Rising inflation, interest rates, political concerns, and the public market slump have resulted in reduced venture funding availability for startups, tipping the deal terms in favor of investors. Global venture capital fell 19% in the first quarter of this year to $143.9B, the largest QoQ drop in over a decade. Now that the 13-year bull run is coming to a halt, venture firms are focusing on tightening valuations and due diligence checks, both of which were supposedly let loose in the "free-flowing money" period. Startups seeking funding in the down market have to contend with better deal terms for investors, including lower valuations, higher equity offerings, and increased liquidity preference choices and redemption rights. More: - Enhanced liquidation preferences in favor of investors can provide them a 2x or higher return on their initial investment.
- Headline's founding partner Mathias Schilling noted that few deals are being done at 3x liquidation preference.
- While the market is currently only witnessing flat rounds, Telstra Venture's general partner Yash Patel anticipates down rounds in Q3 or Q4, although high-growth late-stage firms may be able to raise capital without a big valuation hit.
- BNPL provider Klarna and crypto lender BlockFi are supposedly raising new capital at reduced valuations.
- Per Business Insider, VC firms are advising startups to gather early-stage venture financing while it's still accessible, leverage AI / ML technologies to innovate, build marketplaces, optimize the product-customer fit, and continue to network with investors.
- Despite the drop in venture funding, a few industries, such as climate tech, are being kept afloat by angel and early-stage investors.
- In Q1 this year, angel and seed rounds totaled over $283.3M.
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Venture capital firm World Innovation Lab (WiL) secured $1B in funding to be deployed across its third growth fund, WiL strategic partners funds, and corporate VC funds. The Palo Alto, California- and Tokyo, Japan-headquartered firm has over $1.9B in committed capital. More: - WiL will invest in growth and late-stage companies across cloud infrastructure, fintech, healthcare, cybersecurity, sustainability, energy tech, Web3, and climate tech domains in the U.S. and Japan.
- Investors in the new fund include Brother Global, Panasonic, Japan Investment Corporation, and Subaru.
- Notable other limited partners include Sony, Square Enix, Panasonic, NTT Docomo Ventures, ANA, Suzuki Motor, Nissan Motor, and Japan Investment Corporation, amongst others.
- Asana, Mercari, Raksul, Wise, and Auth are among the company's successful exits, with the first four going public and the last being bought by Okta.
- Aiven, Algolia, Automation Anywhere, DataRobot, Kong, Sendbird, SmartHR, Rippling, UnQork, and Wise are among the 15 unicorns currently in its portfolio.
- WiL's first and second venture funds received $360M and $521M in capital, respectively.
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EcoVadis, a French environmental, social, and governance (ESG) sustainability rating assessment company, raised $500M in a Series C funding round. The Astorg and BeyondNetZero-led financing raised the firm's valuation to over $1B, making it the sector's first unicorn, per its co-chief executive. Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and Princeville Capital participated in the equity fundraising. More: - EcoVadis' total funds raised so far reached $725M with the new fundraising.
- The company intends to use the proceeds to fuel international expansion across North America and Asia, advance its AI / ML functionality, and back strategic acquisitions.
- EcoVadis' platform is leveraged by over 95,000 companies in over 175 nations to measure and improve their sustainability impact.
- Notable clients include General Motors, Deutsche Bank, Verizon, Nestle, and Henkle, amongst others.
- The company reported a 50% revenue growth in the past 12 months.
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Growth equity investment firm Glade Brook Capital Partners closed its third strategic growth fund at $430M. The firm has over $1.9B in assets under management and has completed 64 investments into 33 portfolio companies. More: - Glade Brook is seeking to invest in Series B- and C-stages across software, e-commerce, fintech, Web3, digital health, and digital media industries.
- The firm expects to invest in 12 to 15 startups over the next two years.
- Notable portfolio investments include Airbnb, Axios, Capsule, Lyft, Snapchat, and Uber.
- The Greenwich, Conn.-based firm reported gross IRR of 41% and 70%, respectively, on its Growth I and II fund.
- 90% of the latest fund capital was provided by Glade Brook’s existing partners.
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 A message from NANOVMS NanoVMs is running an equity based crowdfund and is now open to the public for investment. NanoVMs is creating a new server-side operating system with unikernels. Current highlights: - Revenue from 11 countries including a $950M ID/IQ from the USAF
- 4 Patent Issued, 4 More Filed
- Raised $3M to date
- 3 Grants from the US Air Force, Dept. of Energy, and National Science Foundation
NanoVMs is a category creator. The global cybersecurity market was valued at $132 billion in 2021 while the devops market exceeded $7 billion in 2021. NanoVMs is making devops work super easy while at the same time providing proactive defensive security measures from a hacker mindset. Existing investors include Initialized Capital, Joe Montana's fund L2 Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Hack.VC, Inner Loop Capital and more. Start Investing Here
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High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), a German public-private venture capital firm, secured over $417.7M (€400M) in commitments toward its fourth fund. HTGF is targeting a second close of the fund later this year. Over 40 investors backed the new fund, including the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) and KfW Capital. The firm intends to invest in over 40 early-stage German startups that were established in the last three years. More: - The new fund will invest across digital tech, industrial tech, and life sciences sectors.
- Since the firm’s founding in 2005, HTGF has invested in over 670 seed-stage startups.
- The organization has successfully exited 150 startups, with a billion-euro exit and four IPOs among its portfolio highlights.
- HTGF’s third fund closed in May 2018 with ~$333M (€319.5M) in capital provided by over 33 enterprises, medium-sized companies, and private investors.
- Prior to the current fund, the company had secured $1.1B in capital across its funds.
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CoachHub secured $200M in Series C funding, bringing its total raised to date to $330M. The German AI-powered digital coaching platform's funding round was led by Sofina and SoftBank Vision Fund 2. CoachHub intends to use the fresh funding to scale its business, increase its headcount, and fuel growth. More: - A year ago, the company ventured into the APAC area.
- The company intends to expand across Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia on a priority basis, followed by Thailand and the Philippines.
- The company has a network of 3,500 certified business and well-being coaches across 90 nations.
- Its 500+ client roster consists of notable brands such as Coca-Cola, Danone, Toyota, LVMH, L'Oréal, Credit Suisse, and Twitter.
- Molten Ventures, Speedinvest, HV Capital, Signals Venture Capital, and Silicon Valley Bank Capital were the other participants in the funding round.
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- California-based publicly traded medical device company ResMed is set to acquire German digital care platform Medifox Dan for $1B, paving the way for Hg Capital to exit its investment. ResMed hopes the acquisition will provide it with a foothold outside of the U.S.
- AI-powered inbound call marketing analysis and customer agent training platform Invoca raised $83M in Series F funding at a $1.1B post-money valuation. The funding was led by Silver Lake Waterman with participation from Upfront Ventures, Accel, and H.I.G. Capital.
- Proximie, a London-based health technology platform that allows surgeons to virtually attend operating theaters, raised $80M in Series C funding led by Advent Life Sciences. Emerson Collective, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, British Patient Capital, Mubadala Investment Company, F-Prime Capital, and others participated in the funding.
- Atomica and Balderton Capital led a $70M Series A fundraising round into Amsterdam-based pre-employment skill testing platform TestGorilla.
- Indonesia-based consumer payments platform Flip secured $55M in Series B funding led by Tencent. The funding round saw participation from Block Inc, Insight Partners, and others.
- French company Masteos secured $41.7M (€40M) from its Series A round. DST Global Partner, Daphni, and Masteos’ employees backed the funding.
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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. | |
Laika is a unified compliance platform that automates workflows for audits, infosec monitoring, and vendor due diligence in a single, collaborative space. | |
NanoVMs is a privately held deep tech company from SV. Learn more about investing here. | |
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