The Road Ahead
Theme of the Week
Liquidity continues to be a persistent theme as the fundraising environment challenges both companies and funds, even though deal activity this week included 6 VC raise announcements, all in excess of $100M. Consistent with the theme of capital scarcity, company valuations have continued to decline and GPs are increasingly exploring secondary sales.
i80 Group News
i80 Group builds on success and momentum with strategic expansion into Europe (Businesswire)
Co-branded credit card startup Cardless gets $75M credit line (Axios)
LatAm fintech Kiwi raises $80M to provide underbanked consumers with credit access in the US (Businesswire)
Market Insights
Asset-based finance: A fast-growing frontier in private credit (KKR)
Despite a $300 million funding round for OpenAI, global venture capital investment activity declined 61.2% in April 2023 compared to the same month in 2022. A total of $15.74 billion was raised across 959 funding rounds for the month (Pipe Newsletter)
Editorials
Flat and down rounds are on the rise. There could be a lot more on the horizon (Fortune)
5 investors discuss what’s in store for venture debt following SVB’s collapse (TechCrunch)
VC Fundraises
VC firms are having more conversations to sell stakes in startups (Fortune)
Venture studio Atomic raises $320 million for its fourth fund (Fortune)
Diagram Ventures closes $100 million for latest fund as it continues to bet on fintech (Betakit)
QED closes on $925M to back fintech startups globally (TechCrunch)
VC firm NEO looks to up the ante with $235M across two new funds (TechCrunch)
Moonfire Ventures raises $115M fund to back and scale the best early-stage startups in Europe (Bussineswire)
For Founders
Pitchbook global leagues table – ranking the most active investors in Q1 (Pitchbook)
A Total Addressable Market (TAM) Masterclass (Medium – Lightspeed)
Bank of America launches fintech accelerator program (BankingDive)
The Seed 100: The best early-stage investors of 2023 (Insider)
Notable Capital Raises
Percent lands $30M investment to connect investors with private credit (TechCrunch)
From seed to Series A in 7 months: Why and how Odyssey Energy Solutions moved quickly (TechCrunch)
Onyx Private believes affluent professionals need their own bank, so it’s building one (TechCrunch)
Steno secures $15M Series B funding led by Left Lane Capital (PR Newswire)
Kapital gets more of its own capital to help LatAm businesses monitor cash flow (TechCrunch)
This Stanford grad is taking on pawn shops with a new credit card startup (TechCrunch)