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| Hey Insiders, Today's newsletter covers: - 🇨🇳 CalPERS' cautious approach to Chinese investments
- 🚀 Arm's IPO to likely be SoftBank's second-largest exit yet
- 💰 Foundery's $29.6M debut fund
If you find this newsletter useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) is "being mindful about our exposure in China right now," CIO Nicole Musicco told Bloomberg. The pension giant is taking a cautious approach due to the rising geo-political tensions between the U.S. and China, afraid that it might have to divest its stake in China almost overnight. More: - Less than 3% of CalPERS portfolio is invested in China.
- The pension fund has nearly $460B worth of assets under management.
- It achieved a 5.8% return on investments in the fiscal year ending June 30, short of its annual target of 6.8%.
- Musicco maintains that it remains "woefully underweight" specifically in venture capital, giving it fewer reasons to worry about the impact of political tensions on its portfolio.
- The firm is excited about the potential of AI and climate tech startups.
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| 2 | | British chip design firm Arm filed for an IPO on the Nasdaq, with investor SoftBank listed as the sole seller of securities. 
What the numbers say: Arm will not generate any proceeds from the IPO. However, SoftBank will dilute its holdings to raise up to $10B at the listing. SoftBank intends to retain control of Arm following the listing. Relevance: The Japanese investment firm is targeting a valuation between $60B and $70B. The listing could prove to be SoftBank's second largest exit to date if it is successful in raising at the top end of the spectrum, beating SoftBank's second and third largest exit of Uber and DiDi Global, which held their respective debuts at $67.6B and $63B. Alibaba still has the honor of being SoftBank's largest exit to date, touching a valuation of $159.3B at its IPO in 2014. What happened: SoftBank took Arm private at a $32B transaction in 2016. Nvidia was reportedly looking to acquire Arm for $40B in 2022, but the deal was called off. Where to see the impact: Arm raked in $2.68B in revenue in the fiscal year ending March 2023. The revenue was relatively flat compared to the previous fiscal year, despite the heightened demand for AI chips. The top five clients contribute 57% of overall revenue at Arm. Q: Will Arm be able to achieve the expected valuation at its upcoming IPO? Let us know here. | | | |
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| 3 | | Biotech venture studio Foundery secured $29.6M in capital commitments toward its debut fund. The firm helps academic researchers identify drug targets and do proof-of-concept testing for cancer, autoimmune diseases, and inflammation. More: - The firm has research collaborations with the University of California and the University of Arizona.
- Foundery has nine preclinical drug candidates in its research pipeline.
- Foundery CEO and co-founder Michel Streuli said, "Because time and financial commitments to conduct industry-standard translational research are typically not feasible for university researchers, Foundery helps bridge the gap by using its in-house immunologists and drug developers to validate targets and generate drug development candidates."
- The firm's limited partners include Samsara BioCapital's Srini Akkaraju and Redpoint Ventures' Jeff Brody.
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| 4 | | Bolt founder Ryan Breslow is reportedly raising a $40M fund for his accelerator and venture capital fund dubbed Family, per an offering document seen by Axios. The fund aims to back enterprise software, climate, fintech commerce, and crypto startups. More: - Breslow has invested in crypto company Eco, health-tech company Love, contract management firm Terzo, and carbon reduction startup GreenCarbon to date.
- The firm had initially planned to raise a $140M fund last year with a 30% incentive fee but shelved the fund considering the fundraising headwinds.
- Per the offering document, the new fund is offering a 2% management fee and a 20% incentive fee.
Zoom out: - Emerging fund managers have been able to raise funds worth $2.6B in the first half of the year, putting them on track to close the year with the lowest capital commitments since 2016.
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| 5 | | Venture Atlas promoted Jenny Lane to the COO role. Lane will manage the firm's current three funds and sit on the investment committee for each fund. The firm, previously known as Atlas Venture Partners, also hired Vicki Bowen Hewes as its CEO of Ohio Impact Fund, taking over the role vacated by Lane. More: - Venture Atlas has launched an LGBTQ+ founders-focused Pride Fund and Ohio Impact Fund in partnership with Loud Capital.
- Initial check sizes for Pride and Impact fund were $10M and $5M, respectively.
- The firm launched American Dream Fund to back immigrant founders in partnership with Migrate Ventures.
- Lane has previously led two investments for Venture Atlas' Impact Fund: digital marketplace Conductor Solar and telehealth platform InovCares.
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| 6 | | Today's Funding: Biotech - British genomic data protection startup Genomes.io secured $20M capital from GEM Digital Limited.
- Clinical-stage drug discovery and development startup Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals secured $6M in pre-Series B funding led by Dreavent Capital.
Cybersecurity - SaaS identity risk management startup Grip Security raised $41M in Series B funding led by Third Point Ventures. YL Ventures, Intel Capital, and The Syndicate Group participated in the funding round.
- Security automation startup Cerby raised $17M in Series A funding led by Two Sigma Ventures. Outpost Ventures, Ridge Ventures, Founders Fund, Salesforce Ventures, Okta Ventures, Incubate Fund, and others participated in the funding round.
Information Technology - Integrated e-commerce, point of sale, inventory bookings, and rewards company StoreConnect nabbed $9M in seed funding led by Bellini Capital.
Telecommunications - Canadian digital infrastructure solutions provider Andorix raised $40M in fresh debt and equity funding led by Voya Investment Management. The round has an option to increase the round by an additional $35M.
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- African payments startup Flutterwave is proceeding with its IPO plans after resolving allegations of financial impropriety.
- Emily Schultz joined BrokerTech Ventures as its new managing director.
- Cricket players Ben Stokes, KL Rahul, Stuart Broad, Jos Buttler, and football players Chris Smalling, Serge Gnabry, and Héctor Bellerín backed The Players Fund, which launched with a €47M ($51M) fund to back digital-first and consumer-facing sectors.
- Left Lane Capital appointed Chris Taylor as its chief growth officer.
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INSIDE VENTURE CAPITAL LEADERBOARD (30 DAYS) |
 | Analyst | | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | This newsletter was edited by Aaron Crutchfield | |
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