 VCs pumped over $39B into foodtech companies in 2021, a massive 150% increase over the $15.7B in 2020. The annual deal count also rose but by a smaller number, to 1,358 from 1,024, which indicates that, rather than growth spread across all funding stages, the majority of the fresh dollars came from increasing round sizes. More: - In Q4, funding totaled $10.1B across 318 deals, the latter figure down 6.2% from Q3. PitchBook’s analysts expect the deal lag to boost the deal count by 5-10%.
- While the $10.1B was down 13.1% compared with the previous quarter’s sum, it was up 107.3% compared with the same period a year earlier.
- Two categories of the larger foodtech sector made up the majority of funding volume: Online grocers and apps & marketplaces.
- Online grocers pulled in $18.4B over 102 deals throughout the last 12 months.
- Restaurant and food delivery apps such as India’s Zomato and the U.K.’s Deliveroo pulled in $6.7B over 61 deals.
- Instant food delivery platforms such as Flink, GoPuff, and Gorillas, known for their 15-minute delivery times, saw 34 deals. throughout the year, with the highest figure of 12 occurring in Q1’21.
- The top funding round came from online grocer Xingsheng Selected, which raised a $3B late-stage round led by Sequoia Capital China. Xingsheng provides a group-buying platform for produce and other groceries.
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London-based casual games studio Tripledot raised $116M Series B at a $1.4B valuation. The round was led by 20VC, the firm started by Harry Stebbings, the host of the popular 20 Minute VC podcast. Access Industries, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Eldridge also participated. More: - Tripledot most recently raised $78M A in April 2021. It will use the fresh funds for acquisitions, according to COO and co-founder Akin Babayigit.
- It has been profitable since the end of its first year of operation in 2017.
- It claims almost 30 million monthly active users and last year tripled revenues (though it named no specific figure).
- The studio has many offerings on app stores, including a popular Solitaire app, a game called Woodoku ("wood blocks meet sudoku"), and more.
The wider lens: - Casual gaming is having its moment after being overshadowed by intensive games for years.
- Wordle, a daily word puzzle that began as a web-only game, has been sold to the New York Times.
- Meanwhile, Peak Games, a Turkish casual gaming studio, sold to Zynga for $1.8B in 2020, while Dream Games, founded by Peak alumni, raised $255M this year.
- Homa Games, which makes a platform for third parties to develop and publish casual games, raised $50M last October.
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Zendesk received and rejected a takeover deal from a private equity consortium that would have valued the company at $17B. Though the parties were not named by Zendesk, sources claim that Hellman & Friedman, Advent International, and Permira were involved. Thoma Bravo also reportedly expressed interest in the deal. More: - The push is being driven by activist investor Jana Partners, which plans to nominate four new directors to the company's board.
- Jana's desire to reform Zendesk stems from the company's decision to buy SurveyMonkey parent Momentive in an all-stock deal that at the time was worth about $4.1.B.
- That figure has fallen substantially due to Zendesk's share price losses.
- The complaint is that Zendesk offers a customer communications platform, while SurveyMonkey facilitates the design and implementation of web-based surveys. Jana does not see how this will boost Zendesk's growth and instead predicts that it will dilute its margins.
- Jana's 3% stake in the company is boosted by the 5% stake owned by Janus Henderson, which also opposes the deal.
The wide lens: - The pace of PE-backed acquisitions for publicly listed tech companies is ratcheting up as falling stock prices make previously expensive companies a bargain.
- Cisco reportedly made a $20B takeover offer to data security and monitoring SaaS provider Splunk. The talks are no longer ongoing, and Splunk recently received a $1B cash infusion from Silver Lake.
- Relatedly, Apollo Global Management is reportedly nearing a deal to acquire the POS business of European payments company Worldline for $2.3B.
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Canadian hospitality platform 7shifts pulled in $80M (CAD$101.6M) in a fresh Series C round led by SoftBank's Vision Fund 2. Two existing investors, Ten Coves Capital and Enlightened Hospitality Investments, also participated. More: - 7shifts provides an HR platform for restaurants that encompasses hiring, onboarding, training, scheduling, payment, and retention.
- It also includes assistance in communication, task management, and tip pooling in order to avoid the pitfalls of high turnover that put pressure on gastronomy margins.
- The company wants to use the funds to double the size of its team.
- It claims to have added 10,000 locations and over 400,000 workers to its platform last year and has more than doubled its partner integrations.
- With its previous $21.5M round led by Enlightened Hospitality Investments and a $10M funding prior to that, it has a $152M war chest to date.
The wider lens: - The restaurant management software market is also expected to grow at a compound annual rate of over 14% through 2025, according to Technavio.
- About 30% of restaurants across all segments plan to devote more capital to back-of-the-house technology this year, according to the National Restaurant Association's State of the Industry 2022 report.
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Best of Last Week M&A - Microsoft is in talks to acquire cybersecurity research and incident response company Mandiant. Mandiant’s share price gives it a market value of $4.3B.
- Indian video streaming services ShareChat and MX Player will merge their respective short video apps Moj and MX TakaTak in a reported $900M deal.
- Texas-headquartered online dating platform Bumble acquired Fruitz to increase its traction with a younger audience in Europe.
- California-based corporate expense management solution TripActions acquired Comtravo to expand its reach in European regions.
- U.S. electric micro-mobility startup Acton has acquired Estonian docking and infrastructure startup Duckt.
SPAC New Funds - GIP is targeting $25B for its next infrastructure PE fund, making it potentially the largest such vehicle in history.
- France has announced plans to support 10 to 20 late-stage venture funds with €1B+ ($1.14B+) in funding each.
- James Murdoch’s Southeast Asia-focused VC firm Bodhi Tree landed a $1.5B investment from Qatar Investment Authority.
- Intel has launched a $1B fund to support early-stage companies operating in the foundry ecosystem.
- OceanSound Partners closed its inaugural fund with $780M of total capital commitments.
- Investor Josh Buckley is looking to raise up to $500M in capital commitments for his third fund, according to SEC filings.
- Paris/San Francisco-based Lauxera Capital Partners closed its maiden fund at $300M (€260M) to bet on European healthtech companies.
- Morpheus Ventures announced the closing of its Fund II with over $200M in commitments.
- Omega Venture Partners pulled in $115M to invest in AI-powered enterprise companies.
- Seoul-based VC firm, Envisioning Partners, closed its impact fund at $64M.
- Artisanal Ventures, a VC firm from the Bay Area focusing on B2B cloud startups, raised $62M for its first fund.
- Estonian tech investor Specialist VC announced the first close of a new $57M (€50M) fund at $47M (€42M). Specialist’s second fund will continue betting on Baltic region startups.
- DataRobot CEO Jeremy Achin launched a new $50M VC outfit, Cortical Ventures, that will rely heavily on Ukrainian talent.
- Blue Ocean Fund added $49M (€43M) to its fund this week, bringing the total funds raised so far to $125M (€110M) for ocean-cleaning projects.
- The Equity Alliance, a VC firm focusing on early-stage startups with diverse backgrounds, announced it had closed its Fund I at $28M.
- NFT marketplace OpeaSea announced the launch of its investment division, OpenSea Ventures, to focus on expanding the Web3 ecosystem.
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 Today's Funding 💸 Biotech/Health - UCello (San Diego Calif.), universal CAR-T therapies: $25M A led by Matrix Partners China, participation from Co-Win Ventures, Northern Light Venture Capital, Elikon Ventures.
- LinkinVax (Paris, France), protein-based vaccine platform: $4.35M Seed from André- Jacques Auberton- Hervé, Jean-Paul, Geoffrey Duyk, Giorgio Anania, et al.
Consumer - Papier (London, U.K.), online stationery retailer: $50M C led by Paris VC Singular, participation from dmg ventures, Lansdowne Partners and Kathaka, et al.
- Sekr (San Diego Calif.), mobile platform simplifying the outdoor travel experience: $2.25M Seed from Storyteller Overland, Backstage Capital, Techstars, Ad Astra Ventures, Crescent Ridge Ventures, et al.
Cybersecurity - Titaniam (Los Gatos, Calif.), data protection and privacy: $6M Seed led by Refinery Ventures, participation from Fusion Fund, Shasta Ventures, Ray Rothrock, Richard Clarke, et al.
Enterprise - Agot AI (Pittsburgh, Pa.), real-time order accuracy platform for restaurants: $12M from Conti Ventures, the Kitchen Fund, Grit Ventures, Yum.
- Manatal (Bangkok, Thailand), SaaS-powered recruitment platform provider: $5.1M Seed led by Sequoia India's Surge.
Fintech - Stitch (South Africa), APIs to access customers' financial accounts and provide financial services: $21M led by The Spruce House Partnership, participation from PayPal Ventures, TrueLayer, firstminute capital, The Raba Partnership, CRE Venture Capital, Village Global, et al.
- Alaffia Health (New York, N.Y.), AI platform to eliminate overpayments on medical claims: $5M led by Anthemis, participation from 1984 Ventures, Aperture Venture Capital, Tau Ventures, Twine Ventures, et al.
Proptech - Northspyre (New York, N.Y.), project delivery automation platform for real estate developers: $25M B led by CRV, participation from Craft Ventures, Tamarisc Ventures, Des Traynor.
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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 | 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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