THE BIG EVENT
Good morning, Term Sheet readers.
Eventbrite, the online ticketing service founded by husband-and-wife team Kevin and Julia Hartz, has filed to go public. In an S-1 filing, the San Francisco startup filed to raise up to $200 million, a figure that was later removed in an amended S-1.
The company said in a separate statement that the “number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not yet been determined.”
According to the filing, last year, Eventbrite said it enabled more than 700,000 organizations to “issue approximately 203 million tickets across approximately three million events in over 170 countries.” Eventbrite is not profitable, but its revenue continues to grow. Eventbrite logged $201.6 million in sales for its fiscal 2017, which was a 51% bump from the $133.5 million it made in 2016. It lost $38.5 million in 2017, a 4.7% decrease from 2016 when its net loss was $40.4 million.
In 2013, Fortune named Julia Hartz as one of the most powerful women entrepreneurs in business. In 2016, she formally took over as Eventbrite’s CEO after her husband went on medical leave. “This is a new reality,” she told Fortune at the time.
Read the full story on Fortune.
INTUIT CEO STEPS DOWN: Fortune’s Geoff Colvin conducted an exclusive interview with Intuit’s Brad Smith, who just stepped down as Intuit CEO after 11 years on the job. Since Smith became CEO in January 2008, Intuit stock has risen 588%, obliterating the Nasdaq’s 230% rise and the S&P’s 107%.
Smith will hand over the job to Executive V.P. Sasan Goodarzi on Jan. 1 and will oversee the transition as executive chairman. “I never wanted to be that athlete who loses half a step or can’t complete the pass,” he told Fortune. “I wanted to step down when I was still in my learning zone and still had gas in the tank.” From Geoff’s story:
After Why now?, the inevitable question for Smith is What’s next? He mentions only his new role as executive chairman, plus his board service at Nordstrom and SurveyMonkey and his passion for improving public education “in the overlooked zip codes” like the area he came from in West Virginia. A hint at a longer-term answer may come from his reply when I asked for the most important things he’d learned as CEO. Smith thought awhile and said, “You are capable of reinventing yourself, as a company or as a leader, while preserving the core of what you are.” Self-reinvention has been Intuit’s key competency since its 1983 founding. Some kind of reinvented Brad Smith is likely waiting in the not-distant future.
WEEKEND READS: Here are my three recommendations for your weekend reads:
— Nobody Trusts Facebook. Twitter Is a Hot Mess. What Is Snapchat Doing?: If you’re wondering what’s going on over at Snap, the answer is, well, weird things. After a disastrous redesign, declining daily usage, and an inability to turn a profit, CEO Evan Spiegel has embarked on a self-improvement quest. After receiving complaints about his dictatorial management style and penchant for secrecy, Spiegel hired a management coach and began holding New Age corporate retreats. Spiegel says, “I remember thinking, Why would I go around the company and just chat with people? Like that would be so awkward.” There’s a lot to unpack in this bizarre story. Read it here.
— Paul Singer, Doomsday Investor: The head of Elliott Management has developed a uniquely adversarial, and immensely profitable, way of doing business. Paul Singer has been called “aggressive, tenacious and litigious to a fault,” and named “The World’s Most Feared Investor.” This is a comprehensive look at what happens when this hedge fund investor and GOP mega-donor invests in a company. Read the feature here.
— How a Big Bank Fueled the Green Energy Boom: Bank of America—the $87 billion, 209,000-employee giant — occupies the No. 3 spot on Fortune’s Change the World list this year. The work is part of BofA’s $125 billion Environmental Business Initiative, a campaign that has established a Charlotte-based bank as a powerhouse in “climate finance”—the unglamorous but essential business of steering investor capital into the low-carbon economy. Green bonds, which the bank all but invented, have raised $442 billion worldwide since 2013, helping borrowers pay for renewable-energy innovations. Read the story here.
THE LATEST FROM FORTUNE...
• The World Bank Issues First Public Blockchain Bond (by Lucas Laursen)
• How Fanatics Scored on LeBron James (and Why It's Winning in Sports Retail) (by Phil Wahba)
• Apple Has Reportedly Hired at Least 46 Employees from Tesla So Far This Year (by Kevin Kelleher)
• EY CEO: 'We Can't Afford to Remain Silent' on Social Issues (by Damanick Dantes)
VENTURE DEALS
• Paladina Health, a Denver-based provider of healthcare services to patients through a membership-based primary care clinic, raised $165 million in funding. Investors include New Enterprise Associates, with participation from new investors Oak HC/FT, Alta Partners, and Greenspring Associates.
• Evolve Vacation Rental Network, a Denver-based vacation rental management company, raised $80 million in funding. Investors include T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc, Winslow Capital Management, Foxhaven Asset Management, and Arrowmark Partners participated and are joined by existing investors Annox Capital, Allen & Company LLC, and PAR Capital Ventures.
• Upgrade Inc, a San Francisco-based consumer credit platform, raised $62 million in Series C funding. CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund led the round.
• Carmera, an operator of a road intelligence online platform for smart cities, raised $20 million in Series B funding. GV led the round, and was joined by investors including Matrix Partners.
• Robin Systems, a San Jose, Calif.-based provider of hyper-converged Kubernetes technology for big data, databases and AI/ML, raised $17 million in Series B funding. USAA Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Hasso Plattner Ventures, Clear Ventures and DN Capital USAA.
• Simple Feast, a Denmark-based plant-food startup, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Balderton Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including 14W.
• Cloudalize, a provider of graphics processing units, raised €5 million ($5.8 million) in Series A funding. Horizons Ventures led the round.
• MyAgData, an Effingham, Ill.-based agricultural-focused data analytics company, raised $2 million in funding. The investor was Open Prairie Rural Opportunities Fund.
• Paidy, a Japan-based fintech startup, raised funding of an undisclosed amount from Visa.
HEALTH AND LIFE SCIENCES DEALS
• Rakuten Aspyrian, a developer of precision-targeted cancer therapies, raised $150 million in Series C funding. Hiroshi Mikitani led the round.
• ApoGen Biotechnologies Inc, a Seattle-based cancer drug developer, raised $11 million in Series A funding. Investors include M Ventures.
PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS
• Elevation Labs, which is backed by Clearview Capital, acquired Colorado Quality Products LLC, a Aurora, Colo.-based maker of personal care products. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
• EyeSouth Partners, which is backed by Shore Capital Partners, acquired Florida Eye Microsurgical Institute and Boynton Beach ASC. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
• Lariat Partners-backed Offen Petroleum, a Commerce City, Colo.-based fuel distributor, agreed to buy the business assets of fuel distribution company Overland Petroleum. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
OTHER DEALS
• Enbridge will buy Spectra Energy Partners (NYSE:SEP) for $3.3 billion, according to Reuters. Read more.
IPOs
• Eventbrite, San Francisco-based an ticketing platform, filed for a $200 million IPO. It raised revenue of $201.6 million in 2017 and loss of $38.5 million. Tiger Global (21.3% pre-offering), Sequoia Capital (20.3%), and T. Rowe (6.8%) back the firm. Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Allen & Company, and RBC Capital Markets are underwriters. The firm plans to list on the NYSE as “EB.” Read more.
• Gritstone Oncology, an Emeryville, Calif.-based clinical-stage biotech developing immunotherapies, filed for an $80 million IPO. Versant Ventures (14% pre-offering), The Column Group (14%), and Clarus Lifesciences (10%) back the firm. The firm posted loss of $41.5 million in 2017. Goldman Sachs, Cowen, and Barclays are underwriters. It plans to list on the Nasdaq as “GRTS.” Read more.
• Exeter, the subprime auto lender, is weighing an IPO, Reuters reports citing sources. Blackstone backs the firm. Read more.
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Polina Marinova produces Term Sheet, and Lucinda Shen compiles the IPO news. Send deal announcements to Polina here and IPO news to Lucinda here.
