The U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority has proposed merging its premium and standard listings into a single category to make the listing process more accessible, which it hopes would entice companies to list on the London exchange. With the changes proposed, organizations would be able to maintain two classes of shares even after going public and remove the mandatory shareholder votes. However, the move could potentially "bring in more risk to our market," acknowledged FCA's director of market oversight, Clare Cole. More: - The FCA added that any changes in regulations could potentially reduce investors' protections.
- Ashurst's head of equity capital markets, Nicholas Holmes, welcomed the changes but played down its impact, saying "The challenges to London's equity capital markets status run much deeper."
Zoom out: - The changes are aimed at making the nation more attractive as an IPO listing hub and to ward off competition from New York and Asian hubs.
- The number of listings in the U.K. has dropped due to reduced market liquidity after Brexit and lower investor appetite for growth stocks in the nation.
- Earlier this week, British microchip design firm Arm filed for an IPO listing in the U.S. after briefly considering a dual listing in the U.S. and the U.K.
- Arm — which reportedly intends to raise $10B (£8B) at the upcoming IPO — slammed the FCA for not relaxing transaction rules.
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What the numbers say: Global VCs deployed $21B capital in startups in April 2023. Despite slumping 56% YoY, global VC funding showed a slight improvement over the capital deployed in February 2023. VC funding retreated across seed-stage, early-stage, and late-stage by 50% YoY, 48% YoY, and 62% YoY, respectively. What happened: The current quarterly figures show that the VC funding pullback has persisted, continuing the trend established in previous quarters. In Q1 2023, global VC funding deployment was down 53% YoY. March was the only outlier in the last few months. However, its quarterly totals were boosted by Stripe's $6.5B funding round, which closed in the month. Where to see the impact: In April 2023, the healthcare and AI sectors secured $5.7B and $2.8B of VC funding, respectively, indicating investors' enthusiasm for both sectors. Fintech firms secured $2.7B of VC funding, nearly a third of the $7.7B deployed in the same month a year ago. Relevance: Only five new unicorns were minted in the month, compared to 40 in April 2022. In the previous quarters, unicorn startups were able to nab nearly a third of the total VC funding deployed. However, global unicorns seized $4.4B of VC funding in April, representing 20% of the total VC funding deployed in the month.
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New York-based real estate startup Cadre is struggling to raise venture funding, sources informed The Information. The firm is having difficulty raising VC funding as investors have reduced their capital deployment into the real estate sector due to rising interest rates, slumping home and office sales, a rising number of uninhabited office spaces, and high cash burn. More: - According to sources, the firm was in talks with investors to raise convertible debt with a $100M valuation ceiling.
- Another source claimed that the firm was also in talks to raise equity funding at a $155M valuation, representing an 80% drop over its peak valuation.
- Six years ago, the firm had raised funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital, Founders Fund, and Jack Ma at a $800M valuation.
- Cadre spokesperson Patrick Lovett dismissed the claims, adding, "We believe our proven track record, which stands at 27.6% net [internal rate of return] and over $460 [million] in gross distributions, speaks to our continued ability to provide compelling value to our clients and investors."
- Cadre, co-founded by Jared Kushner and former Blackstone executive Ryan Williams, raked in $30M in revenue last year.
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Former Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer, Victoria Beasley, and Evaline Tsai co-founded Gigascale Capital, a climate-focused VC firm. Schroepfer is personally driven to combat climate change and feels the sector is reaching an inflection point. He is investing an undisclosed sum in Gigascale Capital's fund through his family office. More: - Beasley was a climate tech investor at Prelude Ventures, while Tsai founded a healthcare tech startup and was an investor at Fine Structure Ventures.
- Schroepfer has previously invested in over a "dozen climate startups as an angel investor."
- The Gigascale team is researching about decarbonization of buildings, industrial processes, and alternative food manufacturing.
- Despite its initial research, the firm maintains that it will invest across the entire spectrum within climate tech.
- Schroepfer added, "We will look at software, but we're kind of more focused on the hard stuff because I think a lot of people are mistakenly avoiding it — both investors and entrepreneurs."
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Indian VC firm Chiratae Ventures secured $122.5M (INR 1001 crore) in capital commitments toward its first growth fund, CGF-1. The fund closed 34% above its target of ~$93M (INR 750 crore). Chiratae's last fund, Fund 4, was also oversubscribed by 22%. The new fund will enable the firm to make growth-stage investments in technology startups in India and overseas. More: - Existing backers Pratithi, 57 Stars, and Manish Choksi joined as limited partners to the CGF-1 fund, joined by new investors State Bank of India, India Infoline Limited (IIFL), and Axis Bank.
- The new fund brings Chiratae's total assets under management (AUM) to over $1.1B.
- The firm has invested in over 130 startups across a 16-year span and successfully exited 48 investments.
- Notable previous and current portfolio companies include Lenskart, Myntra, PolicyBazaar, Uniphore, Firstcry, Curefit, and others.
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Singaporean AI technology company Advance Intelligence Group secured $80M in fresh equity funding led by existing backers Warburg Pincus and Northstar Group. Advance Intelligence intends to use the proceeds to further develop its AI technology "to streamline consumer transactions and enable greater and fairer access to credit and financial products and services," per CEO and co-founder Jefferson Chen. More: - The funding round brings the firm's total raised to date to over $700M.
- Advance Intelligence last raised a $400M Series D round led by SoftBank Vision Fund II at a $2B valuation in 2021.
- The AI-driven fintech firm is known for developing buy-now-pay-later platform Atome, digital lending platform Kredit Pintar, and omnichannel e-commerce merchant services platform Ginee.
- Advance Intelligence claims it has over 500 enterprise clients.
- The firm has reportedly served 40 million individual customers and disbursed over $4B in loans.
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Quick Hits: - The company behind these surgical robots is planning to list on Nasdaq. Last day to fund your investment is on 5/10.*
- Electric VTOL aircraft maker Lilium is looking to raise $250M in post-IPO equity financing. Tencent has reportedly already committed $100M, with a provision to add another $75M contingent upon Lilium being able to raise an equal amount via equity, debt, or grants.
- Battery Ventures led a $50M Series C funding round into cloud-native data-driven insurance management system developer Novidea.
- Energy-as-a-service solutions provider Redaptive secured an undisclosed Series E extension funding from Linse Capital, bringing the total secured under the round to $250M.
- VC firm Accel is revamping its accelerator program in India to focus on AI startups. This month, the firm will add nearly half a dozen early-stage startups to its cohort.
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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 and 1972 Fords. | |
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