Random Ramblings
Greetings from the home office, where snow is falling in a material adverse change to our seasonal agreement with Mother Nature. Some notes:
• One year post-Pao: Fewer than 6% of all decision-makers at U.S. venture capital firms are women, according to new data compiled by Fortune. It is a pathetic figure, but also a slight improvement over the last time we ran the numbers.
The data covers all U.S.-based firms that have raised at least one fund of $100 million or more since the beginning of 2011, with analysis focused on each firm’s top-layer of investment professional (it’s a bit tricky, since the terminology is not uniform across the industry). That worked out to 282 firms that had raised over $130 million since 2011, with 906 “decision-makers.” Of those, just 52 were women. Please go here to read the full post.
• Meet your mark: James McIntyre, a managing director with Louis Bacon's hedge fund Moore Capital Management, was the man duped by former Park Hill Group executive Andrew Caspersen, according to the New York Times.
You might recall that neither the state nor federal fraud complaints against Caspersen identified the individual who convinced a nonprofit foundation to invest $25 million into an alleged front for Caspersen's personal brokerage account — a scheme in which the individual also lost $400,000. But it seems to be McIntyre, who happens to be one of Caspersen's former Princeton classmates. It is unclear if the Princeton relationship played a role, either in the initial introduction of in McIntyre's apparent willingness to overlook some pretty basic due diligence.
• Soup scoop: My Fortune colleague Beth Kowitt has learned that Sam Kass, the former White House chef who became a key advisor to Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign, is now a partner with Campbell Soup Co.-backed Acre Venture Partners. Read more.
• Drought relief? BATS Global Markets is set to be the first IPO of Q2 and, depending on your definitions, the year's first tech IPO. As you can see in the news section below, it set offering terms this morning, which means an actual listing should come within the next few weeks. Only thing is, this is more of an SPO [second public offering] than and IPO. You might recall that BATS priced its offering in 2012, but then canceled the deal due to a subsequent software glitch that decimated its share value.
• Gametime: Out of more than 1,400 entries, we're down to just three possible winners for our annual March Madness Extravaganza (yeah, I said three). If Villanova wins, then it goes to Jon Curtis. If UNC takes the crown, then we have a tie between Paul Tump and a user going by Bllgme82. Trouble is, I don't know who any of you are. So send me an email if you'd like to claim your prize...
THE BIG DEAL
• Slack, a San Francisco-based maker of cloud-based workplace collaboration software, has raised $200 million in new VC funding at a $3.8 billion post-money valuation. Thrive Capital led the round and was joined by GGV Capital, Comcast Ventures, Sherpa Everest and return backers like Accel, Index Ventures, Spark Capital, and Social Capital.
Slack reports an annual revenue run rate of $75 million, 2.7 million daily active users, 800,000 paid users, and 430 employees. Read more.
VENTURE CAPITAL DEALS
• Entasis Therapeutics, a Waltham, Mass.-based developer of anti-infectives, has raised $50 million in Series B funding. Clarus Ventures led the round, and was joined by Frazier Healthcare Partners, Novo AS, Eventide Funds and return backer AstraZeneca. www.entasistx.com
• Hungama, an Indian video and music streaming service, has raised $25 million in new VC funding. Xiaomi led the round, and was joined by Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and return backers Intel Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners. Read more.
• Strainz Inc., a Las Vegas-based cannabis brand management company, has raised $6 million in Series A funding from undisclosed investors. It also secured $2 million in debt funding. www.strainz.com
• eRelevance Corp., an Austin, Texas-based provider of marketing automation software, has raised $4.5 million in Series A funding. Rally Ventures led the round, and was joined by Chicago Ventures, Miramar Venture Partners and Rothernberg Ventures. www.erelevancecorp.com
• Schoold, a San Francisco-based college planning startup, has raised $4.5 million in seed funding from backers like FastForward and Lorne Abony. www.schoold.co
• Reserve, a New York-based restaurant reservation booking and payment app, has raised an undisclosed amount of strategic funding from Diageo Technology Ventures. It also has acquired Dash, a New York-based payments and data technology startup with point-of-sale integration capabilities. Dash had raised seed funding from groups like Caerus Ventures and New York Angels. www.reserve.com
PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS
• Amo Hamza, a Saudi Arabia-based seafood casual dining chain, has raised an undisclosed amount of private equity funding from NBK Capital Partners. www.amohamza.com.sa
• Arrowhead Electrical Products, a Blaine, Minn.-based portfolio company of The Riverside Company, has acquired C&E, an Urbandale, Iowa-based maker and distributor of aftermarket and OEM engine components for the power sports market. www.arrowheadep.com
• The Blackstone Group has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Indian IT services company Mphasis from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) for approximately $825 million. Read more.
• Confie Seguros, a personal insurance company focused on Hispanic consumers, has acquired Springfield, Mass.-based Axiom Insurance Agency. No financial terms were disclosed. Confie Seguros is a portfolio company of ABRY Partners. This is its first acquisition in Massachusetts. www.confieseguros.com
• Marlin Equity Partners has acquired a portfolio of software assets sold to the ambulatory care market ― including practice management and electronic health records products ― from McKesson Corp.’s (NYSE: MCK) business performance services unit. No financial terms were disclosed. www.marlinequity.com
• Mercator, a Dubai-based portfolio company Warburg Pincus, has acquired Revenue Management Systems, a Seattle-based provider of revenue management software. No financial terms were disclosed. www.mercator.com
• Silver Lake and GIC have agreed to acquire equal minority stakes in Ancestry.com, in a deal that values the genealogy website at $2.6 billion. This is a significant valuation increase over the $1.6 billion that it cost two other private equity firms ― Permira and Spectrum Equity Investors ― and GIC to take Provo, Utah-based Ancestry.com private in late 2012. Both Permira and Spectrum are selling stock as part of this new transaction, although they will maintain a majority equity position alongside GIC. Read more.
• Tilney Bestinvest, a portfolio company of Permira, has agreed to acquire UK-based wealth management firm Towry Holdings Ltd. from Palamon Capital Partners for GBP600 million. www.bestinvest.co.uk
• TZP Group and former Time Inc. executive Eric Thorkilsen have acquired This Old House Ventures LLC, a multi-platform home improvement brand, from Time Inc. (NYSE: TIME). No financial terms were disclosed. Read more.
• Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe has completed its previously-announced acquisition of QuickBase, a Cambridge, Mass.-based cloud development group, from Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU). www.quickbase.com
IPOs
• BATS Global Markets, a Lenexa, Kansas-based securities exchange operator, has set its IPO terms to 11.2 million shares being offered at between $17 and $19 per share. It would have an initial market cap of around $1.72 billion, were it to price in the middle of its range. The company plans to trade on the BATS Exchange under ticker symbol BATS, with Morgan Stanley and Citigroup serving as lead underwriters. Shareholders include TA Associates (17.1% pre-IPO stake) and a group of investment banks. www.batstrading.com
EXITS
• Actera Group and Esas Holding have agreed to sell Mars Cinema Group, the largest movie theater operator in Turkey, for $800 million to South Korea’s CJ CGV. www.marsentertainmentgroup.com.tr
• Peak Rock Capital has sold Highline Produce Holdings Inc., a Canadian producer and distributor of organic mushrooms in North America, to an affiliate of Fyffes PLC (Ireland: FQ3). No financial terms were disclosed. www.highlinemushrooms.com
• Rand Capital has completed the previously-announced sale of its 31.25% stake in Gemcor II, a West Seneca, N.Y.-based maker of automated fastening systems for airframe manufacturers, to Ascent Aerospace for approximately $15.2 million. www.gemcor.com
• Mars Petcare has acquired Whistle, a San Francisco-based maker of an on-collar GPS location monitor and fitness tracker for pets. The deal is valued at $117 million, according to Bloomberg. The company had raised $25 million in VC funding, including a Series B round last year at an $11.65 million pre-money valuation. Backers include DCM, Nokia Growth Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, Queensbridge Venture Partners and Melo7 Tech Partners. Read more.
• TSYS (NYSE: TSS) has completed its previously-announced $2.25 billion cash acquisition of TransFirst, a Hauppauge, N.Y.-based payment processing company, from Vista Equity Partners. TransFirst had filed for an IPO last fall, reporting a $1.9 million net loss on $742.6 million in revenue for the first six months of 2015. www.transfirst.com
OTHER DEALS
• Alaska Air Group (NYSE: ALK) has agreed to buy air carrier Virgin America (Nasdaq: VA) or $2.6 billion in cash, or $57 per share (47% premium to Friday's closing price). Read more.
FIRMS & FUNDS
• Mithril Capital is raising upwards of $600 million for its second growth equity fund, according to a regulatory filing. www.mithril.com
MOVING IN, ON & UP
• Sheila Bair, former FDIC chair, has joined the board of VC-backed online lender Avant as an independent director. Read more.
• Scott Barshay has agreed to join law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison as global head of M&A. He previously was with Cravath, Swaine and Moore. www.paulweiss.com
• Evan Horton has rejoined WestView Capital Partners as a principal. He previously was a vice president with Pine Tree Equity Partners and served as an associate at WestView between 2006 and 2009. www.wvcapital.com
• Pavlos Mavrides has joined investment bank Pi Capital International as a managing director. He previously was a managing director with INTL FCStone Securities and, before that, CFO of Provident Group. www.picapital.com
• Steven Miller has been named CEO of CR Holdco, a portfolio company of Leeds Equity Partners that operates three financial information businesses in the credit space (including Covenant Review). He previously led S&P Capital IQ’s leveraged commentary and data (LCD) team.
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