Brighton, UK-based Brandwatch, a provider of online consumer intelligence, with a focus on social media, announced that it will be acquired by Cision, a provider of social media management and marketing tools.
Under terms of the agreement, Chicago-based Cision, a publicly traded company, will pay $450 million for Brandwatch, with the deal expected to close in the second quarter of this year.
Founded in 2005, Brandwatch previously raised at least $64.7 million in known venture funding, per Crunchbase data.
The firm announced that it has raised $3.3 billion across two new funds. The first, BVP XI, is a flagship fund that will focus on early-stage companies spanning across enterprise, consumer, healthcare, and frontier technologies. The second, its $825 million Century II fund, is designed for growth-stage companies.
Founded 35 years ago, Bessemer today has a leadership team of 21 partners and over 45 investors, advisors and platform operators, with a presence in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Seattle, Boston, New York, London, Tel Aviv, Bangalore, and Beijing.
— Joanna Glasner
Tech news
Airbnb posts steep loss in first post-IPO earnings report: Airbnb reported a $3.89 billion loss in first quarterly report since its IPO. The company attributed much of the loss to costs stemming from its public offering. Revenue, meanwhile, came in at $859 million for the fourth quarter, down 22 percent year-over-year as the pandemic disrupted demand for travel and accommodations.
Indonesia-based online travel booking platform Traveloka is in advanced talks to go public through a merger with a blank-check acquirer, according to a Bloomberg report citing unnamed sources.
The company is reportedly seeking to merge with Bridgetown Holdings Ltd., a SPAC backed by billionaires Richard Li and Peter Thiel. The deal could value the travel company at around $5 billion.
Founded in 2012, Traveloka has raised at least $1.2 billion in known funding, per Crunchbase data.
— Joanna Glasner
Funding round
SnackMagic picks up $15M: SnackMagic, a service for building your own snack box, has reportedly raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Craft Ventures. The company markets its offering as a potential work-from-home employee perk, a sales prospecting tool, or a gift.
Abzu lands $6M for AI: Abzu, a Danish startup developing AI-based software for use cases including predictions and modeling, raised $6 million in a seed funding round led by Denmark’s Seed Capital and PreSeed Ventures, and Finland’s Inventure.
So, we’ve adapted our ever-updated Here’s Who’s Gone Public list to fit more with the times, and are including both traditional IPOs and other methods of going public. So far this year, that means IPOs and SPACs.
While SPACs are going public at a more frequent pace than traditional IPO companies, we’ve included only the ones that have completed a merger with a target company and begun trading as a combined company.
This list will be updated regularly to keep up with the robust IPO and SPAC pipeline coming up this year, so be sure to check back.
In the first venture-backed tech-ish IPO of the year, Affirm saw its stock price jump 100 percent on its first day of trading before closing out at $97.24. Affirm is a big player in the increasingly-popular “buy now, pay later space,” which includes companies like AfterPay and Klarna. Since it went public in mid-January, the company’s stock has moved up and down, but overall its trajectory has been positive. Affirm’s stock closed at $105.55 on Feb. 18.
Poshmark’s stock price doubled pretty much right out of the gate, and ended up closing out its first day of trading up 140 percent. The company, which operates a marketplace for new and second-hand clothing and accessories, reached a valuation of $3 billion with its IPO, one of the first of this year. But since Poshmark’s public market debut, its stock has fallen quite a bit. The company’s stock closed at $68.39 on Feb. 18.
Gaming is all the rage as people look to stay entertained at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The market response to Playtika reflects that. Playtika’s stock price since its mid-January debut has been mostly positive. The company’s stock closed at $32.56 on Feb. 18, still above its first day of trading close of $31.62.
Qualtrics’ IPO was significant for a couple different reasons. It wasn’t a traditional venture-backed tech company going public, but one that had already been acquired. After SAP acquired the company in 2018 before Qualtrics’ planned IPO, SAP ended up spinning it out in 2021. The IPO was also significant because it ended up being the largest IPO of a Utah-based company. Qualtrics’ public debut valued the company at $15 billion, and its stock price arc has been positive since. Qualtrics’ stock closed at $44.63 on Feb.18.
Bumble’s IPO made founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd a billionaire and the youngest woman to take a company public. It was also a big deal for Texas’ tech scene, as the dating app is a homegrown Austin company. The company raised $2.15 billion through its IPO and its stock closed 64 percent above its IPO price on its first day of trading. Overall, its post-IPO arc since then has been positive, and its stock closed at $74 on Feb. 18.
As of this writing, Oscar Health has been a public company for less than three days. So, its negative post-IPO arc should be taken with a grain of salt — especially because the market in general dipped at the end of its first week of trading. That said, Oscar’s public market debut wasn’t like many of the venture-backed IPOs we’ve seen recently where the stock surges right out of the gate. The company initially set a price range of between $32 and $34 before increasing it to between $36 and $38, and pricing at $39. The company closed its first day of trading at $34.80, and its stock closed at $31 on Friday, March 5.
While Coupang’s stock popped around 40 percent on its first day of trading, it has trended mostly down since the company went public nearly a month ago. When the company went public in March, it made Coupang the largest IPO of the year so far, according to CNBC. The South Korean e-commerce company’s stock closed at $45.58 on Thursday, April 8.
DigitalOcean didn’t exactly start its time trading on the public markets on a high note. The company opened and closed its first day of trading below its IPO price, and its stock has pretty much gone down since then. Since DigitalOcean has been a public company, its stock hasn’t reached the IPO price of $47 that the company had set. The company closed its first day of trading at $42.50, and closed at $40.25 on Thursday, April 8.
VIZIO finally made it public this year after filing for an IPO for a second time (it first filed in 2015). The company had a less-than-stellar debut when it began trading at the end of March, with its stock opening nearly 17 percent below its IPO price of $21. Since then, the company’s stock price has increased, reaching a high of $24.72 on March 30. VIZIO’s stock price has tapered off a bit since then, closing at $21.95 on Thursday, April 8.
While ThredUp saw its stock close around 43 percent above its IPO price of $14 on its first day of trading, its stock has trended down since it went public at the end of March. ThredUp closed at $18.39 on Thursday, April 8. The company is one of a handful of clothing and accessories resale companies to go public in recent years, including Poshmark and The RealReal.
Coursera closed its first day of trading at $45, about 36 percent above its IPO price. Since then, the company’s stock price has gone up, closing at $56 on Thursday, April 8. It makes sense given what a big year the edtech space has had. Coursera marks the first major edtech IPO of the year, though it’s possible it won’t be the last. Other edtech companies rumored to be 2021 IPO candidates include Duolingo and Udemy.
Compass’ IPO comes after a busy year for the residential real estate market. The company, which operates like a brokerage but gives agents a suite of digital tools to better market themselves, raised about $450 million through its IPO. However, in the week that Compass has been public, its stock price has fallen slightly, closing at $21.90 on Thursday, April 8, below its IPO price. The company priced its shares at $18, the low end of its IPO range, after lowering its price range from between $23 and $26 to between $18 and 19.
Roblox marks both the first major direct listing of the year (in terms of tech companies) and one of the most-anticipated public debuts for gaming companies. The company’s stock surged 43 percent above its reference price and has had a generally positive trend since then, though of course there have been dips here and there. Roblox’s stock closed at $70.76 on Thursday, April 8.
SPAC valuation: $7 billion, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal
Initial stock price arc: Negative
Clover Health was the first VC-backed company to go public via a special purpose acquisition company, with Chamath Palihapitiya’s SPAC, Social Capital Hedosophia V, acquiring the company. The company’s stock since the merger was completed in early January has trended negatively since it started trading, though, with its stock closing at $10.83 on Feb.18.
Payment cycle management platform Billtrust went public in mid-January after merging with South Mountain Merger Corp. The company raised $115 million in funding while private and announced plans to go public via a SPAC in the fall. Since the company’s stock started trading, its initial arc has been positive. Billtrust’s stock closed at $18.80 on Feb. 18.
Hims and Hers Health, which initially started out as a company aimed toward men’s health issues, went public after merging with special purpose acquisition company Oaktree Acquisitions Corp. The deal was among the first major VC-backed SPAC mergers to be completed in 2021, and raised proceeds of about $280 million. Since the combined company’s stock started trading, its stock price has been trending up and closed at $19.01 on Feb. 18.
SPAC proceeds: $450 million, according to Inside EVs.
Initial stock price arc: Negative
Companies in the electric vehicle space are evidently popular targets for SPACs, and ChargePoint is among them. The company, which is based in Campbell, California, went public by merging with special purpose acquisition company Switchback Energy Acquisition Corp. Since the company completed the merger on Feb. 26 and began trading (closing at $30.83 last week), its stock has fallen a bit, closing at $26.13 on Friday, March 5.
Digital insurance platform Metromile went public by merging with blank-check company INSU Acquisition Corp. II. The company, which is backed by investors including Index Ventures and Future Fund, follows other insurtech companies like Lemonade and Root to the public market, though through a SPAC rather than a traditional IPO. The company’s stock has mostly trended down since then, closing at $10.45 on Friday, March 5.
Stay up to date with recent funding rounds, acquisitions, and more with the Crunchbase Daily.
So, we’ve adapted our ever-updated Here’s Who’s Gone Public list to fit more with the times, and are including both traditional IPOs and other methods of going public. So far this year, that means IPOs and SPACs.
San Francisco-based Gupshup, a provider of conversational messaging tools, announced it has raised $100 million in fresh funding from Tiger Global Management.
The financing sets a valuation of $1.4 billion for Gupshup, which says its API currently enables over 100,000 developers and businesses to build messaging and conversational experiences, used in over 6 billion messages per month.
Gupshup has not raised a funding round since 2011, with total prior funding of around $44 million, per Crunchbase data. The company says it closed out 2020 with an annual revenue run rate of approximately $150 million.
— Joanna Glasner
Funding rounds
Norway’s Oda bags $265M for grocery delivery: Oda (formerly Kolonial), a Norwegian online grocery delivery provider, raised 223 million euros ($265 million) in a funding round led by Prosus NV and SoftBank. The company plans to use the funds for international expansion.
— Joanna Glasner
Redis Labs raises $110M Series G: Database platform Redis Labs has closed a $110 million Series G funding round led by Tiger Global. The round brings the 10-year-old, Mountain View-based company’s valuation up to $2 billion.
Stay up to date with recent funding rounds, acquisitions, and more with the Crunchbase Daily.
The financing sets a valuation of $1.4 billion for Gupshup, which says its API currently enables over 100,000 developers and businesses to build messaging and conversational experiences, used in over 6 billion messages per month.