https://ift.tt/VIkKsfA
This is the web version of Term Sheet, a daily newsletter on the biggest deals and dealmakers. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox.
This is a special edition of Term Sheet. The following essay was contributed by Mark Pavlyukovskyy, a partner at NZVC and founder of companies Learn with Mochi and Piper.
Over the last few months, my friends and colleagues have been asking about the situation in Ukraine. Each time, I calmly explained that Russia President Vladimir Putin was just saber rattling, likening the situation to North and South Korea or Taiwan and China. But on February 24, as we were wrapping up a general partner meeting at NZVC, the venture capital firm I run in New Zealand, my partner Ajay informed us that a full-scale invasion of Ukraine had begun. At first, I thought he was joking. Surely this was an exaggeration of the Western media. I started to feverishly text friends and family in Ukraine and Russia and began scrolling local Telegram channels. That’s when I saw videos of air raid sirens, explosions, and Russian columns moving across the border in Kiev and Kharkiv. I froze, and a feeling of loss came over me.
Though I currently live in New Zealand, I was born and raised in Ukraine, and I have family, friends, and colleagues there. I’m proud of the country Ukraine has become over the last 30 years.
Born nine months before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, my life trajectory has closely mirrored that of the new nation. The early years of my life were unstable—my mother and I came to the U.S., and moved so frequently I would never spend more than two years at a single school. As Ukraine developed new infrastructure, social programs, and jobs, I was attending Princeton and starting my first company. After exiting my first company, Piper, I founded Learn With Mochi, an edtech startup to teach kids ages 3-6 coding without resorting to addictive screens. We decided to go remote-first (in what turned out to be a wise pre-COVID decision), hiring more than half of our designers and developers in Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Their standard of living was high. When I sent my mom photos of one team member’s home renovation, she thought it was somewhere in New York or San Francisco—rather than a block away from where she used to work.
The war has thrown away everything that people in both countries have worked so hard for. In Ukraine, our Learn With Mochi engineers and designers have been hiding in bomb shelters and basements, others evacuating to Europe and Turkey, and some, like my best friend from kindergarten, Alex Vilchinskiy, (pictured) decided to take up arms and defend the country. It’s the same across a few of our portfolio companies, like Deck Robot, which recently closed a funding round and had to evacuate most Ukrainian employees. I have been calling friends and family every night, trying to help evacuate them and connecting them with friends across Europe who have offered their homes.
In Russia, none of our employees can be paid now: nearly every payment service provider has cut off ties with the country. No educated person I know supports the war, and many who can are leaving the country in fear of a mass military mobilization and draft. Unfortunately, Ukraine has stopped allowing men to leave the country, and very few countries continue to have flights and issue visas for Russians. Most people who didn’t leave in the first few days of the invasion are stuck. Most of our Learn With Mochi team still has an internet connection and are working with the rest of the team. They say that staying in touch with us and continuing to work helps to soothe and distract them from the insanity outside their homes.
At some point, you realize that no matter how much you analyze the situation and weigh how destructive and pointless it is, you can personally do very little. But here’s what I can do: Evacuate friends who are in a position to leave, and want to; motivate my team; and continue hitting our company goals. This may seem small and insignificant in light of everything, but I’m afraid that, without these actions, we will all lose hope given how helpless we feel in the face of a terrible reality.
Looking back, my friends were right to be worried in the days leading up to the invasion. Being too close to the situation made me biased towards predictions of peace. The same is true for everyone I spoke with in Ukraine and Russia; no one could fathom that Putin would instigate a full-scale invasion. To date, this madness has completely destroyed Kharkiv, the city in which I was born, and it is only just beginning. Putin is threatening nuclear war, and it has become the most dangerous situation that the European continent—and possibly the world—has experienced in the last 30 years.
Those who also want to offer support can hire Ukrainian and Russian citizens and sponsor their move to the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Some of the best talent is fleeing amid the humanitarian crisis, and they are looking for stability abroad. For many, this unplanned relocation is scary and traumatic. Hiring, relocating, and integrating Ukrainian and Russian talent into Western companies is one way the rest of us could help in a small way. I’ve partnered with colleagues here in New Zealand to help companies recruit, hire, and relocate talent by connecting them to companies in New Zealand, US, Canada, and Australia. If you or your company would like to register your interest and find candidates across different sectors please leave your details here.
A situation like this will usher an even larger exodus from both countries of people who can work remotely. If all you need to work is a computer and an internet connection, you have the freedom to choose a place that is least likely to experience war, conflict, and instability. In our digital world, a country’s strength will be measured not by how many tanks or nuclear missiles it has, but by the number of wifi hotspots, the location of its beaches, and the quality of its schools and universities. Putin is fighting yesterday’s ideology-based war, and I believe he will lose—and the rest of the free world will win—because of this fundamental miscalculation.
In the meantime, we can continue to create value for our fellow human beings and hope that human resilience and ingenuity in the face of utmost adversity continues to be what defines our character. As a founder and venture investor, I am trained to look for the upside scenarios—everything that can go right, rather than everything that can go wrong. So while the world appears bleak now, I am making a bet that we will emerge stronger than before, and that our character will prevail.
Special thanks to Ajay Gupta, Daria Zhao, Iryna Pentina, Maxim Manakov, Sara Li, Jared Griffin, Sukriti Chadha and Conor Myhrvold for their suggestions and edits.
A quick note from Jessica: Thank you for reading this newsletter, for engaging with it, and for making the journalism we do at Fortune possible. I look forward to meeting some of you in Austin this weekend.
Until Monday,
Jessica Mathews
Twitter: @jessicakmathews
Email: jessica.mathews@fortune.com
Submit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here.
Jackson Fordyce helped curate the deals section of today’s newsletter.
VENTURE DEALS
– Byju’s, a Bengaluru, India-based education technology and interactive learning platform, raised $800 million in funding led by its founder and CEO, Byju Raveendran, and was joined by investors including BlackRock, Sumeru Ventures, and Vitruvian Partners.
– Typeform, a Barcelona-based online conversation platform, raised $135 million in Series C funding led by Sofina and was joined by investors including General Atlantic, Index Ventures, Point Nine Capital, Connect Ventures, Top Tier Capital Partners, GP Bullhound, Teamworthy Ventures, and Trium Venture Partners.
– Capchase, a New York-based recurring-revenue financing platform, raised $80 million in Series B funding led by 01 Advisors and was joined by investors including QED, Caffeinated Capital, Bling Capital, ScifiVC, Thomvest Ventures, Tusk Venture Partners, Invesco, and Gaingels. The additional $80M in equity funding comes after a year of rapid growth and product expansion.
– RefleXion Medical, a Burlingame, Calif.-based therapeutic oncology company that uses biology-guided radiotherapy to treat cancer, raised $80 million in funding from investors including Ascension Ventures, Catalio Capital Management, Sixty Degree Capital, Hillenbrand Capital Partners, and others.
– Branch, a Minneapolis, Minn.-based workforce payments app, raised $75 million in Series C funding led by Addition and was joined by investors including General Atlantic, Drive Capital, Crosscut Ventures, Indeed, and others.
– Mojo, a New York-based sports stock market app for athlete fans, raised $75 million in Series A funding led by Thrive Capital and was joined by investors including Marc Lore, Alex Rodriguez, and Tiger Global.
– AiFi, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based auto-checkout platform for retailers, raised $65 million in Series B funding round from investors including ALDI South Group, Żabka Group, REWE, Verizon Ventures, and Qualcomm Ventures LLC, and others.
– Diamond Age, a Phoenix-based robotic home construction company, raised $50 million in Series A funding led by Prime Movers Lab and was joined by investors including Alpaca VC, Dolby Family Ventures, Timber Grove Ventures, Gaingels, and Signia Venture Partners. 20% of the round was made up of production home builders and land developers.
– Silent Eight, a Singapore-based A.I.-based cybersecurity platform for financial institutions, raised $40 million in Series B funding led by TYH Ventures and was joined by investors including HSBC Ventures, OTB Ventures, Wavemaker Partners, SC Ventures, Aglaia, and Koh Boon Hwee.
– Nice Healthcare, a Minneapolis, Minn.-based subscription-based health care company that delivers online medical care to patients, raised $30 million in Series A funding led by DNA Capital and was joined by investors including Waterline Ventures, Conductive Ventures, Santa Barbara Venture Partner, Brown Venture Group, F.R. Bigelow Foundation, Daren Cotter, and Eddie Cisneros.
– A-Frame Brands, a Los Angeles-based personal care product brand incubator for diverse communities, raised $11.2 million in funding. Forerunner Ventures and Initialized Capital led the round and were joined by investors including the Fisher Family, Manzanita Capital, Moise Emquies, and Columbia Care.
– in3, an Eindhoven, Netherlands-based buy-now-pay-later fintech company, raised $11.1 million in funding from investor Finch Capital.
– Bodyguard.ai, a Nice, France-based automated moderation solution to address online cyber-harassment, raised €9 million ($9.9 million) in Series A funding led by Keen Venture Partners and Ring Capital and was joined by Starquest Capital.
– CaliberMind, a Denver-based B2B data platform for revenue analytics, raised $8 million in Series A funding co-led by IAG Capital Partners and Lavrock Ventures and was joined by investors including CEO of Bombora Eric Matlick and Denver Angels.
– Mara, a São Paulo, Brazil-based grocery delivery startup for Latin America, $6 million in funding led by Canary and Caffeinated Capital.
– Chipper, an Austin-based student loan payment app, raised $5.6 million in seed funding led by Freestyle Capital, Slauson & Co., and Propel Venture and was joined by investors including Cap Table Coalition, Ethan Bloch of Digit, founder of Loop John Henry, and Craig Lewis of Gig Wage.
– Delfina, a San Francisco-based pregnancy care platform, raised $5.3 million in funding led by Story Ventures and was joined by investors including SemperVirens VC, Bread & Butter Ventures, Goodwater Capital, MIT E14 Fund, Metrodora VC, and SpringTime Ventures, alongside were angel investors including former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao and Detect CEO Hugo Barra.
– Tactic, a London-based information-gathering tool developer for customer and market research, raised $4.5 million in funding led by Index Ventures and joined by investors including Visionaries Club.
– Flowingly, an Auckland, New Zealand-based process mapping and workflow automation platform, raised $4.5 million in pre-Series A funding led by GD1 and was joined by Icehouse Ventures.
– Paerpay, a Boston-based contactless payment solution for restaurants, raised $3 million in seed funding led by MassMutual and joined by investors including Elevate Capital, MassVentures, Techstars, The Fund, Gaingels, and Chingona Ventures.
– Freightpay, a Los Angeles-based payment platform for logistics and freight forwarders, raised $2 million in funding led by Defy.vc and Better Tomorrow Ventures and was joined by investors including BAM Ventures, Flexport, Socially Financed, project44 co-founder and CEO Jett McCandless, and Jason Duboe.
PRIVATE EQUITY
– Cinven agreed to acquire Bayer’s environmental pest control business for 2.4 billion euros ($2.6 billion).
– Auxo Investment Partners acquired Golden State Assembly, a Fremont, Calif.-based complete lifecycle wire/cable assembly and harness manufacturer. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Emmes, a Behrman Capital portfolio company, acquired Casimir, a Plymouth, Mass.-based clinical research organization focused on rare diseases.
– L Catterton acquired a minority stake in Little Moons, a London-based dessert brand. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Leap, a Nexa Equity portfolio company, acquired JobProgress, a Middlesex, N.J.-based workflow and CRM product for home contractors. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Salt Creek Capital acquired Omni Recycling, a Pitman, N.J.-based recycling and waste disposal company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– symplr, backed by Clearlake Capital Group, agreed to acquire GreenLight Medical, a Nashville, Tenn.-based healthcare supply chain management software provider.
EXITS
– Carlyle Group agreed to acquire Dainese, a Colceresa, Italy-based motorcycle clothing brand, from Investcorp International for approximately €630 million ($691 million).
– CVC Capital Partners agreed to acquire RGI, a Milan and Ivrea, Italy-based European insurance industry software provider, from Corsair. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Thompson Street Capital Partners acquired Flowroute, a Seattle, Wash.-based cloud-based communications provider, from Intrado, an Apollo Global Management portfolio company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
IPOS
– Savage X Fenty, Rihannna’s El Segundo, Calif.-based lingerie brand, is in talks with advisers about an IPO, per Bloomberg. A deal could value the company at around $3 billion. Neuberger Berman, L Catterton, and Avenir Growth Capital back the firm.
FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS
– Rhône, a New York-based private equity firm, raised €2.1 billion ($2.4 billion) for a sixth fund focused on consumer, industrials, and business services companies.
– Portage Ventures, a Toronto-based venture capital firm, raised $616 million for a third fund focused on fintech investments in the United States, Canada and Europe.
– Makers Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, raised $500 million for a third fund.
PEOPLE
– Avista Capital Partners, a New York-based private equity firm, hired Neil Ferguson as strategic executive. Formerly, he was with Syneos Health.
– Compass Diversified, a Westport, Conn.-based private equity firm, promoted Alex Mayes to senior associate
– One Rock Capital Partners, a New York-based private equity firm, hired Kevin Lang as operating partner. Formerly, he was with Southwatch Consulting.
Correction: Yesterday’s deals section has been corrected online to reflect that Nari Ansari left TCV to join Sixth Street as a managing director.
Financial Services
