https://ift.tt/xuWd5e7
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.
Considering that Chris Dixon, 50, is one of the most well-known venture capitalists in the industry and can write the biggest VC checks in crypto at Andreessen Horowitz, few people seem to actually know much about him.
I began working on a profile about Dixon at the beginning of March and reached out to more than 50 people who have spent time with him personally and professionally, people who worked for him, with him, above him, or alongside him. Few people wanted to participate in the story at all. Part of that is because Dixon declined to sit down for an interview with me on multiple occasions. The other part is that many people told me they had little to say—they really didn’t know much about him personally.
Dixon is one of the most public-facing voices in crypto—whether it be his expressive use of Twitter or the past dozen-plus years of his blog—but he’s also extremely private. He values transparency, but hides much of who he really is behind an avatar.
Over the last month and a half, I’ve been trying to put together the pieces of who Dixon is as a person, who he was as a 10-year-old, who he was as an entrepreneur, and who he is as an Instant Pot-chef. After all, I’ve heard that it is often the small moments or choices that can just as often define a person’s trajectory as the big ones.
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant explained that there is a difference between objects as they exist—their essence—and objects as we perceive them. We rely on our own senses and experiences to interpret the world around us in the “phenomenal realm.”
I like to think that people are the same—and, who knows, maybe Dixon (a philosophy major at Columbia) might agree. But while I may have never been given the chance to sit down with Dixon or ask him a single question, I did manage to learn something about who he is regardless.
Dixon likes bone broth and grilled shishito peppers. He plays the German board game Carcassonne and Guitar Hero. He’s fiercely loyal and also a “little awkward.” He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the internet. He’s been talking about decentralization since the 2000s. He thinks that crypto is transformative and will elevate the everyday person, but he uses his own position of power and status to say so.
I also learned a bit about how he thinks about sourcing deals—and how he spots the next wave of innovation.
You can read the full, unauthorized, profile of one of the earliest and most important crypto backers here.
A note to readers… It takes a lot of time to report out the features we publish at Fortune. We write them because it excites us, because there are stories that deserve to be told, and because we believe it’s critical to hold the world’s most powerful people and businesses to account. But none of it would be possible if you didn’t read our work or weren’t willing to pay for it.
So I just want to quickly say thanks to those who subscribe and allow the reporters, editors, copywriters, art masterminds, and SEO geniuses at Fortune to get stories out in the world about how—and why—a city in North Carolina turned against America’s largest hospital company when it came into town, how a team of 20 journalists at Ukraine’s independent newspaper are planning for what comes next, or the untold story of MacKenzie Scott, the secretive philanthropist who gave away $12 billion in two years. (You can use the code MATHEWS22 for 50% off an annual subscription)
And since we’re talking about my colleagues, a huge thanks to them for filling in for me the last two days when I caught the stomach bug. It feels good to be back writing this newsletter, and getting started on my next feature story.
See you tomorrow,
Jessica Mathews
Twitter: @jessicakmathews
Email: jessica.mathews@fortune.com
Submit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here.
Jackson Fordyce curated the deals section of today’s newsletter.
VENTURE DEALS
– The Boring Company, Elon Musk’s Austin-based intra-city tunnel and transportation company, raised $675 million in Series C funding led by Vy Capital and Sequoia Capital and was joined by investors including Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, 8VC, Craft Ventures, and DFJ Growth.
– UPSIDE Foods, a Berkeley, Calif.-based meat, poultry, and seafood producer from animal cells, raised $400 million in Series C funding. Temasek and Abu Dhabi Growth Fund led the round and were joined by investors including Baillie Gifford, Bill Gates, Cargill, and Tyson Foods.
– BETA Technologies, a Burlington, Vt.-based electric aerospace company, raised $375 million in a Series B funding led by TPG Rise Climate and Fidelity Management & Research Company.
– Reify Health, a Boston-based clinical trial startup, raised $220 million in Series D funding led by Altimeter and Coatue and was joined by investors including Dragoneer, Iconiq Growth, Adams Street, Sierra Ventures, and Battery Ventures.
– Instabox, a Stockholm-based online shipping service, raised $190 million in funding led by Verdane and was coined by investors including Creades and EQT Ventures.
– Convoy, a Seattle-based digital freight network, raised $160 million in Series E funding led by Baillie Gifford and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates.
– Oyster, a remote-based HR software company, raised $150 million in Series C funding led by Georgian and was joined by investors including Salesforce Ventures, the Base10 Partners Advancement Initiative, Okta, LinkedIn, Endeavor Catalyst, and others.
– Satellite Bio, a Cambridge, Mass.-based regenerative medicine biotech, raised $110 million in Seed and Series A funding led by aMoon Growth and was joined by investors including Lightspeed, aMoon Velocity, Polaris Partners, Polaris Innovation Fund, Section 32, Catalio Capital Management, and Waterman Ventures.
– Octant, an Emeryville, Calif.-based therapeutics company developing medicines for complex diseases, raised $80 million in Series B funding led by Catalio Capital Management and was joined by investors including Bristol Myers Squibb, Andreessen Horowitz Bio Fund, Allen & Co., and 50 Years VC.
– AppHub, a New York and San Francisco-based ecommerce software platform, raised $60 million in funding from Silversmith Capital Partners.
– Mutiny, a San Francisco-based A.I. marketing platform, raised $50 million in Series B funding. Tiger Global and Insight Partners led the round and were joined by investors including Sequoia Capital, Cowboy Ventures, Uncork Capital, and other angels.
– d-Matrix, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based A.I. compute platform for data centers, raised $44 million in funding led by Playground Global.
– Zubale, a Mexico City-based software and gig collaborators marketplace for ecommerce orders in Latin America, raised $40 million in Series A funding led by QED Investors and was joined by investors including GFC, Felicis Ventures, GGV Capital’s Hans Tung, NFX, Accel’s Kevin Efrusy, Wollef, and Maya Capital.
– tvScientific, a Pasadena, Calif.-based advertising platform, raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Norwest Venture Partners and was joined by investors including NBCUniversal and Hearst Ventures.
– NovoPayment, a Miami-based banking-as-a-service platform, raised $19 million in Series A funding led by Fuel Venture Capital and IDC Ventures.
– Playbook, a San Francisco-based visual cloud storage platform for creatives, raised $18 million in Series A funding led by Bain Capital Ventures and was joined by investors including Founders Fund, Abstract Ventures, Maple VC, Hyphen Capital, Blank Ventures, and angel investor Elad Gil.
– Wheelhouse, a remote-based revenue management software company for the rental industry, raised $16 million in funding. NEA and Highgate Ventures led the round and were joined by investors including Signalfire, Fifth Wall, Tishman Speyer, 01 Advisors, Certares, RXR, PAR Capital, and other angels.
– Klima, a Berlin-based climate app focused on global warming, raised €10 million ($10.9 million) in Series A funding led by Keen Venture Partners and was joined by investors including HV Capital, Headline, 468 Capital, and Adjacent.
– Bastion, a lending and StableSwap protocol DeFi project on NEAR, raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Three Arrows Capital, and was joined by investors including FTX Ventures, Jump Crypto, Jane Street, Crypto.com Capital, Spartan Group, CMS, and Hypersphere.
– Aunt Flow, a Columbus, Ohio-based B2B menstrual products business that stocks tampons and pads for offices, retailers, schools, and stadiums, raised $8.5 million in Series A funding led by JLL Spark and was joined by investors including Amboy Street Ventures, Harlem Capital, CityRock Ventures, and Precursor Ventures.
– BACH, a Philadelphia-based bachelorette party planning app, raised $8 million in funding led by Corazon Capital and was joined by investors including Freestyle Capital, Oversubscribed Ventures, and Alumni Ventures.
– Kindred, a San Francisco-based home swapping network, raised $7.75 million in seed funding raised from investors including Andreeseen Horowitz, Bessemer, Caffeinated Capital, and others.
– Revea, a San Francisco-based skincare company, raised $6 million in seed II funding led by Alpha Edison and was joined by investors including Ulta Beauty, WaldenCast Ventures, GISEV, Verlinvest, and Kathaka.
– Dassana, a San Jose, Calif.-based cloud logging solutions company, raised $5 million in seed funding led by Dell Technologies Capital and was joined by investors including MinIO CEO and founder Anand Babu Periasamy and Shutterstock CEO and founder Jon Oringer.
– Boss Beauties, an NFT collection focused on women’s empowerment, raised $4.4 million in seed funding led by Offline Ventures and was joined by investors including Serena Ventures and Female Founders Fund.
– Ryse Health, an Arlington, Va. and Baltimore-based care provider to patients with type 2 diabetes, raised $3.4 million in seed funding led by W Health Ventures and was joined by investors including LifeBridge Health, CareFirst, and others.
– Campspace, a Haarlem, Netherlands-based overnight stays in nature booking platform, raised €3 million ($3.3 million) in seed funding from VNV Global and other angel investors.
– Kangaroo, a storytelling platform, raised $3.3 million in funding led by Human Capital and was joined by investors including Michael Ovitz, Greylock Partners, and other angels.
– TômTex, a New York-based biobased leather alternatives company, raised $1.7 million in pre-seed funding led by SOSV and was joined by investors including Nucleus Adventures Capital, C3 Ventures, CRCM Ventures, Gaingels, Portfolia, and Chasing Rainbow.
– Ink, a Venice, Calif.-based content monetization and signed digital content company, raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding from investors including Sound Ventures, Mark Cuban, and others.
PRIVATE EQUITY
– ALPCO, a portfolio company of Ampersand Capital Partners, acquired GeneProof, a Brno, Czech Republic-based molecular diagnostics company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Clearway Capital acquired a minority stake in Glanbia, a Kilkenny, Ireland-based food and nutritional products company, according to Bloomberg. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Prometheus Group, backed by Genstar Capital, acquired LUCY Industrial Management Solutions, a Utrecht, Netherlands-based software solutions provider for industrial projects. Financial terms were not disclosed.
EXITS
– Clayton Dubilier & Rice agreed to acquire Kindred at Home, the Atlanta-based hospice business of Humana, from Humana for $2.8 billion.
– KKR plans to acquire Hitachi Transport System, a Japan-based transportation logistics company, from Hitachi for $1.56 billion.
OTHER
– Pixotope acquired TrackMen, a Cologne, Germany-based camera and talent tracking company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
IPOS
– Taaleem, a Dubai-based private school operator, chose banks for its IPO, according to Bloomberg.
PEOPLE
– B Capital Group, a Los Angeles-based investment firm, hired Elizabeth Wahab as global COO, Cecilia Kwan as CFO. Formerly, Wahab was with Cornell Capital and Kwan was with Vista Equity Partners. The firm named Ted Hill as Chief Administrative Officer and also promoted Mark Cho to partner.
– Paradigm, a San Francisco-based crypto investment firm, hired Doug Feagin as an investment partner. Formerly, he was with Coatue.
Financial Services
