News
Startup Grind VC Corner Q&A: Molly O’Shea, Trail Mix Ventures
Deals of the day
Sources: TS, Pro Rata, FinSMEs
Alto, a San Francisco-based digital pharmacy, raised $250 million in Series D funding. Investors include SoftBank Vision Fund2, GreenOaks Capital, Jackson Square Ventures, Olive Tree Capital and Zola Global.
Deliverr, a San Francisco-based provider of order fulfillment services, raised $40 million in Series C funding. Activant Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including 8VC, GLP and Ryan Peterson.
The Zebra, an Austin-based insurance comparison site, raised $38.5 million in Series C funding. Investors include Weatherford Capital, Accel, Silverton Partners, Daher Capital, Floodgate Fund, Ballast Point Ventures, and Keith Melnick.
Turo, a San Francisco-based online rental car marketplace, raised $30 million in Series E2 funding, amounting to a total of $280 million in Series E funding. Investors include Allen & Company LLC, Larry Fitzgerald and 2 Chainz.
Foxtrot, a Chicago-based app that lets users shop curated collections of drinks, eats and essentials, raised $17 million in funding. Imaginary and Wittington Ventures co-led the round, and was joined by investors including Fifth Wall, Lerer Hippeau, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, M3 Ventures, The University of Chicago, Collaborative VC, Wasson Enterprise, Bluestein Associates and Barshop Ventures.
FreightWeb , a Seattle-based trucking startup, raised $3 million in funding. Investors include Madrona Venture Group and 8VC.
LumaTax, a Seattle-based software-as-a-service company that enables small businesses to comply with sales tax regulations, raised $2 million in funding. Investors include KPMG, Madrona Venture Group, Cowboy Ventures, Greycroft, and Vulcan Capital.
Verana Health, a San Francisco-based technology company that curates and analyzes real-world clinical data to advance patient care, raised $100 million in funding. GV led the round, and was joined by investors including Bain Capital Ventures, Casdin Capital, and Define Ventures.
MaaT Pharma, a French biotech startup focused on “restoring patient-microbiome symbiosis,” raised €18 million in Series B funding from SymBiosis, Seventure Partners, Crédit Mutuel Innovation, and Biocodex. www.maatpharma.com
Naari Pharma, an Indian women’s health startup focused on hormones, raised around $17.5 million from Ascent Capital. www.naari.co
Suzy, a New York-based consumer insights platform, raised $12 million in Series C funding. Bertelsmann Digital MediaInvestments led, and was joined by Foundry Group, Triangle Peak Partners, and return backers 35 Ventures and Tribeca Venture Partners. http://axios.link/bN6h
Casted, an Indianapolis-based podcasting platform for B2B brands, raised $2.5 million in seed funding from High Alpha Capital and Elevate Ventures. www.casted.us
Retina, a Los Angeles-based provider of customer analytics, raised $2.5 million led by existing backer Crosscut Ventures. http://axios.link/YszH
Maven Machines, a Pittsburgh, PA-based provider of fleet management software for commercial transportation that combines telematics with workflow, dispatch and route optimization capabilities, raised $7m in Series A funding (read here)
Vineti, Inc., a San Francisco, CA-based digital platform of record for personalized therapeutics, closed a $35m Series C funding round (read here)
M&A:
Dotdash acquired Mother Nature Network, a destination for sustainability, environmental, and responsible living content, and TreeHugger, a publisher dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream, from Narrative Content Group. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
Accurate Background, an Irvine, CA-based provider of compliant, automated workforce screening solutions, is to acquire CareerBuilder Employment Screening (CBES) from CareerBuilder (read here)
IPOs:
Casper Sleep, a New York-based mattress maker, cut its IPO price range from $17-$19 to $12-$13. It now would have an initial market cap just south of $500 million, were it to price in the middle of its range. http://axios.link/FF6l
Funds:
Ecosystem Investment Partners, a Baltimore, Md.-based private equity firm, raised $454.5 million for its fund, Ecosystem Investment Partners IV, L.P.
Generate Capital, a San Francisco-based private equity firm focused on sustainable energy projects and tech, raised more than $1 billion for its latest fund. http://axios.link/0dc3
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Sources: MorningBrew, Axios, The Glow, Pitchbook
U.S. markets: Good job, good effort. The S&P had its best day in about six months and the Nasdaq hit a record high yesterday.
Voices That Inspire, Women We Admire
Lisa Carmen Wang Feb 5
Even though women control 85% of purchasing decisions, and are half the population, we live in a world where it’s taken for granted that the male perspective should be centered. This invisible bias is called “coded patriarchy,” and it shapes our daily lives. As a result, the female perspective is quietly omitted in design, business, media, technology, clothing, and even our cities. - Danielle Kayembe, Founder, Greyfire
In the U.S. alone, women control nearly $20 trillion in assets (roughly 60% of personal wealth.) Globally, women control $36 trillion in total wealth and in her paper “The Silent Rise Of The Female-Driven Economy,” this week’s GLOW Podcast Guest Danielle Kayembe discusses why women are the single largest opportunity in the market today, because they’ve been overlooked, and underfunded.
Indeed, when a population that collectively represents the second largest economy in the world, but only receives 2% of venture funding, there is a fundamental disconnect at the leadership level that will inevitably be corrected.
Listen: The Female-Driven Economy
Former BET Networks CEO Debra Lee hints at launching a tech fund to back women of color.
Melinda Gates announced that Pivotal Ventures, her investment and incubation company will be launching an initiative, Gender Equality in Tech (GET) Cities, starting with Chicago
Rachel Holt, one of Uber’s first & most powerful employees is teaming up with Dayna Grayson, a venture capitalist from New Enterprise Associates, to create the new firm, Construct Capital.
Macy’s Problem: Way Too Many Stores. The retailer said it will close 125 department stores over the next three years—about a fifth of its total locations.
Also going: About 2,000 corporate jobs, its Cincinnati HQ, and tech offices in SF.
As is 21st century retail tradition, the mall takes the fall. Macy’s will leave its locations in the weakest malls and open smaller locations called “Market by Macy’s” in shopping centers near main roads. They’ll be 10% the size of a typical Macy’s.
Looking ahead...Macy’s will present its turnaround plan to investors today. Expectations are in the basement near the lost shoppers.
You can read more about Macy's in today's Retail Brew.
As Macy’s readies for massive closures, Sephora is preparing for its biggest store expansion yet.
Sephora will open 100 stores across 75 North American cities to reach untapped customers. It’ll focus on stores in local shopping centers, because malls aren’t doing so hot right now (see the previous story).
Strip malls and curbside stores are closer to where potential customers live and work, a Sephora exec told CNBC.
Its new stores will target mid-sized cities like Nashville, TN, and Charlotte, NC.
What’s in store: New Sephoras will average 4,000 sq. ft.—down from their typical 5,500 sq. ft.—and emphasize proven bestsellers like haircare and fragrances. The stores will also introduce interactive programming like events and classes.
We know this beauty routine works. Ulta, Sephora’s top competitor, prioritizes curbside stores over malls. It also offers in-store salons and appointments with makeup artists. With this all-in-one approach, Ulta’s same-store sales have climbed more than 413% since 2009.
+ While we’re here: Sephora will be the exclusive partner of Selena Gomez’s new beauty line, which launches this summer.
Andreessen Horowitz has reached a $750 million close for its third bio fund, a strategy the firm launched more than four years ago to invest in startups at the intersection of tech, biotech and healthcare.
The Menlo Park-based firm raised $200 million for its debut bio fund in 2015 and $450 million for a follow-up in 2017. Andreessen Horowitz has used its bio funds to participate in rounds for companies such as Omada Health, which focuses on the management of chronic diseases, and Accolade, which provides a personalized health and benefits platform.
We examined what the future might have in store for Andreessen Horowitz in our latest PitchBook Playbook.Skull Analysis Technique Shows There is a 70% chance of recession within the next six months, according to a new recession indicator that examines the economy using a method previously used to analyze the resemblance of human skulls.
What it means: The new indicator comes from researchers at State Street Associates and MIT's Sloan School of Management who applied the principle of Mahalanobis distance to create a predictor of economic booms and recessions they call the KKT Index of the Business Cycle.
"This index offers a precise probability of recession or robust growth ... by comparing key variables to the patterns that prevailed during historical episodes," the study's co-author William Kinlaw, senior managing director at State Street Associates, tells Axios.
It creates the new business cycle metric by incorporating U.S. data including industrial production, nonfarm payrolls, stock market return and the slope of the Treasury yield curve (10-year rate minus the federal funds rate).
What's happening: The latest reading shows that recession is more than twice as likely as high growth in the next six months. When the probability of recession last reached these levels, a recession occurred 70% of the time.
"This level is driven primarily by two factors: weakening industrial production and the slope of the yield curve," Kinlaw says.
"By comparison, the unconditional likelihood of a recession occurring in any six-month period is only 17%."
Why it matters: Going back to 1916, the KKT Index has risen "leading up to every recession so that the combination of its trajectory and level provides a reliable indicator of the likelihood of recession," the study finds.
. . .
More headlines…
Sources: MorningBrew, Forbes, Axios
Tesla shares cannot be stopped. They gained another 14% yesterday, one day after they rose ~20%.
Snap missed on Q4 revenue ($561 million vs. $563 million expected), and its stock fell more than 10% after hours.
Presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg is doubling his already gargantuan TV ad spend following the Iowa caucuses.
New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange has made a $30+ billion offer for eBay, per the WSJ. EBay’s stock popped more than 8% on the news.
Instagram recorded about $20 billion in ad revenue last year, reports Bloomberg. That’s more than a quarter of Facebook’s 2019 revenue.
Amazon stock has never been more valuable, and Jeff Bezos is taking advantage of that, selling $1 billion in shares in two days.
A new law in California has helped inspire a flurry of private startups seeking to turn the process of protecting customer data into big business. [NBC News]
Casper lowered its expected IPO price range.
Target is launching a private label luggage brand called Open Story.
Earth Fare, an organic grocery chain, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It plans to close all of its stores.
Dick’s Sporting Goods is overhauling its merchandise and advertisements to become more women-oriented.
The Bouqs, a D2C flower delivery service, raised $30 million in growth financing.
Staples is piloting a new store concept that includes community event space and podcasting studios.
Chip revenue fell 12% year-over-year to $412.1 billion in 2019, the Semiconductor Industry Association said Monday. Thank the U.S.-China trade war for that.
Byte, Vine's short-form video successor, had over 1.3 million downloads in its first week, according to data from Sensor Tower.
Nvidia launched GeForce Now, a $5/month game streaming service for titles users already own.
Google is opening its enterprise smart glasses to developers.
Elon Musk tweeted that "Tesla will hold a super fun AI party/hackathon" at his house with the Tesla AI and Autopilot teams in roughly four weeks.