Yuga Labs Goes Ape For A Large Round, Fintech Rules Again

This is a weekly feature that runs down the week’s top 10 funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week’s biggest funding rounds here.

This week was big for NFTs and corporate card and expense reporting platforms. While only one round broke the quarter-billion-dollar barrier—a “seed” round to a company that makes ape NFTs—investors spread their money around to data analytic, biotech and cyber companies. However, fintech was the big winner again this week, as two companies raised $380 million combined.

1. Yuga Labs, $450M, blockchain: Seed rounds have come a long way—at least what people sometimes call seed rounds. Miami-based Yuga Labs closed a $450 million “seed” round led by a16z crypto. The funding round values the company at $4 billion. Yuga Labs is best known for its Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection, and with the new funding announced its own metaverse project called Otherside. Just last week the company made two acquisitions in the blockchain and NFT spaces. With a $450 million “seed” round and some of its Bored Ape NFTs selling for as much as $2.9 million—according to DappRadar—it’s clear the world has gone bananas.

2. Astronomer, $213M, data analytics: Data is king and allowing data teams to build faster through better orchestration can be important to a business. Astronomer—the commercial developer of open-source platform Apache Airflow—showed how important by securing a $213 million Series C round led by Insight Partners. Founded in 2018, the company, which is  remote-first with hubs in Cincinnati, New York, San Francisco and San Jose, has raised more than $280 million to date, according to Crunchbase data.

3. Ramp, $200M, fintech: Back when the pandemic started, some thought startups that offered corporate card and expense reporting were an endangered species due to travel restrictions. Not so. New York-based Ramp closed a $200 million equity round led by Founders Fund that also included $550 million in asset-backed debt. The new financing gives the company an $8.1 billion valuation. Ramp said it grew revenue nearly 10x in 2021, with more than $5 billion of annual payments volume from over 5,000 businesses on its platform. Founded in 2019, the company has raised over $1 billion in financing.

4. Jeeves, $180M, fintech: See above. Corporate card and expense reporting definitely has investors’ attention. New York-based Jeeves raised a $57 million Series B last September at a $500 million valuation. Just about six months later, it raised a $180 million Series C led by Tencent at a $2.1 billion valuation—a more than 4x increase in value. In a year, the company has surpassed $1 billion in annualized gross transaction volume and works with more than 3,000 companies in 24 countries, it said in a blog post.

5. LifeMine Therapeutics, $175M, biotech: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based drug discovery company LifeMine Therapeutics closed a $175 million Series C led by new investor Fidelity Management and Research Co. Founded in 2017, the company has raised nearly $300 million, according to Crunchbase. LifeMine plans to use the new proceeds to advance its genomic drug discovery platform, Avatar-Rx.

6. Tarana Wireless, $170M, wireless: Milpitas, California-based fixed wireless access provider Tarana Wireless closed a $170 million round co-led by Axon Capital, Khosla Ventures and Prime Movers Lab that values the company at $1 billion. Founded in 2009, the company has now raised more than $376 million, according to Crunchbase.

7. RapidAPI, $150M, developer APIs: San Francisco-based RapidAPI closed a $150 million Series D led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 at a $1 billion valuation. The company helps developers find and connect to thousands of APIs for added services in applications. Founded in 2015, the company has now raised more than $272 million, according to Crunchbase.

8. TemperPack Technologies, $140M, manufacturing: Richmond, Virginia-based TemperPack Technologies—a manufacturer of thermal insulation for cold chain packaging—closed a $140 million round led by the sustainable investing business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Founded in 2015, the company has raised nearly $210 million, according to Crunchbase.

9. (tied) CommerceIQ, $115M, e-commerce: Palo Alto, California-based retail e-commerce platform CommerceIQ closed a $115 million Series D led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The round values the company at more than $1 billion. Founded in 2012, the company has raised nearly $200 million, according to Crunchbase.

9. (tied) Island, $115M, cybersecurity: Dallas-based cybersecurity company Island raised a $115 million Series B at a $1.3 billion valuation. The new round was led by Insight Partners, with participation from existing investors Stripes and Sequoia Capital. The company had just announced a $100 million Series A simultaneously with it coming out of stealth on Feb. 1.

Big global deals

Two big deals outside the U.S. cracked the global top five this week.

Methodology

We tracked the largest rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of March 19 to 25. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.

Illustration: Dom Guzman