Tag: Xerox

08 February 2021 – Robinhood Raises $3.4bn

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The Big Ones

Few VC-backed companies have had as busy a week in the mainstream media as Robinhood. The share trading platform developer has been ground zero for the GameStop rush as well as increased activity for other “meme” stocks like AMC, Nokia and BlackBerry. But those increased trading levels means more cash required to meet SEC requirements, and the Alphabet and Roc Nation-backed company first raised $1bn from existing investors along with some $500m to $600m in debt financing a week ago Friday and then another $2.4bn over the weekend to come out with $3.4bn last Monday.

Kuaishou went public in Hong Kong this Friday morning in a hugely oversubscribed initial public offering in which it raised $5.4bn, only to see its shares open at a price nearly three times that of its IPO. The short-form video app developer had secured $4.35bn in funding from investors including Tencent and Baidu prior to the offering and now has a market cap that stands around the $160bn mark.

US-based printing technology producer Xerox plans to launch innovation and corporate development divisions through a reorganisation involving the formation of a $250m corporate venturing arm. Xerox’s Corporate Development group will engage in investments and merger and acquisition deals as well as deploying the recently announced $250m fund. The unit is yet to be launched but will invest in mid-sized, growth-stage companies aligned with Xerox’s strategic interests. It will be led by executive vice-president Louie Pastor, who has also been appointed chief corporate development officer and chief legal officer.

Crossover is an exit this week. Stem cell immunotherapy developer Sana Biotechnology –based on research at Harvard, UCSF and University of Washington, and co-founded by former executives of Juno that was acquired by Celgene for $9bn a couple of years ago – has floated in an offering that netted it nearly $588m (more than four times as much as its $150m original target), reputedly representing the largest IPO yet for a preclinical biotech company. Shares surged 40% on the first day (from $25 to $35.10) so that greenshoe option seems likely, which could push proceeds to nearly $676m. It comes about eight months after Sana Bio disclosed $700m in early-stage funding from investors including GV, the Alphabet subsidiary formerly known as Google Ventures. Its current share price gives it a market cap of about $7bn.

Deals

It’s interesting that after the Ubers and Airbnbs of the world have gone public, a wave of new companies in more coronavirus-resistant sectors have stepped up to fill that void at the top of the VC-backed valuation heap, and quickly too. Data engineering software producer DataBricks has received $1bn from investors including Microsoft, AWS, CapitalG and Salesforce Ventures in a series G round valuing it at $28bn. That’s a more than fourfold increase from its series F, just over a year ago.

UiPath’s valuation is even higher, the automation software provider having pulled in $750m in series F funding at a $35bn post-money valuation. Corporate investors Tencent and CapitalG weren’t identified as participants in the round, which more than tripled UiPath’s valuation from its July series E, and it’s going to be interesting to see how much higher that valuation can go when it executes the IPO for which it confidentially filed in December.

Online food delivery has been heavily boosted in the past year and Good Eggs combines several different areas – prepared food and meal kits, farm-to-table produce, alcohol and flower delivery – in a single offering. It’s also managed to raise $100m from investors including GV and Rich’s despite operating mainly in the San Francisco Bay Area. The capital will support its expansion into Southern California, with wider movement surely on the horizon.

Tealium, developer of a management software tool for customer data, has secured $96m in series G financing at a $1.2bn valuation, increasing its overall funding to $160m. Its earlier funding came from investors including Sumitomo’s Presidio Ventures unit, ABN Amro Digital Impact Fund, Citi Ventures and Parkwood, though none were named in the latest round, which was co-led by Georgian and Silver Lake Waterman.

Mobile Premier League, the developer of an online gaming platform focused on the South and Southeast Asian markets, was founded about three years ago and has already notched up its fourth funding round, raising $95m from investors including Susquehanna International Group, Go-Ventures and Telstra Ventures. The series D round valued it at $945m post-money and the proceeds will go to bolstering its esports offering.

Funds

Telecoms and internet group SoftBank is launching a $100m fund to invest in companies based around the Miami, Florida area of the United States. The vehicle has already chosen its first portfolio companies, including cybersecurity software developer Lumu Technologies. It will invest in locally-founded startups as well as those willing to move to the area.

Exits

Genetic testing service 23andme has chosen to go the reverse merger route for a public listing, joining with VG Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company sponsored by conglomerate Virgin Group in a deal that will value the merged business at about $3.5bn. It had received more than $870m in funding pre-IPO from an investor base that includes GV (which is scoring some huge exits right now), WuXi AppTec, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche and Illumina.

Astra is set to become the first private space launch services provider to hit the public markets, having agreed a reverse merger with special purpose acquisition company Holicity at an implied valuation of $2.1bn. The deal was agreed a year after Astra emerged from stealth having secured over $100m from investors including Airbus Ventures, which is slowly growing a significant presence in the spacetech sector, and two months after it launched its first rocket into space.

Drizly’s investors, which include Vayner/RSE, are heading for an exit of a different kind after the alcohol delivery service agreed to be acquired by Uber for $1.1bn. The company had disclosed approximately $85m in funding and will join an expanding range of Uber delivery services spearheaded by its Uber Eats subsidiary. It also stands as a sign of growth in the on-demand service sector, and perhaps forthcoming consolidation.

Roblox has had an extremely busy couple of months, filing for and then postponing its initial public offering, changing over to a direct listing, raising $520m from investors including Warner Music Group at a hugely increased $29.5bn valuation and now reportedly putting its plans to go public on hold. The game creation platform developer, which also counts Tencent among its investors, is postponing the listing due to regulatory scrutiny on how it classifies revenue from sales of its Robux currency on the platform.

Shared workspace provider Knotel was valued above $1bn just 18 months ago but has now filed for bankruptcy, a reminder that while some business models have thrived during the coronavirus pandemic, others have been far unluckier. Knotel had raised roughly $560m from investors including Mori Trust, Rocket Internet, Itochu, Bloomberg Beta, The Sapir Organization, Raiffeisen, Wolfson Group, Moinian Group and Wainbridge Capital.

“Funky Chunk” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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01 February 2021 – Xerox Sets Up $250m Corporate Venture Capital Fund

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The Big Ones

GCV Digital Forum 2021 event had a host of highlights, including awards, the World of Corporate Venturing annual review, magazines and to bring together such luminaries to share insights and deal flow through the GCV Connect powered by Proseeder platform as well as commercially bring in the subscribers, sponsors and attendees.

To have about 1,000 at the forum and Mach 49 workshop and hundreds of meetings and engagement with the pitch sessions is awesome, particularly through the regional and sectoral meetings, such as for the hydrogen roundtable and Global Energy Council meeting and report.

The event also showcased the launches of our professional development and community platforms for venture investors of all types to meet up, the GCV Institute and Global Innovation Venturing, respectively.

We have together really set out the stall for this year for the growth of the GCV Leadership Society, GCV Connect powered by Proseeder platform, Global Innovation Venturing, GCV Institute including Academy and a boost to readers across our titles, with my colleague, Thierry Heles bringing out the latest quarterly report for Global University Venturing.
Let us work together to achieve our common goals. There is strength in unity.

Xerox sets up $250m corporate venture capital fund

Xerox’s has now set up a reported $250m corporate venture capital (CVC) fund. The timing is notable for a few reasons.

First, Tolga Kurtoglu, Xerox’s head of research, left late last year, to this month join computer maker HP – probably Silicon Valley’s original archetypal company having been founded by Stanford University students from their garage – as chief technology officer.
Second, Xerox is back into CVC after one of the most seminal journeys into CVC.

As CB Insights in its excellent history of the industry noted: “Xerox had had an active CVC program since the 1960s, operating an internally managed fund that invested in some of the most legendary figures in Silicon Valley, including Raymond Kurzweil [proponent of the singularity between people and machines] and Steve Jobs [founder of Apple]….

“Xerox started Xerox Technology Ventures (XTV) in 1988 to exploit and monetize the technology created in Parc and its other research labs, funding it with $30m.

“The company’s chairman said at the time that it was ‘a hedge against repeated missteps of the past’. Apple was one of several examples in which technology initially developed by Xerox was commercialized by more nimble competitors.”

But Parc also developed the laser printer among a host of projects and XTV was an enormous financial success, netting capital gains of $219m on the company’s initial investment, an astounding net internal rate of return of 56%, CB Insights’ history notes.

XTV was terminated, reportedly due to politics, and replaced with Xerox New Enterprises, which did not relinquish control of firms or allow for outside investment and had less success.

Which direction Xerox’s new fund takes will showcase whether the new management since the 1990s has learned the right lessons and there are now plenty of examples of groups setting up for success and longevity, as identified in the GCV Digital Forum over the past week.

Thanks to the 1,000 or so investors, including those part of the GCV Leadership Society who joined this Festival of Corporate Venturing and helped with the pilot and roll out of the GCV Institute launched to provide the professional development to recruit, retain and train CVCs and their business units and executive on the right approaches. In innovation we trust and we welcome Xerox and its CEO, John Visentin, back into the community

Focus on large acquisitions

There are certainly all these elements to Preventice’s acquisition by Boston Scientific for up to $1.025bn. But the conditions for these deals are set by the animal spirits in the wider public markets.

And here the music is certainly playing as Silicon Valley Bank notes in annual healthcare report.

The boom in diagnostics (dx/tools as a subsector) was set by last year’s flotation of  digital disease management company Livongo in an $355m initial public offering. The following year saw telehealth group Teladoc acquire Livongo for $18.5bn.

And behind both Preventice and Livongo was US-listed drugs group Merck’s corporate venturing unit, Global Health Innovation (GHI).

William Taranto, head of Merck GHI, noted by email: “This is our second unicorn for GHI in the last 18 months (Livongo and Preventice). We were majority owner of Preventice.”

Jon Otterstatter, co-founder and CEO of Preventice Technologies, and Taranto in a session moderated by Heidi Mason of Bell Mason Group spoke at length at the GCV Symposium a few years ago. Mason when asked by email remembered it well. “I recall being on your London Symposium stage with Bill and Jon some years ago, talking about strategic vision and gainful implementation before [the] ‘CVC ecosystem investor model’ was common wisdom.

“Bill and Jon discussing how their strategic innovation partnership was forged with vision of new digital health market [and] new sector…and even then, they were anticipating this type of M&A or IPO as a future rung in their strategic platform ‘ascension’ story.”

Merck operates a $500m GHI Fund and added a $700m private equity fund to be able to buy-and-build and take larger stakes across the ecosystem. For his GCV Powerlist 2016 award, Taranto said: “We are focused on using our growth equity firm to create ecosystems around oncology and infectious disease.

“We are very proud to have acquired and merged Preventice Solutions and eCardio, then bringing in Boston Scientific as our partner.”

After a merger with eCardio and a spin-out after acquisition, Joe Volpe, general manager of Merck’s $700m fund and a GCV Rising Star 2016, said the Preventice asset deal paid Merck back more than 80% of what was invested and left it still owning about 48% of the asset with significant value. This was increased to majority control in last year’s $137m round, while Boston Scientific owned about 22% stake in Preventice pre-takeover.

As SVB notes in its annual healthcare report: “Historically, we have seen few, if any, large private dx/tools acquisitions….

“However, in 2020, we saw three multi-billion dollar private M&A (ArcherDX [bought for $1.4bn by Invitae], Grail [acquired by Illumina for $8bn] and Thrive Earlier Detection taken over by Exact Sciences for $2.2bn]), two of which were pre-commercial….

“All three deals exited in less than five years from the close of their series A….

“We anticipate [this year] an even split between $1bn-plus IPOs and M&A, as big-deal IPO/M&A optionality has arrived in the sector.”

Just in the past week has been a further 11 venture-backed healthcare companies filing details on their IPOs and another four trade sales, with the majority backed by corporate venturers.

The stem cell therapy developer Sana Bio filed to go public to raise $150m seven months after closing $700m in funding from investors including Alphabet unit GV.

WuXi AppTec and New World Development-backed Adagene plans a $125m IPO.

Cambrian Biopharma is the largest investor in cancer immunotherapy developer Sensei Biotherapeutics, which has filed to raise up to $100m.

The immunotherapy developer Immunocore plans to go public in the US with $100m IPO.

PureTech Health, Johnson & Johnson and Novartis are in line for exits after the cancer drug developer Vor Biopharma filed for its initial public offering.

Lilly Asia Ventures is the largest shareholder of liver disease therapy developer Terns, which has filed for $100m IPO.

UnitedHealth Group and Merck are both in line for exits as Decipher Biosciences files for a $100m initial public offering.

Amgen and Pfizer-backed oncology therapy developer NexImmune has filed to raise up to $86.3m in an IPO on the Nasdaq Global Market.

Novo and Pfizer are among the investors set to exit the cancer therapy developer Bolt Biotherapeutics, which has set a $100m target for its initial public offering.

Non corporate-backed Lucira Health and Landos Biopharma also announced pricing of their IPOs.

On trade sales, Biohaven has purchased the 58% stake cancer immunotherapy developer Kleo Pharmaceuticals it did not already own, while Haemonetics acquired Cardiva Medical in a deal worth up to $510m, Thermo Fisher Scientific bought Mesa Biotech for $550m and Philips acquired Capsule Technologies for $635m.

With the rapid flow of capital back to investors at a faster pace, the appetite for more dealmaking is increasing.

SVB noted healthcare company investment surged more than 50% last year from 2019 to set a new high at $52bn so GCV is delighted to announce Taranto and Rob Coppedge, head of Echo Health Ventures (EHV), will co-chair the new Global Health Council being formed next month. You can catch up with Merck and EHV at our GCV Digital Forum this week, which includes an invite-only healthcare roundtable and public discussion moderated by Neil Foster at Brown Rudnick and including Hitachi’s US chairman.

Funds

Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association supplied $100m for Lilly Asia Ventures’ LAV Biosciences Fund V fund two years ago, and it has now put up another $100m that will be spread across its LAV Fund VI and LAV Fund VI Opportunities funds. Lilly Asia Ventures, a spin off of pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly, is looking to raise a total of $1.35bn for the two funds.

Arch structures $1.85bn Fund XI

Xiamen C&D backs $441m Qiming fund

Fireside Ventures finalises $118m second fund

Exits

Kuaishou has priced a $5.4bn initial public offering that will take some beating in 2021, even bearing in mind how bullish the markets are right now. The Tencent and Baidu-backed short-form video app developer will be valued at roughly $61bn in the offering, which will take place early next month in Hong Kong, though reports of the retail portion of the share subscription being 1,200 times oversubscribed suggest that market cap is going to skyrocket.

Decibel sounds out public markets

University

Landos aims for $100m IPO

Electric carmaker and mobility technology provider Faraday Future has had an uneven history, raising a reported $2bn before property developer China Evergrande acquired a 45% stake through subsidiary Evergrande Health Industry for $860m. However, Faraday looks set to snatch a public market listing, having agreed a reverse merger with special purpose acquisition company Property Solutions Acquisition Corp. The transaction will be buoyed by $775m in PIPE financing and will value the merged company at about $3.4bn.

Content recommendation engine developer Taboola failed in its bid to merge with peer Outbrain last year but has agreed to go public through a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company to form a $2.6bn business. The deal will also include $150m of shares bought from existing Taboola shareholders that could potentially include corporate investors DMGT, Baidu, Advance Publications, Yahoo Japan and Comcast.

Latch unlocks public listing with reverse merger

SAP signals Signavio acquisition

Shell shoots for Ubitricity acquisition

Loon comes back down to earth

Deals

SenseTime looks set to be one of the big tech IPOs of 2021, and news has emerged that the artificial intelligence software producer reportedly raised funding in late 2020 at a $12bn valuation. The size of the round has not been disclosed and nor have the investors, but reports in August suggested SenseTime was targeting $1.5bn in a pre-IPO round, and its existing backers include Alibaba, Qualcomm, SoftBank, Suning and Dalian Wanda.

Elsewhere in China, electric vehicle producer Leapmotor has received $665m in series B funding from investors including a Hefei government fund, SDIC Chuangyi Industrial Fund Management, Hangzhou Jiuzhi Investment Management and Shanghai Yonghua Capital Management. The company was spun off by Dahua Technologies and counts corporates Shanghai Electric and CRRC among its earlier investors.

Investors have been looking out for a resurgence in the cleantech sector for a while now, and the bull market for electric carmakers could pull up an adjacent part of the market: battery technology. Sila Nanotechnologies, which is developing more effective forms of battery chemistry, has raised $590m in a series F round that more than tripled its valuation to $3.3bn. The round was led by Coatue but none of Sila Nano’s corporate backers – Daimler, Siemens, Samsung and Amperex – were named as participants.

The covid-19 pandemic has boosted business for food ordering apps and grocery delivery services, and Finland-based Wolt has taken advantage, expanding from the first group to the second. It has also just raised $530m from investors including Prosus to hike its total funding to $856m. The round comes as the company disclosed that it roughly tripled revenue during 2020.

The digitalisation of the financial services sector is continuing apace, with neobanks still raising big money. The latest is Brazil-based Nubank, which has bagged $400m in a series G round featuring Tencent that boosted its valuation to $25bn. Tencent also took part in Nubank’s last round, a $400m series F in mid-2019 that valued it at $10bn. The latest capital influx will support its Latin American expansion.

Didi digs up $300m for autonomous driving unit

Samsung-backed cloud networking technology provider DriveNets has pulled in $208mthrough a series B round valuing it at over $1bn. D1 Capital Partners led the round, which follows $117m in series A funding DriveNets had raised at a reported valuation of about $500m. Samsung Venture Investment Corporation lists it as a portfolio company but has not confirmed when it invested.

Tourism and leisure booking platform developer Klook is in one of the sectors hit hardest by covid-2019 but has accordingly added features like interactive video content and a contact tracing tool to its offering. It’s been rewarded with $200m in series E funding from investors including Softbank Vision Fund 1. It had secured $225m in its last round, which was led by Vision Fund 1 in 2019.

Lyra Health wires in $187m

In China, autonomous driving technology developer Uisee has received $154mfrom investors including the corporate-backed National Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrade Fund. It had raised an undisclosed amount of series B funding from investors including Robert Bosch Venture Capital last February.

Bloomreach, developer of digital experience technology that helps online retailers drive sales, has raised its first funding in five years, taking $150m from Sixth Street Growth at a reported $900m valuation. That earlier round was a $56m series D that included Salesforce Ventures, increasing Bloomreach’s overall funding to nearly $100m. The latest round supported the company’s acquisition of customer experience software developer Exponea.

Huohua Siwei has become the latest Chinese digital education provider to raise money, having secured $150m in a series E3 round featuring Tencent that reportedly valued it at $1.5bn post-money. Trustbridge Partners led the round, which expanded the company’s overall series E funding to $400m over the past six months. Online tutoring service Yuanfudao backed its series E1 round back in August, and its total funding is near the $600m mark.

Agile Robots manoeuvres to $130m

Digital health insurance has been doing big numbers of late, and Sidecar Health has pulled in $125m through a series C round led by Drive Capital. Sidecar, which counts Comcast Ventures among its investors, is present in 16 US states and intends to expand that reach over the course of 2021.

Design Therapeutics discovers $125m in series B

Melio gets $110m payment

Stripe makes Fast work in $102m round

TScan hangs up $100m in series C

Albert absorbs $100m in series C funding

Yunxuetang yanks in $100m from Tencent

University

Soci cements $80m series D

Deerfield sets Nuvalent in motion with $50m series A

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