Funding Circle, Amazon and Relayr
Funding Circle plans $385M IPO
British peer-to-peer lending startup Funding Circle announced plans to carry out an IPO on the London Stock Exchange. The eight-year-old company is seeking to raise $385 million in the offering, which is almost as much as it has raised to date from private investors.
Magic Leap casts long shadow in AR hardware market
Recent events indicate that the augmented reality future may be inching closer to the present day. One milestone is Magic Leap, the most heavily funded startup in the space, finally releasing its AR headset to developers. Still, the list of other well-funded startups remains a short one, a Crunchbase News analysis finds.
Software startups Relayr, OpsGenie acquired for $300M each
Insurance giant Munich Re announced that it is buying five-year-old Relayr, a Berlin-based developer of IoT technology for industrial customers, for $300 million. Meanwhile, Atlassian is spending about the same amount to acquire incident management platform OpsGenie.
Tencent-backed Maoyan, Meituan advance IPO plans
Tencent-backed Maoyan, China’s largest online movie ticketing service, filed to go public in a Hong Kong offering that could reportedly raise close to $1 billion. Meanwhile, another Tencent-backed unicorn, group buying and restaurant ordering service Meituan, revealed that it is planning to raise up to $4.4 billion in its upcoming offering.
Amazon topped $1T market cap
Roughly one month after Apple became the first public company to be valued at $1 trillion, Amazon joined the thirteen-figure club too, at least temporarily. The rise highlights Amazon’s meteoric growth and the concentration of economic power in tech’s biggest companies.
Supergiant rounds fall in August
July set a record for the number of “supergiant” venture financings valued at $100 million or more. But things slowed a bit in August, with a total of 43 supergiant rounds, down from more than 55 in July.
Theranos finally shutting down
Theranos, the blood-testing company facing multiple allegations of massive fraud, will formally dissolve. The move comes a couple months after securites regulators filed criminal charges against Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and the company’s former president, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani.
Slow disruptive trends to watch
Several technology trends that have emerged gradually now look to be at a tipping point of accelerated adoption. Crunchbase News takes a look a few, identified by Citi Ventures, including self-driving car networks, esports, and 5G.
