 VCs are pushing their portfolio companies to reduce headcount or slow hiring, reports The Information. With fresh funding becoming harder to come by, insolvency is now something younger startups have to contend with, says Martin Pichinson, co-founder of Sherwood Partners. More: - Startups laid off over 2,000 employees in the last month.
- Still, the industry has experienced much worse in recent memory: At the beginning of 2020, 26,000 startup workers became unemployed in April alone, according to layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi.
- Moreover, tech-related jobs are expected to increase by 2% in 2022, generating 178,000 new jobs, according to the Computing Technology Industry Association.
The wider lens: - The development is a direct result of more cautious attitudes in tandem with the slowdown after 2021’s fundraising rush.
- The average deal size has decreased to $22M this year from $29M last year. Average valuations have also fallen to $310M from $396M, according to data firm PitchBook.
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Swedish customer success software startup Planhat has raised $50M Series A after spending seven years bootstrapped. The funding came from Sprints Capital and was the Nordic region’s second-largest Series A round so far this year. More: - Founded in 2015, Planhat provides a CRM platform and is active in Europe, North America, South America, and the Asian Pacific region.
- It is now valued at $526.4M (€490M), according to sources.
- The founders’ decision to accept investors’ capital came from the desire to scale even faster. To date, it is scaling at about 100-200% each year.
- In lieu of outside funding, Planhat previously opted to give equity to its employees, who owned about 15% of the company prior to today’s round.
- The company’s headcount currently totals just over 100 employees.
- Sprints Capital is not the best-known investor in Europe and instead tends to fly under the radar.
- Nevertheless, it has stakes in British fintech unicorn Revolut, Lithuanian online fashion marketplace Vinted, and Swedish home purchase marketplace Hemnet.
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DoubleMe, a Seoul-based metaverse startup, has raised $25M Series A co-led by Coentry Investment and NH Investment, with participation from Samsung Electronics. The 2015-founded company did not reveal a valuation. More: - Prior to today’s round, DoubleMe had only raised $1M in a seed funding round. It had won $16M in grants from the governments of South Korea and the U.K., which included $3M to develop an accessible personal holoportation platform.
- The company is best known for its tech to convert two-dimensional videos to three-dimensional models.
- In Nov. 2020, it launched TwinWorld, a metaverse platform that allows users to build an AR experience in any physical location.
- Since then, it has reached $4.5M in revenue from paying customers located in 17 cities across the world.
- It is aiming to release a commercial version of TwinWorld later this year, which can support AR devices.
The wider lens: - The South Korean government’s interest in DoubleMe is tied to its five-year plan to make the country the world’s leader in the metaverse.
- Around 2,000 other companies in the country are involved in the initiative, including startups and big names like Samsung, LG, and SK Group.
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Best of Last Week M&A IPO/SPAC New Funds - Amazon announced the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund (AIIF) with a $1B commitment to back startups working toward customer fulfillment, logistics, and supply chain domains.
- Mainsail Partners raised $915M toward its sixth fund, its largest to date.
- Framework Ventures closed its third fund at $400M to invest in the early-stage DeFi, Web3, and blockchain gaming space.
- Chris Sacca’s climate investment company, Lowercarbon Capital, announced a $350M fund to invest in carbon removal startups. Sacca is primarily known for founding the investment firm Lowercase Capital.
- Evok Innovations launched a new fund to support startups developing decarbonization technology with a target of $300M. The firm will focus on hard tech and industrial utility-scale.
- Construct Capital, a VC firm founded by former Uber exec Rachel Holt and ex-NEA partner Dayna Grayson, announced a new $225M fund focused on manufacturing, supply chain, and industrial startups.
- Conductive Ventures secured $200M in commitments toward its Fund III targeting investment via Series A and B funding rounds.
- Savano Capital Partners closed a $157M third fund for late-stage venture investments.
- KuCoin, a crypto trading platform, launched a $100M creators fund through its venture arm and its NFT Marketplace-Windvane.
- Las Olas Capital raised a $50M second fund for seed-stage B2B software investments.
- Chipotle launched a new fund named Cultivate Next with a $50M initial commitment for seed-to-Series B foodtech rounds.
- Non-profit venture fund Ukrainian Tech Ventures is looking to raise a $50M fund to back 200 early-stage startups over the next four years.
- Tokio Marine, an insurance corporation, launched a $42M early-stage corporate VC fund called the Tokio Marine Future Fund.
- AWS has launched a new accelerator program for minority founders and outfitted it with $30M.
- Plug and Play launched its first fund with $25.5M to place bets on companies within the end-to-end supply chain.
- Andreessen Horowitz announced the official debut of its accelerator for early-stage entrepreneurs.
- SVB Financial Group has launched a Fellows Program for Black, Latinx, and women professionals in venture capital.
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Today’s Funding 💸 Agtech - Rooser (Edinburgh, U.K.), marketplace for whole fish sourcing: $23M led by Index Ventures, participation from GV, Point Nine Capital.
Blockchain - Delta One (San Francisco, Calif.), Solana-based DeFi protocol: $9.1M Seed led by Alameda Research, Ship Capital, participation from Solana Ventures, Raj Gokal, et al.
ClimateTech - LifeLabs (Sunnyvale, Calif.), thermal-lifestyle apparel for lower carbon footprints: $6M Seed led by Asia Green Fund.
Enterprise - SwatchOn (Seoul, South Korea), sourcing wholesale fashion fabric aggregator: $10M from Pavilion Capital, Kakao Ventures, TBT Partners.
- Stigg (Tel Aviv, Israel), developer-first platform for SaaS pricing and packaging: $6.4M Seed from Unusual Ventures, Emerge Ventures, et al.
- Perfect Venue (San Francisco, Calif.), all-in-one, subscription-based event management platform for restaurants: $3.6M led by Defy Partners, participation from Amity Ventures, Context Ventures, et al.
- Unmudl (Arlington, Va.), Skills-to-Jobs marketplace: $1.3M Seed led by Stand Together Ventures Lab, participation from WGU Labs, et al.
Gaming - Yomi Games (Singapore), blockchain gaming studio: $2M from Hypersphere Ventures, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Sfermion, Cultur3 Capital, Maveron, et al.
GovTech - Thentia (Toronto, Canada), SaaS data management platform for regulatory bodies and government agencies: $10M B1 led by Spring Mountain Capital, BDC Capital.
Logistics - ThroughPut (Palo Alto, Calif.), supply chain AI: $6M from undisclosed sources.
Metaverse - White Sands (Austin, Texas), island metaverse ecosystem: $8M from token sales.
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- AngelList, the famed fundraising platform, raised $40M from GPs and LPs using its platform. In total, 10% of its active users were involved.
- India’s Reliance Industries has scrapped a $3.4B deal to acquire core parts of retail chain Future Group. The latter company’s creditors rejected the offer earlier this week.
- Chinese Q&A platform Zhihu saw its shares fall 24% during its Hong Kong debut, making it one of the worst in the city’s history. The company raised a total of $106M and is also listed in New York.
- Accenture has acquired Ergo, a Buenos Aires-based data platform, and Greenfish, a Brussels-based sustainability engineering and advisory company.
- Amazon has acquired Indian social commerce startup Glowroad, which is specifically geared toward women. Terms were undisclosed, but Glowroad’s most recent valuation was reported at $75M.
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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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