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Category: Alkeon Capital

Viva Republica, developer of Korean financial super app Toss, raises $410M at a $7.4B valuation

by Catherine Shu

Viva Republica, the Seoul-based fintech company behind Toss, a super app with more than 40 financial services, announced today it has raised $410 million at a post-money valuation of $7.4 billion. The new funding was led by Alkeon Capital, an American investment firm, and included participation from new investors like Korea Development Bank, and returning backers Altos Ventures and Greyhound Capital.

The company plans to launch Toss Bank, a neobank, in September 2021, which it describes as “the final key component” of its super app strategy. It will also use the funding to continue its expansion in overseas markets, including Vietnam, where Toss launched last year.

Viva Republica, which hit unicorn status in 2018, has now raised more than $940 million in equity funding.

Payment service Toss becomes Korea’s newest unicorn after raising $80M

Founder and chief executive officer SG Lee told TechCrunch that Toss Bank will focus on lending, and also offer savings accounts with competitive interest rates.

“A lot of challenger banks and neobanks are focusing on the banking experience, such as cards, so their main revenue source is interchange fees,” he said. “Toss is quite different because we already cover all that. We cover P2P payment, money transfer, cards and all sorts of services. So we are focusing on loans, unsecured loans, mortgages, all sorts of loans. We are going to use this vehicle to give the most competitive interest rates to users, and Toss Bank will not have a separate app, since we have (Read more...)

Uruguayan payments startup dLocal quadruples valuation to $5B with $150M raise

by Mary Ann Azevedo

Cross-border payments startup dLocal has raised $150 million at a $5 billion valuation, less than seven months after securing $200 million at a $1.2 billion valuation.

This means that the five-year-old Uruguayan company has effectively quadrupled its valuation in a matter of months.

Alkeon Capital led the latest round, which also included participation from BOND, D1 Capital Partners, and Tiger Global. General Atlantic led its previous round, which closed last September and made dLocal Uruguay’s first unicorn and one of Latin American’s highest-valued startups.

DLocal connects global enterprise merchants with “billions” of emerging market consumers in 29 countries across Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa. More than 325 global merchants, including e-commerce retailers, SaaS companies, online travel providers and marketplaces use dLocal to accept over 600 local payment methods. They also use its platform to issue payments to their contractors, agents, and sellers. Some of dLocal’s customers include Amazon, Booking.com, Dropbox, GoDaddy, MailChimp, Microsoft, Spotify, TripAdvisor, Uber and Zara. 

In conjunction with this latest round, dLocal has named Sumita Pandit to the role of COO. Pandit is former global head of fintech and managing director for JP Morgan, who also had experience at Goldman Sachs.

“Sumita is a highly respected and accomplished fintech investment banker, and she’s played a pivotal role advising some of the world’s most successful fintech companies as they’ve scaled to become global leaders,”  said dLocal CEO Sebastián Kanovich in a written statement.

Meanwhile, former COO Jacobo Singer has been promoted to president of (Read more...)

A first look at UiPath’s IPO filing

by Alex Wilhelm

This morning, well-known robotic process automation (RPA) unicorn UiPath has filed to go public.

The company’s S-1 filing comes after it raised billions of dollars while private, making it amongst the best-funded startups in history. Over the last year, for example, the company’s rapid-fired fundraising included its Series E and Series F rounds of capital, both of which came inside the last 12 months.

UiPath’s filing details a rapidly growing company. From its fiscal year ending January 31, 2020, to its fiscal year ending January 31, 2021, UiPaths’s revenues grew from $336.2 million to $607.6 million, which translates to just under 81% growth. That top-line expansion brought with it GAAP net income of –$519.9 million in its year ending in early 2020, and -$94.7 million in the year ending January 31 2021.

UiPath was valued privately at $10.2 billion in mid-2020, and $35 billion in early 2021.

For the company’s 27 known investors, the IPO filing is a critical moment. If UiPath can defend its rich private valuation, its IPO could be viewed as a success. However, investors in that final round — Alkeon Capital and Coatue, the investors that also led its Series E — will want to see its market value appreciate.

If UiPath can reach a public valuation of more than $35 billion remains to be seen.

COVID-19 is driving demand for low-code apps

The company’s financials paint the picture of a high-growth company that got its costs in line after a very expensive fiscal year (Read more...)