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Atomico, the European venture capital fund that typically invests at Series A and Series B, has made a number of internal promotions, including making SaaS and enterprise-focussed investor Ben Blume a partner at the firm.
The step up from principal to partner comes after 8 years spent at Atomico, which Blume first joined in 2013 as an associate. In 2017, he was promoted to principal and has built a reputation within the VC firm and beyond after leading an array of promising and successful investments.
They include Spacemaker, a startup that has developed AI-supported software for urban development and was acquired by Autodesk late last year. He also led Atomico’s investments into Onna, and Automation Hero, where he currently sits on the board. In addition, he is said to have helped manage Atomico’s early backing of U.K. chip company Graphcore, and sourced the VC’s original Series A investment in recent unicorn Hinge Health, where he currently also serves as a board member.
Prior to joining Atomico, he was a consultant at Bain & Company and a software engineer at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He holds a first class BA in Computer Science from Queens’ College, Cambridge.
Also being promoted are associates, Hillary Ball and Luca Eisenstecken, both stepping up to principal. Eisenstecken has supported Atomico’s investments into Infarm, MessageBird and Scoutbee. And Ball has supported investments into Masterclass and Framer, among others.
Reilly Brennan loves cars. The native Michigander happily did grunt work for an automotive magazine as an undergrad at the University of Michigan before landing a gig as a trackside communications manager at General Motors, spending a few years as an editor and a general manager with an automotive publisher called NextScreen, then becoming a programming director for AOL’s automotive properties.
His next role would be on the West Coast, as executive director of an automotive research program at Stanford, where Brennan continues to be a lecturer. Little surprise that soon after, a seed-stage fund began to make sense, too, and thus was born Trucks Venture Capital, which has since made dozens of bets out of a $20 million debut effort and is wrapping up a larger fund soon.
Late last week, we talked with Brennan about two of the fastest-soaring valuations we’ve seen recently in automotive sector: that of the electric vehicle company Rivian, which raised a giant new round last week at a nearly $30 billion post-money valuation, and Cruise Automation, which also raised a giant new round last week, and also at $30 billion valuation. (Along with some other interesting bets, Trucks managed to write an early check for Cruise before it was acquired in 2016 by GM, which maintains majority ownership of the company.) We wondered if even an auto aficionado might deem things a little bubbly.
You can listen to that full conversation here. In the meantime, the excerpts below have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
TC: Who are your investors in Trucks VC? Are they individuals? Are any auto manufacturers that are trying to get a look at nascent technologies?
RB: We have some former execs from the car industry in the tech world, and a handful of family offices and definitely some large strategic companies. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you their names because I’ve signed documents that prevent me from doing that. But one of the cool things about our little Rolodex of [limited partners] is that our founders — when they want to come in and do something in transportation — it’s an easy doggie door into a lot of those entities, whether they’re people or businesses. One of the things I love about [the mix is] there’s probably no part of a vehicle, whether you’re talking about a car, truck, a bike, or a plane, that one of our investors couldn’t help out with.
TC: Do you look to be the first money into your deals?
RB: One of the interesting learnings I had in the first fund was, we were just trying to participate; we were just happy to be at the party. So we were participating in rounds that other people were leading, and our checks [from Fund I] were anywhere from $100,000 to a few thousand dollars.
The new fund is designed to take advantage of leading rounds [because] halfway through our first fund, founders would ask us to lead rounds, and frankly, the fund wasn’t big enough to do that. Our new fund is really designed so we can lead seed rounds, and that’s what we do. We’ll lead or co-lead and sit on the board. Usually, we’re owning about 10% to 12% of a company at seed.
TC: One of Truck’s early checks went to Cruise, the self-driving car company that GM acquired for an amount that has variously been reported as more than $1 billion, as well as for closer to $500 million . . .
RB: The Cruise investment, my [fellow general partners] Jeff and Kate made. I can’t tell you specifically what the acquisition price was, but it was pretty good. That being said, if you read about the valuation of Cruise now within General Motors, or that of another [self-driving] company we invested in, Nutonomy, which was acquired by [automotive supplier] Delphi [for $450 million in 2017] and is now essentially a company called Motional, they’re pretty high.
I think a lot about those early exits because they validated the space, but I also think a lot of the early investors probably wish they had more ownership. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have sold. But you look at the valuation of Cruise and Motional today — if you put those two entities together — it’s more than the valuation of General Motors, or maybe Ford Motor Company.
TC: But is Cruise’s valuation perhaps too high right now? They still have a very long lead time to making money.
RB: I would agree with you that in the public market, it feels a little bubbly when it comes to electric vehicles and some of these ideas related to technology and auto. But I do think a lot of these companies look at the opportunity to automate things greater than just robo-taxis. Last year in particular provided good insight into how the logistics and delivery part of automation is probably on the nearer term horizon than robo-taxis and therefore more valuable.
TC: How much have valuations been driven up by Tesla, whose valuation now dwarfs all the major car manufacturers?
RB: One of the things the market appears to want is the simple story, and belief in Tesla is now highly aligned to [thinking that] this is just the way that transportation is going to be organized. It’s going to be a zero-emission vehicle that is highly connected and maybe attached to a consumer in a new way.
You’re seeing the same with a lot of these pure-play EV companies, whether it’s [carmaker] Fisker doing a SPAC or the way that [carmaker] Neo is received in China. There’s this purity of their message.
You can argue, successfully, that a lot of other companies have more engineering or a greater dealer network or more IP around a particular idea, but when it comes to the public market stuff, it really is about painting the picture in this one specific way that’s aligned with the future. And right now, the public markets really don’t like that composite, liberal arts approach to vehicle manufacturing; they really just want one thing that aligns very well with the future, which they believe is better electric vehicles.
TC: This seemingly applies to the Detroit carmaker Rivian. What do you think of this company that’s valued at nearly $30 billion yet hasn’t yet sold a truck or SUV? You aren’t one of its investor. Does its valuation make sense to you?
RB: From an engineering perspective, Rivian is probably one of the companies I respect most out of this new breed of manufacturers.
Tens years ago, when they started, there were a lot of new supercar entrepreneurs who were trying to start something new, but they were always small batch ideas. Like, maybe you could get 100 people to buy one. But they weren’t really well-aligned with what consumers were buying, which is increasingly utilities and trucks. So Rivian’s approach, with the segment it’s going after, is really smart, and it has fantastic engineering. So I’m actually quite bullish on Rivian.
In a year’s time, there will probably be two big events for Rivian. One, they will deliver the first batch of [electric delivery vans being built for investor] to Amazon, along with [other orders] to some of the early customers. It also wouldn’t surprise me if they’re public at some point in the next year.
They haven’t told me that; just my own personal speculation here.
TC: When you say it will go public, do you mean through a traditional IPO or maybe through a giant SPAC? Would what you guess?
I bet that Rivian will probably do a traditional IPO, that’s my guess. But they could also do a SPAC at some point. [Either way] I think the public markets are going to be really interested in Rivian. I just think there’s really good stuff there.
TC: Have you been able to test-drive its cars? Have you seen its tech up close? What makes you so confident that what Rivian is building is superior?
RB: I think the point of view they have about the segments is really interesting In the U.S., they are going after two great-growing segments in the business, which is utilities and trucks where, by the way, there’s a lot of margin, and there’s nobody specifically going after those segments.
The Rivian engineering that I speak about is really about the hires they’ve made and a lot of things they’ve done for years in advance of getting these vehicles ready. They’ve got a lot of amazing talent from big manufacturers. They made an unusual but really smart investment in a vehicle assembly facility that they purchased for relatively cheap years ago that was owned by Mitsubishi. And they put together all these components well in advance of anybody really even knowing about them, which is really smart.
Obviously, there’s still a huge amount of risk. What I’m saying is not investment advice. I just think there’s a lot of interesting stuff there that’s head and shoulders above many of the other EV companies, where there’s not a lot of substance, to be candid.
TC: My colleague Kirsten reported in December that Rivian is developing a network of charging stations along interstate highways and also at spots like hiking trails to accommodate who it imagines will be its customers. Does that make sense to you? Relatedly, how many different types of charging stations are we going to have in the world?
[Regarding the location of its stations], it’s definitely a nice ingredient in the story they’re trying to tell, though I don’t think you’ll see a Rivian charger at the entry point of every national park. They’ll probably have access to other charging networks. One of the things we’re seeing in the U.S. is you have some of these dedicated networks like Tesla has, and then you have a lot of agnostic [stations], where you can plug in and charge in a lot of other places, and Rivian will likely take advantage of that. An open question would be whether Rivian builds its own [larger] dedicated network that has a lot of coverage, and I don’t know about that yet.
The other component about Rivian that’s really fascinating is what they do for service and maintenance. I saw an open job that Rivian had a few months ago around remote diagnostics, and one of the bullet points of the job posting was that this job was really designed so that people didn’t have to go back to the dealership. [It begs the question of]: could you design experiences digitally, as with [on-demand remote doctor visits], where you could potentially talk to somebody live, you could [have Rivian] assess the vehicle, or maybe walk you through a situation where you can fix something that would prevent a lot of the trips to dealer?
If you consider the traditional dealer and OEM relationship, a lot of the ways that cars are designed is that they’re constantly having to go back to the dealer. Rivian’s point of view on that is really different, and that’s one of the other reasons it’s one to watch.
Remagine, a financing platform offering banking services to high-growth companies with an ‘impact’ twist, has raised €20 million ($24M) in a Seed funding round. The Berlin-based startup has been operating in stealth mode, but already has 20 clients under its former brand name ‘Get Conscious Growth’. Its backers include former Global Head of Google Payment Jonathan Weiner and former COO of Venmo Michael Vaughn. Remagine’s lead investor is unmade but Techcrunch understands it comprises largely of debt financing.
The fintech will specialize in offering revenue-based financing for high-growth and impact-led businesses, which tends to be more founder-friendly than equity or debt products, allowing them to quickly secure funding while staying in control of their business. Remagine will rollout business accounts in the coming months from its base in Germany, and plans to expand across Europe.
While the fashion in fintech for a while now has been ‘Neo’ or ‘challenger’ banks, there is a new breed arriving: financing platforms. These offer banking services but also offer extra features aimed at new businesses. Another example is Rho in New York, which recently raised $15m.
The ‘twist’ is that Remagine is going to aim at business with a ‘sustainable and impactful’ bent to their business model which might have a ‘positive social and environmental impact’. Remagine itself says it is also committing to impact-driven initiatives and will contribute 10% of its profits to impact causes.
Founded by Julia M. Profeta Johansson and Sebastian Dienst, co-CEO Dienst said in a statement: “We believe capital and technology can be forces for good. When used together, they can be powerful tools that help shape the future. The challenge now is to shape it in a way that aligns people and planet with profit,” said “We believe that every business – big and small – can be more sustainable and impactful. Remagine has been created to help them achieve this.”
Johansson added: “Having already provided financing to numerous companies, the funds raised will allow us to support many more startups towards more impact. With the upcoming launch of our accounts and cards, we’re excited to continue to grow the team, invest further in our products, and help create a world where money and business are forces for good.”
Weiner said: “Sustainability and impact have become increasingly relevant for businesses over the past decade and today, research shows that nearly four-fifths of CEOs are planning to align their business strategy with social and environmental goals.. Remagine’s mission and business model enables founders to consider both their bottom line and their impact. This is the future of financing and we’re delighted to be a part of it.”
Remagine’s products will include Team cards (unlimited separate cards for team members to improve expense management); Multi-IBANs; analytics; zero negative interest; and free accounts. It’s competitors include Finom and Penta, but these tend to focus more on SMEs rather than startups.
Klook, the Hong Kong-based travel activities platform backed by SoftBank Vision Fund, announced the closure of $200 million in funding for its Series E round, lifting the startup’s total capital raised to date to $720 million.
Aspex Management, an investment fund focused on Asia Pacific led the round, alongside existing backers Sequoia Capital China, Softbank Vision Fund 1, Matrix Partners China, Boyu Capital, as well as a handful of new investors.
Securing sizable funding at a time the COVID-19 pandemic sacks the global economy is congratulatory, not to mention Klook is in an industry severely hit by the virus. The startup, which enables its mostly Asia-based users to book activities in overseas destinations, lost millions of orders over the first few months of travel restrictions. The company quickly regrouped for a pivot to staycation and software-as-a-service for local activity merchants, including ticketing, distribution, inventory management and marketing. Bookings subsequently rebounded.
“There are things to do at home, as well as local things to do when people could travel,” co-founder and chief operating officer Eric Gnock Fah told TechCrunch in an interview last July. “Now [the pandemic] is giving us an opportunity to add a new aspect to it.”
The arrival of the new funding appears timely. Klook reached profitability in a number of markets by last July but overall was still in an aggressive expansion mode, it told TechCrunch at the time. Founded in 2014, Klook exceeded $1 billion in valuation in 2018 but declined to reveal its latest post-money valuation, which almost certainly has increased since it reached the unicorn status. The company currently has no plans to go public, a spokesperson told TechCrunch.
In Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan where COVID-19 restrictions have gradually eased, Klook said it saw increased spending on local activities, with bookings reaching near pre-COVID levels. At the height of the pandemic, Klook onboarded 150% more activities compared to the same period in 2019.
Today, Klook’s SaaS software powers millions of bookings for more than 2,500 merchants worldwide. With proceeds from the new investment, it will continue working on the development and roll-out of its merchant SaaS solutions.
“This new capital further strengthens our leading position to take us from defense to offense, as domestic tourism becomes ubiquitous and international travel gradually returns,” said Ethan Lin, co-founder and chief executive at Klook.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/25/klook-200-milllion-funding/
