Last week it seemed like big rounds were making a comeback. That’s not the case this week, as even the largest rounds were on the small side and there weren’t a lot of them. Investors continued to go big on biotech and another agtech company made the list, along with a mini golf startup—a first.

1. Odyssey Therapeutics, $168M, biotech: Developing drugs is big business, for both biotech firms and investors. This week, Boston-based Odyssey Therapeutics closed a $168 million Series B led by General Catalyst. Odyssey is developing precision immunomodulators and oncology medicines to treat serious human diseases. The company’s drug discovery engine uses artificial intelligence and machine learning for molecular design, a functional genomics platform for target discovery and other proprietary tech. Founded last year, Odyssey has raised nearly $386 million, according to the company.

2. Uniswap Labs, $165M, crypto: Crypto and blockchain have been relatively quiet recently, but there does usually seem to be at least one round that makes this list every week. This week it was New York-based Uniswap Labs—the company behind the Uniswap Protocol exchange— that landed a $165 million Series B led by Polychain Capital. The raise values the company at $1.66 billion, TechCrunch reported. Founded in 2018, Uniswap is a decentralized exchange platform operating on the Ethereum blockchain. The exchange allows users to deposit tokens into larger liquidity pools and buy and sell at predetermined pricing. In a blog post announcing the round, the company said it has now supported $1.2 trillion in trading volume to date. The company has now raised $176 million, according to Crunchbase data.

3. TripActions, $154M, travel: TripActions has been in the news a lot lately. Just two weeks after it was reported the company had confidentially filed to go public next year, the Palo Alto, California-based business travel startup raised $304 million at a $9.2 billion valuation. The round is comprised of $154 million in equity from new and existing financial investors and a $150 million structured capital transaction led by Coatue. The business travel startup raised $275 million in a Series F round led by Greenoaks Capital last October at a $7.25 billion valuation. In May, Bloomberg reported the company was in negotiations to raise funding at a $9 billion valuation. Late last month, Business Insider first reported the company had filed confidentially to go public and is aiming for a $12 billion valuation in Q2 of next year. The report also said Goldman Sachs has been hired to handle the listing.

4. Puttshack, $150M, sports: Who didn’t at one point love miniature golf? Apparently many people still do. Chicago-based Puttshack locked up a $150 million from funds managed by BlackRock and continued support from Promethean Investments. The company blends a night out—food and beverages—with miniature golf and uses its patented Trackaball technology to help automate scoring and create interactive games at each hole. Puttshack plans to use the new cash to expand into many more locations across the U.S. Founded in 2017, the company has now raised $244 million, according to Crunchbase.

5. Soli Organic, $125M: Agtech continues to be big with investors. Virginia-based indoor farming startup Soli Organic raised $125 million Series D led by CDPQ. Soli sells greens and herbs. However, unlike most indoor farming companies that use hydroponics and vertical farming tech, Soli utilizes soil and its own special fertilizer to grow their crops indoors. The company has been around for a while. It started off as Shenandoah Growers in 1989—making it an OG of the agtech sector. The company has raised $487.5 million since being founded, according to Crunchbase data. 

6. Neumora Therapeutics, $112M, biotech: Watertown, Massachusetts-based Neumora Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech firm developing medicines for brain diseases, closed a $112 million Series B from investors that included Abu Dhabi Growth Fund (ADG), Amgen, ARCH Venture Partners and others. Founded in 2019, Neumora has raised $650 million in capital, per the company.

7. SprintRay, $100M, 3D printing: Los Angeles-based dental 3D printer maker SprintRay raised more than $100 million in a Series D led by the SoftBank Vision Fund 2, according to a Deal Street Asia report. This is the first disclosed round, per Crunchbase data.

8. Matchpoint Therapeutics, $70M, biotech: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Matchpoint Therapeutics, a developer of precision covalent medicines to treat immune diseases, closed on a Series A funding of $70 million led by Sanofi Ventures. The company has raised a total of $100 million including its seed round led by Atlas Venture and Access Biotechnology.

9. NorthOne, $67M, fintech: New York-based financial management platform NorthOne raised a $67 million Series B from new and existing investors. Founded in 2016, the company has now raised more than $90 million from investors such as Redpoint and Battery Ventures, per Crunchbase.

10. Ascidian Therapeutics, $50M, biotech: Boston-based Ascidian Therapeutics came out of stealth and announced it had raised a $50 million Series A from ATP, who also developed the company. Ascidian is trying to treat human diseases by replacing mutated exons at the RNA level.

Big global deals

With so few large rounds this week in the U.S., the biggest round globally went to a China-based firm.

• Horizon Robotics, which creates computing platforms for smart vehicles, received a $1 billion investment from Volkswagen for a joint venture. 

Methodology

We tracked the largest rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of Oct. 8 to 14. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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Rounds were not that big this week, as only a handful were $100 million or more. Much like last week, investment was all over the board, as storage, grocery and energy startups led the way in what was a pretty down week.

1. Wasabi Technologies, $125M, storage: The cloud services sector is dominated by the big tech names we all know. Boston-based Wasabi would like to change that, and just this week became a unicorn as it travels down that road. The “hot” cloud storage company raised $125 million in Series D equity led by L2 Point Management at a valuation of $1.1 billion. The company also expanded its existing debt facility to $125 million. The startup claims it can offer its hot cloud storage—which refers to data that is readily available—at a fifth of the price of the big guys and now has 40,000 customers in over 100 countries. The cloud data market is big, but dominated by incumbents not likely to let new players in. We’ll see if Wasabi can heat things up. Founded in 2015, the company has raised more than $535 million, according to Crunchbase.

2. GrubMarket, $120M, grocery: It was reported this week that San Francisco-based GrubMarket raised $120 million from new investors including General Mills’ venture arm. The company develops software and has an e-commerce platform that connects farmers and wholesalers with customers. It’s been quite busy in the last few years, making 60 acquisitions in the last four years and just last year raised $200 million at a $1.2 billion valuation. Per the story, GrubMarket now has an annual run rate of about $1.5 billion. Founded in 2014, the company has raised approximately $500 million, according to Crunchbase.

3. Moxion Power, $100M, energy: Sustainable and cleaner alternatives for power has been a big theme this year for investors. So far this year, the cleantech industry has seen 17 funding rounds worth $100 million or more, according to Crunchbase. This week included one of those rounds, as Richmond, California-based Moxion Power locked up a $100 million Series B led by Tamarack Global. Moxion manufactures mobile batteries and energy storage to enable last-mile electrification in sectors that include construction, transportation, events and entertainment, film production and telecommunications. Although venture capital in general has slowed this year, cleantech is on pace to see a slight uptick from last year, according to Crunchbase. Last year, VC-backed cleantech startups saw $7 billion of investmentment, while already this year investors have poured more than $6.6 billion into the sector. Founded in 2020, the company has now raised just more than $113 million, according to Crunchbase.

4. Strike, $80M, payments: While digital payments can be convenient, they can also be slow and cluttered with fees. Chicago-based Strike, built on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, is looking to allow customers to avoid those hassles. The Lightning Network is known for fast transactions and could be a solution to Bitcoin’s scalability issues. Strike is looking to leverage that and make cheaper, faster, global payments a real thing for everyone. To that end, the company raised an $80 million funding round led by Ten31, its first funding round, according to Crunchbase. The company will look to use that new cash to attract large merchants, marketplaces and financial institutions to its payments platform.

5. Ventus Therapeutics, $70M, biotech: Waltham, Massachusetts-based Ventus Therapeutics announced an exclusive license agreement with Novo Nordisk and received an upfront payment of $70 million in cash as part of the deal. Under terms of the agreement, Novo will help develop and commercialize therapies from Ventus’ portfolio. Ventus has developed a platform to identify and develop small molecule therapeutics for a broad range of diseases. Ventus will be eligible to receive up to an additional $633 million in potential milestone payments as well under the agreement. Founded in 2019, the company has raised $370 million, according to Crunchbase.

6. Sitetracker, $66M, SaaS: Montclair, New Jersey-based Sitetracker, a developer of deployment operations software servicing critical infrastructure, closed a new round of equity and debt financing totaling $96 million.The round includes $66 million in equity and was led by Energize Ventures. Sitetracker has raised nearly $200 million since 2013, per the company.

7. Workstream, $60M, human resources: San Francisco-based Workstream extended its Series B funding round with an additional $60 million, bringing the total Series B to $108 million. The extension was led by GGV Capital. The company had developed a mobile-first hiring and onboarding platform for the deskless workforce. Founded in 2017, Workstream has raised $118 million to date, according to Crunchbase data.

8. (tied) Flatfile, $50M, cloud data services: Denver-based Flatfile, a AI-assisted data exchange platform, locked up a $50 million Series B funding led by Tiger Global. Founded in 2018, Flatfile has raised $100 million, per the company.

8. (tied) Unravel Data, $50M, big data: Palo Alto, California-based observability platform startup Unravel Data closed a $50 million Series D led by Third Point Ventures. Founded in 2013, the company has raised $107 million, according to the company.

10. Candle Labs, $48M, blockchain: Santa Barbara, California-based blockchain technology platform Candle Labs raised a $48 million funding round. Lead investors in that round were not disclosed. The startup develops software for decentralized services in sectors like finance.

Big global deals

Rounds were on the small side this week for U.S.-based startups. However, there was a large global deal.

• Saudi Arabia-based Almosafer, a flight booking firm, raised a $1 billion venture round.

Methodology

We tracked the largest rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of Sept. 24 to 30. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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The news was first reported by Business Insider. The company is aiming for a $12 billion valuation in Q2 of next year, according to the report. The report also said Goldman Sachs has been hired to handle the listing.

The business travel startup last raised $275 million in a Series F round led by Greenoaks Capital last October at a $7.25 billion valuation. In May, Bloomberg reported the company was in negotiations to raise funding at a $9 billion valuation.

The news comes as the IPO market is going through its slowest period in years. Many tech startups have shied away from going public as many of its already-listed brethren have seen their shares take significant haircuts since the beginning of the year.

Few big tech startups have looked to unplug the IPO pipeline. One exception is Instacart, which in May made news when the grocery delivery service said it had filed paperwork for a public listing.

Long road

Founded in 2015, TripActions has raised $1.5 billion. While the company now boasts a healthy valuation, times have not always been good for the startup.

TripActions looked like it would become one of the first casualties of COVID-19 when the pandemic took hold in March 2020. With all travel stopped, the company saw its revenue drop to $0. CEO and co-founder Ariel Cohen openly talked about the problems, including laying off 300 people.

However, in June 2020, the company was able to secure $125 million in debt and doubled down on its newly launched expense reporting platform—a platform that became popular as many were working from home and had new expenses.

By early 2021, the company was able to raise a $155 million Series E.

Big-named investors in TripActions include Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Akkadian Ventures, Zeev Ventures and Elad Gil.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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Things picked up a little on the funding front this week, mainly thanks to a monster round from a Bill Gates-founded startup and the immense interest in all things biotech and health care related. Aside from those rounds, marketing, travel and fintech startups also saw some large raises in what may be August’s best week so far. 

1. TerraPower, $750M, energy: A slow week was picked up quite a bit by TerraPower’s huge raise. The Bill Gates-founded nuclear innovation company secured an equity raise that yields a “minimum of $750 million,” the company said in a release. The fundraise was co-led by SK Inc. and SK Innovation—which invested $250 million—as well as Bill Gates. The SK Group is among South Korea’s largest energy providers and this is not the only time it will be mentioned here. The round also is one of  the largest advanced nuclear fundraises to date. Founded in 2006, TerraPower is an incubator and developer of ideas and technologies. The Bellevue, Washington-based company will use the new money to develop advanced nuclear technology, as well as developing new cancer treatments from nuclear isotopes.

2. Orna Therapeutics, $221M, biotech: As we said earlier, biotech and health care was big this week. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Orna Therapeutics was the biggest as far as money raised. The RNA therapies developer announced a $221 million Series B. Drug giant Merck joined as a new investor and MPM Capital and BioImpact Capital also participated in the round. Founded in 2019, Orna has now raised $321 million, per Crunchbase.

3. Senda Biosciences, $123M, biotech: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Senda Biosciences was another biotech company that saw love from investors this week. The company is producing “programmable medicines,” where biomolecules can be sent directly to human cells for treatment. Senda locked up a $123 million Series C from investors that included Flagship Pioneering and the Samsung Life Science Fund. Founded in 2017, the company has raised $266 million to date, per the company.

3. VidMob, $110M, marketing: It’s one thing to create advertising and marketing content, it’s another to know if it’s actually doing what it’s supposed to do. That’s where VidMob comes in. The New York-based company’s software helps marketers analyze the quality of that creative content used in digital advertising and gathers insights to help improve its performance. The platform was attractive enough to Shamrock Capital that it led the startup’s $110 million Series D  this week. Founded in 2014, the company has raised nearly $232 million, according to Crunchbase data.

4. Atom Power, $100M, electronics: As mentioned earlier, SK Group popped up again on this list. The energy provider pledged late last month to invest $22 billion across a range of technology and clean tech industries in the U.S., and it’s clearly wasting little time. In addition to its TerraPower deal, SK Inc. and SK energy invested $100 million in Huntersville, North Carolina-based Atom Power, which is trying to digitize power distribution for EV charging. The company has developed a commercial solid-state digital circuit breaker that allows for smarter and more sustainable power distribution. Founded in 2014, the company has raised nearly $175 million, per Crunchbase.

6. Incredible Health, $80M, health care: San Francisco-based Incredible Health, a platform that connects health systems with nurses, closed an $80 million Series B funding led by Base10 Partners that values the company at $1.65 billion. Founded in 2017, Incredible Health says it has now raised a total of $97.5 million.

7. AtoB, $75M, fintech: San Francisco-based AtoB, a payments platform for the trucking industry, raised a $155 million Series B, which included $75 million in venture funding and $80 million in debt. The round was ​​led by Elad Gil and General Catalyst. Founded in 2019, AtoB has raised $230 million in debt and equity, according to the company.

8. Aero Technologies, $50M, travel: San Francisco-based premium air travel startup Aero Technologies raised a $50 million Series B funding and $15 million in convertible notes. The round was co-led by AlbaCore Capital Group and returning investors Expa and Keyframe Capital, with new investment from Capital One Ventures. Founded in 2014, the company has raised more than $104 million, according to Crunchbase.

9. Jet Token, $40M, aerospace: Las Vegas-based Jet Token, a private aviation booking and membership platform, announced a $40 million investment commitment from GEM Global Yield for post-IPO funding.

10. Moximed, $40M, medical devices: Fremont, California-based Moximed, which develops medical devices for people with osteoarthritis, announced $40 million in Series C equity and debt financing. The round was led by Advent Life Sciences. The company did not disclose the ratio of equity and debt. Founded in 2006, the company has raised more than $193 million, per Crunchbase.

Big global deals

Not surprisingly TerraPower took the top spot globally, but three non-U.S.-based startups made the top five global list.

• China-based Viiyong, a manufacturer of multilayer ceramic chip capacitors, raised a Series B worth approximately $331 million.
• DriveNets, an Israel-based cloud-native networking developer, secured a $262 million Series C.
• Israel-based property management platform Guesty closed a $170 million Series E.

Methodology

We tracked the largest rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of Aug. 13 to Aug. 19. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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Today Zeus Living raised a $55 million Series B, in a round chock full of investors including the aforementioned Airbnb, Comcast. Previous investors including Alumni Ventures Group, Initialized Capital, NFX, and Spike Ventures.

The startup offers over 2,000 fully furnished homes across a handful of cities for business people that need extended stays. It has raised $79.1 million in total venture capital to date, according to Crunchbase data.

When I chatted with Zeus’ CEO Kulveer Taggar in September, he told me that the inspiration for the company came from an understanding that real estate has largely been untouched by tech. He added that 25 percent of the company’s revenue comes from people who “live” with Zeus, or people who have lived in a Zeus site for more than six months.

Zeus poses as a competitor to one of Airbnb’s more recent offerings: Airbnb for Work. It makes sense that the travel behemoth is keeping its San Francisco competition close.

In a release, David Holyoke, global head of Airbnb For Work, said that extended-stay and solutions for relocation “remains a key focus for Airbnb.” He added that “Zeus Living delivers an exceptional guest experience at affordable prices in key cities, and we are excited to invest in them to accelerate their growth.”

When Zeus last raised in March, Taggar explained that the company’s focus on traditional corporate housing was succeeding in the long term, while Airbnb was only zeroing in on short term.

“Airbnb isn’t well suited [for multi-month stays], ” Taggar told TechCrunch. “We’re about half the price of traditional corporate housing for a better product and a better experience.”

For more on Airbnb’s appetite as a corporate investor, check out Jason’s piece on when the venture-backed becomes the venture backer.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias

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Duffel, a startup focused on building the connective digital tissue between airlines and booking agents, has raised more than once this year.

The company, founded in 2017 according to Crunchbase data, also closed and announced its Series A earlier this year. That round, a $21.5 million infusion announced this June, was led by Benchmark. Blossom led the firm’s August 2018 Seed round of $4.7 million. Overall the company has raised a total of $56.3 million in known venture capital.

Why Should You Care?

It’s Monday morning and there is a deluge of new rounds to catch up on, so why should you care about this one?

A few reasons. First that it’s a UK-based firm that has raised twice in a year from American investors. That doesn’t happen too frequently. And, second, because what the startup is doing makes sense and could prove lucrative.

According to the company, Duffel helps “travel agencies to plug in directly to airlines’ reservation systems via an API so that they can pull real-time flight offers, make bookings” and so forth. This reminds us of Twilio somewhat. Twilio famously connected companies of any size to telephony services via APIs.

Twilio’s post-IPO, public-market ascent is now legendary. Sticking to our loose analogy, as the travel market is enormous, Duffel could find a neat spot inside of a place where being the handoff between supply and demand could prove lucrative.

The tech-powered travel-focused startup space is busy. But well-funded companies in the space like Klook ($521.5 million raised), Evaneos ($109.1 million raised), and TripActions ($481.5 million raised) don’t operate in the same space. Sifted reported this morning that Amadeus is a Duffel competitor of sorts, though larger by what we reckon are several orders of magnitude.

Capping, you probably haven’t heard of Duffel before today. That’s because it hadn’t launched. Now it has, with a big check in tow. How far it can get before it raises is our next question, but I’d bet you lunch that Duffel picks up more capital in 2020 if its debut goes well.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias.

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If you’re the last minute booker? LastRoom. Want easier expensing? Upside. Crave a tech-enabled, amenity-rich hotel? Mint House. And if you’re the manager that needs to streamline all your employees travels together? Lola. Or TravelPerk. Or TripActions. Or Upside, again. 

As you can see there’s no shortage of startups in the travel space. And behemoths like Airbnb are taking notice. Just yesterday, the online travel company acquired Urbandoor, a platform that offers short term corporate rentals. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

And a few months before this acquisition, Airbnb scooped up HotelTonight, a San Francisco startup that helps corporate travelers make last-minute bookings. The company, which claims it will go public eventually, has bought more companies this year already (4) than it did in total last year (1). 

The chart below shows the acquisition pace Airbnb has been on in the last year. 

Beyond acquisitions, Airbnb investment history shows a keen eye. The company has put money into Oyo, a hotel startup in India that manages budget hotels, as well as The Wing, a coworking service targeted toward women. 

I have two bets regarding Airbnb’s startup appetite. First, it may be able to scoop up smaller startups but it needs to diversify as its late stage competition grows. Last month, for example, San Francisco based company Sonder raised $210 million to make hospitable short-term rentals. And China’s Mafengwo raised $250 million a few months before that to offer global travel services. And we haven’t even brought up other rivals like HomeAway and VRBO.

Long gone are the days that Airbnb was just a platform that connects people to a sweet cottage amidst the olive trees. So Airbnb’s play to tap into a market like business travel, which will only grow as the global economy strengthens, makes sense. For competitive reasons, it’s logical that Airbnb is investing time and money into acquiring smaller, corporate-travel focused competitors. 

My second, and final wager stems from Airbnb’s potential IPO. If it ever does choose to go public, the company is slowly adding new brains and more revenue to its operations. 

And if these bets work out in the company’s favor, its public debut will be a little more hospitable.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias.