StepStone Group's partner Brian Borton claims that VCs are selling their stakes in venture funds and startups at a 40% to 60% discount over the net asset value. In some cases, VCs are liquidating stakes in a "fire sale" at an 80% discount compared to the most recent round. More: - Borton said this had enabled them to scoop up stakes in promising funds and startups at lower prices.
- Per investment bank Jefferies, VCs were already liquidating their stakes at a 32% discount in the secondary market at the end of last year.
- Secondary market investors had $131B in dry powder at the start of 2023, up 25% from a year ago, per Evercore.
- Secondary market investors are planning to raise an additional $94B this year.
Zoom out: - Earlier last month, The Information uncovered that Tiger Global was working with banks to sell its stakes in other VC funds.
- Tiger was making the move to rebalance its portfolio, which was marked down by 33% in 2022.
| |
What the numbers say: Non-traditional investors (NTI), such as corporate VCs, private equity, and sovereign wealth funds, participated in European VC deals worth €8B ($8.7B) in Q1 2023, per Pitchbook data reviewed by Sifted. At the current rate, funding at the 2023 year-end is expected to come below 2018's levels. Why it matters: The retrenchment of NTIs will impact growth-stage companies the hardest, especially those looking to raise $100M+ mega-rounds. Typically, European entrepreneurs have depended on NTIs to boost their round sizes. Pitchbook analyst Nalin Patel said, "Owing to where non-VC investors focus, we'll likely see declines in valuations and liquidity issues at later stages as they pull out." 
What happened: CVCs have reduced capital deployment into European startups due to volatile market conditions, which has caused several larger tech corporates to refocus their attention on their own survival. While sovereign wealth funds have also reduced their capital deployment, they may start scooping up startups running low on capital reserves at a discount. Patel adds, "If you've got the capital or dry powder to deploy, now is a great time to gain exposure to a VC-backed company that was growing at a really high rate and may now be facing a valuation comedown."
| |
 A message from TRUERA LLM Testing and Monitoring – Join the Hands-On Workshop How can you ensure that your large language model is honest, harmless, and helpful? Join TruEra on May 11th and 18th as their President and Chief Scientist, Anupam Datta, provides a hands-on overview of how to analyze and improve the performance of your LLMs. During the two 60-minute online sessions, he will cover the following: - Quick introduction to LLMs - what are they and their history?
- Risks and challenges of LLMs: is your LLM honest, harmless, and helpful?
- Defining feedback functions to model LLM quality and performance
- How should you test and monitor LLMs?
- Live walk-throughs of how to identify, diagnose, and debug model issues in development and production
- Q&A with Professor Datta
Dates: 2-session series on May 11th and 18th Where: Virtual Event - Join from Anywhere Who should attend: Data scientists, machine learning engineers, MLOps managers, data analysts, statisticians, data and analytics managers Register for Free
| |
Kleiner Perkins partner Wen Hsieh is reportedly establishing a new VC firm called Matter Venture Partners with backing from chipmaker TSMC, sources informed Reuters. Hsieh is in talks with limited partners, including TSMC and Kleiner Perkins, to raise a $200M debut fund. More: - Another Kleiner Perkins executive Haomiao Huang is reportedly joining Matter Venture Partners.
- Matter will back early-stage startups in the U.S. in the hard-tech sector, including AI and robotics.
- At Kleiner Perkins, Hsieh was instrumental in leading investments into Chinese drone maker DJI and 3D printing company Desktop Metal.
Zoom out: - Hsieh is the latest employee from Kleiner Perkins to establish a new VC firm, joining the likes of Vinod Khosla, who established Khosla Ventures, and Mary Meeker, who formed BOND Capital.
- Hsieh's move into establishing a new VC firm comes amidst a challenging fundraising environment for first-time fund managers.
- Pitchbook data shows that first-time fund managers were able to raise $11.7B for 99 funds in Q1 2023, down from $73.8B raised across 199 funds in the same period a year ago.
| |
San Francisco-based drone delivery startup Zipline raised $330M in Series F funding. Incoming funds will enable the firm to scale operations and launch a new home delivery service. Zipline increased its valuation to $4.2B at the recent round, up 55% from its previous valuation of $2.7B two years ago. More: - Per filings seen by Forbes, the company priced the shares at the current round at $40.20 per share.
- The filing also showed a potential Series F-1 extension provision of $20M, indicating that the round size could be increased later.
- The current fundraising brings the firm's total funds raised to date to $821M.
- The firm's existing investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Katalyst Ventures, and others.
- Just over a month ago, Zipline debuted its P2 delivery drone with a maximum range of 24 miles and a maximum payload capacity of 8 pounds.
| |
 A message from VANTA Swamped with spreadsheets as you work to stay compliant with privacy and security regulations? Then you need Vanta, the market-leading automated compliance platform. Trusted by 5,000+ global customers, Vanta helps you quickly and easily get compliant, manage risk, and show off your security — so your business can focus on building and selling. Vanta’s platform: -
Automates up to 90% of compliance for SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, and more, saving you hundreds of hours of manual work -
Gives you one place to centralize and scale your security program and build trust with customers and partners -
Helps your business scale and thrive while reducing the need for countless spreadsheets and endless email threads Even better? Vanta customers report saving up to 85% of compliance costs. And now, you can take a self-guided tour of Vanta’s product to see how it all works. See the Tour
| |
 Crypto VC firm CMCC Global is launching a $100M fund to back crypto startups between Series A and Series B stages. The firm will focus its investments in Hong Kong, which is aiming to become a crypto hub. More: - CMCC intends to invest in infrastructure, fintech, and consumer domains within the crypto sector.
- The firm is backed by Richard Li and Gemini Trust's founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.
- Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission is exploring the option to allow retail investors to trade major crypto tokens, such as Bitcoin and Ether, on licensed exchanges starting June 1.
- The local government has earmarked $6.4M (HK $50M) to expand the Web3 ecosystem.
Zoom out: - CMCC's fund is defying the overall VC funding retrenchment following the drop in crypto market prices and bankruptcies in 2022.
- Per Pitchbook, VCs invested $2.4B into crypto startups in Q1 2023, the lowest quarterly total since 2020.
| |
Redwood City, California-based AI-powered employee experience platform Simpplr secured $70M in Series D funding led by Sapphire Ventures. Simpplr intends to use the proceeds to accelerate product development of its employee experience (EX) platform and continue adopting AI technology. More: - Founder and CEO Dhiraj Sharma said, "Simpplr's new 'Employee Listening' solution combines active and passive listening to provide companies with actionable insights to improve engagement and sentiment in real time."
- Sharma plans to grow the company by over 70% YoY, driven by the rapid growth currently seen across the healthcare, transportation, logistics, and manufacturing sectors.
- Existing investor Norwest Ventures joined the current round along with new investors Tola Capital and Salesforce Ventures.
- The firm has over 700 customers, including Penske Automotive, AAA, and Snowflake, with a claimed 98% customer retention rate.
- The current financing brings the total raised by the firm to date to $131M.
| |
Quick Hits: - The company behind these surgical robots is planning to list on Nasdaq. Last day to fund your investment is on 5/10.*
- A derivative complaint alleges that Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and board member Marc Andreessen used inside information to sell stocks within two days of the company's direct listing, helping them avoid $1B in losses. The company sold $2.9B worth of stock through a direct listing. Within five weeks, the firm's market cap dropped by $37B, resulting in a $1B loss in market cap value.
- Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority issued written reprimands to co-founders of crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital for operating a new digital asset exchange OPNX without required local licenses.
- Bullpen Capital fired Ann Lai from the general partner role. Lai claims the termination was "discriminatory and retaliatory" through a LinkedIn post.
- Hygieia, a digital therapeutics startup for insulin therapy, secured a $22M Series B extension funding from lead investor Firstime Ventures.
- Biotech firm Anavo Therapeutics secured an €8.5M ($9.3M) seed round extension funding from MRL Ventures Fund, M Ventures, INKEF, Taiho Ventures, and Bioqube Ventures. The funding brings the total secured under the seed round to €28M ($30.7M).
- Demo Divvy, get an Ember heated mug. Hot coffee and quick and easy expense management — get both when you demo Divvy.*
*This is sponsored content.
| |
Upcoming Events: *This is a sponsored listing.
| |
 |  | 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. | |
Join us on May 11th and 18th for a hands-on overview of how to analyze and improve the performance of your LLMs. | |
| |
Comments
Post a Comment