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The new Series A is the old Series A… again, the institutionalization of venture capital, B2B…

by MPD
This post is by MPD from @MPD - Medium

The new Series A is the old Series A… again, the institutionalization of venture capital, B2B pricing strategies, the strength of USD, and households are starting conserve capital

Here’s what we cover during this week’s Partner Meeting segments:

  • The current state of Series A valuations
  • Thrive Capital sells stake and the institutionalization of venture capital
  • Current state of inflation
  • Data is showing how households are finally starting to conserve capital by spending less and saving more as they plan for a downturn
  • What it means when labor participation goes up
  • Strength of USD and what that might mean for US startups selling to cash rich countries
  • Startup Tip of the Week: B2B pricing strategies

Links:

Listen via your preferred platform here.

*DISCLAIMER*

Interplay Family Office LLC (“Interplay”) is registered as an investment adviser with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Registration of an investment adviser does not imply any level of skill or training. Information about the qualifications and business practices of Interplay is available on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov._ Interplay only transacts business in states where it is properly registered or is excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Offering of asset management services through Interplay is pursuant to an investment advisory agreement. The views expressed in this podcast/vodcast are subject to change based on market and other conditions. The podcast/vodcast may (Read more...)

GrowSari, a B2B platform for small stores in the Philippines, adds investors like Temasek’s Pavilion Capital and Tencent

by Catherine Shu

Sari-sari stores are neighborhood stores in the Philippines that usually sell daily necessities and sometimes serve as community hubs, too. Today GrowSari, a startup that is digitizing sari-sari stores with features like pricing tools, inventory management and working capital loans, announced it has raised a Series B from several notable investors that brings its total funding to $30 million.

The company’s Series B is at a rolling close, so it has not announced a final amount. The $30 million total it has raised include its seed funding and Series A, which according to a July 2020 profile in Esquire Philippines was $14 million. Participants in its Series B included Temasek Holdings’ private equity unit Pavilion Capital, Tencent, International Finance Corporation (IFC), ICCP SBI Venture Partners and Saison Capital, and returning investors Robinsons Retail Holdings (which is part of the Gokongwei Group), JG Digital Equity Ventures and Wavemaker Partners.

GrowSari was founded in 2016, and says its B2B platform is currently used by more than 50,000 stores in over 100 municipalities on Luzon, the Philippines’ largest and most populated island. Its ultimate goal is to serve one million sari-sari stores.

India’s Khatabook raises $60 million to help merchants digitize bookkeeping and accept payments online

According to GrowSari, there are more than 1.1 million sari-sari stores in the Philippines, and they account for 60% of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sold in the country, making them a valuable distribution channel for wholesalers. In addition to its supplier marketplace, GrowSari says it (Read more...)

GrowSari, a B2B platform for small stores in the Philippines, adds investors like Temasek’s Pavilion Capital and Tencent

by Catherine Shu

Sari-sari stores are neighborhood stores in the Philippines that usually sell daily necessities and sometimes serve as community hubs, too. Today GrowSari, a startup that is digitizing sari-sari stores with features like pricing tools, inventory management and working capital loans, announced it has raised a Series B from several notable investors that brings its total funding to $30 million.

The company’s Series B is at a rolling close, so it has not announced a final amount. The $30 million total it has raised include its seed funding and Series A, which according to a July 2020 profile in Esquire Philippines was $14 million. Participants in its Series B included Temasek Holdings’ private equity unit Pavilion Capital, Tencent, International Finance Corporation (IFC), ICCP SBI Venture Partners and Saison Capital, and returning investors Robinsons Retail Holdings (which is part of the Gokongwei Group), JG Digital Equity Ventures and Wavemaker Partners.

GrowSari was founded in 2016, and says its B2B platform is currently used by more than 50,000 stores in over 100 municipalities on Luzon, the Philippines’ largest and most populated island. Its ultimate goal is to serve one million sari-sari stores.

India’s Khatabook raises $60 million to help merchants digitize bookkeeping and accept payments online

According to GrowSari, there are more than 1.1 million sari-sari stores in the Philippines, and they account for 60% of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sold in the country, making them a valuable distribution channel for wholesalers. In addition to its supplier marketplace, GrowSari says it (Read more...)

Altman brothers lead B2B payment startup Routable’s $30M Series B

by Mary Ann Azevedo

We all know the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital adoption in a number of areas, particularly in the financial services space. Within financial services, there are few spaces hotter than B2B payments.

With a $120 trillion market size, it’s no surprise that an increasing number of fintechs focused on digitizing payments have been attracting investor interest. The latest is Routable, which has nabbed $30 million in a Series B raise that included participation from a slew of high-profile angel investors.

Unlike most raises, Routable didn’t raise the capital from a bunch of VC firms. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and former president of Y Combinator, and Jack Altman, CEO of Lattice, led the round. (The pair are brothers, in case you didn’t know.)

SoftBank-backed unicorn Flexport also participated, along with a number of angel investors, including Instacart co-founder Max Mullen, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, Box co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie, Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff (who also started TIME Ventures),  DoorDash’s Gokul Rajaram, early Stripe employee turned angel Lachy Groom and Behance founder Scott Belsky.

The Series B comes just over eight months after Routable came out of stealth with a $12 million Series A.

CEO Omri Mor and CTO Tom Harel founded Routable in 2017 after previously working at marketplaces and recognizing the need for better internal tools for scaling business payments. They went through a Y Combinator batch and embarked on a process of interviewing hundreds of CFOs and finance leaders.

The pair found that (Read more...)

Revolution Ventures backs Casted in B2B-focused podcast play

by Mary Ann Azevedo

Historically, podcasts have been aimed at consumers. The value to be gained in the B2B world is something that has been largely untapped.

For Lindsay Tjepkema — who has been entrenched in the world of B2B marketing for more than 15 years — the opportunity was massive. So in 2019, she founded Casted, an audio and video podcast product aimed at B2B marketers.

And now Casted has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Revolution Ventures. 

Existing backers High Alpha Capital, Elevate Ventures and Tappan Hill Ventures also participated in the financing, which brings Indianapolis-based Casted’s total raised to about $9.3 million since its inception.

2020 was a good year for Casted. The startup quadrupled its revenue, tripled its customer base and doubled the size of its team during the course of the 12-month period. It has an impressive list of customers, including PayPal, HubSpot, Drift and ZoomInfo. Casted’s platform is also “the system of record” for Salesforce’s 25+ podcasting shows.

And to make things even more impressive, that revenue growth looks more like 8x year over year, according to Tjepkema.

She believes the company’s value prop goes beyond just giving companies a way to get their podcasts out there. Its ability to analyze data and turn that into intelligence for sales and marketing is what really sets it apart, she said.

More thoughts on growing podcasts

“If you’re a podcaster, and you’re doing it to grow a large audience, monetize and sell advertising, the number of (Read more...)