Here’s what you need to know today in startup and venture news, updated by the Crunchbase News staff throughout the day to keep you in the know.
Coinbase registers to sell 114.9M shares
Cryptocurrency platform Coinbase has registered to sell 114.9 million shares in its upcoming direct listing on the Nasdaq. The offering promises to be the largest and most prominent market debut to date for a company focused on digital currency.
San Francisco-based Coinbase was reportedly recently valued at $90 billion in a private auction. In securities filings, the company reported revenue of $1.14 billion in 2020, up from $483 million in 2019. Net income for 2020 was $322 million, compared to a loss of $30 million in 2019.
— Joanna Glasner
Health care
Vaccitech inks $168M: United Kingdom-based Vaccitech raised $168 million in Series B financing to support the clinical trials for infectious diseases and cancer treatments. The investment was led by M&G Investments and includes $43 million in convertible loan notes previously issued by Vaccitech that converted into Series B shares. The company, founded in 2016, is gathering data on three programs aimed at developing immunotherapies or vaccines for chronic hepatitis B virus, human papillomavirus and prostate cancer.
Minded raises $2.2M: Minded, founded in 2020, announced $2.2 million in seed funding to launch a new type of psychiatric practice to help people who regularly take medication for anxiety, depression and insomnia manage their prescriptions. Backers in the round included Streamlined Ventures and Link Ventures. The new funding gives the New York-based startup $5 million in funding after raising $2.8 million in a pre-seed round last April. The global pandemic exacerbated America’s mental health crisis, with 41 percent of people struggling with mental health issues and more than 50 million people taking medications to manage symptoms, the company said. Investment in mental health-focused startups has increased since 2017. The Crunchbase dataset shows 303 known venture deals since 2016 in U.S. startups working in mental health. During that time, investors pumped nearly $2.6 billion into these companies. In fact, nearly $1 billion of that was handed out in 2020 alone, which saw a 112 percent increase in total investment compared to 2019.
— Christine Hall
E-commerce
Cymbio bags $7M: Israel-based Cymbio, developing brand-to-retailer connectivity, raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Vertex Ventures. Founded in 2015, the company provides one quick connection to enable brands to start selling through a global retail ecosystem of hundreds of marketplaces and retailers. Cymbio now works with more than 600 retailers, marketplaces and department stores across the world. Last year, it increased its customer headcount 12x as the global pandemic shifted consumers online. The new funds will be used to expand Cymbio’s global footprint across R&D, sales and marketing, the company said.
— Christine Hall
Fintech
Capdesk banks £5M: Capdesk, a London-based equity management platform, announced £5 million ($6.94 million) in a Series A extension, led by Fidelity International Strategic Ventures and MiddleGame Ventures, to give it a total of £8 million. Including the new funding, the company has raised approximately £11.7 million since its inception in 2015, according to the company. Capdesk is used by founders, employees and investors to digitize their equity, options and warrants transactions, which gives shareholders access to a private secondaries market via a partnership with the Seedrs crowd-equity platform. The company said the new funding puts it in position to build a “seed to post-IPO” equity platform for a traditionally underserved European space by extending its offering to established private and publicly listed companies. Also working on this is San Francisco-based Pulley, which provides a platform to help startup founders and employees figure out their equity. The startup raised $10 million in Series A funding, led by Stripe, last October. The company offers a cap table management product for startups to provide employee and investor equity information, and maintain accurate ownership records.
— Christine Hall
Cybersecurity
Vulan Cyber snags $21M Series B: Israel-based Vulcan Cyber closed a $21 million Series B led by Dawn Capital with participation from Wipro Ventures and existing Vulcan Cyber investors YL Ventures and Ten Eleven Ventures. The cybersecurity company offers a free risk-based vulnerability management platform and layers an added remediation orchestration feature that allows IT to fix issues. The company grew annual recurring revenue (ARR) 500 percent growth in 2020.
— Chris Metinko
Enterprise software
OctoML closes $28M to accelerate model deployment: Seattle-based OctoML raised a $28 million Series B funding round led by Addition and included participation from existing investors Madrona Venture Group and Amplify Partners. The company has raised $47 million to date. OctoML, built on the machine learning open-source stack Apache TVM, helps engineering teams quickly deploy ML models on any hardware, cloud provider or edge device.
— Chris Metinko
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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