| | | | In today's Daily Pitch, you'll find: - Our latest Private Fund Strategies Report, packed with new data through the end of Q2.
- After a blank-check deal fell through in June, sports-betting data provider Sportradar has opted to file for an IPO as SPACs continue to struggle in 2021.
- Individual investors have led the largest round ever scored by a Pakistani startup.
| | | | | | | | | | VC's rise, real estate's fall and more 2021 fundraising trends | | Through the year ending June 30, more than 2,100 funds raised $987 billion, down in both total capital and count from the 12 months prior—no surprise when factoring in the market impact of the pandemic.
Yet money is still flowing, and fundraising isn't down across the board, our analysts write in the Q2 2021 Private Fund Strategies Report, sponsored by Altvia. Some strategies have shone in the new environment, while others were met with more skepticism. - VC saw a modest increase in its private capital raised, but it accounts for an ever-increasing share of fundraising overall, reaching 16% of capital raised and 47% of fund count in 2021.
- Real estate fundraising has plummeted more than 60% year-over-year, as LPs hit pause amid uncertainty about post-pandemic property trends.
- Median follow-on funds in 2021 have measured 60% larger than their predecessors, according to a spotlight on step-ups featured in the report.
| | | | | | | | | | Sports-betting data provider selects IPO in latest blow for blank-check deals | |  | Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, right, and Washington Wizards owner Ted Leonsis are among the investors in Sportradar.
(Patrick Smith/Getty Images) | | | Sportradar has filed for an IPO just months after nixing a $10 billion deal to go public via SPAC. - The Switzerland-based sports-betting data provider had agreed to make its public debut via a blank-check company backed by Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly, but the deal fell apart in June.
- Now Sportradar, which is backed by a high-profile group that includes Mark Cuban and Michael Jordan, will list on the Nasdaq via a traditional IPO.
- Investors have recently shied away from blank-check IPOs after the strategy surged in 2020 and early 2021, with Q2 experiencing a significant drop in the deal type, according to PitchBook data.
| | | | | | | | | | | | Staying competitive in a record-hot market | | Global venture capital activity has hit a record high. In today's competitive market, top VCs leverage new tools to shorten the time to term sheet: - Don't start from scratch. Get up to speed in hours, not days, by leveraging the work of other investors. VCs share their expert calls via Tegus, so you become an expert on your own time.
- Learn alongside founders. Leading VCs use diligence as an opportunity to engage founders in the learning process. Invite founders to join your expert calls to gain insight on their business while also sharing market knowledge.
- Stretch diligence dollars further. Tegus offers calls at-cost, with no upfront costs or minimums.
Learn how you can level up your diligence | | | | | | | | | | Pakistan's Airlift raises $85M led by two solo capitalists | |  | | (Amir Mukhtar/Getty Images) | | | Airlift, the operator of an ultrafast shopping delivery service, has raised an $85 million Series B, the largest round ever scored by a Pakistani startup. The company currently offers ecommerce services in eight cities in Pakistan but plans to expand into international markets in the coming months. - The round was co-led by two solo capitalists, Harry Stebbings of 20VC and Josh Buckley from Buckley Ventures, and was joined by a long list of high-profile individual investors, including former Y Combinator president Sam Altman, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, and Bastian Lehmann, CEO of Postmates.
- Founded in 2019, Airlift was originally a ridesharing service using air-conditioned buses and vans in Pakistan. But due to the pandemic, the startup pivoted to 30-minute deliveries of groceries and essential items.
- With its focus on developing markets in Asia and Africa, Airlift has the potential to reach profitability faster than similar companies in developed markets, Buckley said in a statement.
Related read: How 'solo VCs' are changing the venture game | | | | | | | | | | Unpacking impact funds by category and geographical presence | |  | | (Natnan Srisuwan/Getty Images) | | | While impact investing is commanding more attention and capital than ever, it hasn't been easy for LPs and GPs with specific categories of impact in mind to find each other.
Adopting the Impact Reporting and Investing Standards framework, PitchBook's recent analyst note breaks down fund data to discover which asset classes, global regions and specific impact categories are closing the most impact-focused funds and luring the most capital commitments to the space. Key insights include: - We estimate there is $286 billion in assets under management targeting impact funds as of Dec. 31, and PitchBook has data on the space going back as far as 1984.
- Energy is a perennial target of impact funds, as it can absorb a large number of investment dollars, while the biodiversity and ecosystems sector garners infrequent attention.
- Climate-focused impact investments are backed largely by North America-based funds, while a focus on education is more often found in funds outside of North America and Europe.
| | | | | | | | | | An overhaul of hiring and promotion practices in corporate America may be in order before low-wage workers agree to return to the workforce. Their demand? A career path. [The New York Times]
Private equity firms are turning to wealthy individuals who are willing to invest in loans for midsized companies that banks are refusing to touch. [Bloomberg]
Googling is about to get a lot easier with a new AI-based language model that will take into account context, audio, video and more. [Financial Times] | | | | | | | | | | | Since yesterday, the PitchBook Platform added: | | 381 Deals | 1416 People | 409 Companies | 15 Funds | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 2017 Vintage Global Growth Funds | | | | | | | | | | | A message from Yieldstreet | | | | Structured Notes with target annual returns of 9% to 12% | | Structured Notes are hybrid securities that are issued as debt, but with outcomes tied to the performance of an underlying stock. Each Structured Note pays a quarterly coupon while providing downside protection. At Yieldstreet, each Structured Note purchased in a portfolio follows a transparent selection process that ensures it meets certain criteria. The goal of this process is to guarantee that the underlying stocks have fundamental and technical characteristics at the time of selection that are expected to minimize the likelihood of any significant price decline. At 9% to 12% target annual yields, paid quarterly, you can invest in Structured Notes to expand your alternative investment portfolio. Minimums start at $15,000, compared to $250,000 or more from traditional providers.
Start Structured Note investing with Yieldstreet today | | | | | | | | | | | | Postman hits $5.6B valuation | | | Postman has raised a $225 million Series D at a valuation of $5.6 billion in a round led by existing investor Insight Partners and supported by other backers including Coatue, Battery Ventures, Bond and CRV. The San Francisco-based company operates a collaboration platform for building and using APIs. Postman's customer base includes 98% of Fortune 500 companies. | | | | | | | | Apeel Sciences secures $250M | | | Apeel Sciences has raised a $250 million Series E at a more than $2 billion valuation in a round led by Temasek. The Goleta, Calif.-based company is the developer of a plant-based coating that can be applied to fruits and vegetables to extend their shelf life by reducing water loss and oxidation. Apeel Sciences was valued at $1.1 billion in May 2020, according to PitchBook data. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Jnana Therapeutics brings in $50M Series B | | | Jnana Therapeutics has raised $50 million in a round led by RA Capital Management. The Boston-based company's drug discovery platform targets specific transport proteins to address a range of diseases. The company plans to use the funding in part to progress its lead program for the treatment of phenylketonuria, a metabolic disorder, into clinical development. | | | | | | | | | Osaro has raised a $30 million Series C led by Octave Ventures. The company's software enables logistics sector robotic equipment to autonomously see, pick and place objects. Osaro was valued at $64 million in December, according to PitchBook data. | | | | | | | | | | Permira backs ecommerce service CommentSold | | | Permira has invested in CommentSold, a Huntsville, Ala.-based provider of ecommerce infrastructure that enables live event and social media selling for small and medium-sized retail businesses. CommentSold currently provides more than 6,000 businesses with services, and has over 12 million registered users. | | | | | | | | Kohlberg buys lighting specialist Myers EPS | | | Kohlberg & Co. has acquired Myers EPS, a provider of backup power systems for emergency lighting. The company has two facilities in Pennsylvania and California, and around 160 employees. | | | | | | | | PE-backed Axel Springer exploring $1B investment in Politico | | | KKR-backed German publisher Axel Springer is in talks concerning a full or partial purchase of Arlington, Va.-based media company Politico, in what could fetch the news source upward of $1 billion, The New York Times reported. The reported $1 billion would amount to five times Politico's yearly revenue. | | | | | | | | | | KKR to sell $2.2B industrial portfolio to Oxford Properties | | | KKR has agreed to sell a 14.5 million square foot industrial building portfolio to real estate investor Oxford Properties for $2.2 billion. The portfolio, which KKR has been developing since 2018, consists of 149 distribution buildings located in 12 US markets including Atlanta, Phoenix, Chicago, Houston and the Baltimore-Washington corridor. Oxford is backed by OMERS. | | | | | | | | | | Sixth Street eyes $3.5B for latest opportunities fund | | | San Francisco-based Sixth Street is targeting $3.5 billion for its Opportunities Partners V fund, The Wall Street Journal reported. The new vehicle reportedly focuses on the debt of companies facing dislocation and nonperforming loans. | | | | | | | | Felicis raises $900M across two funds | | | Felicis Ventures has closed $900 million across two funds—$600 million for its eighth flagship fund and $300 million for its first opportunity-style fund. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based firm closed its seventh core fund at $510 million in March of last year. Since its founding in 2006 by Aydin Senkut, Felicis has tallied a long list of high-profile exits, including Shopify, Adyen and Credit Karma. | | | | | | | | | "PE funds have continued to expand fund sizes, with just over 70% of vehicles raised in 2021 achieving a step-up—in line with the 10-year trend. The median fund size increase from the previous fund in the family was near 50% in H1 2021. For example, San Francisco-based Luminate Capital Partners, a tech buyout firm, raised $1.0 billion for its third fund in June, a significant jump up from its previous $425.0 million fund."
Source: PitchBook's Q2 2021 US PE Breakdown | | | | | | | | | | | | | Who's in the newsletter today? | | Investors | | | | Companies | | | | | | | | | |
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