png Chin Yee and Juliet Teo as senior managing directors.

Duke University has appointed Robin Rasor as new director of its Office of Licensing and Ventures from July 1st. Rasor comes from Michigan University where she was managing director of licensing within the university’s Office of Technology Transfer.

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