What a Year It’s Been!

2020 in Review: IPOs, SPACs, and startups

During the last month of 2020, the flood of funding mega-rounds for startups and initial public offerings for other companies, especially by special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), also known as blank check companies, continued in December.

This month, there were approximately 60 mega-rounds, for $100 million or more, some reaching into the billions. During the latter half of the year, many of the largest mega-rounds occurred.

Aside from SPACs, there were at least 18 companies that went public this month, featuring the explosive offerings of Airbnb and DoorDash.

There were more than 40 SPAC IPOs, raising a total of more than $10 billion, nearly three times what those companies raised in November.

More of the same is seen for 2021. How long will this last? It is uncertain. In 2020, the capital markets boomed during a global pandemic, and that pandemic won’t quickly fade away in the new year.

Enterprise software companies, especially those with platforms providing big data analytics, were warmly welcomed into the investment sphere of publicly held ventures.

Diversity Efforts

Venture capital remains the purview of white people, especially white men. In a year full of Black Lives Matters protests, there haven’t been any demonstrations on Sand Hill Road.

“By some estimates, just 1% of venture-backed startup founders are Black,” this analysis notes.

There have been some diversity efforts this year. Andreessen Horowitz established the Talent x Opportunity Initiative and SoftBank set up the Opportunity Fund.

Keenan Beasley, the chairman and executive director of Venture Noire, writes that Black founders rarely get a hearing from private equity investors and venture capitalists, and fewer obtain funding.

The five cities most amenable to Black founders are Atlanta; Tulsa, Okla.; Memphis, Tenn.; Montgomery, Ala.; and Durham, N.C., this feature notes.

Initial Public Offerings

Here is a quick digest of IPOs, aside from SPACs.

Airbnb raised $3.5 billion in its IPO.

JD Health raised $3.5 billion in its IPO.

DoorDash raised $3.37 billion in its IPO.

Rede D’Or Sao Luiz raised about $2.23 billion in its IPO.

Blue Moon Group raised $1.27 billion in its IPO.

Conduit raised £826 million (about $1.1 billion) in its IPO.

Wish raised $1.1 billion in its IPO.

Certara raised $668 million in its IPO.

C3.ai raised $651 million in its IPO.

AbbCellera raised $483 million in its IPO.

17 Education & Technology Group raised $288 million in its IPO.

Kinnate Biopharma raised $240 million in its IPO.

Upstart raised $240 million in its IPO.

BioAtla raised $189 million in its IPO.

908 Devices raised $130 million in its IPO.

PubMatic raised $118 million in its IPO.

Burger King India raised about $110 million in its IPO.

Nanobiotix raised $99 million in its IPO.

Affirm Holdings and Roblox put off their proposed offerings into 2021. Meanwhile, Roblox made two acquisitions, buying the intellectual property assets of Los Angeles-based Imbellus, a cognitive assessment startup that had raised $21 million in private funding, and San Francisco-based Loom.ai, which developed a digital avatar platform and got seed funding from Samsung Venture Investments and CSC UpShot Ventures, among other investors.

Reverse Mergers

London-based Paysafe, a payments processor owned by The Blackstone Group and CVC Capital Partners, will go public through a $9 billion reverse merger with Foley Trasimene Acquisition Corp II, a SPAC led by Bill Foley, resulting in a New York Stock Exchange listing as PSFE.

Dyal Capital Partners and Owl Rock Capital Partners plan be taken private by combining and going through a reverse merger with Altimeter Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: ATACU).

The Lion Electric, a manufacturer of electric buses and trucks, agreed to go public through a reverse merger with Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: NGA) valued at $1.9 billion, and involving a $200 million private investment in public equity (PIPE).

View of Milpitas, Calif., a manufacturer of smart glass for buildings, will go public through a reverse merger with CF Finance Acquisition Corp. II (Nasdaq: CFII). View is valued at $1.6 billion, including a $300 million PIPE, and less than the company raised from its private investors.

Katapult Holding, an e-commerce financial technology startup, agreed to go public through a merger with FinServ Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: FSRV), valuing the merged company at $1 billion, including a $150 million PIPE led by Tiger Global Management and Neuberger Berman Funds. The company will be known as Katapult and it will be listed on Nasdaq as KPLT.

New York-based BarkBox, a subscription service for dog supplies, will go public through a reverse merger with Northern Star Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: STIC) with an enterprise value of about $1.6 billion. BarkBox had raised $86 million in private funding.

HydraFacial, a skin care company based in Signal Hill, Calif., agreed to go public through a reverse merger with Vesper Healthcare Acquisition (Nasdaq: VSPR). The deal values the company at $1.1 billion.

Innoviz Technologies of Tel Aviv, Israel, will go public via a reverse merger with Collective Growth Corp. (Nasdaq: CGRO) at a value of $1.4 billion. The developer of LiDAR sensors had raised more than $360 million in private funding. It will be listed on Nasdaq as INVZ.

Ouster, an American developer of LiDAR sensors, agreed to go public through a reverse merger with Colonnade Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: CLA), valuing the company at $1.9 billion. San Francisco-based Ouster had raised $142 million in private funding.

Another developer of LiDAR sensors, Luminar Technologies, went through a reverse merger with Gores Metropoulos (Nasdaq: GMHI), a SPAC, including a $500 million investment. Luminar now trades as LAZR on Nasdaq.

Weedmaps of Irvine, Calif., completed a reverse merger with Spike Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: SSPK), valuing the merged company at $1.5 billion. Weedmaps is an e-commerce platform for the legal marijuana industry.

EV Charged, an Engie unit specializing in electric vehicle chargers, will go public through a reverse merger with TPG Pace Beneficial Finance (NYSE; TPGY), valuing the company at $1.4 billion.

Indonesia’s Tokopedia, an e-commerce startup backed by the SoftBank Vision Fund, is reportedly negotiating a reverse merger with Bridgetown Holdings (Nasdaq: BTWN) in a deal possibly valued at $8 billion to $10 billion.

Blade, a short-distance aviation startup, agreed to go public through a reverse merger with a SPAC established by KSL Capital Partners, valuing Blade at $850 million. The proposed deal includes a $125 million PIPE from a number of investors, including KSL.

Janus International Group of Temple, Ga., will go public through a reverse merger with Juniper Industrial Holdings (NYSE: JIH) valuing Janus at $1.9 billion, including a $250 million PIPE. Janus provides self-storage services.

Mega-Rounds

Rumors of very large funding rounds were circling around SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rockets and satellites startup, and ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok.

General Motors will not be investing $2 billion in Nikola, a startup developing electric trucks, following negative reports about the publicly held company.

Nio, a Chinese entrant in the electric vehicle market, raised $2.7 billion in a secondary stock offering, while competitors Xpeng Motors, Li Auto, and Tesla also raised new funds from investors. Tesla finished 2020 with a market capitalization of nearly $669 billion, greater than the combined valuations of BMW, Daimler, Fiat Chrysler, Ford Motor, General Motors, Honda Motor, and Toyota Motor.

Beijing-based Zuoyebang, an online education platform, raised $1.6 billion in Series E+ funding with participation by Alibaba Group and including existing investors Tiger Global, SoftBank Vision Fund, Sequoia Capital China, and FountainVest Partners. The new funding comes only six months after raising $750 million in Series E funding led by Tiger Global and FountainVest. The company has raised a total of $2.93 billion and is valued at around $10 billion.

Volkswagen Group is investing $1.21 billion in its JAC Volkswagen joint venture, which is being renamed Volkswagen (Anhui) Automotive Company Ltd. VW owns 75% of the JV and is opening a new research and development center in Hefei, China.

The Carlyle Group and Hellman & Friedman are investing $1 billion in the formation of Vantage Group Holdings, a reinsurance company.

Apollo Global Management is recapitalizing Alorica, a supplier of customer experience software based in Irvine, Calif., serving a variety of industries, with $750 million in debt and equity financing.

Verily Life Sciences raised $700 million from Alphabet, Silver Lake Partners, Temasek Holdings, and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

India’s Zomato, a food delivery service, received $660 million in Series J funding from Tiger Global, Kora, Luxor, Fidelity Management & Research, D1 Capital, Baillie Gifford, Mirae, and Steadview Capital. The company now has a post-money valuation of $3.9 billion. Zomato is also raising a secondary funding of $140 million, providing $30 million in liquidity for former employees. The company has raised a total of $1.9 billion, according to Crunchbase.

SoftBank invested about $610 million for an equity stake of 10.1% in Sinch, a publicly listed cloud computing company in Sweden.

Other mega-rounds of the month: Lalamove, $515 million; DXY, $500 million; Aurora Innovation, $400 million; FireEye, $400 million; TuSimple, $350 million; DataRobot, $320 million; OneTrust, $300 million; Shipmonk, $290 million; CMGE Technology Group, $275 million; StockX, $275 million; ClassIn, $265 million; Ecom Express, $265 million; Creditas, $255 million; Olive, $225.5 million; Graphcore, $222 million; Octopus Energy, about $204 million; WeRide, $200 million; Bolt, €150 million (about $184 million); Catawiki, €150 million; Everlywell, $175 million; Lyra Health, $175 million; Conductor, $170 million; FiscalNote, $160 million; Cityblock Health, $160 million; Voi, $160 million; Zenoti, $160 million; Scale AI, $150 million; Function of Beauty, $150 million; Horizon Robotics, $150 million; Glance, $140 million; Paxos, $142 million; Oscar, $140 million; Bizzabo, $138 million; Exclaimer, about $136 million; Bolt, $135 million; Pico, $135 million; LeanTaaS, $130 million; Spryker, $130 million; Gritstone Oncology, $125 million; Grove Collaborative, $125 million; MegazoneCloud, $122 million; Neurogene, $115 million; Flock Freight, $113.5 million; Dialpad, $110 million; Dragos, $110 million; Neomorph, $109 million; Transcenta, $105 million; Tink, €85 million (about $104.5 million); Flexiv, more than $100 million; ClickUp, $100 million; DISCO, $100 million; Discord, $100 million; dMed, $100 million; IronClad, $100 million; Locanabio, $100 million; Project44, $100 million; and Wiz, $100 million.

Mergers & Acquisitions

Inspire Brands completed its $11.3 billion acquisition of Dunkin’ Brands.

Thoma Bravo agreed to acquire RealPage for about $10.2 billion in cash.

Platinum Equity agreed to acquire Ingram Micro for $7.2 billion.

Intuit completed its $7.1 billion acquisition of Credit Karma.

The Blackstone Group completed its $4.7 billion acquisition of Ancestry.com.

Lockheed Martin agreed to acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne for $4.4 billion in cash.

Flutter Entertainment will pay $4.2 billion in cash and stock to increase its equity stake in FanDuel from 58% to 95%.

The Blackstone Group offered to buy Signature Aviation for more than $4 billion.

MetLife agreed to sell its U.S. property and casualty insurance business to Zurich Insurance Group and Farmers Exchanges for $3.94 billion.

Vista Equity Partners agreed to acquire Pluralsight for $3.5 billion in cash.

Veritas Capital agreed to acquire Northrop Grumman’s federal information technology and mission support services unit for $3.4 billion in cash.

Thoma Bravo agreed to repurchase Flexera from TA Associates and Ontario Teachers for $2.85 billion.

Royal Philips agreed to acquire BioTelemetry for $2.8 billion in cash.

Apollo Global Management agreed to acquire Cardtronics for $2.3 billion in cash.

NEC completed its $2.2 billion acquisition of Avaloq Group.

Google received antitrust approval from the European Union for its proposed $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit.

AdaptHealth agreed to acquire AeroCare for $2 billion in cash and stock.

Amphenol agreed to acquire MTS Systems for $1.7 billion in stock.

Rent-A-Center agreed to acquire Acima Holdings for $1.65 billion in cash and stock.

Eli Lilly agreed to acquire Prevail Therapeutics for $1 billion in cash.

Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning

San Francisco-based Scale AI raised $155 million in Series D funding led by Tiger Global and advanced its post-money valuation to more than $3.5 billion with the new round. The provider of a visual data labeling platform was founded in 2016 and has raised a total of $277.6 million in private funding, according to Crunchbase. Its customers include Airbnb, DoorDash, Open AI, and Pinterest.

Coming out of stealth mode, Tecton.ai of San Francisco received $35 million in Series B funding co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, existing investors. The provider of a data platform for machine learning was established in 2019 and has raised a total of $60 million in private funding.

Boast.ai of Vancouver, B.C., raised $23 million in Series A funding led by Radian Capital. The artificial intelligence startup was founded in 2011 and provides an AI-powered platform to help companies claim their research and development tax credits.

Ava received $4.5 million in seed funding from Initialized Capital and Khosla Ventures. Based in Zurich, Switzerland, the provider of AI-enabled captioning technology was founded in 2014 and has raised a total of $6.5 million in private funding.

Philadelphia-based Deepwave Digital raised $3 million in seed funding co-led by Northrop Grumman and Jumpstart NJ Angel Network, joined by Robin Hood Ventures, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, and Lehigh Valley Angel Investors. The startup develops AI-powered radio-frequency and wireless communications systems. Deepwave was founded in 2017 and has raised a total of $4.4 million in private funding.

SuperNormal Technologies received $2 million in seed funding led by EQT Ventures. The Stockholm-based startup offers an AI platform for business video recordings. The company was started this year.

Automotive/Mobility

Aurora Innovation of Palo Alto, Calif., is acquiring the Uber Advanced Technologies Group; financial terms weren’t disclosed. As part of the deal, Uber Technologies is investing $400 million in Aurora to continue development of autonomous vehicle technology. Aurora was founded in 2017 and has raised a total of $1.1 billion, per Crunchbase.

San Diego-based TuSimple received $350 million in Series E funding led by VectoIQ and joined by Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Union Pacific, CN Rail, U.S. Xpress, Kroger, Traton Group, and Navistar International. The startup is developing self-driving trucks. TuSimple was established in 2015 and has raised a total of more than $648 million in private funding.

China’s WeRide.ai raised $200 million in Series B funding from Zhengzhou Yutong Bus. The autonomous driving startup was founded in 2017 and has raised a total of $403.6 million in private funding.

Estonia’s Bolt Technology received €150 million (more than $183 million) in Series D funding led by D1 Capital Partners, with participation by Darsana Capital Partners. The company provides bicycles, cars, and scooters for on-demand rental, transporting food and people. The mobility startup was established in 2013 and has raised a total of $592.2 million in private funding.

Sweden’s VOI Technology raised $160 million in Series C funding led by The Raine Group and joined by existing investors VNV Global, Balderton Capital, Creandum, Project A Ventures, Inbox Ventures, and Stena Sessan. The e-scooter rental startup was founded in 2018 and has raised a total of nearly $326 million in private funding.

Boston-based Superpedestrian received $60 million in new funding from Citi Impact Fund, OurCrowd, and Winthrop Square Capital. The startup offers a fleet of e-scooters for urban environments under the LINK brand. The company was established eight years ago as a spinout from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has raised a total of $78.7 million in private funding.

Ridecell of San Francisco raised $45 million in Series C funding led by Fort Ross Ventures and joined by Solasta Ventures and existing investors Activate Capital, DENSO, LG Technology Ventures, and Initialized Capital. The startup provides car-sharing and ride-sharing services, short-term leases, and autonomous vehicle fleet services for car rental companies. Ridecell was founded in 2009 and has raised a total of $134.8 million in private funding.

Actasys of Brooklyn, N.Y., received $5 million in seed funding co-led by Volvo Cars Tech Fund and Nextgear Ventures. The startup offers the ActaJet system, which cleans automotive vehicle sensors. The company was founded seven years ago and has raised a total of $6.3 million in private funding.

Chicago-based CarDr.com raised $5 million from Red Fort Capital. The startup offers an AI-powered “MRI for Used Cars,” inspecting the automotive vehicles for buyers. The company was established a year ago.

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity firms have been attractive to private investors for several years now, and quite a few have gone public. Crunchbase reports this year saw more than $8.1 billion invested in the cybersecurity sector, with almost $6.5 billion going to American startups, compared with $7.4 billion worldwide and $4.7 billion in the U.S. last year, this feature notes.

Atlanta-based OneTrust raised $300 million in Series C funding led by TCV and joined by existing investors Coatue Management and Insight Partners, valuing the company at more than $5 billion. The startup offers data protection and privacy policy software. OneTrust was founded in 2016 and has raised a total of $710 million in private funding, according to Crunchbase.

Dragos of Hanover, Md., received $110 million in Series C funding co-led by National Grid Partners and Koch Disruptive Technologies, joined by Saudi Aramco Ventures, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and existing investors Allegis Cyber, Canaan Partners, DataTribe, Energy Impact Partners, and Schweitzer Engineering Labs. The startup specializes in industrial cybersecurity for a number of industries. Dragos was established in 2016 and has raised a total of more than $158 million in private funding.

Wiz, an Israeli-American company, raised $100 million in Series A funding from Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Insight Partners, and Cyberstarts. The cloud security startup was founded this year.

New York-based Beyond Identity received $75 million in Series B funding from New Enterprise Associates, co-founder Jim Clark, and Koch Disruptive Technologies. The startup provides password-less identity management technology. The company was established this year and has raised a total of $105 million in private funding.

Another Israeli startup, BigID, raised $70 million in Series D funding co-led by Salesforce Ventures and existing investor Tiger Global, along with Glynn Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Scale Venture Partners, and Boldstart Ventures. The startup offers a customer data and privacy compliance platform. BigID was founded in 2016 and has raised a total of more than $216 million in private funding.

San Francisco-based Very Good Security received $60 million in Series C funding led by Vertex Ventures US and joined by existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Goldman Sachs Growth. VGS was established in 2015 and provides a data security compliance platform.

Orca Security of Los Angeles raised $55 million in Series B funding led by ICONIQ Capital, with participation by existing investors GGV Capital, YL Ventures, and Silicon Valley CISO Investments. The startup offers workload security for Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. Orca was founded in 2019 and has raised a total of $82 million in private funding.

At-Bay of Mountain View, Calif., received $34 million in Series C funding led by Qumra Capital and joined by M12, Acrew Capital, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Munich Re Ventures, and Shlomo Kramer. The cybersecurity insurance firm was established in 2016 and has raised a total of $87 million in private funding.

Salt Security of Palo Alto, Calif., raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital and joined by Tenaya Capital, S Capital VC, and Y Combinator. The startup employs AI and machine learning technology in its APIs protection platform. Salt was founded in 2016 and has raised a total of $61 million in private funding.

Noname Security of Palo Alto, Calif., received $25 million in Series A funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Insight Partners, and Cyberstarts. The startup provides a “holistic security platform,” securing managed and unmanaged APIs. Noname was established this year.

Amsterdam-based EclecticIQ raised €20 million (more than $24 million) in Series C funding led by Ace Management, with participation by Capricorn Digital Growth Fund, Quest for Growth, Invest-NL, Arches Capital, INKEF Capital, KEEN Venture Partners, and KPN Ventures. The Dutch startup provides a cyberthreat intelligence platform. The company was founded in 2014 and has raised a total of €47.4 million ($57.7 million) in private funding.

Bionic of Palo Alto, Calif., received $17 million in Series A and seed funding led by Battery Ventures. The application analytics startup emerged from stealth mode with the funding announcement. The company was established in 2019.

Aware of Columbus, Ohio, raised $12 million in Series B funding led by Spring Mountain Capital and joined by Blue Heron Capital and Allos Ventures. The startup provides an enterprise social security platform. Aware was founded in 2017.

New York-based Deduce received $7.3 million in seed funding led by True Ventures, with participation by Ridge Ventures. The startup defends against account takeover fraud. It was established in 2019.

Jeli.io raised $4 million in seed funding led by Boldstart Ventures and joined by Harrison Metal and Heavybit. The startup offers an incident analysis platform.

London-based eXate received £2.3 million (more than $3 million) in seed funding led by Outward VC and joined by ING Ventures and Triple Point Ventures. The startup provides a data privacy platform.

Digital Health

China’s DXY, a health-care portal, raised $500 million in Series E funding led by Trustbridge Partners and joined by existing investor Tencent Holdings and GL Ventures. Established in 2000, DXY has raised a total of $682 million in private funding, according to Crunchbase.

Olive AI of Columbus, Ohio, received $225.5 million in new funding led by Tiger Global and joined by GV, Sequoia Global Capital Equities, Dragoneer Investment Group, Transformation Capital Partners, and existing investors Drive Capital, General Catalyst, and Silicon Valley Bank. The company develops AI bots for health-care applications. Olive was founded in 2012 and has raised a total of more than $456 million in private funding.

LeanTaaS of Santa Clara, Calif., raised $130 million in Series D funding led by Insight Partners with participation by Goldman Sachs. The company provides a hospital management platform. The company was founded in 2010 and has raised a total of $237.7 million in private funding.

Well Dot of Chapel Hill, N.C., received $40 million in Series A debt and equity funding from General Catalyst, John Doerr, and Mosaic Health Solutions. The health-care information technology startup was established two years ago and has raised a total of $65 million in private funding.

Curai Health of Palo Alto, Calif., raised $27.5 million in Series B funding led by Morningside Ventures with participation by existing investors General Catalyst and Khosla Ventures. The telehealth startup was founded in 2017 and has raised a total of more than $38 million in private funding.

Diameter Health of Farmington, Conn., received $18 million in Series B funding led by Centene Corp. and joined by existing investors Optum Ventures, LRVHealth, Connecticut Innovations, and Activate Venture Partners. The health data interoperability startup was established in 2013 and has raised a total of nearly $30 million in private funding.

Semiconductors

Semiconductor industry consolidation continued in 2020, with Nvidia agreeing to acquire Arm for about $40 billion, while Advanced Micro Devices made a deal to buy Xilinx for $35 billion, among other acquisitions. Startup funding in microchips picked up during the final quarter of 2020. What will happen in 2021? It’s a fool’s errand to make predictions.

Graphcore of Bristol, England, United Kingdom, finally bagged that big round of funding that was rumored for weeks. The AI chip developer raised $222 million in Series E funding led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board. Also participating were Fidelity International and Schroders, along with existing investors Baillie Gifford, Draper Esprit, and other investors. The AI chip startup was established in 2016 and has raised a total of $682 million in private funding, per Crunchbase.

Beijing-based Horizon Robotics received $150 million in Series C funding from 5Y Capital, Hillhouse Capital, KTB Network, and Capital Today. The developer of AI chips for robotics is aiming for a round total of $700 million. The startup was founded in 2015 and has raised a total of more than $850 million in private funding.

AIStorm of San Jose, Calif., raised $16 million in Series B funding led by ASUSTek Computer, with participation by Knowles, Meyer, and Senvest Management. The startup develops low-power AI chipsets for applications in edge computing. AIStorm was established in 2011 and has raised a total of more than $29 million in private funding.

Switzerland’s QuantalRF received about $19 million in Series B funding co-led by Metellus and Dara Capital, among other investors. The Swiss startup designs radio-frequency front-end chips.

UbiQD of Los Alamos, N.M., raised $7 million in Series A funding co-led by Scout Ventures and Keiretsu Forum, with participation by Sun Mountain Capital, Epic Ventures, Plug & Play Ventures, and Arcview Collective Fund. The startup manufactures low-hazard quantum dots and nanocomposites. UbiQD was founded in 2014 and has raised a total of more than $9 million in private funding.

X-EPIC of Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, received $30.6 million in Series A funding from China Fortune-Tech Capital and other investors. The startup develops electronic design automation software for chip design. It was established this year.

Synthara Technologies of Zurich, Switzerland, raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding, which it will use to design adaptive AI processors for edge applications. The Swiss startup is a spinoff from the UZH-ETH Institute of Neuroinformatics.

Odds and Ends

Isar Aerospace of Munich, Bayern, Germany, raised €75 million (about $91 million) in Series B funding led by Lakestar Advisors and joined by Earlybird, Vsquared Ventures, Airbus Ventures, UVC, and HV Capital. The startup offers launch services for micro-satellites. The German aerospace startup was established in 2018 and has raised a total of $107.6 million, according to Crunchbase.

Boom Technology of Englewood, Colo., doing business as Boom Supersonic, received new funding of $50 million led by WRVI Capital, valuing the developer of supersonic aircraft at more than $1 billion. The startup was founded in 2014 and has raised a total of more than $204 million in private funding.

ZeroAvia of Hollister, Calif., raised $21.4 million in new funding led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures with participation by Amazon and Royal Dutch Shell. The startup is developing hydrogen-powered airplanes. The company was established in 2017 and has raised a total of $37.7 million in private funding.

Varda Space Industries received $9 million in seed funding co-led by Founders Fund and Lux Capital. The space manufacturing startup was founded this year.

Space Perspective of Orlando, Fla., raised $7 million in seed funding co-led by Prime Movers Labs and Base Ventures. Other investors are Tony Robbins, Kirenaga Partners, 1517 Fund, Schox, E2MC Ventures, and SpaceFund Venture Capital. The space tourism startup plans to offer balloon flights to the edge of outer space beginning in 2024; tickets will be sold in early 2021.

San Francisco-based Orbit Fab received new seed funding from Munich Re Ventures. The startup is a developer of in-orbit refueling technology. The company was established three years ago.

Calm of San Francisco raised $75 million in Series C funding led by existing investor Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation by Goldman Sachs, TPG, Insight Partners, and Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com. The startup offers a meditation application. Calm was founded in 2012 and has raised a total of $218 million in private funding.

New York-based Squire received $45 million in Series C funding led by ICONIQ Capital, with participation by existing investors CRV, Tiger Global, and Trinity Ventures. The barbershop management software startup also secured $15 million in debt financing. Squire was established in 2016 and has raised a total of more than $106 million in private funding.

Fundraising

A quick compendium of fundraising by private equity and venture capital firms during the month of December: AlpInvest Partners raised $10.2 billion for two funds; K1 Investment Management raised $3.25 billion; Waterland Private Equity raised €2.5 billion (about $3.1 billion); Monarch Alternative Capital raised $3 billion; Global Inmore thanfrastructure Partners raised $2.8 billion for two funds; Wellington Management raised $2.2 billion; Gridiron Capital raised $1.35 billion; JMI Equity is raising $1.3 billion; and Sixth Street Partners is raising €800 million (about $980 million).