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| Hey Insiders, Today's newsletter covers: - 💰 Getir's upcoming $500M down round
- 💸 Ohio to invest $111M in VC funds
- 🤝 Freight Farms SPAC merger with Agrinam
We have also rounded up the top late-stage funding deals of this week. If you find this newsletter useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | Turkish grocery delivery startup Getir is looking to raise $500M in fresh funding through a down round that will reportedly value the firm at $2.5B. The lowered valuation is less than a quarter of its peak valuation of $11.8B from 18 months ago. More: - Abu Dhabi wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company, G Squared, and former Sequoia Capital executive Michael Moritz are reportedly leading the funding round.
- Getir acquired German rival Gorillas in a $1.2B deal last December.
Zoom out: - Some founders are forced to accept lower valuations when raising fresh funds, given the current economic conditions.
- The challenges are further compounded for delivery startups that traditionally have high capital investment requirements.
- Delivery startups raised more than $5B during the pandemic when demand for its platforms surged due to lockdowns in various parts of the world.
- Now that lockdown restrictions have been lifted around the world, demand has decreased, forcing Getir to pull back from several markets and concentrate on a few core regions.
Q: Should founders be OK with accepting lower valuations, or should they opt for other forms of funding, such as venture debt? Join the conversation here. |     | |
| 2 | | VCs deployed $1.5B in late-stage and beyond global startups this week between Sept. 2 and Sept. 8, per Crunchbase data. Energy sector startups raked in 30% of the funding this week. Biotech, fintech, and transportation startups nabbed 21%, 15%, and 10% of the financing, respectively. 
Here are the top five largest rounds announced this week: - Ascend Elements, a battery materials and recycling startup, secured $542M in fresh funding, consisting of $460M in Series D and $82M in additional investments. Decarbonization Partners, Qatar Investment Authority, and Temasek co-led the funding.
- Biopharmaceutical company Apollo Therapeutics closed its Series C funding round at $226.5M. Patient Square Capital led the fundraiser with backing from M&G plc, Rock Spring Capital, and two undisclosed U.S. public pension plans.
- Fintech startup PayJoy raised $360M in fresh funding consisting of $150M in Series C equity and $210M in debt funding. Warburg Pincus led the funding with participation from Invus, Citi Ventures, Union Square Ventures, and Greylock. Citi provided the debt tranche.
- Boston Metal, a global metal technology solutions startup decarbonizing steel manufacturing, closed its Series C funding round at $262M. ArcelorMittal SA led the funding with additional backing from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Aramco, Baillie Gifford, BHP Ventures, and Prelude Ventures.
- Star Therapeutics, a biotech startup developing therapies for hematology and immunology applications, closed its oversubscribed Series C funding round at $90M. Sofinnova Investments led the round with participation from Qatar Investment Authority, Catalio Capital Management, Agent Capital, Soleus Capital, NYBC Ventures, and other existing backers.
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| 3 | | The Ohio Department of Development is set to invest $111M in various venture funds as a limited partner. The firm intends to invest a third of the sum into VC funds that are supporting startups led by women, members of ethnic minorities, and rural residents. More: - $36M of the funds are earmarked for the Ohio early-stage focus fund, which aims to invest between $1M and $5M in investment funds that are "woman- or minority-owned or based in an area that has been underserved by venture capital."
- The remaining $75M is allocated to the Ohio Venture Fund program, in which funds that invest in Ohio-based tech startups through Series A rounds will get between $5M to $10M from the state.
Zoom out: - The fund comes from the $182M awarded to the state under the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act.
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| 4 | | Hydroponic farming solutions agriculture startup Freight Farms is set to debut on the public markets through a SPAC merger with Agrinam Acquisition Corp. The transaction will give the combined entity a valuation of $147M. More: - Sponsors of the SPAC entity have committed $4M in fresh funding to the merged entity.
- Including the commitments from other existing backers, the firm expects to secure roughly $20M through the deal.
- Agrinam raised $138M from sponsors through an initial public offering in 2022.
- Freight Farms has raised more than $43M to date from investors and counts agriculture investment firm Ospraie Ag Science as its largest backer.
- The startup operates 600 farms across 40 countries.
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| 5 | | While the AI sector is currently booming, several venture-backed companies touting AI capabilities have shut down or faced valuation markdowns in recent quarters. The trend can also be seen in listed companies that adopted AI technology, including BuzzFeed, Metromile, AppHarvest, Embark, and Berkshire Grey, all of which have seen a massive drop in valuations. More: - BuzzFeed's share prices are currently hovering at an all-time low of 40 cents per share.
- Insurtech firm Lemonade acquired struggling insurance startup Metromile "at a valuation lower than its cash balance," per Crunchbase, while SoftBank took Berkshire Grey private for $375M, much lower than its $2.7B valuation at its initial SPAC listing.
- AppHarvest filed for bankruptcy in July, while Embark Technology shut down operations and sold off assets at a fraction of their value.
- British AI-powered digital health diagnosis startup Babylon Health filed for bankruptcy last month.
- The firm had raised over $600M in venture funding and was valued at over $2B at its peak.
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| 6 | | Today's Funding: AI - San Francisco-based AI startup Imbue cemented its unicorn valuation with a $200M Series B funding round from Astera Institute, Nvidia, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt, and Notion co-founder Simon Last.
- AI-powered insurance claims platform Clara Analytics raised $24M in Series C funding. Spring Lake Equity Partners led the funding round with additional support from Aspen Capital Group, Oak HC/FT, and QBE Ventures.
Alternative protein - Plant-based meat maker Meati Foods extended its Series C funding round with $50M in additional capital from Bond, Congruent Ventures, and Revolution Growth.
Biotech - Chinese biotech startup Grit Biotechnology raked in $60M in Series B funding led by CICC.
Energy - British battery energy storage firm Zenobē received a £600M ($749M) investment from KKR. The firm secured an additional £270M ($337M) equity investment from M&G plc's Infracapital.
Industrial Manufacturing - H2 Green Steel, a Swedish startup reducing carbon dioxide emissions in steelmaking, secured €1.5B ($1.6B) in fresh funding co-led by Altor, GIC, Hy24, and Just Climate.
Travel - Richard Branson's Virgin Group's cruise travel brand Virgin Voyages bagged $550M in fresh capital led by Ares Management. Parent company Virgin Group and Bain Capital participated in the funding round.
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- Flexport executives Teresa Carlson and Darcie Henry are set to leave the logistics startup. The news comes a day after Dave Clark stepped down from the CEO role, with founder Ryan Petersen set to succeed him.
- Spotify has backed river alkalinity stabilizer startup CarbonRun and seawater CO2 removal firm Banyu Carbon from its $1B Frontier Fund.
- Joff Redfern, the former chief product officer at Atlassian and VP of product at LinkedIn, joined Menlo Ventures as their newest partner.
- Piva Capital hired Claire Yun and Jilian Noel to its investment team.
- ARM targets $60B IPO valuation, Instacart at $24B. Get access to the Top 25 pre-IPO deals like Stripe, OpenAI, Databricks and Anduril.*
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Term of the Day Data mining: Data mining refers to the process of sorting through and analyzing large quantities of raw data. Question of the Week Do you share details about your salary with your coworkers? Join the conversation |
INSIDE VENTURE CAPITAL LEADERBOARD (7 DAYS) |
 | Analyst | | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | This newsletter was edited by Aaron Crutchfield | |
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