Fairwell, Au Revoir, Adios, Auf Wiedersehen.
Tech layoffs are slowing, but many companies are laying off most, if not all, of their employees and shutting down. Many disappear almost unnoticed after raising millions. And a pandemic, slow economy, and “reasons outside of their control” aren’t always to blame.
If you’re interested in founder post-mortems, you can read a compilation of startup failure post-mortems by founders and investors in CB Insights’ 463 startup failure post-mortems. As a startup or investor, you may want to use the article as a guide to what not to do.
Some notable trends this week:
- Some know how to get the $- Tradeshift, this week’s #2, also recently agreed to a $70 million investment from HSBC as part of a joint venture. Founded in 2009, the company raised $1.1 billion per Crunchbase.
- Foreign deals are still dominating.
- The payments sector continues to be hot, with specialization ‘the secret sauce.’
Next up are this week’s Top 5 VC Deals…
1Petal
$240M, Capital| Equity & Debt | NYC | Payments | Victory Park Capital, Trinity Capital | https://www.petalcard.com/
LinkedIn Overview:
“Petal’s aim is to bring financial innovation and opportunity to everyone. We use modern technology to help people build credit, avoid debt, and spend responsibly…”
2Tradeshift
$35M, Capital| Equity | Denmark | Payments | HSBC, AYTK Limited, LUN Partners Group, Fuel Venture Capital, Doha Venture Capital LLC, Notion Capital, IDC Ventures, The Private Shares Fund | https://tradeshift.com/
LinkedIn Overview:
“Tradeshift is the cloud-based supply chain platform that transforms the way B2B buyers and suppliers connect, transact and grow. We’re a leader in e-invoicing and AP automation, offering tools for compliant e-invoicing in 50+ countries, including China…”
3Cyble
$24M, Series B, Capital | Equity | GA | FinTech | Blackbird Ventures, King River Capital, Spider Capital, January Capital, Summit Peak Ventures | https://cyble.com/
LinkedIn Description:
“Cyble (YC W21) is a Series B-funded global cyber intelligence start-up backed by Y Combinator and reputed VC firms, including Blackbird Ventures, Spider Capital, Xoogler Ventures, Picus Capital, Singtel Innov8 and Cathexis Ventures…“
4GoTab
$18M, Series A, Capital| Equity |VA | FinTech | Truist Ventures| https://gotab.com/
LinkedIn Description:
“GoTab, Inc., a Restaurant Commerce Platform (RCP), is helping large- and mid-sized restaurants, breweries, bars, hotels and other venues run lean, profitable operations while making guests even more satisfied…”
5KnotAPI
$10M, Series A, Capital |Equity | NYC | FinTech | Nava Ventures, Plaid, Amex Ventures, Ken Chenault, Rason Robins, Jason Mikula | https://knotapi.com/
LinkedIn Description:
“Knot is for when there’s knot an API – change card on file information, cancel subscriptions, change passwords, and more…”
