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Big Deals Prevail in a Big Month

$200 million was chump change in October

Two hundred million dollars was a common figure this month in reports on various financings. It’s been that kind of month in October.

While political campaigns spent wildly on advertising and other messaging ahead of Election Day, private equity and venture capital firms were opening up their checkbooks, too.

For example: Arctic Wolf Networks of Sunnyvale, Calif., raised $200 million in Series E funding led by Viking Global Ventures and joined by DTCP (which is backed by Deutsche Telekom) and existing investors. The Silicon Valley startup offers a security operations center-as-a-service. With the new funding valuing Arctic Wolf at $1.3 billion, the company is moving its headquarters to Eden Prairie, Minn. The startup has raised more than $348 million in private funding.

Thailand’s Flash Express, a logistics firm catering to Thai e-commerce companies, received $200 million in Series D funding led by PTT’s oil and retail unit.

ICON Health & Fitness of Logan, Utah, raised $200 million in growth equity funding led by L Catterton and joined by existing investor Pamplona Capital Management, valuing the company at $7 billion. ICON competes with Peloton Interactive through its NordicTrack brand line and other connected fitness products. Peloton went public in September of last year, after raising nearly $1 billion in private funding. L Catterton previously invested in Peloton and has apparently sold its shares in the company following the IPO.

San Francisco-based Instacart received $200 million in new funding led by Valiant Peregrine Fund and D1 Capital Partners, both existing investors, and valuing the grocery delivery startup at $17.7 billion. According to Crunchbase, the company has raised $2.4 billion in private funding.

MessageBird of the Netherlands raised $200 million in Series C funding led by Spark Capital, with the participation of Bonnier, Glynn Capital, LGT Lightstone, Longbow, Mousse Partners, and New View Capital. The provider of a cloud communication platform is now valued at $3 billion. MessageBird has more than $300 million in total private funding.

Proterra of Burlingame, Calif., received $200 million in Series H funding led by Cowen Sustainable Advisors and joined by Soros Fund Management, Generation Investment Management, and Broadscale Group. The developer of electric buses and batteries has raised $681.8 million in private funding.

Workhorse Group, a publicly held technology company (Nasdaq: WKHS), raised $200 million in funding led by Antara Capital. The company specializes in electric vehicles integrated with drones for last-mile delivery services.

Special purpose acquisition companies were busy raising money during the month. SPACs that raised $200 million were Acies Acquisition, L&F Acquisition, Lefteris Acquisition, Recharge Acquisition, and Spartacus Acquisition.

Cascade Acquisition, a SPAC focused on financial services, filed for a $200 million initial public offering, as did CF Finance Acquisition III, Decarbonization Plus Acquisition (downsized from $300 million), Global SPAC Partners, KINS Technology Group, LCP Acquisition, Rice Acquisition, Tastemaker Acquisition, and Zanite Acquisition.

Diversity in Investment

The investing community is making efforts to bring more women and people of color into private equity and venture capital.

JPMorgan Chase is committing $30 billion over five years for efforts to reduce the wealth gap between Black and white Americans.

PayPal is investing more than $50 million in eight venture capital firms led by Black and Latinx investors as part of a $530 million initiative to fight police brutality and systemic racism. PayPal chose among more than 60 applicants for the eight recipients — Chingona Ventures, Fearless Fund, Harlem Capital, Precursor, Slauson & Co., Vamos Ventures, Zeal Capital Partners, and one fund yet to be named.

While Black and Latinx startup founders raised more than $15 billion during the past five years, that represents just 2.4% of all venture capital invested in U.S. startups in that period, Crunchbase reports. The top 10 VC firms put money into just 70 startups with Black and Latinx founders since 2015. You can download that report here.

Kesha Cash, the founder and general partner of the Impact America Fund, has raised a $55 million fund with 67 limited partners. While that figure pales in comparison to what the big investment funds collected this month, her second institutional fund is more than five times larger than the $10 million fund she completed in 2014.

New to venture capital is Chelsea Clinton, the former First Daughter, who now is an author, global health advocate, a Clinton Foundation board member, and a married mother of three children.

She has established Metrodora Ventures, which is described as “a values-conscious venture capital firm focused on health and learning businesses.” She is teamed with Caroline Kassie, a partner with Blockchange Ventures. Metrodora has made three investments since it came together this year, investing in Fiveable, an education technology startup; Poppy, a pregnancy support application; and Oula Health, described as a “modern maternity center.”

The SPAC age — can it last?

The SPAC tsunami appears to be cresting.

SoftBank Group, which has been a big investor through its Vision Fund, is organizing a SPAC to go public in the near future. Axios reports that Goldman Sachs and Citigroup will be the lead bookrunners for the IPO. Few other details are available. SoftBank Investment Advisors, which runs the $100 billion Vision Fund and the Vision Fund 2, is expected to serve as the formal sponsor for the blank-check company. The original SoftBank Vision Fund has invested in ByteDance, DoorDash, Opendoor, Slack Technologies, Uber Technologies, and WeWork, among other startups.

It seems like everyone is getting on the SPAC bandwagon. In early October, there were 13 new SPACs in one week. One of those featured Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal as an investor.

One aspect of the SPAC gold rush is that some companies that couldn’t easily have an initial public offering or a direct listing on their own have been able to go public, by pursuing a reverse merger with a SPAC or being acquired by a SPAC — because, of course, SPACs are all about making acquisitions.

And certain SPACs have found that investors aren’t always interested in putting their money into companies that won’t succeed or be profitable. That’s always a risk in investing, yet the SPAC gold rush of 2020 definitely dazzled a lot of people with money to invest. Some SPACs have had to downsize their IPOs. Cerberus Capital Management downsized its SPAC IPO from $400 million to $300 million. Riverstone Holdings raised $200 million, down from a goal of $300 million. H.I.G. Capital planned to take in $450 million from its SPAC and settled for $325 million. MPM Capital raised $85 million from its IPO, down from $100 million. Also cutting their take were Montes Archimedes Acquisition, Altimar Acquisition, Acies Acquisition, Bluescape Opportunities Acquisition, Lefteris Acquisition, Spartacus Acquisition, Motion Acquisition, Turmeric Acquisition, and Yellowstone Acquisition.

On the other hand, certain SPAC IPOs were upsized, such as Avanti Acquisition, Bridgetown Holdings, VG Acquisition Corp., Churchill Capital Corp V, Sports Entertainment Acquisition, Supernova Acquisition Partners, DPCM Capital, Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings V, ION Acquisition 1, and Rice Acquisition.

Initial Public Offerings

Here are the companies, other than SPACs, that went public in October. Big IPOs yet to come are Ant Group, the Chinese financial services company, Airbnb, and DoorDash.

Lufax raised $2.2 billion in its IPO.

Yihai Kerry Arawana raised $2 billion in its oversubscribed IPO.

Array Technologies raised $1 billion in its IPO.

McAfee raised $740 million in its IPO, going public for the second time.

Root, Inc. (Root Insurance) raised $724 million in its IPO.

Leslie’s Pools raised $680 million in its IPO.

Miniso Group raised $608 million in its IPO.

Allegro MicroSystems raised $350 million in its IPO.

Atea Pharma raised $300 million in its IPO.

Kronos Bio raised $250 million in its IPO.

Academy Sports + Outdoors raised $203 million in its IPO.

Pulmonx raised $190 million in its IPO.

fuboTV Inc. raised $183 million in its IPO.

C4 Therapeutics raised $182 million in its IPO.

Sequoia Solucoes Logisticas raised $179 million in its IPO.

MediaAlpha raised $176 million in its IPO.

Aligos Therapeutics raised $150 million in its IPO.

Eargo raised $141 million in its IPO.

Yalla Group raised $140 million in its IPO.

Foghorn Therapeutics raised $120 million in its IPO.

Guild Holdings raised $98 million in its IPO.

Mission Produce raised $96 million in its IPO.

Spruce Biosciences raised $90 million in its IPO.

Galecto raised $85 million in its IPO.

iHuman raised $84 million in its IPO.

Codiak BioSciences raised $83 million in its IPO.

SQZ Biotech raised $71 million in its IPO.

While many companies are lining up their IPOs before the end of 2020 or for early 2021, several companies have put off their IPOs. As the end of October loomed, Caliber Home Loans postponed its IPO, and had planned to raise around $345 million at a valuation of $1.8 billion for the residential mortgage lender of Coppell, Texas, backed by Lone Star Funds. Meanwhile, Mavenir of Richardson, Texas, postponed its $275 million IPO (downsized from more than $300 million). The provider of cloud-native software applications for mobile networks had an all-star cast of joint bookrunners to complete the offering. Also postponing its IPO was Spinal Elements Holdings of Carlsbad, Calif. The provider of medical devices for minimally invasive spinal surgery procedures was planning to raise $108 million in its offering. The company is backed by Kohlberg & Company. AmeriHome of Thousand Oaks, Calif., postponed its $250 million IPO. The residential mortgage producer and servicer had planned to trade its stock on the New York Stock Exchange and had lined up Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, J. P. Morgan, Wells Fargo Securities, Barclays, BofA Securities, Citi, RBC Capital Markets, and UBS Investment Bank to serve as joint bookrunners.

CleanSpark raised about $40 million in its offering.

Astrotech raised about $18 million in a secondary offering.

Reverse Mergers

Reverse mergers, a part of the SPAC movement this year, were plentiful in October.

Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Boston Red Sox and the Liverpool Football Club, may sell a minority stake to Red Ball Acquisition, a SPAC organized this year. Through a reverse merger, that FSG stake of 20% to 25% would be publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Red Ball would contribute $575 million raised in its IPO, while also putting together a private investment in public equity (PIPE) of $800 million to $950 million. That could provide a handsome return on investment for hedge-fund billionaire John Henry, who bought the Red Sox in 2001 for $700 million and paid £300 million (nearly $388 million) for Liverpool F.C.

Clover Health, which offers Medicare Advantage plans, will go public through a reverse merger with a publicly traded SPAC, Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings III (NYSE: IPOC). The agreement values Clover Health at about $3.7 billion, including a $400 million PIPE. Clover had raised more than $900 million in venture capital funding from investors including First Round Capital, Greenoaks Capital Partners, Sequoia Capital, and GV.

Austin, Texas-based E2open, a provider of supply chain management software owned by Insight Partners and Elliott Management, would go public through a reverse merger with publicly held CC Neuberger Principal Holdings (NYSE: PCPL). The deal would value E2open at $2.57 billion, including debt.

Finance of America Equity Capital, a consumer lending platform owned by The Blackstone Group, would go public through a reverse merger with publicly traded Replay Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: RPLA).

San Francisco-based Hims, a direct-to-consumer provider of men’s and women’s prescription health-care products, is going public through a reverse merger with a publicly traded SPAC, Oaktree Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: OAC). The agreement calls for a private placement of $75 million. Hims had raised almost $200 million in venture capital from Founders Fund, Forerunner Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Redpoint Ventures, Thrive Capital, and McKesson Ventures.

Other companies using reverse mergers to go public included Genius Sports Group, Billtrust, CarLotz, Nuvation Bio, Playboy Enterprises, Chrysaor, Danimer Scientific, Romeo Systems, Momentus, Advent Technologies, NewEgg, and Elite Model World.

Mega-Rounds

Ligado Networks, which was reportedly facing the prospect of bankruptcy, raised $3.85 billion from JPMorgan Chase and other investors to pursue its plans to provide a wholesale 5G LTE wireless broadband communication network with satellite coverage. The Federal Communications Commission in April approved Ligado’s proposal to operate a terrestrial network using L-band radio spectrum to support Internet of Things devices and other products. The Department of Defense opposed the plan, claiming it could interfere with the Global Positioning System (GPS).

Beijing-based Yuanfudao, which operates an online education platform, raised $2.2 billion in G1 and G2 series funding. Tencent Holdings led the G1 round, with participation by Boyu Capital, Hillhouse Capital, and IDG Capital. DST Global led the G2 round, joined by GIC, CITICPE, Temasek Holdings, TBP Investments, DCP, Ocean Link, Greenwoods Investment, and Danhe Capital.

Advent International and CVC Capital Partners are investing €1.6 billion (about $1.87 billion) in the Italian soccer league, a move that has been approved by a majority of Serie A football clubs.

Although Quibi had attracted about $1.75 billion in venture capital funding, the short-form streaming application failed to gain much traction, even during the coronavirus pandemic, which often kept people at home to stop the spread. Investors included the Alibaba Group, Hollywood studios, Madrone Capital Partners, Greenspring Associates, Breyer Capital, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs. While the lack of capital brings down many enterprises, big investments don’t always ensure success in business.

Back in the realm of nine-figure funding rounds, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority will put $750 million into Reliance Retail, the retail unit of Reliance Industries in India, taking an equity stake of 1.2%.

Goldman Sachs will invest up to $500 million in Global Compute Infrastructure, a data center platform, acquiring and building data centers.

Greenbriar Equity led a $500 million minority investment in Uber Freight, the logistics business of the ride-hailing service, valuing the unit at $3.3 billion. Meanwhile, Uber is trying to find a home for Uber Elevate, which is developing a network of self-driving taxis. The unit was operating a helicopter service in New York City, taking passengers from Lower Manhattan to John F. Kennedy International Airport; that service, however, was suspended when the coronavirus pandemic struck. Axios reports the parent company is considering strategic partnerships or a partial sale of Uber Elevate.

Other mega-round fundings of the month: GoPuff, $380 million; PT Tokopedia, $350 million; DoubleVerify, $350 million; Scopely, $340 million; Cazoo, £240 million (about $310.2 million); Caris Life Sciences, $235 million in equity funding and $75 million in debt financing; Priority Software, $250 million; Yesway, $235 million; Kahoot, $215 million; Unqork, $207 million; Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail, $204 million; Ynsect, $204 million; Sendinblue, $160 million; Redaptive, $157 million; Benson Hill, $150 million; Calm, approximately $150 million; Tekion, $150 million; Tipalti, $150 million; Getaround, $140 million; Honor, $140 million; Plenty Unlimited, $140 million; LIVEKINDLY Collective, $135 million; GetYourGuide, €114 million (about $133 million); Applied Intuition, $125 million; Perch, $123.5 million; FreshToHome, $121 million; Eat Just, $120 million; Ordermark, $120 million; SimilarWeb, $120 million; Arrival, $118 million; 98point6, $118 million; Sophia Genetics, $110 million; VectivBio, $110 million; Scorpion Therapeutics, $108 million; AavantiBio, $107 million; Bind Benefits, $105 million; Sirnaomics, $105 million; Faire, more than $100 million; Newfront Insurance, more than $100 million; RVshare, more than $100 million; Avail Medsystems, $100 million; BrightFarms, $100 million; Dialpad, $100 million; Gracell Biotechnologies, $100 million; Razorpay, $100 million; Take Blip, $100 million; Whoop, $100 million; and VSPN, almost $100 million.

Mergers & Acquisitions

Billion-dollar deals abounded in October.

The biggest deal of the month was Advanced Micro Devices agreeing to acquire Xilinx, another microchip design firm, for $35 billion in stock. AMD estimates the transaction may not close until early 2022.

Gilead Sciences completed its acquisition of Immunomedics for about $21 billion in cash.

LVMH kissed and made up with Tiffany & Co., several weeks after the deal seemed to be dead. The companies agreed on a purchase price of about $15.8 billion, adding the venerable jeweler to LVMH’s portfolio of luxury businesses.

Bristol Meyers Squibb agreed to acquire MyoKardia for $13.1 billion in cash.

Marvell Technology Group is buying a semiconductor competitor, Inphi, for more than $8 billion in cash and stock; stock will represent 60% of the purchase price.

Intel agreed to sell its NAND flash memory device business to SK Hynix for $9 billion in cash. Intel will keep its Optane memory chip business.

Inspire Brands will spend $11.3 billion to acquire Dunkin’ Brands, which includes Dunkin’ Doughnuts and Baskin-Robbins. Inspire is backed by a private equity firm, Roark Capital.

Morgan Stanley agreed to acquire Eaton Vance for $7 billion in cash and stock.

Bayer agreed to acquire Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, known as AskBio, for $4 billion, with an upfront payment of $2 billion and another $2 billion if AskBio meets certain milestones.

Twilio agreed to acquire San Francisco-based Segment, a cloud customer data infrastructure company, for about $3.2 billion in stock.

Goldman Sachs will purchase the credit card business of General Motors for about $2.5 billion.

Ryan Smith, the founder and CEO of Qualtrics, will buy a majority stake in the Utah Jazz franchise in the National Basketball Association; the purchase price reportedly is $1.66 billion.

Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning

Eightfold AI of Mountain View, Calif., raised $125 million in Series D funding led by General Catalyst and joined by existing investors Capital One Ventures, Foundation Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The startup was founded in 2016 and has a total of $176.8 million in private funding, per Crunchbase. It offers a talent intelligence platform, using AI and deep learning technology.

Augury, an industrial AI startup in Israel, received $55 million in Series D funding led by Qumra Capital and joined by existing investors Insight Partners, Eclipse Ventures, Munich Re Venture Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, and Lerer Hippeau Ventures. The startup was founded in 2011 and has raised a total of $114 million in private funding. It offers a predictive maintenance platform.

Another Israeli startup, BlackSwan Technologies, raised $28 million in Series A funding co-led by Prytek, FinTLV, and MS&AD Ventures. The startup was founded in 2014. It offers an enterprise AI operating system for compliance, lead generation, risk management, and other functions.

Atlanta-based Bluefin Payment Systems received $25 million in growth financing led by Macquarie Capital Principal Finance and joined by Napier Park Global Capital and Camden Partners. The startup was founded in 2007 and has raised a total of $31 million in private funding. Bluefin specializes in data security and payment services.

Odaseva.com of San Francisco raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Eight Roads Ventures and joined by F-Prime Capital and existing investors Partech, Salesforce Ventures, and Serena Capital. The startup was founded in 2012 and has raised a total of $39 million in private funding. It offers a unified cloud protection, compliance, and operations platform for enterprises running Salesforce.

New York-based Grid AI received $18.6 million in Series A funding led by Index Ventures, with participation by Bain Capital Ventures and Firstminute Capital. The startup was founded in 2019. It offers teaching and training for AI researchers, data scientists, and machine learning engineers.

Forethought of San Francisco raised $17 million in Series B funding from New Enterprise Associates, Sound Ventures, Neo, Geodesic Capital, Operator Collective, and K9 Ventures. It was founded in 2017 and has raised a total of $27 million in private funding. It offers an AI and machine learning platform for customer support teams.

Palo Alto-based Robust.ai received $15 million in Series A funding led by Jazz Venture Partners and joined by Playground Global, Liquid2 Ventures, Fontinalis Partners, Jaan Tallin, and Mark Leslie. The startup was founded in 2019 and has raised a total of $22.5 million in private funding. It offers collaborative robotics technology.

Zest AI of Burbank, Calif., raised $15 million in funding led by Insight Partners. The startup was founded in 2009 and has raised a total of $232 in private funding. It offers credit underwriting software, using AI to reduce lending algorithm bias.

AiFi of Santa Clara, Calif., received $14.5 million in Series B funding led by Qualcomm Ventures, with participation by existing investors Cervin Ventures and TransLink Capital, along with new investor Plum Alley. The startup was founded in 2016 and has raised a total of $29.5 million in private funding. It offers autonomous retail technologies.

San Francisco-based Robust Intelligence raised $14 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital and joined by Engineering Capital and Harpoon Ventures. The startup was founded in 2019. It offers an AI security and reliability platform.

Unit21 of San Francisco received $13 million in Series A funding led by A.Capital Ventures, with participation from Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI venture fund), Core VC, South Park Commons, Diane Greene, William Hockey, Chris Britt and Ryan King, Sumit Agarwal, and Michael Vaughan. The startup was founded in 2018. It offers no-code tools and services for risk and compliance staffers.

Theta Lake of Santa Barbara, Calif., raised $12.7 million in Series A funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and joined by Cisco Ventures. The startup was founded in 2017 and has raised a total of $17.7 million in private funding. It offers collaboration security and compliance through AI technology.

Toronto-based Canvass Analytics received $6.5 million in Series A funding led by Yamaha Motor Ventures and joined by Real Ventures, BDC, EDC, and Viaduct Ventures. The startup was founded in 2016 and has a total of $13 million in private funding. It offers an AI-based predictive analytics platform for industrial manufacturers and oil/gas companies.

Edgify of London, England, raised $6.5 million in seed funding from Octopus Ventures, Mangrove Capital Partners, and an undisclosed semiconductor company (possibly Intel or Qualcomm). The startup was founded in 2015. It develops AI for edge computing and offers predictive personalized technology to train data sets for comprehensive analysis.

Automotive & Mobility

Pony.ai raised $267 million from FAW Group and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan to continue its development of autonomous driving technology, valuing the startup at more than $5.3 billion. The new round comes only eight months after the startup completed a round of $462 million, with $400 million coming from Toyota Motor. The startup was founded in 2016 and has raised a total of $1 billion in private funding, according to Crunchbase. It has operations in China and the U.S.

TTP Car of the Czech Republic received $168 million in corporate funding from Autohome to operate its auction website for used vehicles in China.

San Francisco-based Getaround raised $140 million in Series E funding led by PeopleFund and joined by Reinvent Capital, Henry McGovern, Pennant Capital, and VectoIQ partners. The startup was founded in 2011 and has raised a total of $543 million in private funding. It offers peer-to-peer car sharing, enabling car owners to rent out their cars when they’re not being used.

London’s Arrival received $118 million from BlackRock to continue development of its electric vehicles for public transportation. The startup was founded in 2015 and has raised a total of $229.4 million in private funding. Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors, and UPS are existing investors in the company.

RVshare of Akron, Ohio, raised more than $100 million led by KKR and joined by Tritium Partners, an existing investor. The company was founded in 2013 and has raised a total of $150 million in private funding. It offers peer-to-peer rental of recreational vehicles.

Envisics of Milton Keynes, United Kingdom, received $50 million in Series B funding from Hyundai Mobis, General Motors Ventures, SAIC Motors, and Van Tuyl Companies. The startup was founded in 2018. It offers holographic technology that can be integrated into automotive vehicles.

China’s Minieye raised about $40 million in Series C funding led by Harvest Fund Management and joined by Oriental Fortune Capital, Vision+ Capital, and existing investor NavInfo. The startup was founded in 2013. It is developing computer vision technology for autonomous driving.

Atlanta-based Hermeus received $16 million in Series A funding led by Canaan Partners and joined by Khosla Ventures, Bling Capital, and Rise of the Rest. The startup was founded in 2018. It is developing a supersonic aircraft capable of Mach 5 speed.

Einride of Stockholm, Sweden, raised $10 million in venture funding led by Norrsken VC and joined by EQT Ventures, NordicNinja, Ericsson Ventures, and other investors. The startup was founded in 2016 and has raised a total of $42.3 million in private funding. It is developing and manufacturing autonomous electric trucks.

Cybersecurity

Tanium of Emeryville, Calif., has raised $150 million from existing investors Fidelity Management & Research, Baillie Gifford, and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates. In June, the company established a strategic partnership with Salesforce, including a strategic investment by Salesforce Ventures. The startup was founded in 2007 and has raised more than $900 million in private funding; Crunchbase puts the figure at $1 billion. It offers a unified endpoint management and security platform.

Boston-based Onapsis received $55 million in Series D funding led by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and NightDragon with participation from existing investors .406 Ventures, LLR Partners, and Arsenal Venture Partners. The startup was founded in 2009 and has raised a total of $115.6 million in private funding. It offers cybersecurity and compliance for business-critical applications.

Denver’s Deepwatch raised $53 million in Series B funding led by Goldman Sachs and joined by existing investor ABS Capital Partners. The startup was founded in 2018 and has raised a total of $76 million in private funding. It offers managed security services.

Eagle Eye Networks of Austin, Texas, received $40 million in Series E funding from Accel. The startup was founded in 2012 and has raised a total of $95 million in private funding. It offers cloud-based video surveillance.

Los Altos, Calif.-based 4iQ raised $30 million in Series C funding led by ForgePoint Capital and Benhamou Global Ventures, with participation by TheVentureCity, C5 Capital, and Adara Ventures. The startup was founded in 2016 and has raised a total of $62 million in private funding. It offers cyberintelligence capabilities to protect digital identities while investigating adversaries, fraud, and threats.

An Israeli startup, Illusive Networks, received $24 million in Series B1 funding from Spring Lake Equity Partners, Marker, NEA, Bessemer Venture Partners, Innovation Endeavors, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, and Citi. The startup was founded in 2014 and has raised a total of more than $54 million in private funding. It offers deception technology for cybersecurity monitoring.

New York-based Sonrai Security raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Menlo Ventures and joined by existing investors Polaris Partners and Ten Eleven Ventures. The startup was founded in 2017 and has raised a total of $38.5 million in private funding. It offers a security platform focused on identity and data governance inside Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Kubernetes.

Eclypsium of Portland, Ore., received $13 million in Series B funding from AV8 Ventures, TransLink Capital, Mindset Ventures, Alumni Ventures Group, and Ridgeline Partners, along with existing investors Intel Capital, Madrona Venture Group, Andreessen Horowitz, and Ubiquity Ventures. The startup was founded in 2017 and has a total of $24.1 million in private funding. It offers enterprise device security.

Denver-based StackHawk raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Sapphire Ventures and joined by existing investors Foundry Group, Costanoa Ventures, Flybridge Capital, and Matchstick Ventures. The startup was founded in 2019 and has raised a total of $14.6 million in private funding. It offers security installed in applications as the software is developed.

Cyberpion of Tel Aviv, Israel, received $8.25 million in seed funding led by Team8 Capital and Hyperwise Ventures. The startup was founded in 2016. It offers an enterprise cybersecurity platform.

NormShield of Vienna, Virginia, raised $7.5 million in Series A funding led by Moore Strategic Ventures and joined by Glasswing Ventures and Data Point Capital. The startup was founded in 2016 and has raised a total of $14 million in private funding. It offers cyber risk monitoring through security-as-a-service.

Tel Aviv-based Enso Security received $6 million in seed funding led by YL Ventures and joined by Jump Capital. The startup was founded this year. It offers an application security posture management platform.

Solvo of Tel Aviv raised $3 million in seed funding from TLV Partners and Surround Ventures. The startup was founded this year. It offers cloud security permissions, focusing for now on AWS and later covering other public cloud computing services.

Philadelphia-based ZeroEyes received $1.5 million in venture funding led by Grateful Investments and joined by Legion Capital, Backswing Ventures, and Natoma Group. The startup was founded by Navy SEALS in 2018 and has raised a total of $4 million in private funding. It offers AI security capabilities to detect weapons and sends an alert to prevent and stop active shooters.

NeuraLegion of Tel Aviv raised $4.7 million in seed funding led by DNX Ventures and joined by Fusion Fund, J-Ventures, and Incubate Fund. The startup was founded in 2018 and has raised a total of $5.3 million in private funding. It offers an AI-powered application security platform.

San Francisco-based Stairwell received $4.5 million in seed funding led by Accel and joined by Sequoia Capital, Gradient Ventures, and Allen & Company. The startup was founded in 2019. It offers cybersecurity-as-a-service.

Digital Health

98point6 of Seattle raised $118 million in Series E funding led by L Catterton and joined by Activant Capital and Goldman Sachs. The startup was founded in 2015 and has raised a total of $247.3 million in private funding, including a round of $43 million in April. It offers on-demand digital primary care services.

Boston-based Whoop received $100 million in Series E funding led by IVP and joined by SoftBank, Accomplice, Two Sigma Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Thursday Ventures, Nextview Ventures, Promus Ventures, Cavu Ventures, D20 Capital, and LionTree Partners. The startup was founded in 2012 and has raised a total of $204.8 million in private funding, per Crunchbase. It offers fitness-tracking wearables.

Neocis of Miami, Florida, raised $72 million from DFJ Growth, Vivo Capital, and existing investors Mithril Capital Management, Norwest Venture Partners, Section 32, and Fred Moll. The startup was founded in 2009 and has raised a total of $122.9 million in private funding. It offers dental surgery robots.

TigerConnect of Santa Monica, Calif., received $45 million in Series D funding led by HealthQuest Capital and joined by New Leaf Ventures, Montreux Growth Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Invus, and Industry Ventures. The startup was founded in 2010 and has raised a total of $148.6 million in private funding. It offers a health-care team collaboration platform.

Denver-based BridgeHealth acquired San Francisco’s Transcarent. The merged company raised $40 million in Series A funding. BridgeHealth was founded in 2007. Transcarent was backed by 7wireVentures, Alta Ventures, and General Catalyst.

Datavant of Cleveland received $40 million in Series B funding led by Transformation Capital and joined by Johnson & Johnson, Cigna Ventures, Roviant Sciences, and Flex Capital. The startup was founded in 2017 and has raised a total of $80.5 million in private funding. It offers a health data management platform.

New York-based Tend raised $37 million in Series B funding led by GV and joined by Juxtapose, Redpoint, Tiger Global Management, Zigg Capital, and Good Friends.

Whisper of San Francisco received $35 million in Series B funding led by Quiet Capital and joined by existing investors Sequoia Capital and First Round Capital. The startup was founded in 2017. It offers AI-enabled, updateable hearing aids.

Semiconductors

Menlo Microsystems of Irvine, Calif., raised $44 million in Series B funding led by 40 North Ventures and joined by Piva, Paladin Capital Group, Vertical Venture Partners, and Future Shape. Corning and Microsemi also are investors. The startup was founded in 2016 and has raised a total of $62.7 million in private funding, according to Crunchbase. It offers tiny electronic switches based on microelectromechanical system devices.

WiTricity of Watertown, Mass., received $34 million in venture funding led by Stage 1 Ventures. Mitsubishi Corporation made a strategic investment in the company through its U.S. subsidiary. The startup was founded in 2007 and has raised a total of $70 million in private funding. It offers wireless power transfer over distance employing magnetic resonance.

Cambridge, Mass.-based actnano raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Emerald Technology Ventures and joined by Material Impact, Henkel Tech Ventures, PTT Global Chemical, and Hellas Oil. The startup was founded in 2012. It offers nanocoatings for vehicles and consumer electronics.

Nu Quantum of Cambridge, U.K., received £2.1 million (about $2.72 million) in seed funding led by Amadeus Capital Partners and joined by Ahren Innovation Capital, IQ Capital, Cambridge Enterprise, and Martlet Capital. The quantum photonics startup, a spinout of Cambridge University, was founded in 2018 and has raised a total of £2.7 million (about $3.5 million) in private funding.

VisIC Technologies of Ness Ziona, Israel, raised Series E funding from MediaTek and other investors. The startup was founded in 2010 and has raised a total of $21.6 million in private funding. It designs gallium nitride devices for automotive high-voltage applications.

Odds and Ends

Agriculture technology startups, along with food and grocery delivery firms, are getting a lot of attention and investments. We all have to eat, of course.

In addition to Eat Just, FreshToHome, Ynsect, Benson Hill, Plenty, LIVEKINDLY Collective, and BrightFarms, there are these companies.

Santa Monica-based Pontifax Agtech Management has raised $302 million for its second investment fund. The venture capital firm invests in agriculture and food technology.

Ordermark of Los Angeles raised $120 million from the SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The startup was founded in 2017 and has raised a total of $150.6 million in private funding. It offers a decentralized cloud kitchen, also known as a ghost kitchen.

Australia’s V2food received A$77 million (about $54 million) in Series B funding from Goldman Sachs, Temasek, Esenagro, Huaxing Growth Capital, ABC World Asia, Altitude Partners, and Novel Investments. The startup was founded in 2019 and has raised A$112 million (around $78.7 million) in private funding. It offers a legume-based meat alternative.

San Francisco-based Arable raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Prelude Ventures and joined by M2O, AVG’s Nassau Street Ventures, Tridon, and existing investors S2G Ventures, Middleland Capital, Ajax Strategies, and Chasefield Capital. The startup was founded in 2014 and has raised a total of $33.8 million in private funding. It offers data on how weather and other factors affect yield, quality, and harvest timing.

Fundraising

A quick compendium of fundraising by private equity and venture capital firms during October: Thoma Bravo raised $22.8 billion for three funds; EQT Partners raised €13 billion (about $15.3 billion); Clayton Dubilier & Rice raised $13 billion and is aiming for $14 billion; Goldman Sachs is raising $14 billion; Genstar Capital is raising $10 billion; HPS Investment Partners raised $9 billion; HarbourVest Partners raised $8.1 billion; The Blackstone Group raised $8 billion; Quantum Energy Partners is raising $5 billion for two funds; GGV Capital is raising $2.5 billion; Symphony Technology Group is raising $1.85 billion; LLR Partners raised $1.8 billion; Abor Investments raised $1.668 billion for two funds; Khosla Ventures is raising $1.5 billion for two funds; Addition is raising $1.4 billion; and Gaorong Capital raised $1.15 billion.