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.
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Carta CEO details ‘simplest’ raise yet, its $500M Series G
Henry Ward, CEO of employee stock option management platform Carta, said in a blog post Friday that the San Francisco-based company has raised a $500 million Series G funding led by Silver Lake that values it at $7.4 billion.
The latest raise, which Ward describes in the blog post as Carta’s “largest and also the simplest” to date, came about after the company ran an auction on its own CartaX marketplace following its Series F raise in February, he said. Via that auction on the company’s secondary share market, also launched in February, Carta was able to engage in price discovery, gauge investor demand, and reset its valuation to $6.9 billion, up from $3.1 billion just eight months earlier, Ward said.
“We transacted $100M of secondary in that auction, and a few days after the transaction settled we had inbound interest for a primary at that same valuation,” he wrote. “We knew that we had about $1B in aggregate demand, and we had a price in hand. We were able to choose a lead investor based on the value they could add to the business, not the valuation they were willing to offer.”
— Marlize van Romburgh
Chime rings up $750M at $25B valuation
Personal finance app Chime has raised $750 million in a funding round that values it at roughly $25 billion and sets it up for an IPO as early as next year, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. Sequoia Capital Global Equities, a new investor, led the round and was joined by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 along with existing investors General Atlantic, Tiger Global Management and Dragoneer Investment Group.
Argentine fintech Ualá lands $350M at $2.45B valuation
Ualá, a Buenos Aires-based personal finance management app, has raised $350 million in a Series D round co-led by SoftBank Latin America Fund and affiliates of Tencent. The latest funding reportedly values Ualá at $2.45 billion and is believed to be the largest ever for a startup based in Argentina. The company has now raised $544 million since it was founded in late 2017, per Crunchbase data. It is one of a growing herd of unicorn startups in Latin America, where fintech companies in particular have drawn intense investor interest.
— Marlize van Romburgh
Lawmakers introduce bill to rein in app stores
Lawmakers in the House of Representatives introduced a bill aimed at reining in app stores run by tech giants, with a focus on Apple and Google. The bill is a companion to a measure introduced this week by a bipartisan trio of senators which would bar big app stores from requiring app providers to use the stores and payment systems.
— Joanna Glasner
Proptech
• Divvy Homes raises $200M six months after previous funding: Divvy Homes has raised a $200 million Series D funding led by Tiger Global Management and Caffeinated Capital that reportedly values San Francisco-based Divvy at $2 billion.
New funds
• Lowercarbon Capital launches $800M fund: Lowercarbon Capital, an investment vehicle founded by husband-and-wife Chris Sacca and Crystal Sacca and focused on climate and clean technology, raised $800 million for a new fund.
— Joanna Glasner
Transportation tech
• Innovusion raises $66M for LiDar tech: Innovusion, a developer of image-grade LiDAR technology with a focus on autonomous vehicle applications, raised $66 million in what it described as a Series B Plus financing. Guotai Junan International Private Equity Fund led the financing, with participation from Shunwei Capital and existing investors. The company will use the capital to increase the production capabilities of its automotive-grade LiDAR, expand its global footprint, and broaden R&D. Founded in 2016, Innovusion has core development teams in Sunnyvale, California, and Suzhou, China.
— Joanna Glasner
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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