Used Cars For $254M, Language-Savvy Unicorn, And A Chat From Helsinki

Homes can really sneak up on you. After a month of work and play on the East Coast, I’m finally back in San Francisco, and I feel thankful and settled. More settled than I expected.

Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily

So, with a nod to the venture capitalist who told me I’d be over this city by the six-month mark, let’s get into what startupland was up to this past week.

Starting big, our Jason D. Rowley unpacked how supergiant rounds – rounds that are nine figures or more – aren’t just raised by late-stage companies. Read his piece to learn how younger companies are landing those big checks, too.

Money in mind, let’s move onto funding rounds. Vroom, an online delivery platform for used cars, raised a $254 million Series H, and Hastee, a fintech startup, snapped up $270 million in debt and equity. Mary Ann covered Mexico’s Konfio, a fintech startup for small and medium sized businesses, raised $100 million, and spotlighted the newest unicorn in Brazil.

Smaller funding affairs included a bridal startup that wants to help dress fittings go easier, and a language-learning app nabbing $30 million (and grabbing unicorn status).

Now let’s jump to Sophia, who gave us a fair share of public market coverage this week, even though Twitter had its lion share of Peloton drama. ZoomInfo confidentially filed for an IPO, while Bill.com and Sprout Social set their price ranges ahead of IPOs. As always, bug her on all things public market and late stage @sophiakunthara.

We’ll end with some of our diversity coverage. I wrote about Harlem Capital, which invests in diverse founders, raising its debut $40 million fund, and Mary Ann wrote about Plexo Capital, which is focused on investing in both diverse funds and founders. Jason described the ten most common first names for VC partners in the United States, and found an unsurprisingly high number of Davids, Michaels, and Johns. And finally, Gené took us to the panel she gave at Slush, a conference in Helsinki, and taught us about how technology is aiming to address under-reporting in the #MeToo era.

And with that, I’ll let you all go until Monday. Your loyal readership means a ton each week, and is the true reason why we are here.

Always,
Natasha

Illustration: Dom Guzman