Lume Weekly Private Market News & Notes 7.25.2022
Covers news about startups, private deals, technology, and innovation in the private market
✨ Recent Event ✨
Lume Capital was honored to participate in the Venture Summit West hosted by youngStartup this past week.
Joining investors including Ryan Enriquez (CIBC), Arnav Sahu (Y Combinator), Sonali Vijayavargiya (Augment Ventures), Benjamin (BΞN) Narasin (Tenacity Venture Capital), Tatiana Mulry (Steamwork Ventures), Suraj Kumar (DoubleRock). We discussed the current venture landscapes for fintech and banking startups and market trends.
📊 Stats of the Week 📊
In VC market slowdown, alternative financing emerges as a path to funding. “We have become one of the most attractive [financing] options," said Harry Hurst, co-founder and co-CEO of Pipe. "It's showtime for us now", according to Pitchbook.
💰 Fundraising & Merger and Acquisition 💰
Cash-back-for-renters platform Stake raised $12M at $52M valuation (Jul 12)
Stake, a startup provides cash back and banking services to renters, announced that it closed a $12M Series A led by RET Ventures Housing Impact Fund. Stake uses machine learning and behavioral science algorithm to determine the cash back amount. Renters earn an average of 4% of cash back on their rent with Stake.
Pulley, a cap table management provider, raised a $40M Series B (Jul 13)
Pulley, an equity management platform, announced that it has raised a $40M Series B funding round led by Founders Fund. The company provides tools and insights to founders and employees who are looking to make more informed decisions about their equity ownership.
Small-bank-focused Apiture raises $29M (Jul 14)
Digital banking platform Apiture has closed a $29M fundraising round led by Live Oak Bank. Apiture focuses on developing front-end software for smaller banks. It currently serves more than 300 banks and credit unions across the U.S.
Fidelity Payment Services announces strategic growth investment from PSG (Jul 19)
Fidelity Payment Services, a provider of fully-integrated omni-channel payment processing technology, announced a strategic growth investment from PSG. The company currently serves over 22,000 merchants across a variety of industries.
Blockchain startup Blockdaemon acquires digital asset security firm Sepior (Jul 20)
Blockchain infrastructure provider Blockdaemon announced that it has bought Sepior, a company that secures digital assets such as cryptocurrencies using cryptographic key management solutions.
Crunchbase raised a $50M Series D (Jul 20)
Crunchbase, a platform for finding startup information, announced that it has closed an oversubscribed $50M Series D and put ourselves on a path to profitability.
FTX is reportedly raising fresh capital at its January valuation of $32B (Jul 21)
Major crypto exchange FTX, is reportedly looking to raise fresh capital at its $32B valuation, "essentially the same valuation" as its January fundraising.
Whatnot’s valuation doubles to $3.7B as livestream shopping gains popularity (Jul 21)
Whatnot, a live shopping platform, announced that it has raised $260M in a Series D funding round co-led by DST Global and CapitalG, Alphabet’s independent growth fund. The latest fundraise brings the company’s valuation to $3.7B, a 2.5x increase since its $1.5B valuation in September, 2021.
TomoCredit raises $22M at a $222M valuation (Jul 21)
TomoCredit, credit card lending startup to over 40 million credit-invisible immigrants and international students with no credit history in the U.S, announced that it raised $122M in equity and debt. Last year, the company grew 1000% in revenue.
ClassDojo raises $125M at $1.25B valuation (Jul 21)
San Francisco-based edtech startup ClassDojo announced it closed a $125M Series D led by Tencent that valued the company at $1.25B.
Bitcoin gaming startup Zebedee receives $35M in Funding (Jul 25)
A Bitcoin gaming startup called Zebedee has received $35M in its Series B funding round. This comes after they received $11.5M in a Series A round in Sep 2021. It is unclear whether the valuation has changed, but seeing as the user base has increased 10x in the time, it is likely the company is seeing positive growth.
🚀 Product Launches 🚀
Pulley launched a free plan for startups that have fewer than 25 stakeholder (Jul 13)
Pulley a cap table management provider launched its free plan, called Pulley Seed, for customers that have fewer than 25 stakeholders.
Plaid launched read-only support for crypto exchanges (Jul 14)
Plaid, the company building data transfer technologies to power fintech and digital finance products, announced that it’s adding support for leading crypto exchanges to its data network.
X1’s income-based credit card is about to launch publicly (Jul 18)
X1 Card provides credit card by underwriting customers based on their income rather than their credit scores, which the company says enables it to set credit limits up to 5x higher than traditional card providers.
Instagram’s new payments feature lets users buy products via DMs (Jul 18)
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company is launching a new “payments in chat” feature on Instagram. With this new feature, users can purchase products from small businesses and track orders via direct messages on Instagram in the United States.
Stocktwits now let users buy stock on its social media platform (Jul 19)
Stocktwits, a social media platform for retail investors, will allow users to buy and sell equities on its platform. It becomes the latest company to vie for the attention of US stock traders despite this year’s broad market selloff.
YouTube rolls out new shopping features, announces partnership with Shopify (Jul 19)
YouTube announced that it’s launching several new shopping features for both viewers and creators. It is partnering with Shopify to allow creators and merchants to feature their products on their channels.
Discord’s new Xbox integration will let you send voice chats to your console (Jul 20)
Xbox is adding support for Discord voice chat, bringing a reliable, well-loved universal chat app to Microsoft’s gaming console, albeit in a sort of roundabout way.
TikTok rolls out new accessibility and translation tools (Jul 21)
TikTok announced that it’s introducing new caption and translation tools to make its content more accessible for users around the world.
🗞 Others News 🗞
Crypto lending platform Celsius Network files for bankruptcy (Jul 14)
Embattled lender Celsius Network filed for Chapter 11 protection in an effort to “stabilize its business and consummate a comprehensive restructuring transaction”.
Better.com is still trying to proceed with its SPAC deal (Jul 18)
Digital mortgage lender Better.com, which began making plans to go public via a SPAC in May 2021, has confirmed that it intends to move forward with its planned public debut, despite lackluster performance of blank-check combinations in recent quarters.
Instacart valuation cut to $14.7B by Capital Group (Jul 18)
Instacart investor Capital Group cut the startup’s valuation to $14.7B, below the online grocery-delivery firm’s own calculation of $24B. Capital Group marked Instacart shares at $45.84 a share at the end of June.
Blockchain.com cuts 25% of its workforce (Jul 21)
Blockchain.com, a crypto exchange, is cutting 25% of its workforce—or about 150 people. Report cited the bear market and the need to absorb financial losses after the company revealed earlier that it stood to lose the $270M it loaned Three Arrows Capital.
Ramp still sees revenue from corporate spend management solutions accelerating (Jul 25)
Corporate finance management startup Ramp reportedly more than doubled its revenue run rate since the start of the year. June’s growth figure is more than double, or about 221% higher than, December 2021’s figures, the CEO said.
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