Last Week In Venture: Fast Photography, Fancy Goods, And A SaaS Showdown

Hello and welcome back to Last Week In Venture, Crunchbase News’s weekly roundup of interesting deals that may have flown under your radar.

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This edition of Last Week in Venture is a bit of a first in that we’re not Jason. Jason’s off today and so the two of us are filling in. We’ll keep it brief, but still tackle the same goal we have every week: shed some light on deals that didn’t get as much as attention they should have; it’s a crowded market after all.

But first up, let’s hear about some of this week’s funding news that we did cover. Vlocity, Sauce Labs, and Applicaster raised on the back of SaaS metrics, Casper picked up another $100 million on the back of IPO rumors, Dvele raised $14 million for pre-fab construction (more on construction tech here), and Goodly and ChargeWheel raised $1.4 million and $1 million, respectively. (Also, for innovation happening over on the corporate side, Chipotle has an accelerator, and Chevron Ventures has a new fund).

Now, let’s get into some new stuff. Here’s what we didn’t get to.

Traditionally-Sized Rounds

In the unicorn era, it’s not hard to find huge Series A rounds, stuffed Seed funding, and tectonic Series Cs. The traditional ranges for Series A, B, and C rounds, not to mention the later tranches of the venture world, have mostly been lost.

Instead, a Series A now merely means that it’s the first round of institutional capital, at most; if you don’t count a few Seed rounds as fitting that bill is up to you.

That said, two companies this week raised more traditional-sized rounds.

Fyle is our first mention. The SaaS shop raised a $4.2 million Series A round this week, led by—and this caught our eye—Tiger Global (more on them here). In an email, Fyle told Crunchbase News that its total capital raised to date is now $5.7 million.

The company is notable for another reason, namely that the “expense management software” is based in Bangalore.

Next up, Academia.edu raised a $16 million Series C. As you can surmise from its name, Academia.edu provides access to what it dubs “scholarly research.”  You could stick $16 million into a 2019 Series A and not ruffle feathers, so this round’s metrics feel downright old school. Not in a bad way, mind you.

The Academia round was notable for another reason, namely that Tencent took part in the funding event. That’s a combination that we didn’t see coming. In a statement, the startup said that its newly-raised capital “will allow Academia.edu to further its mission to accelerate the world’s research capabilities.”

Other Deals That Caught Our Eye

While LWIV is usually reserved for smaller rounds, we sometimes cover noteworthy larger deals that we didn’t have time to otherwise write about. This morning, we got wind of a Series D deal that seemed worth highlighting.

New York-based 1stdibs has raised $76 million in a round led by T. Rowe Price to grow its online marketplace for luxury goods such as “furnishings, jewelry, fine arts and vintage fashion.” The financing takes the company’s total raised to $253 million since it was founded in 2001 “to bring the Paris flea markets online,” according to its Crunchbase profile. Execs shifted the headquarters to New York City in 2003.

Prior to 2013, 1stdibs was more of a self-described Craigslist for luxury goods. It evolved into an e-commerce model that year that has proven to more lucrative, the company says. Today, the site works with more than 4,200 dealers in 43 countries. Its sales reached $250 million last year, a CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate) of nearly 100 percent, according to the company.

1stdibs plans to use the new money to “invest in its core business, grow adjacent categories, expand internationally and make strategic acquisitions.”

We’ve also got an $8 million round raised by another New York firm, PhotoShelter. The company operates Libris, a digital asset management platform that’s used by the likes of The Associated Press, PBS, and Pandora. It claims that its technology handles images “70 percent faster” than other similar platforms. PhotoShelter says this is important because it will help marketers move faster when working on social media campaigns that require real-time access to high-quality images. The funding, led by Level Structured Capital, an affiliated fund of Level Equity, takes PhotoShelter’s total raised over time to $12.2 million. Notably, it hadn’t raised money since 2007, according to its Crunchbase profile.

In a press release, the company said it will use the new capital to “drive product innovation” across its cloud-based visual media platforms, do some hiring, and finance a new company headquarters this year.

And now we’re done with our shortened Last Week In Venture! The regularly programmed Jason will be back next week. Thanks for sticking with the series.

Image Credits: Last Week In Venture graphic created by JD Battles.