Hi Inside.com Community, We are extending our Republic raise timeline, and we hope readers and investors love the reason. Inside.com Founder and CEO Jason Calacanis shared full details (and a video preview of our social news site) on our Republic campaign page. These are the key details: - Our social news site’s invitation-only beta will open up on Feb. 28, 2022, with early access for all investors, Inside PRO members, and longtime readers.
- The full site launch is slated for the end of March 2022.
- If you want to get in early, we’ll share more soon — so be on the lookout.
For everyone participating in our Republic campaign, we want this extended investment period to allow our members to experience the social site before investing in Inside.com’s future. In the meantime, enjoy the preview of the new site in our video update, and we hope you will be among the first to try it out. Thanks for being readers and investors. - The Inside.com Team | |  Karan | |
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 Alchemy Co-founders Joe Lau and Nikil Viswanathan Alchemy achieved decacorn status with its recent $200M Series C1 funding led by Lightspeed Partners and Silver Lake. It was valued at $10.2B during the recent funding, $7B higher than its last valuation in Oct. 2021. Alchemy is a cryptocurrency infrastructure company that provides the underlying architecture for the NFT marketplace. More: - Several NFT creators and marketplaces use the Alchemy platform, including Axie Infinity, Dapper Labs, Open Sea, and others.
- The platform, which has seen $105B worth of blockchain transactions, has also garnered popularity amongst DeFi protocols such as Aave, Sushiswap, Yearn.Finance, and The Graph.
- Alchemy has raised over $545.5M in total investments to date:
- In Oct. 2021, it closed a $250M Series C at a $3.5B valuation.
- In April, it received an $80M Series B at a $505M valuation.
- The recent funding saw participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue Management, DFJ, Pantera, Addition, and others.
Zoom out: - The investment in Alchemy follows the trend of recent high-profile investments into Web3 startups.
- Blockchain investments topped $25.5B last year.
- Dove Metric’s data shows a $1.7B influx into crypto infrastructure companies in 2022.
- Yesterday, Ethereum scaling protocol Polygon received a $450M investment led by Sequoia Capital India. In case you missed it, you can read about it in yesterday’s newsletter here.
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HealthCare.com announced it had received additional funds of $31.5M, which adds to its recent Series C investment of $180M. The additional investments have been brought on by Hildred Capital Management. The total investment for the funding round now equals $211.5M. More: - HealthCare.com is an insurance platform that leverages data to provide a wide range of products to customers, including customized insurance bundles.
- In addition to developing deep datasets, it uses AI-based algorithms to match insurance packages as per clients' needs.
- As part of the investment, Hildred's David Solomon is now on the board of HealthCare.com.
- The company was valued at $950M at the Series C funding in mid-December, per Crunchbase.
- The startup intends to use the incoming funds for product development, data science integration, and the hiring of talent.
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California-based corporate expense management solution TripActions acquired Comtravo to expand its reach in European regions. Comtravo is a travel management company catering to customers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Scandinavian nations. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. More: - The acquisition will add to TripActions' existing service offerings, especially travel-related services such as domestic rail and low-cost airline networks.
- The addition of Comtravo's agents will help double TripActions' agent network in Europe.
- TripActions' recent acquisition is part of its larger expansion push into European and other ancillary markets. The firm has taken significant decisions in the last eight months as it enters the EU market:
- Acquired Reed & Mackay, a travel and event service provider.
- Formed a partnership with Lufthansa Group to launch a corporate travel booking platform.
- Launched Liquid, a corporate card and expense management solution, in EMEA.
- TripActions was valued at $7.25B during its $275M funding round in October last year.
- The company has raised $1.3B since its launch.
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ElasticRun secured a $300M Series E funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Goldman Sachs and Prosus Ventures participated in the round. The recent funding upped the valuation of the firm to $1.5B. More: - ElasticRun connects neighborhood grocery stores with bigger brands to facilitate inventory and working capital from the bigger firms.
- Many leading brands, retailers, and eCommerce outlets have partnered with the brands to increase their market penetration in rural pockets of the nation.
- Key partners of the platform include Amazon, Tata Consumer Products, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Reliance Retail, and others.
- ElasticRun has raised over $430M in funding to date.
- Last April, it received $75M Series D co-led by Prosus and Avataar Ventures, at a $400M valuation.
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Airmeet, a global event-led engagement platform, raised $35M in Series B funding. Existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Accel India were joined by Prosus Ventures, Sistema Asia Fund, RingCentral Ventures, KDDI Open Innovation Fund, DG Daiwa Ventures, and Nexxus Global in the funding round. More: - The incoming funds will be used to fuel global expansion, product development including R&D, expand offerings, and marketing activities.
- Airmeet lets global organizations interact with their audience using immersive event experiences via two products – Conference and Social Webinar.
- Flipkart, BMF Media, University College London, Viacom CBC, and Minnesota State University are a few key clients who use the Airmeet platform.
- The company has plans to build an engagement platform that can link into virtual reality and the metaverse.
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- BluePallet’s oversubscribed Series A funding round led by Vinmar International saw participation from Google’s early-stage VC fund, Gradient Ventures. BluePallet is an end-to-end industrial commerce platform focusing on the chemical sector.
- Massachusetts-based geothermal energy drilling system manufacturer Quaise Energy secured $40M Series A funding led by Safar Partners. The funds will be used to boost product development with a target of deploying machines in the field by 2024.
- Houwzer, a real estate platform, announced it had closed a $118M Series B investment, of which $18M would be equity financing while the rest would be a warehouse line of credit. The round was led by Edison Partners.
- Shift5, a Virginia-based cybersecurity startup, raised $50M Series B led by Insight Partners. The incoming funds will be utilized for product development and hiring across all teams.
- SWEN Capital Partners-backed Blue Ocean Fund added $49M (€43M) to its fund this week, bringing the total funds raised so far to $125M (€110M). The fund, which was established to support ocean cleanup projects, is on track to reach its goal of $137M (€120M). Blue Ocean will invest in 20-25 startups working in areas of sustainable aquaculture, ocean data, and single-use plastic alternative manufacturers.
- The Carlyle Group and PayPal invested $100M into German eCommerce software provider Shopware. The German firm’s gross merchandise value in 2021 reached ~$20B.
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Upcoming Events: - February 09 - Interview with David King Lassman (GigXR) (Register Here)
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 |  | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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