Lume Weekly Private Market News & Notes 7.10.2022
Covers news about startups, private deals, technology, and innovation in the private market
📊 Stats of the Week 📊
Based on the F-Prime Capital Fintech Index, the valuation multiples of public market companies in the Fintech Index have now stabilized at approximately 4 times EV/Revenue. This represents a significant decrease from the previous high of around 23 times. Additionally, the market capitalizations of public fintech companies have experienced a remarkable surge of 95.3%, outperforming the NASDAQ's 20.1%.
Source: The F-Prime Capital Fintech Index
💰 Fundraising 💰
Cart.com valued at $1.2B (Jun 27)
The commerce and logistics solutions company, Cart.com, announced the Series C funding round that values the company at $1.2B. The company states that its revenue grew by more than 500% across its software, services and fulfillment offerings and doubled its gross merchandise value and fulfillment footprint.
Fraud detection startup Unit21 raises $45M (Jun 29)
Unit21, the risk and compliance infrastructure company, shared its $45M Series C funding led by Tiger Global. In 2022, the Company helped clients monitor a total of 4.8 billion transactions, representing $693B in value, an increase of 5.2 times from the previous year.
AI-powered finance JustPaid raises $3.5M (Jun 29)
JustPaid, a startup developing AI-based financial tools for startups and small- and medium-sized businesses, has raised $3.5M in a seed funding round, and announced the launch of a suite of services.
Inflection AI, behind chatbot Pi, raises $1.3B (Jun 29)
Microsoft, Nvidia and three of tech’s most influential billionaires led the investment in Inflection AI, a Palo Alto-based startup launched in early 2022. The new funding values Inflection at $4B. Its CEO Mustafa Suleyman, who previously co-founded the Google-owned AI lab DeepMind, says that the new capital will support Inflection’s work to build and design its first product, an AI-powered assistant called Pi.
Runway, a startup building generative AI for content creators, raises $141M (Jun 29)
Runway announced a $141M extension to its Series C round from Google, Nvidia and Salesforce, among others. The Series C extension values Runway at $1.5B according to TechCrunch. The company states that its products are used by Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies.
AI startup Typeface valued at $1B after Salesforce-led fundraise (Jun 29)
Typeface, a AI platform helps with enterprise content creation, said that it was valued at $1B after an oversubscribed Series B funding round led by Salesforce's global investment arm, bringing the total capital raised to $165B.
Clair raises $25M (Jul 6)
Fintech company Clair received $25M in new equity funding. Clair is a digital banking app that is connected to payroll and time and attendance systems. It currently works with over 10,000 employers, workforce management systems and payroll and over 50,000 workers.
🗞 Others 🗞
Powell: Stablecoins are a ‘form of money’ the Fed needs to regulate (Jun 21)
When asked about how the Fed is thinking about privately issued stablecoins, the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said, “We do see payment stablecoins as a form of money, and in all advanced economies, the ultimate source of credibility in money is the central bank”.
Databricks is acquiring MosaicML for $1.3B (Jun 26)
Databricks, Data and AI company, announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire MosaicML, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup. The deal is estimated to be valued at $1.3B.
SVB’s collapse drove 26K customers to Mercury in 4 months (Jun 27)
After Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, Mercury, bank for startups, saw a surge of customers who has contributed to the company’s annualized revenue run rate growing 4x year-over-year from May 2022 to May 2023. Overall, in 2022, Mercury processed $50B in transactions. In the first half of 2023 alone, the company has processed more than $42B in transactions. Mercury has been profitable for the last 12 months according to TechCrunch.