German food delivery giant Delivery Hero will acquire an additional 39.4% stake in the Spanish quick-commerce company Glovo. With a previous 44% stake in Glovo, Delivery Hero’s position in Glovo will grow to 83.4%. The transaction will be strictly stock-based. More: - The deal is valued at $885M (€780M) on the basis of the 7.9 million Delivery Hero shares being traded for the stake.
- The increased stake acquisition will value Glovo at $2.6B (€2.3B) on a fully-diluted and debt-free basis before adjustments.
- The company operates in over 1,300 cities across 25 countries in Europe, Central Asia, and Africa.
- Its run rate is $3.41B (€3B) in gross transaction value with a growth rate of 80% in the past year.
- It will continue operating under its existing brand and platform and will retain its current management.
The delivery wars continue: - Delivery Hero also took an 8% stake in Berlin-based instant delivery firm Gorillas to the tune of $235M (€200M) in October. The deal valued Gorillas at $2.1B.
- Gorillas later took on 800 delivery workers from Delivery Hero’s proprietary delivery platform Foodpanda.
- Foodpanda had been relaunched in Germany in late Summer after a long hiatus, only to be shut down in the country again by its parent company in the face of competition from Just Eat Takeaway.
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 Supply-chain startups raised $24.3B in total VC in the first three quarters of 2021, up 58% from the full-year total from 2020. The surging interest is being driven by the logistics bottlenecks that became frequent following the onset of the pandemic. More: - The attention is boosting valuations primarily for top companies that have already built robust core technologies and infrastructure.
- According to PitchBook data, the median pre-money valuation for late-stage logistics startups reached $120M in Q3’21, up 41% YoY.
- However, Julian Counihan, general partner at Schematic Ventures, notes that the funding increase is concentrated in just a few companies.
- Raising funds has not gotten easier, says Counihan, but successful startups will see much larger rounds.
- More eyes on the market have drawn the usual suspects such Tiger Global and Coatue, which have contributed to the funding arms race across all technology startups.
- Pertinently, the venture arms of large corporations such as shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S and Koch Industries have also piled on.
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 Spending on NFTs jumped to $41B in 2021, putting the market for digital art and collectibles almost on par with the global art market. That figure only includes NFTs based on ethereum blockchain contracts, the most typical protocol. It would be substantially higher if including NFTs on other blockchains. More: - The market surged in the second half of the year, following a record-setting $9B in value sales in August.
- Small transactions of under $10,000 accounted for over 75% of the market, illustrating the presence of a mass of retail investors.
- Between late February and November, there were 360,000 NFT owners holding 2.7 million NFTs.
- Still, 9% of investors (about 32,400 wallets) hold about 80% of the market's value, according to Chainalysis.
- There is a possibility of increased fraudulent activity in the booming sector.
- Analysis by Nansen found $2M of suspect activity across two collections in the month leading to mid-December.
- Researchers report that the market is likely being inflated by wash trading, where one trader is on both sides of a deal to give the impression of higher demand.
- Meanwhile, NFTs are already being used as collateral for loans or being divided into smaller shares, contributing to the financialization of the market.
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Tencent has bought a stake in U.K. digital bank Monzo as part of a $100M top-up round. The latest funding tranche valued the fintech company at $4.5B. It is a follow-on to its $500M injection led by the Abu Dhabi Growth Fund, which was reported in December. More: - Tencent has an expansive international fintech portfolio with stakes in Argentine personal finance app Ualá, French startups Qonto and Lydia, and South African challenger bank Tyme.
- Monzo suffered at the beginning of the pandemic due to regulatory setbacks and was investigated for potential breaches of anti-money laundering laws. It even withdrew an application for a banking license in the U.S.
- Its valuation fell to just under $1.7B in February after reporting a statutory net loss of $175.7M (£130M) in 2020, an increase of 13% compared with 2019.
- The new valuation is the product of investors focusing on Monzo’s revenues doubling in 2021 compared with the prior year.
- Still, it is unclear whether Monzo will be able to catch up to rival Revolut, which was recently valued at $33B.
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Former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz took up a position at Peter Thiel’s investment firm Thiel Capital. Sources claim that Kurz will become a global strategist at the firm. Thiel and Kurz seem to have known each other for some time and interacted briefly at the Munich Security Conference in 2017. More: - Kurz is 35 years old and was once the EU’s youngest elected leader.
- He left his role as the head of Austria’s government following corruption probes, although no formal charges were pressed.
- Specifically, he and his allies are alleged to have used state funds and fake invoices to buy positive media coverage while he was foreign minister between 2013 and 2017.
- Peter Thiel is known among tech investors for his right-wing stances, particularly his support for Donald Trump. He departed Silicon Valley for Los Angeles Washington, while his big data company Palantir departed for Colorado.
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Chief Justice John Roberts voiced support for a review of federal courts’ rules that allowed for a concentration of patent cases in Texas courts. He thereby joins many Silicon Valley household names such as Google and Apple, which have long noted the judge’s sympathy for so-called patent trolls. More: - The courts in question are located in Waco in the Western District of Texas and Marshall in the Eastern District.
- More specifically, District Court Judge Alan Albright, a former patent litigator, is the only judge in Waco.
- Patent owners began flocking to his court since his appointment by former President Trump in 2018.
- Because of their notorious partisanship, patent holders often bring their claims against tech companies before judges in those two districts.
- These courts have hit Apple and Intel with over $3.7B in damages, including a $2.2B hit against Intel in Waco, in 2020.
The Flip Side: - Because of their proliferation, patent trolls have allowed tech companies to throw the label at any patent owner that sues them.
- Those parties can include universities and other small research firms, who do in fact require judicial support to defend themselves from being steamrolled by big tech.
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Quick Hits - Korean startup AIMMO, which provides an AI-based annotation platform for image, video, sound, text, and sensor fusion data, raised $12M Series A from DS Asset Management, Industrial Bank of Korea, Hanwha, S&S, Toss Investment, Korea Asset Investment & Securities, and Venture Field.
- Indonesian digital bank for influencers UpBanx raised $5.2M Seed led by Y Combinator, Alpha JWC Ventures, Alto Partners, Number Capital, UBI Capital, and others. The platform is currently invite-only and the company is valued at $120M.
- The annual market volume for big data is expected to grow to $100B within the next five years, according to data from Statista. The expansion is being driven by the expansion in e-commerce spending since the beginning of the pandemic.
- Huawei’s revenue fell by 29% to $99B (RMB 634B) in 2021, largely due to U.S. export restrictions.
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 |  | Inside VC's writer/curator Stephen currently lives in Berlin and is pursuing a Master's degree in philosophy. He otherwise spends his time trying his hand at recipes from India and Southeast Asia, escaping it all at the kickboxing gym, and offending aural sensibilities with his band. |  | | Editor | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, Formula 1 lover, and a Licensed Pilot. He is also a part-time automobile and aviation fanatic, and a full-time introvert. | |
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