Tag: “Horizon Robotics”

21 June 2021 – Waymo Drives $2.5bn Investment

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The Big Ones

Waymo, the autonomous driving technology developer spun off by Alphabet, has raised $2.5bn in funding from investors including its former parent company. AutoNation and Magna International also took part in the round, as did group Fidelity Management & Research, Mubadala, Temasek, Andreessen Horowitz, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Perry Creek Capital, Silver Lake, Tiger Global Management and funds and accounts advised by T Rowe Price. The company reportedly closed its first external funding round at $3.2bn in July 2020, at a $30bn valuation, having pulled in $750m from investors including Fidelity, Perry Creek Capital and funds and accounts advised by T Rowe Price two months earlier. Alphabet, Magna, AutoNation, Silver Lake, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Mubadala Investment Company and Andreessen Horowitz had supplied $2.25bn for Waymo in March the same year.

US-based venture capital firm G2 Venture Partners (G2VP) has closed its Fund II at $500m with commitments from Shell, Mitsui, Daimler and ABB Switzerland. The McKnight Foundation and John Doerr, chairman of VC firm Kleiner Perkins, reportedly also committed to the fund. Shell contributed through its corporate venturing arm, Shell Ventures. It was also a limited partner in G2VP’s inaugural fund, which was sized at $350m. G2VP was founded in 2017 as a spinoff from Kleiner Perkins’ Green Growth fund. It focuses on companies developing emerging technologies that could accelerate sustainable transformation in traditional industries.

Marqeta, a US-based card-issuing platform developer backed by CommerzBank, CreditEase, Visa and Mastercard, has closed its initial public offering at approximately $1.41bn. The company raised an initial $1.22bn in the offering last week, issuing 45.5 million class A shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market priced at $27 each. Its shares are currently (that’s Friday afternoon UK time) for $29.43 each, and the underwriters have taken up the option to buy more than 6.8 million more shares. The IPO followed over $526m in funding for the company.

This isn’t a crossover (although there actually were several worth more than $100m last week – check our websites for more on those), but this one’s too interesting to skip just because there aren’t any CVCs. Celonis, a Germany-based business process analytics software spinout of Technical University of Munich (TUM), has raised $1bn in a series D round co-led by Durable Capital Partners and funds and accounts advised by T Rowe Price Associates. What makes this one special isn’t so much the size of the round (as impressive as that is, obviously) but that it valued Celonis at $11bn post-money, making it Germany’s first decacorn. Celonis has now raised nearly $1.37bn in funding altogether. The spinout fetched a $2.5bn valuation when it raised $290m in a series C round led by Arena Holdings, and – almost as notable as being the first decacorn in the country – Celonis also became TUM’s first unicorn when it closed a $50m series B round backed by Accel and 83North in June 2018. How’s that for a European success story?

Deals

China-based semiconductor technology developer Horizon Robotics has raised $1.5bn in series C7 funding from electronic parts manufacturer BOE Technology and chipmaker Will Semiconductor. The round was secured at a $5bn valuation, and it came after a $300m series C6 round at an unspecified time that included Legend Capital, Huangpu River Capital and unnamed others.

Byju’s, an India-based online learning portal backed by Bennett Coleman & Co, Naspers and Tencent, has secured Rs 25bn ($340m) in funding. UBS Group, Blackstone, Abu Dhabi government-backed ADQ and Phoenix Rising–Beacon Holdings as well as Eric Yuan all took part in the round. The cash injection is part of a $1.5bn round Byju’s began raising in April this year, sources privy to the matter told the Economic Times, and it valued the company at $16.5bn post-money.

US-based graph technology provider Neo4J received $325m in a series F round featuring GV. Private equity firm Eurazeo led the round at a valuation exceeding $2bn, and DTCP, the investment firm backed by Deutsche Telekom, also took part, as did One Peak, Creandum, Greenbridge Partners and Lightrock. The company was founded in 2007 as Neo Technology and has now raised $515m.

ApplyBoard, the Canada-based international student facilitation service that counts educational services firm Educational Testing Service (ETS) as an investor, has confirmed a C$375m ($308m) series D round. Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board led the round through its Teachers’ Innovation Platform, and it included investment and financial services group Fidelity in addition to BDC, Harmonic Growth Partners, Index Ventures, Garage Capital and Blue Cloud Ventures. The company’s confirmation came in the wake of media reports a week earlier suggesting it had raised $230m in the round, which it said this week valued it at $3.2bn post-money.

Chehaoduo, the China-based automotive e-commerce marketplace backed by SoftBank, Tencent and Shougang, has closed a $300m funding round valuing it at $10bn. H Capital led the round, which also featured Sequoia Capital China, IDG Capital and Chehaoduo founder and CEO Yang Haoyong. The company’s overall equity funding now stands at about $3.8bn. It was spun off by online classified listings operator Ganji in 2015.

Thumbtack, the US-headquartered operator of a home renovation services marketplace, has raised $275m from investors including CapitalG, the growth equity arm of Alphabet. Sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority led the round, which also featured Blackstone’s Alternative Asset Management subsidiary, G Squared, Baillie Gifford, Founders Circle Capital, Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global Management. The round valued the company at $3.2bn. The latest round boosted the company’s overall funding to $697m.

Yaoshibang, the China-based operator of a supply chain platform for the pharmaceutical industry, has raised $270m in funding from investors including internet group Baidu. Zhejiang Pearl River Investment Management, Green Pine Capital Partners and Guangzhou City Construction Investment’s SF Fund also participated in the round, along with unnamed insurance firms and sovereign wealth funds. It was facilitated by China Renaissance.

Funds

Flagship Pioneering, a US-based biotechnology venture studio that regularly taps into university research to build companies such as Moderna, has raised another $2.23bn for its Fund VII from new and existing limited partners, bringing the vehicle to $3.37bn. It reopened the fund to additional capital in April this year but didn’t identify the LPs. Flagship now has $14.1bn in assets under management and is operating with an aggregate capital pool of $6.7bn. It has launched more than 100 ventures since its founding, with a current portfolio of 41 companies.

Exits

UK-based clean aircraft developer Vertical Aerospace has agreed to a reverse takeover with special purpose acquisition company Broadstone Acquisition Corp that will be backed by American Airlines, Avolon, Honeywell, Rolls-Royce, Standard Industries’ 40 North vehicle and Microsoft’s M12 unit. The merged business will be valued at $2.2bn and will take up the listing on the New York Stock secured by Broadstone through a $300m initial public offering in September 2020.

Kanzhun, a China-based online job portal operator backed by internet group Tencent and insurance firm Sunshine Life, has floated in a $912m initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. The company issued 48 million American depositary shares, each representing two ordinary shares, priced at the top of the IPO’s $17 to $19 range. As we’re recording this on Friday afternoon UK time, shares are going for $38.

Monday.com, the US-based software development platform operator that now counts Salesforce and Zoom as investors, has closed its initial public offering at $631m. The corporates each purchased $75m of shares in a private placement alongside the offering, which involved Monday issuing an initial 3.7 million shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market a week ago priced at $155 each. The underwriters subsequently took up the option to buy another 370,000 shares to close the offering. As we’re recording this on Friday afternoon UK time, shares are priced at $230.96.

Lyell Immunopharma, a US-based immunotherapy developer which counts GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Celgene as investors, has raised $425m in its initial public offering. The company issued 25 million shares on the Nasdaq Global Market at a price of $17 each, the mid-point of the offering’s $16 to $18 range. Its shares closed at $16.89 at the end of the first day. Lyell had raised $834m across just three rounds since it was founded in 2018. GSK has walked away with a 12.5% stake post-IPO, while Celgene’s retained 4.5%.

Verve Therapeutics, a US-based cardiovascular disease therapy developer advancing Broad Institute and University of Pennsylvania research, has gone public in a $267m initial public offering representing exits Alphabet and Novo. The offering consists of just over 14 million shares issued on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, increased from 11.8 million and priced at $19.00 each, above the $16 to $18 range set for the offering. The IPO price valued the company at approximately $876m.

Wise, the UK-based operator of a cross-border capital transfer service, plans to launch a direct listing that would give conglomerate Mitsui a chance to sell its shares. The company plans to list on the London Stock Exchange. Formerly known as TransferWise, Wise runs an online platform that allows users to send money internationally without paying exorbitant fees typically associated with international bank transfers. Wise last raised primary funding in 2017 but was valued at $5bn in a $319m secondary share sale in July 2020.

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

15 February 2021 – Nationwide Increases Nationwide Ventures Allocation to $350m

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The Big Ones

1

I was catching up with a former corporate venturing leader this month as she described a healthy portfolio of activities covering public and private board roles and “forming a SPAC – isn’t everyone?”

Yes, is probably the answer to working on a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), if you are part of the financial in-crowd at least.

The latest report is that LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and tech entrepreneur Mark Pincus are nearing a deal to merge their blank cheque company with Joby Aviation, valuing the flying taxi developer at about $5.7bn, according to the Financial Times.

Joby, which has raised more than $800m from investors including corporate backers Toyota, Uber, JetBlue and Intel among others, is hoping to start operations from 2024, similar to peers Lilium and Archer.

Archer recently secured a $3.8bn public listing through a SPAC and a $1bn order from United Airlines that will come into play when its flying taxis are approved by the US regulators.

You can see what is attractive to the promoters of the SPAC, as they might receive up to 20% of the offer as shares. In a $5.7bn deal that is a lot of money, and even if the aftermarket underperforms for some reason, Hoffman and Pincus will have earned a fortune.

For Joby, it provides new capital to cover development costs. As to why public market investors want access at this stage of risk, that is baffling, but the promise of growth in a potential market seems to be enough for now.

You can see why SoftBank Group, which is heavily committed through its $100bn-plus Vision Funds, has urged some of its high-profile portfolio companies to accelerate plans for stock market listings.

“They are being fairly transparent in their agenda that they would like everybody to list,” an executive at a company backed by Vision Fund told Nikkei Asia, the owner of the FT, earlier this week. The person described the argument as very logical: “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and you should take it.”

But for corporate venturers trying to do deals, SPACs are throwing out the calculations for new potential deals. As one new CVC head said: “Everything is different. We used to focus on potential revenues and let the equity return equation sort itself out over five years. SPACs are impacting on valuation.”

But when capital is this abundant everyone is looking at allocating cash to the potential winners.

2

But, if innovation is speeding up, capital is abundant and invention is the root of success in driving equity, why did a record number of corporations stop investing last year?

Management changes, internal politics, not-invented-here antibodies, financial pressures on corporate cashflows and balance sheets, tensions between long-time horizon investing and business unit and C-suite strategy, and a host of other issues still bedevil the community.

Corporate venturing leaders with scars on their backs know how to manage these concerns, and spend at least half their time managing internal fires and stakeholders, even if this means leaving less time for building a team and investing in startups that will be relevant in the future for both financial and strategic reasons.

The most powerful tool, however, remains the use of mimetic desire. Being able to point to a peer senior managers respect who is doing corporate venturing successfully is a powerful argument, just as it was when Claudia Fan Munce at IBM was able to do so in referencing Dan’l Lewin at Microsoft in the wake of the dotcom crash after 2001.

But referencing is just a start. The community has been collaborative and supportive to new personnel within experienced units as well as the 800 or so newer units executing their first deal last year.

The sharing at the Global Corporate Venturing events and Connect powered by Proseeder digital tool drives the dealmaking and community, and the mentoring and learning now happens throughout the year through the GCV Institute, our new professional development program launched last month.

The webinar today will update the community on the planned courses for how corporate leaders can understand why and how best to use the corporate venturing tools, as well as train up the CVCs and help land the value back into the parent. My thanks to Liz Arrington, Patty Burke and James Gunnell for leading the webinar, and to all the Institute’s advisers and mentors for showing where the proverbial puck is heading and helping us all skate there beforehand.

3

It would have made for interesting few months for Tina Nova, a director at Nasdaq-listed genomic diagnostics company Veracyte.

Nova is also president and CEO of Decipher Biosciences, a peer specialising in urologic oncology that markets genomic tests for prostate and bladder cancers.

Veracyte has agreed to acquire Decipher, formerly known as GenomeDx Biosciences, for $600m. Nova has now left Veracyte’s board and will become general manager of its urologic cancer business unit.

Nova ran a dual track process at Decipher. Investment bank Evercore had advised on the trade sale as well as an initial public offering.

Decipher had filed last month for a $100m IPO as a price discovery mechanism and to keep Veracyte fair in its valuation given Nova had been on its board.

It is also another exit for US-listed pharmaceutical firm Merck & Co in the diagnostics and tools space. Merck owned 8.8% of Decipher having sold Preventice to Boston Scientific for up to $1.025bn last month.

UnitedHealth Group Ventures, the investment arm of UnitedHealth Group, holds an 11.4% stake in Decipher.

But with both the M&A and IPO markets heating up there will be plenty of chances for the other corporate-backed startups in the space to capitalise.

Funds

Nationwide began forming a corporate venturing team back in 2015, and in 2017, after forming investment vehicle Nationwide Ventures the previous year, it put aside roughly $100m for corporate venture capital deals. It has since invested in 25 financial and insurance technology developers and must like what it has seen, because it has upped its VC allocation to $350m. The company’s portfolio already includes Next Insurance, BlueVine and Hover.

Astia marshals Mastercard for $100m fund

Exits

Oscar Health is the latest highly valued tech company to file for an initial public offering, having raised almost $1.7bn in venture funding from investors including Alphabet and Ping An since it was founded in 2012. The digital health insurer was valued at $3.75bn in 2018 and has subsequently secured $365m in funding at a valuation that was surely higher. Interestingly, one of its largest rivals, Hippo, is reported to be in talks to list through a reverse merger.

The IPO market is still at a fever pitch of course. Immunotherapy developer Immunocore has gone public in a $258m offering in which it increased the number of shares while floating above its range. The Eli Lilly and WuXi AppTec-backed company has since seen its shares shoot up by 66%, taking its market capitalisation near to the $1.8bn mark.

Bolt Biotherapeutics has had a similarly successful IPO, increasing the number of shares by 30% and pricing them above the range to raise $230m. All its main shareholders, including Novo and Nan Fung’s Pivotal BioVenture Partners, bought shares in the offering, and the oncology drug developer’s shares also rose considerably on their first day of trading to increase its market cap to more than $1bn.

Vor Biopharma forces through $177m IPO

Terns directs itself on to public markets

Sensei graduates to $133m IPO

Matterport has almost as many corporate backers, all of whom are set to score an exit after the 3D modelling technology provider agreed to a reverse merger with special purpose acquisition company Gores Holdings V. The deal will involve Matterport listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market and will value the merged company at $2.9bn. Its investors include Qualcomm Ventures, CBRE, Ericsson Ventures, AMD Ventures, News Corp and PTC.

Hyzon Robotics will also get a Nasdaq Capital Market listing through its own reverse merger transaction, with this one set to value it at $2.1bn. The company was only spun off by Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies a little over a year ago, subsequently raising an undisclosed amount from investors including Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures in October. It is preparing to ship its first hydrogen fuel cell-powered trucks to customers later this year.

Pet care services provider Rover has had its issues over the years but nevertheless looks set to make it on to the public markets after agreeing a reverse merger with special purpose acquisition company Nebula Caravel Acquisition Corp. The transaction looks set to value the merged company, Rover Group, at about $1.6bn. It comes after some $280m in venture funding from investors including pet product retailer Petco.

Hyperconnect meets Match in $1.73bn deal

Deals

Digital health remains a big growth point in the venture capital space, and Yuanxin Technology has just completed a $466m series E round co-led by Tencent. Yuanxin offers telemedicine consultations, prescription medication payment tools and a health insurance offering, and this is its fourth round in just over two years. Tencent has been an investor since at least 2015.

Horizon Robotics has pulled in $350m through a series C3 round backed by Sunny Optical and automotive manufacturers BYD Auto, Great Wall Motors, Changjiang Automobile Electronic, Changzhou Xingyu Car Light and Dongfeng Motor’s Dongfeng Asset unit. The round boosted the AI chipmaker’s overall series C funding to $900m, all of which was raised in the past two months. Its existing investors include Contemporary Amperex Technology, Intel Capital, SK China and SK Hynix.

Advertising dollars continue to be tricky in digital media unless you occupy a specific niche, and if Google dominates the search engine space and Facebook social media, Reddit is effectively the leader in what was once known as online forums. It’s boosted advertising revenue 90% in the last year on the back of some increasingly prevalent mainstream press coverage. It has also bagged $250m in a round led by Vy Capital at a $6bn valuation. That’s double the valuation at which it last raised money, in a Tencent-led round two years ago.

Transport technology has been the big mover in the first few weeks of 2021, and the latest company in the sector to close a nine-figure round is Plus, developer of an automated trucking system it plans to begin shipping later this year. The company has raised $200m in a round co-led by Wanxiang International Investment and backed by existing investor Full Truck Alliance (AKA Manbang Group). The presence of automotive parts producer Wanxiang and trucking services marketplace Full Truck also hints at the kind of strategic partners with which it is working.

Nexthink, a developer of workplace experience management software, has secured $180m in series D funding at a $1.1bn valuation. The company, whose earlier investors include Mannai Corporation, has now raised at least $325m altogether, with the series D round led by investment firm Permira’s Growth Opportunities Fund.

Day One Biopharmaceuticals emerged from stealth nine months ago with $60m in series A funding from investors including Access Biotechnology, which has returned for the oncology drug developer’s $130m series B round. The proceeds will support the progress of Day One’s lead paediatric cancer treatment candidate, which has just entered phase 2 studies.

Cybersecurity technology producer Armis also had a productive 2020, being acquired by Insight Partners in January in a $1.1bn deal that included a $100m investment by Alphabet’s CapitalG subsidiary. It’s still raising money however, and has received a reported $125m from investors including CapitalG at a $2bn valuation. The round was led by Brookfield Technology Partners, and Armis said it has now raised $300m in funding altogether.

Stash stores $125m in series G round

PGDx picks up $103m in series C

Pony.ai pins down $100m

Clear queues up $100m round

Dailyhunt chases down $100m in series H

Powin powers up with $100m

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

11 January 2021 – Online Tutoring Platform Zuoyebang Raises $1.6bn Series E

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The Big Ones

One of the big shifts in 2020 was the surge in educational technology providers, with China leading the way. That was before a flurry of large rounds in the space right before the end of the year, the biggest being a $1.6bn series E round for online tutoring platform developer Zuoyebang that included Alibaba and SoftBank Vision Fund 1. Zuoyebang’s overall funding now stands at roughly $2.9bn, some 80% of which has come in the past seven months.

Andre Maciel, former managing partner at Japan-headquartered telecommunications and internet group SoftBank’s $5bn Latin America-focused fund, has raised $50m for the first close of an independent venture capital firm. Maciel set up Volpe Capital in 2019 with SoftBank’s backing, and its first fund also has investment bank BTG Pactual as a cornerstone limited partner. Marcelo Claure, head of SoftBank LatAm, and the $5bn fund’s managing partners, Paulo Passoni and Shu Nyattta, have also invested in the fund. Volpe Capital plans to invest in up to 20 early stage companies at series A stage, with a primary focus on the Brazilian market, according to regional trade body Lavca.

SoFi has come a long way since it started as a student loan refinancing specialist, having expanded into a multi-pronged financial services platform that offers lending, investment and insurance products. The company, which has raised some $2.4bn from investors including SoftBank and Renren, has also agreed a reverse merger with a SPAC called Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp V and will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The deal will be boosted by $1.2bn in PIPE financing and the merged company will be valued at $8.65bn once the deal closes, double the valuation at which SoFi last raised money.

On GUV, the biggest deal was Hinge Health, a US-based digital therapeutics company backed by commercialisation firm IP Group, which closed a $300m series D round co-led by Coatue Management and Tiger Global. The round valued Hinge at $3bn. Founded in 2014, Hinge Health has built a digital healthcare platform for people living with chronic musculoskeletal conditions, such as back and joint pain. The offering consists of an app, wearable sensors and access to remote health coaching to deliver physical and behavioural health therapy. Hinge Health was co-founded by chief executive Daniel Perez, who gained a PhD in medical sciences from University of Oxford in 2013, and president Gabriel Mecklenburg, who obtained an MPhil in bioengineering from Imperial College London in 2014. But the company was only founded after both had graduated and worked together at Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable, an organisation looking to connect academia with industry since 2011.

Deals

B2B e-commerce marketplace Udaan has pulled in $280m from investors including Tencent for the second tranche of a series D round now standing at $865m. Tencent also took part in the round’s 2019 first close, as did Citi Ventures, and the extra funding came at a $3.1bn post-money valuation. Its overall funding has been increased to $1.15bn.

Online food delivery and restaurant listings platform developer Zomato has pulled in $660m through a series J round valuing it at $3.9bn post-money. Info Edge and Ant Financial, the two corporates that have historically been its two key investors, do not however appear to have participated in the round, the funding coming from Fidelity, Tiger Global Management, Luxor Capital, Kora Management, D1 Capital Partners, Baillie Gifford, Mirae Asset and Steadview Capital.

Cloud cybersecurity platform developer Lacework has closed $525m in funding from investors including Snowflake Ventures, which provided $20m, and existing backer Liberty Global Ventures. The company had previously raised less than $75m but said it increased revenue 300% in 2020, and that big jump in funding is indicative of how the ongoing public markets tech boom is having an impact further down the pyramid.

As 2020 drew to a close, game creation platform developer Roblox had put its initial public offering on hold, citing erratic post-IPO share movement of other tech companies. Now we can see what the results are. Roblox has secured $520m in a series H round featuring Warner Music Group valuing it at $29.5bn – a more than sevenfold increase on the $4bn valuation in its series G round under a year ago. The company has also revealed it’s eschewing an IPO in favour of a direct listing, which suggests it really wasn’t happy with its underwriters for the offering.

DXY, the Chinese operator of an online medical community, has completed a $500m round featuring Tencent Investment, at the end of a year when it established a real-time information service covering covid-19 that aimed to combat harmful rumours. Tencent had originally invested $70m in DXTY through a 2014 round that preceded a $100m series D round four years later.

Chinese AI chipmaker Horizon Robotics secured $150m in series C funding just last month but has already added $400m in a series C2 round co-led by lithium-ion battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology. Recent reports suggested the company was targeting a total of $700m across multiple tranches, its earlier backers including Intel Capital and SK Global subsidiaries SK China and SK Hynix.

Grab is one of two big players in Southeast Asia’s on-demand ride market, and it has also been arguably the quickest in the sector worldwide to expand into other areas. It has reportedly raised $300m for Grab Financial Group, a spinoff that encompasses a range of financial services including digital payment technology, lending, insurance and investment management. Conglomerate Hanwha is leading the round through its Hanwha Asset Management subsidiary.

Chinese AI chipmaker Enflame Technology has raised $279m in the biggest round announced so far this year. Enflame produces artificial intelligence chips for data centres and has now secured a total of over $470m since it was founded in 2018. Tencent, which participated in the $279m series C round, has backed it in all four rounds it has disclosed.

Aeva develops lidar sensor technology for use in autonomous driving systems, and two months ago it agreed a reverse merger with a SPAC called InterPrivate Acquisition Corp set to value it at about $2.1bn once the deal closed. Now the company, which is backed by Porsche and Lockheed Martin, has agreed a $200m investment by one of InterPrivate’s shareholders, technology investment firm Sylebra Capital, that will close when the other deal does. It’s an interesting symptom of the ongoing public markets boom.

Divvy is the developer of an offering that combines business expense management software with smart credit cards, helping companies track and manage their expenses and spending. It has secured $165m in a series D round featuring Hanaco and PayPal Ventures at a $1.6bn valuation. The round increased Divvy’s overall funding to $410m, $200m of which came in a 2019 series C round.

Dremio, developer of a data management platform for data lake storage, has received $135m in series D funding from backers including Cisco Investments at a $1bn valuation. The corporate also took part in Dremio’s $70m series C round 10 months ago, and the latest round boosted its total funding to $250m. We’ve had a host of big enterprise software IPOs over the past year or two, but it looks as if the next wave of unicorns in the space is emerging.

Antibody therapy developer Boan Biotech has raised $106m from investors including Bank of China’s BOCG investment vehicle at a pre-money valuation a touch over $750m. The company was founded in 2013 and acquired by Luye Pharma Group six years later, the latest round representing the first it has closed since then.

Funds

US-based sports franchises the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Bucks and Milwaukee Brewers have backed an impact investment fund for minority-run startups. The franchises committed to Equity League as “a new impact investment division of venture capital fund TitletownTech,” alongside software producer Microsoft.

Exits

Arvelle Therapeutics was spun off in 2019 by drug developer Axovant to commercialise an epilepsy drug licensed from pharmaceutical company SK Biopharmaceuticals. The company bagged $208m in series A and project funding last year but its investors will exit after Angelini Pharma agreed to acquire it in a deal that could hit $960m. SK Bio will also get a nice return from its 12% stake in Arvelle.

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

04 March 2019 – Honda, Panasonic and Omron Become Limited Partners in NordicNinja VC’s First Fund

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Big 3

Charles Conn and Patrick Pichette will join Oxford Sciences Innovation to become chief executive and chairman, respectively, with founder Dave Norwood retiring.

Honda, Panasonic and Omron are among the limited partners of NordicNinja VC’s inaugural fund, which will focus on deep tech and help northern European startups expand into Asia.

Novartis has joined forces with Blackstone Life Sciences to launch cardiovascular drug developer Anthos Therapeutics.

Deals

Reports earlier this month suggested SoftBank Vision Fund was considering a large investment in automotive e-commerce platform Chehaoduo and today the company confirmed it secured a commitment for $1.5bn from the telecoms giant.

AI chip developer Horizon Robotics added $600m to its coffers today thanks to two subsidiaries of conglomerate SK Group – SK China and SK Hynix – as well as several unnamed Chinese carmakers.

Danke Apartment, the Chinese company that splits existing flats for families into smaller units and rents them out to young professionals, has collected $500m in a series C round co-led by Ant Financial and Tiger Global Management.

Coinbase raised $300m in series E capital back in October but now reports have emerged that GIC, the sovereign wealth fund of Singapore, was part of that round too. T

GV has meanwhile helped launch Maze Therapeutics by contributing to a $191m funding round that also featured Alexandria Venture Investments. Maze, which has three preclinical candidates in its pipeline, will exploit genetic modifiers – genes that affect the severity of a disease – to tackle a variety of diseases, though it’s keeping shtum about what those are for now.

Ÿnsect is aiming to tackle environmental issues in the food supply chain by breeding mealworms and using them as the basis for fish feed, pet food and fertiliser, and now the company has added sugar producer Finasucre to its shareholders following a $125m series C round.

Motif Ingredients has been spun out of biotech firm Ginkgo Bioworks with $90m in series A capital from investors including merchant firm Louis Dreyfus Company and dairy cooperative Fonterra.

Exits

Spark Therapeutics publicly listed in 2015 and is set to net Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia up to $458m following its acquisition by Roche.

Reports about Uber wanting to merge its Middle East operations with those of Careem go back to July last year, but it looks like the deal’s closure is approaching fast and with a higher price tag attached – $3bn in cash and shares instead of the initially reported $2bn to $2.5bn. I

A (possible) exit of a different kind came for Motorola Solutions Venture Capital, whose portfolio company GoCanvas has attracted $150m from K1 Investment Management in what has widely been billed as a majority stake purchase.

CStone Pharmaceuticals, a China-based biopharmaceutical company backed by Taikang and WuXi PharmaTech, raised $285m in its IPO and achieved a valuation of $1.5bn after selling shares to both Hong Kong and international investors.

Zoom, the video conferencing platform backed by Qualcomm, is inching ever closer to a long-rumoured initial public offering and it looks like April is the current target.

Tiger Brokers, an online brokerage backed by consumer electronics company Xiaomi and digital brokerage Interactive Brokers Group, meanwhile filed for a $150m initial public offering on Nasdaq.

Digital brokerage Futu has meanwhile revised its initial public offering plans and now hopes to raise up to $150m when it lists on the Nasdaq Global Market.

Centogene scents IPO

Funds

EU-owned institutions including the EIF are pouring capital and assistance into an early-stage tech transfer vehicle for the Fraunhofer network of applied research institutes.

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