Venture

Sky High Snowflakes, Plant-Based Tampons, And Co-Living In São Paulo

Illustration of woman wearing a Sassy t-shirt.

Welcome to the Crunchbase News Weekend Update. An email form of this post went out Saturday morning. Happy reading!

Beyond the cringe capitalism of Valentine’s Day, the holiday isn’t all bad news. Tell the people who you love that you love them. Or, if you’re like me, use the holiday as an excuse to rent a table for your entire friend group at a nice restaurant and give servers a little reprise from the swoony couples around them.

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Now that I gave some unsolicited tips, let’s get into the money. This week, that starts with mindfulness. Headspace, a meditation app, raised $93 million on a Series C to push its global expansion. If you’re confused by its momentum, don’t be: the startup was founded a decade ago.

Speaking of companies that are, at least in some ways, hot: Snowflake raised $479 million, bringing it to a $12.4 billion valuation. We also covered funding news from SoundCloud, which received a $75 million investment from SiriusXM, and Astranis, a satellite startup, landing $90 million. Plus, TOP, a plant-based period product startup raised $1.6 million in seed funding.

While this news is great for companies looking to grow, this year so far has reminded us that venture capital money isn’t a sure fire way to stay afloat. Sophia reports that Kateeva, which raised $126 million in funding, laid off 144 people, including executives. Also, SoftBank-backed Brandless shut down.

Deeper into the trends, Jason unpacked the distribution of Series A deal sizes across the United States. Outside our home base, Mary Ann tracked Brazil’s startup scene, and how one proptech company managed to break ground.

Finally (and bittersweetly, I might add) this will be my last newsletter for Crunchbase News. This update will be taken on by the fantastic team. Thank you all for following along for the past 44 issues, from a move across the country to anecdotes from the field. If you want to stay in touch, follow my personal newsletter.

Thank you all, always,
Natasha

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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