Lume Weekly Private Market News & Notes 1.30.2022
Covers news about startups, private deals, technology, and innovation in the private market
đ Stats of the Week đ
In 2021, the median late-stage valuation for SaaS deals was 114.3x ARR, according to PitchBook. That multiple expanded more than seven times from the 15.5x ARR fetched by SaaS companies in 2017.
đ° Fundraising đ°
QuickNode raises $60M at $800M valuation (Jan 23)
QuickNode, a blockchain deployment platform, has raised $60M in a Series B round for an $800M valuation. QuickNode was founded in 2017 and aimed to bring web2 infrastructure to web3. The CEO said, that the third and fourth quarters of 2022 were ârecord quarters for revenue,â as it rose by over 300%.
B2B buy now pay later platform, Tranch, raises $100M (Jan 23)
Tranch, a buy now pay later (BNPL) platform for SaaS sellers and services providers, has raised $100M in seed equity and debt funding to bring payment flexibility to a wider pool of B2B customers.
Reimbursement and spend management platform PayEm secures $220M in equity and debt (Jan 24)
PayEm has closed a $20M Series A equity round and taken out a $200M credit line. In the past year, its customer base has grown by close to 300%.
Inscribe raises Series B (Jan 25)
Inscribe, a fraud detection and document automation platform, announced that it has raised $25M in Series B. The company saw a 3x increase in ARR and a 4x increase in monthly usage during 2022.
OpenAI rival anthropic expected to nab $300M (Jan 30)
Anthropic, the San Francisco-based AI startup and rival to ChatGPT, is close to adding $300M. That could bring the companyâs total valuation to $5B. Anthropic previously raised $704M across Series A and Series B funding rounds in 2022.
đ Others đ
NFT sales in 2022 matched the 2021 boom, despite the market crash (Jan 4)
The NFT market generated around $24.7B worth of trading volume in 2022 across blockchain platforms and marketplaces. That nearly matched the 2021 peak of $25.1B.
Universal Digital Payments Network launched at Davo (Jan 20)
A Universal Digital Payments Network for stablecoins and Central Bank Digital Currencies was launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The network aims to provide interoperability between these digital currencies.
Stripe explores public listing (Jan 26)
Fintech Stripe is considering a direct listing or private market transaction and has hired Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan to advise on the deal. Stripe reportedly notched gross revenues of $12B and was EBITDA profitable in 2021, according to Forbes.
Impossible Foods planning to lay off 20% of staff (Jan 30)
Impossible Foods, which makes plant-based nuggets, burgers and patties, is reportedly laying off 20% of its staff (about 100 employees), Bloomberg reported.
Marqeta buys fintech Power Finance in $275M all-cash deal (Jan 30)
Marqeta has agreed to acquire two-year-old fintech infrastructure startup Power Finance for $223M in cash, marking the first acquisition in the publicly traded companyâs 13-year history.