Deals That Matter

Top VC deals: Data warehousing start-up Snowflake raises $450M; Dragonfly launches a crypto fund; property tech companies close rounds

Key Points
  • Data warehousing company Snowflake raised $450 million in new funding.
  • Property-tech firms Divvy and Goodlord closed growth rounds.
  • VC firm Forerunner, which is already invested in Birchbox, Glossier, Hims and Warby Parker, announced a new $360 million fund.

Exits

Allogene Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech company developing new therapies for cancer, debuted on the public markets Thursday. The company raised $324 million in its IPO and saw shares rise 40 percent on the stock's first day of trading. The company had previously raised more than $500 million in funding, according to Crunchbase, from investors including TPG, Vida Ventures and BellCo Capital, among others.

Cloud software company Anaplan jumped 43 percent in its market debut on Friday, after raising $263.5 million. The company competes with Adaptive Insights, which was purchased earlier this year by Workday for $1.6 billion.

Start-ups

Data warehousing company Snowflake raised $450 million in new funding, led by Sequoia Capital. The company builds data warehouses specifically for cloud use and counts Netflix and Office Depot among its clients. The latest round brings Snowflake's total amount raised to $923 million and its valuation to $3.5 billion, the company said.

SmileDirectClub, which produces at-home invisible teeth alignment products, raised a new round of funding — led by private-equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice — that values the company at $3.2 billion, three people with knowledge of the matter told CNBC. The $380 million round also included Kleiner Perkins and Spark Capital, the people said.

Enterprise cloud storage provider Egnyte raised $75 million in new funding from Goldman Sachs. The company competes with Dropbox and Box and works with BuzzFeed, Nasdaq and Red Bull, among others. Goldman Sachs' investment brings Egnyte's total funding raised to $132.5 million. Existing investors include Alphabet's GV and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Greylock Partners led a $43 million Series C round in Demisto, which leverages machine learning to automate and coordinate security tasks. Accel Partners and ClearSky Security also participated in the round, which brings Demisto's total funding to $69 million.

Andreessen Horowitz led a $30 million Series A funding in Divvy, a company that buys homes and sells them to users in portions. Buyers purchase only part of the home, and pay rent to Divvy on the rest. Alex Rampell from Andreessen Horowitz will join Divvy's board.

Huel makes vegan, powdered meal replacements, catering to people who "deem themselves time-poor" but want healthy, environmentally sustainable meals.
Source: Huel

Huel, which makes  vegan powdered meal replacements, raised $26 million in new funding from Highland Europe. The U.K.-based company caters to people who "deem themselves time-poor" but want healthy, environmentally sustainable meals.

Digital education company RedShelf raised $25 million in Series C funding. The company partners with campus bookstores to distribute digital course materials for use in higher education.

The venture arms of Toyota and Hyundai joined Jazz Venture Partners in a $16 million Series A investment in Perceptive Automata. The start-up is developing software to give autonomous vehicles "human-like intuition" about pedestrians and cyclists they will regularly encounter in the street. Earlier, the firm raised funding from First Round Capital.

Kahoot, an education-tech start-up backed by Microsoft Ventures, has raised another $15 million of capital. The game-based learning platform has raised $60 million to date and has 70 million monthly active users.

Online business freight shipping platform Shipwell raised $10 million in Series A funding, led by real estate VC firm Fifth Wall. Shipwell works with carriers to facilitate faster shipping and better visibility. The start-up has raised $12.1 million to date.

GV led a $10 million Series A round in virtual kitchen company Kitchen United. The company uses place-based data to select locations for physical "kitchen centers," where between 10 and 20 restaurants can set up shop. Kitchen United also offers business-specific data for its hosted restaurants. GV's Adam Ghobarah will join the start-up's board of directors.

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Goodlord, a U.K. property-tech start-up, raised £7 million ($9.2 million) in Series B funding led by Finch Capital. The software platform streamlines renting for landlords and tenants.

A former Harvard dean has raised $6 million from Learn Capital for a two-year online college designed to fill the skills gap. Foundry College, founded by Stephen Kosslyn, is enrolling its first class to launch in January.

Funds and firms

Cisco has signed on to be the principal investor in a $500 million venture fund that will be run by Jon Sakoda, a former partner at venture firm NEA. Sakoda is listed in an SEC filing as the managing director of Catalyst Labs Fund I.

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Forerunner Ventures announced a $360 million Fund IV. The firm, led by Kirsten Green, says it invests in early-stage start-ups "looking to rewrite the rules of culture." Forerunner has 49 active portfolio companies including Birchbox, Glossier, Hims and Warby Parker.

San Francisco-based Dragonfly Capital Partners announced its inaugural fund with $100 million in committed capital to fund cryptocurrencies. The firm is founded by Alexander Pack, who previously managed cryptocurrency and fund investing at Bain Capital Ventures, and Bo Feng, a founding partner of Ceyuan Ventures.

—CNBC's Lora Kolodny, Ari Levy and Leslie Picker contributed to this report.