Lume Weekly Private Market News & Notes 9.5.2022
Covers news about startups, private deals, technology, and innovation in the private market
đ Stats of the Week đ
Metaverse investment activity remains robust in the first half of 2022
đ° Fundraising & Merger and Acquisition đ°
Lightnet Group, a blockchain-based cross-border payment infrastructure startup, receives $50M capital (Aug 28)
Fintech firm Lightnet Group that is building blockchain-based cross-border payment infrastructure has received a $50M commitment from investment group LDA Capital.
Data analytics startup lands $47M in Series B funding (Aug 29)
StarTree announced that it has raised $47M in Series B funding to accelerate its âanalytics-as-a-serviceâ platform. The round was led by GGV Capital.
SeatGeek raises $238M in new funding after ditching going public via SPAC (Aug 31)
SeatGeek, a mobile-focused ticket platform, announced that it had raised $238M as part of a Series E funding round at a valuation of $1B. The news comes after the company terminated a SPAC.
Solid raises $63M for fintech-as-a-service (Aug 31)
Solid raised a $63M Series B round of funding to provide fintech-as-a-service to companies that want to launch and scale their own fintech products. Over the past year, Solid grew 10x in revenue, doubled its customers to 100 and became profitable. Year to date, the company processed $2B in transactions.
Haru Invest raises $4M in funding at $284M valuation (Sep 1)
Haru Invest, a digital asset management platform, raised $4M in funding at a $284M valuation. The company has a total transaction volume of $2B.
Fraud prevention startup Alloy raises $52M at a $1.55B valuation (Sep 1)
Alloy, an identity and risk management platform, closed a $52M round at a $1.55B valuation. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Avenir Growth.
Carta acquires its rival UKâs Capdesk (Sep 1)
The cap table management firm Carta has acquired UK counterpart Capdesk for an undisclosed sum.
Instacart is acquiring Eversight (Sep 1)
Instacart announced that it has acquired Eversight, an AI-powered pricing and promotions platform for CPG brands and retailers. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Reddit acquires contextualization company Spiketrap (Sep 1)
Reddit announced that it has acquired Spiketrapâs, a contextualization company. Reddit said that Spiketrapâs technology will help improve Reddit ad relevance and performance. Deal terms were not disclosed.
UBS and Wealthfront terminate their $1.4B deal (Sep 2)
Swiss bank UBS and the Roboadvisor Wealthfront said that they have mutually agreed to cancel the $1.4 billion deal. UBS instead provides Wealthfront with $70M in equity funding at $1.4 billion valuation.
đ Others News đ
FTX grew revenue 1,000% during the crypto craze, leaked financials show (Aug 20)
According to CNDB, FTX revenue grew from $89M in 2020 to more than $1B last year. Operating income was $272M, up from $14M a year earlier. FTX saw net income of $388M last year, up from just $17M a year earlier.
Reddit is airdropping Polygon NFT avatars (Aug 25)
Reddit has announced it will be air-dropping free Polygon-based NFT avatars to the most engaged, active users on the platform. In addition to the free airdrop, Reddit also sells NFT avatars through its own platform. They range in price from $9.99 to $99.99 apiece.
Klarna reported revenue $950M, representing 24% growth yoy (Aug 31)
Klarna reported in H1 2022, its revenue rose 24% year-over-year. In Q2 22 GMV grew 22% to USD 21.3B. Operating loss before tax of $581M (6.2 Swedish kronor) compared to ~$167M (1.8 billion kronor) in the same period a year ago.
ByteDance stock option offering price lowered (Aug 31)
TikTok owner ByteDance is launching a new stock option granting program for its employees that lowers its prices by 20% from the 2021 plan. According to Bloomberg, shares of ByteDance trade for $275B in secondary markets.