A look at the largest deals in the quarter, including the $700m round of private equity funding for China-based e-commerce site 360Buy, as eye-catchingly large Asia deals continue to be a staple of our coverage.
The largest deal of the quarter was the $700m round of private equity funding for China-based e-commerce site 360Buy, as eye-catchingly large Asia deals continue to be a staple of our coverage. This e-commerce company secured quasi-corporate venturing backing – investors included corporate-backed Digital Sky Technologies (DST) and investment manager Tiger Global Management. Other backers of the round were Ontario Teachers’ Retirement Fund, a Canadian state-backed investment fund, along with new investor Kingdom Holdings, founded by Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud.
This round followed a $400m series D round in December, which included Tiger Global Management. That round of financing valued the company, also known as Jingdong Mall, at $7.3bn. 360Buy has now raised $2.3bn since 2007. Earlier investors include Capital Today, Bull Capital, Pak-to Leung, DST and Tiger Fund.
The next biggest round was the $444m raised by USbased questionnaire company SurveyMonkey. Early investors sold stakes, secured a valuation of $1.35bn for a consortium including search engine provider Google. David Goldberg, chief executive of SurveyMonkey, and Tiger Global Management co-led the transaction, which also included venture capital firm Iconiq Capital, which manages money on behalf of social network Facebook’s co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. A further $350m was raised in debt from a syndicate including JPMorgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and SunTrust Bank. The proceeds from the debt will also be used to buy shares from employees and shareholders as well as retire SurveyMonkey’s existing debt.
The third-largest deal was the $200m raised by Pinterest, a US-based online scrapbooking website backed by Japan-based e-commerce company Rakuten, at a company valuation of $2.5bn. Social media continues to be a source of eyecatching deals, with social messaging service Twitter reportedly brokering a deal for mutual fund manager BlackRock to buy up to $80m of shares from its employees at a $9bn valuation. If enough employees accept the tender offer to hit the $80m limit, BlackRock will own just less than 1% of Twitter, according to news provider Financial Times.
Hedge fund Valiant Capital Management, which has also backed Dropbox and Evernote, led the latest round as a new investor. The consortium also included Rakuten and venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners and FirstMark Capital as well as angel investors. In May last year, Rakuten led a $100m investment in Pinterest, according to a regulatory filing, as part of a strategic partnership with Pinterest to help it expand in Japan and Rakuten’s 17 other markets (see feature on consumer sector).
Other big deals included the A$170m ($180m) raised by Mesoblast, an Australia-listed regenerative medicine company, in a private placement of shares including to “existing strategic investors”, and Partners Group, a Switzerland- based private equity firm, paying $130m for 30% of Softonic, an online software guide to media content incubated by Grupo Intercom, a Spain-based internet-focused conglomerate.
Truphone, a UK-based mobile network backed by media groups Independent News & Media and Hubert Burda
Digital Ventures, the venturing unit of the Germany-based media group, now spun off, raised £75m ($118m) primarily from Roman Abramovich, owner of Russia-based oil major Sibneft.
LivingSocial, a US-based discount coupon provider backed by online retailer Amazon, raised $110m from a group of existing investors. News provider Fortune said Amazon invested in the latest round and refers readers to LivingSocial’s Delaware filing with details on the round’s terms.
Nest Labs, a US-based maker of thermostats, reportedly raised $80m from a consortium led by Google Ventures at an $800m valuation, according to news provider GigaOm.
On Deck, a US-based small business loans company, raised $42m in its series D round, to take its total since
launch to $80m, from a consortium including SAP Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of the Germany-based software provider.
Other deals not in the top 10 included Warby Parker, a spectacles retailer, which raised $41.5m from a consortium including credit card company venturing unit Amex Ventures, and Sungevity, a US-based residential solar business that raised $40m in D round equity from backers including home improvement retailer Lowe’s as part of $125m raised through equity and project financing.
