 In the two years since the pandemic, companies in IT and financial services have seen their valuations increase on average by 68.5% and 61.9%, respectively. PitchBook reports that those figures translate to a $143.2B increase in the aggregate value of European and North American VC-backed fintech companies and an additional $1.7T in total value for IT companies of the same geography. More: - The biggest valuation jump for any single VC-backed company came from Stripe, which saw its market value explode by $129.5B from $22.5B to $152B at the time of writing.
- It was followed by Coinbase, which saw its valuation jump by more than 10x, from around $8B to $85.5B in the course of two years.
- The past two years have not been kind to all companies. Of all VC companies with a valuation of over $100M, 148 have seen their valuation decrease since March 2020.
- The most notable of these was Magic Leap, which was the highest-valued company and had a down round that shaved its valuation by $4.69B.
- Many companies, some of them household names, have been unable (or unwilling) to secure any funding in the past two years.
- The largest of these is JUUL, with its $38B valuation and last funding round lying all the way back in Dec. 2018.
- Certain sectors are, in general, not growing as fast: Consumer products and services grew 51.1% in the last two years, while the materials and resources sector was the second-slowest grower with an increase of 55.5%.
- These figures respectively reflect changing consumer spending habits and a slow return to physical offices.
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AngelList Ventures has raised $100M of fresh capital in a Series C round led by Tiger Global. The injection valued the company at $4B seven years after its last funding round. The news comes after reports of Tiger Global changing up its investment strategy to back seed funds. More: - The past 12 months saw a lot of milestones reached at AngelList:
- It launched RUVs, or rollup vehicles, which allow multiple investors to be consolidated into one entity, and Stack, which allows founders to get their company ready for investment.
- It launched a $25M fund to back startups solely based on their hiring velocity.
- It also hit $10B in assets supported, well above the $3B in 2020.
- Almost 200 unicorns raised capital from GPs on AngelList, and 19 companies went public.
- In total, the platform reports, 800 GPs invested $3.6B from 38,000 LPs into 7,000 startups.
- CEO Avlok Kohli noted that the platform’s decision to abstain from fresh capital for seven years was based on the company’s desire to support a high employee-to-impact ratio.
- The firm currently has 130 people working for it.
In case you missed it: - The exact workings of AngelList are fairly intricate. While it has its own funds to distribute, it is best known as a place where individuals can support the youngest of companies.
- As the platform grows, The Generalist took a deep dive into its history, uses, and future.
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The SEC has required Alumni Venture Group to repay investors $4.7M in management fees. Alumni claimed that it charged 2% annually for management, plus 20% carried interest, the industry standard. The Commission ruled that Alumni improperly charged LPs 10 years worth of 2% fees upfront in contravention of the so-called standard practices. More: - Alumni CEO Mike Collins also agreed to pay a $100,000 penalty in addition to the $700,000 that the firm itself will have to fork over to square with the Commission.
- Regulators also found that Alumni improperly mingled funds without telling LPs.
- Alumni manages its $425M AUM as a fund of funds and distributes capital via multiple different vehicles tied to specific universities like Harvard (The Yard Ventures) and Yale (Blue Ivy Ventures).
- It has its backing primarily from thousands of individual investors, who, though accredited, may not have noticed the fine print or known that the fee practice was uncommon, to say the least.
The discrepancy: - By charging 10 years' worth of fees upfront, Alumni effectively gave itself an interest-free loan from its backers.
- It justified the strategy by noting its simplicity and that it helps enable low investment minimums and eliminates the possibility of hidden fees.
- Still, the basic concept is counterintuitive when one considers that there is no guarantee of there being a fund in 10 years, even if that is the standard fund lifespan.
- Alumni will continue with the practice in the future with explicit marketing materials.
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Saltbox, a co-working/warehousing provider for e-commerce entrants, raised $128M from Fundrise, an investment firm enabling individuals to place bets on real estate. Fundrise will also acquire warehouses ranging in size from 50,000 to 150,000 square feet to house new Saltbox locations as it expands nationally. More: - Saltbox began with a location in Atlanta in 2019 and expanded with a larger space in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
- It has also added a location in Phoenix, and the next targeted locales include Alexandria, Virginia, and a second facility in Atlanta.
- In total, it has six locations and wants to bring that number up to 15 by the end of the year.
- CEO Tyler Scriven claims that his firm has $200B worth of e-commerce gross merchandise volume in its warehouses. He expects that figure to grow to $500B in the next eight years.
- Prior to today’s funding, Saltbox raised a $10.6M Series A round last year.
The wider lens: - As e-commerce consumption continues to grow in the post-pandemic world, logistics startups are springing out of the ground to get buyers their purchases.
- 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.
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 Today’s Funding 💸 Biotech/Health - Sherlock Biosciences (Boston, Mass.), biology diagnostics: $80M B led by Novalis LifeSciences, participation from Illumina Ventures, Albany Capital, Catalio Capital Management, Paul Meister, et al.
- Creyon Bio (San Diego, Calif.), drug development company: $40M A led by DCVC Bio, Lux Capital, participation from Casdin Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, BioBrit.
- TRexBio (San Francisco, Calif.), therapeutics with a focus on modulating regulatory T cell response in human tissue: $26M A led by Polaris Partners, Laurion Capital, participation from SV Health Investors, Eli Lilly Company, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Pfizer Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments.
- OccamzRazor (New York, N.Y.), curative treatments for complex brain-aging diseases: ...
Want to read about all of today’s funding in one place? The funding roundup is only available to free users on Mondays and Fridays. Upgrade to Inside VC Premium for either $10/month, or $100 billed annually, to receive the full list in every issue! For a limited time, we are offering a 14-day free trial. Click here to sign up! | | | |
Quick Hits: - More than half of U.S. organizations said they currently spend $1M to $50M on AI initiatives every year, while another 15% are spending $51M or more, according to LXT's new executive report.*
- Worldwide fintech funding in the last two weeks totaled only $1.1B over 51 deals, a 63% reduction compared with the two weeks before, reports Crunchbase. Fintech was the most active sector for venture investors in 2021, with $134B invested worldwide.
- Jack Ma has delayed the Ant Group IPO, which was initially scheduled for H2'22 or H1'23. Sources say that the ongoing crackdown on tech companies in China is still too risky for even a Hong Kong debut.
- Pi Labs, a London-based venture outfit looking to support the next generation of proptech startups, raised $90M for its latest fund. It will invest in pre-seed to Series A rounds.
- Pony.AI will recall three self-driving vehicles in response to a crash in October. The company was prompted by the NHTSA, which suspected faulty self-driving software. Pony.ai confirmed the suspicion. The news comes just days after the company announced a new $8.5B valuation.
- Not getting what you need from your payments processing company? Maybe it's time for a new one.*
*This is a sponsored post.
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*This is a sponsored post.
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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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