Hello there, Glad you made it here!
Today’s count: 1383 words and approx. 6m 54s reading time.
Just making sure you didn’t miss this,
👀 Meta’s “quest” for meaning
Who would’ve thought right? Facebook’s Meta’s Reality Labs has now been hustling to bring Mark’s vision to reality. Well, virtual reality! Unsurprisingly, it has not panned out well for the social media mogul and his empire. Meta’s market cap has depleted by 75% in the last year.
Meta’s market cap was $1.07T on 31 Aug 2021 and has now come crashing down to a rather saddening $263.22B as of 28 Oct 2022.
Troubles don’t end here! Meta’s operating margin has shrunk from 47% in Q4’20 to less than 20% in Q3’22. This is a significant hit for a company anticipating heavy investment losses over the next few years.
I’m very sure, Meta’s Horizon Worlds will not die off but I’m also sure it won’t just be a burning hole in Facebook, WhatsApp, or Instagram’s pockets. It is exciting how Mark’s vision evolves in a world where major economies and demographics are pegged against it.
You know what can be even sadder than Meta’s failure? Meta’s success and let me explain!
If Meta successfully brings home the bucks, it would be the only company doing it.
💳 Venture Capital
FinTech
Banyan, a Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) data network for businesses raised a $43m Series A round led by Fin Capital and M13. The round consists of $28m in equity and $15m in venture debt. Banyan will use this funding to enhance its product’s capabilities and extend its market reach to newer segments. (Link)
Software
Spain got its newest unicorn as Factorial raised a $120m Series C round which takes its valuation to $1b. The round was led by new investor Atomico, and existing investors Tiger Global, Creandum, K-Fund, and CRV also chipped in. (Link)
TripActions, the Palo Alto-based corporate travel and expense management platform raised $304m. $154m in equity comes from investors Andreessen Horowitz and Premji Invest and the $150m in structured debt comes from Coatue’s new Tactical Solutions fund. This brings TripActions valuation to $9.2B as it prepares for expansion and an imminent public listing. (Link)
Paris-based Homa raised a $100m Series B round co-led by Quadrille Capital and Headline. This brings Homa's total funding to $165m. Homa plans on using the funds to invest in blockchain technology to enable developers to build web3 games. (Link)
Unified API provider Merge raised $55m in a Series B round led by Accel and investments also came from existing investors NEA and Addition. The funding comes on the backing of a 26x revenue growth over the last 12 months. (Link)
WeTravel, a payment and booking tools provider raised $27m in a Series B round led by Left Lane Capital, with previous backers Swift Ventures and Base10 also participating. (Link)
EdTech
Zen Educate raised a $22m Series A extension round which saw investments coming from Brighteye Ventures, Adjuvo, and Ascension Ventures. Zen Educate algorithmically matches schools with the best available teachers and helps in reducing administrative costs. (Link)
Web3
Nxyz, a Web3 platform enabling data infrastructure and indexing for blockchains raised a $40m Series A led by Paradigm with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Greylock Partners, and Sequoia. Angel investors Balaji Srinivasan, Packy McCormick, Ryan Selkis, and others also chipped in. Nxyz will use the funds to expand its team globally and onboard more blockchains in the coming months. (Link)
Mobility and GreenTech
EV charging company, Zunder secured a $98m investment from the French sustainable investment firm Mirova. Zunder currently has the leading EV charging network in Spain. Now, it plans to use the funds to accelerate the EV charger rollout in Southern Europe. (Link)
Berlin-based Climatiq raises $5.9m Seed funding led by Singular and investments coming from Cherry Ventures. Climatiq will use the funds to build its "emission science as a service" climate intelligence platform. (Link)
Health
Limber Health, which is merging digital and in-clinic care for musculoskeletal care raised an $11m Series A round. The oversubscribed round was led by Blue Venture Fund with Glenview Capital also chipping in. Limber enables providers with a digital toolkit for remote monitoring, data analytics, and care navigation platform. (Link)
Paris-based pharma-tech Aqemia raised $30m in a Series A round led by Eurazeo and Bpifrance. Aqemia leverages deep physics and machine learning to scale drug discovery. Aqemia’s core algorithms have been developed over 12 years of research at Cambridge University, Oxford University, École Normale Superieure, and CNRS. (Link)
Others
Smart shopping cart startup – Veeve – raises a $6.7m venture round co-led by Foothill Ventures and Creative Ventures. XRC Labs and Food Retail Investors also chipped in alongside existing Veeve investor Flying Fish Partners. (Link)
💸 New Funds
Oil giant Aramco unveiled a $1.5B sustainability fund
Saudi Aramco, one of the biggest companies in the world by revenue, has a new $1.5B vehicle to invest toward energy transition. This fund is another big push towards realizing its net zero by 2050 goal.
Aramco’s primary investment focuses would be carbon capture and storage, energy efficiency, digital sustainability, and synthetic fuels among others. (Link)
Lightrock closed its Climate Impact Fund at $860m
Lightorck will continue to invest checks of $10-$40m at the growth stage in Europe and North America. Lightrock will be investing in Energy Transition, Decarbonization, Sustainable Food & Agriculture, and Sustainable Transportation. (Link)
The fund was oversubscribed with an initial hard cap of $600m. Some of the notable LPs in the fund are, First Swedish National Pension Fund (AP1); New Zealand Charitable Foundation, Bay Trust, Carbon Equity, Grantham Foundation, Australian Pension Fund, and Wire Group.
Paris got its newest VC fund — Resonance with $150m in its bag
The fund is wholly backed by Otium Capital — the family office of French entrepreneur, Pierre-Edouard Stérin. Resonance will be a tech-focused fund investing in Seed to Series A rounds with a ticket size of €100k-€10m. (Link)
Resonance will be vertical agnostic but given its team’s past investment experience expect the investments to be in enterprise SaaS, web3, FinTech, and consumer.
Messi wants to get in on tech investing with Play Time
The football legend ⚽️ will be working with two Silicon Valley veterans Razmig Hovaghimian and Michael Marquez to manage investments in technology, sports, and media startups globally. (Link)
Play Time VC has already invested in AC Momento and Matchday.com. Play Time wants to capitalize on the 5B football fans.
Propeller is the new $100m ocean focused climate-tech investor
Propeller is the newest climate-tech investor in the city – if the city’s name is Boston😉. Co-founded by Hubspot’s ex-CEO Brian Halligan, Propeller will be investing in ocean carbon removal, algae packaging, offshore wind, desalination and shipping decarbonization. (Link)
The firm promised that it wouldn’t take money from oil companies but we don’t have any information on its investors yet. 👀
💰 PE, SPACs…
Delta Air invests $60m in air taxi startup Joby Aviation for a 2% equity stake. With this raise, Joby’s net funding has topped $1.7B. Delta also said it will be joining Joby’s board and that the total investment might increase to $200m. (Link)
The Indian car rental platform, Zoomcar, is planning a US listing in a $456m SPAC deal. Zoomcar is in the process of being acquired by Innovative International Acquisition Corp, which should be completed within the first half of 2023. Post-acquisition Zoomcar will potentially be listed as Zoomcar Holdings Inc. (Link)
🥂 News we love
There is a bunch of startups taking the plastics out of the pet sector i.e. your dog's favorite startups. 🐶
Why? As much as 99% of food packaging ends up in landfills or oceans.
Who're they?
PackHelp: Making more sustainable packing for pet goods companies
The Bower App: Helping people recycle even the tiniest packaging and rewarding them for it
GOTO-Sportwear: The sustainable dog wear brand
Read more on Sifted
🎨 Infographic
Wealth vs. Happiness
The key finding is quite obvious, people relate wealth and happiness positively i.e. more wealth=more happiness.
But, there are a few outliers,
Latin America is happier than the trend suggests
The Middle East is heading the other way (mo' money, mo' problems?)
Rich and Unhappy, Hong Kong's wealth and happiness have consistently moved in the opposite direction for the last few years
Read more on VisualCapitalist.
🛠️ Resources
In every edition, you'll find 2-3 useful websites, tools, databases, and more to get more value out of your time on the internet.
This edition's resources,
📚 Read Something Great – Manually curated articles from the depths of the internet. Served 5 at a time. RSG is my go-to source for finding something interesting to read.
🪜 12ft.io – Everyone hates paywalls. It's like a rich man playing with your feelings. "Yeah, it's right there but you gotta pay for it." Well, I've been using 12ft for a long time now to avoid paywalls. It works 97.3% of the time.
Thanks for reading and see you next week! ☕️