ruh-roh: down exits

Hola,

Rainmaker-in-chief? Whatever their feelings regarding Trump overall, his new tax plan must have made tech CEOs swoon. One of the main planks is a proposal to give corporates the ability to repatriate overseas profits at a reduced tax rate.

This could trickle through to increased activity in the tech M&A market, since many of the companies with massive overseas cash hoards are acquisitive tech giants.

There’s more to the plan. Proposed tax cuts would benefit virtually every kind of corporate and financial entity imaginable, including VCs, PE shops, and hedge funds. But don’t get too excited about what has been dubbed the “candy option.” This piñata has to be busted open by Congress before anyone gets anything.

Have a nice weekend.

Marcelo
@ballve

P.S. Round 5 of our most innovative consumer product bracket closes this Sunday. Get your votes in.

P.P.S. Future of Fintech Conference ticket prices go up May 1st. Use code NLFintech17 to receive $1000 off your ticket before then. You can also get group tickets (3 for the price of 2) here.

This week in data:

9: Major banks Santander, Goldman Sachs, and Citi or their venture arms were the most active among the biggest banks in deals to venture-backed fintech companies over the last five quarters. Santander led the way with 9 deals, followed by Goldman and Citi with 8 deals each. See more data on deals to fintech startups in our Q1’17 Global Fintech Report released this week, covering investment trends, active investors, and corporate activity. Get the report.
$1.3B: Marketing technology unicorn Zeta Global raised $115M in a Series F round — along with $25M in debt — from investors including FS Investments, GPI Capital, and GSO Capital Partners. The company was previously valued at $1B, but the new round of financing raised its valuation to $1.3B. See our unicorn tracker for a breakdown of all 193 private companies valued at $1B+.
9: Adding to United's recent barrage of bad publicity, Business Insider publicized statistics that the company had the worst performance among some major airline peers in terms of pet transport safety. United reported 9 pet deaths on its flights in 2016 to US transportation authorities, compared to 2 for Alaska Airlines, which transported a similar number of pets.
$190M: SaaS ed tech company EverFi raised $190M in Series D financing. The round marks the first investment by lead investor The Rise Fund, a global impact fund led by private equity firm TPG Growth, which is also a participant in the round. Other investors in the round included Main Street Advisors, Rethink Impact, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Amazon was the subject of our most recent corporate strategy teardown.
82,649: The number of registered cases of “computer fraud, espionage and other cyber crimes in 2016” in Germany alone, via Reuters, based on a report by a German newspaper. The 82,649 cases represent an increase of over 80% from the previous year. German police also registered 253,290 internet-assisted crimes. We recently released our 2017 Cyber Defenders Report which looks at cybersecurity trends to watch and high-momentum startups with the potential to shape the future of digital resistance.
2: This week, cloud and business intelligence & analytics provider Birst was acquired by Infor for a reported $100M. Birst had previously raised $148M in total financing, making the acquisition a down exit. In similar fashion, e-commerce marketplace Ticket Monster raised $115M at a $1.2B valuation, down from the $1.5B valuation it received last year. The two companies can be found on our real-time Downround Tracker along with a number of other companies that are seeing down rounds or exits.
$1.3B: This week, stock-trading app Robinhood raised $110M in Series C funding from investors including DST Global, Index Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, and Ribbit Capital. The round brought the company’s valuation to $1.3B, making it the newest fintech company to be added to our real-time unicorn tracker. Robinhood co-founder Vladimir Tenev will be joining us at our Future of Fintech Conference this June.
$200M: Babylon Health, an AI-based digital health app that connects users to doctors via video consultations, phone calls, and/or text messages, raised a $60M Series B. Investors in the round included Kinnevik, NNS Holding, and Vostok New Ventures. For a look at which industries are seeing the most AI-related deals, check out our Artificial Intelligence Deals tracker, which shows healthcare is the leading AI category.
$1.5M: This week, Spotify acquired MediaChain, a blockchain data solution for connecting media to its creator. The company raised $1.5M in total funding from investors including a16z, Union Square Ventures, and RRE Ventures. MediaChain is one of 95 startups on our bitcoin & blockchain startups market map. We also looked at a number of industries affected by blockchain tech, including online music.
42: Chris Sacca, former Google lawyer and the founder of VC firm Lowercase Capital, has announced his retirement from startup investing at the age of 42. He went on to say that Lowercase Capital will continue to support current portfolio companies, but will not be investing in any more companies going forward. In his announcement, Sacca said “startup investing is one of my things, but it is not my everything,” and that if he cannot dedicate all his time towards it, he cannot be part of it anymore.
7: An article in The Washington Post this week noted that Alaska remains the last stronghold for Blockbuster video locations. Ten known Blockbuster stores survive in the United States, with seven of them in Alaska. At its peak, Blockbuster had 9K locations. In 2008, Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes said “Neither RedBox nor Netflix are even on the radar screen in terms of competition.” See 30+ other quotes from clueless execs who laughed off disruption in this post.