Austin Weekly Deal Highlights for October 08, 2018

From: “Mason Rathe” <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, 08 October 2018 01:51
To: [email protected]
Subject:Austin Weekly Deal Highlights 10-7-18

Austin Weekly Deal Highlights

By Mason Rathe – October 7, 2018

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City of Austin, you know I love you, so please don’t take it personally when I give some credit to the rest of the state. This week, the Dallas area saw a couple large Series A rounds with Meritize and iDonate, Caris Life Sciences with a $150M investment from TPG, and Houston-based BMC Software with the mammoth acquisition. And of course, Austin with a ton of M&A activity.

Austin Financing Activity

• Stoplight, which makes enterprise-grade API tool kits, raised a $3.25M seed round led by Bill Wood Ventures. The company has raised $4.65M to date from investors including Right Side Capital Management, Lontra Ventures, and Nextgen Venture Partners.
• NurturMe, Provider of organic baby and toddler food, raised a $3.37M Series C-1 from undisclosed investors. The company has raised approximately $14M to date from investors including Advantage Capital Partners and CTAN.
• CognitOps, a warehouse software analytics company, raised $505K

Austin M&A Activity

• Softvision, a digital engineering and consulting firm, is being acquired by Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) for a reported $550M. Softvision was acquired Tower Arch Capital for an undisclosed sum in 2015.
• Upland Software (Nasdaq: UPLD), a cloud-based Enterprise Work Management software provider, acquired Rant & Rave, a provider of cloud-based customer engagement solutions, for $65M. It’s Upland’s 19th acquisition since 2013. Upland IPO’d in 2014.
• Conversable, a conversational intelligence platform, was acquired by New York City-based LivePerson (NASDAQ: LPSN), for an undisclosed amount. The deal marks another exit for Conversable founders Ben Lamm and Andrew Busey, who previously were on the founding teams of Chaotic Moon and Team Chaos. The company raised an estimated $3M seed in 2016, per Pitchbook.
• E2open, a supply chain software company, is acquiring Cloud Logistics, a transportation management company based in West Palm Beach, Fla, for an undisclosed amount. E2open was acquired by Insight Venture Partners through a public-to-private LBO for $273M in 2015.
• Through an investor group, Austin based VC Nextcoast Venture Partners, has acquired Navegate Logistics, a transportation software company, for an undisclosed sum.
• Spanning Cloud Apps, a data protection platform, is being acquired by Kaseya, an IT service provider that’s headquartered in Dublin, for an undisclosed amount. Spanning, which was last acquired by Insight Venture Partners in 2017, will keep its headquarters here in Austin and will operate as an independent business unit.
• argodesign, a product design consultancy is being acquired by DXC Technology, a Virginia-based IT services company with a reported $22B in 2018 revenue. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
• INFICON, a Syracuse-based company making instruments and software for semiconductor manufacturing, acquired all the assets of Final Phase Systems, an Austin-based smart manufacturing company, for an undisclosed amount.

Other Regional Deal Activity

• BMC Software, a Houston-based developer of multi-cloud management software, is being acquired by KKR through a $8.5B LBO. The acquisition comes five years after Bain Capital and others bought it for $6.9B.
• Caris Life Sciences, an Irving-based biotechnology company specializing in cancer treatments agents, received $150M of developmental from TPG Capital.
• Meritize, a Frisco-based merit-based student lending platform, raised a $13.2M Series A financing led by Colchis Capital Management. Previously, the company raised $6.8M of seed funding in a deal led by Colchis Capital, Chicago Ventures and Cube Financial Holdings in February.
• iDonate, a Dallas-based provider of donor engagement software, raised a $10 million Series A led by PerformanceEdge Partners.
• F&I Express, a Grapevine-based provider of a e-contracting platform intended for automotive aftermarket products, was acquired by Cox Automotive for an undisclosed amount

Austin People

• FirstClose, a provider of technology solutions for mortgage lenders, hired Pat Downing as CTO. Downing was previously with Mozido. The company recently raised an undisclosed amount of capital from Cypress Growth Capital.
• The Top Austin Tech and Startup Hires and Departures in September 2018

Austin News

• Austin Startup Funding, Acquisitions and Venture Capital Activity September 2018
• Six Austin residents land on Forbes list of The Definitive Ranking Of The Wealthiest Americans including Michael Dell, Vista Equity Partners founder Robert Smith, Tito’s Vodka founder Tito Beveridge, Trilogy Software and ESW Capital founder Joe Liemandt, Paul Mitchell hair products and Patron tequila founder John Paul DeJoria, and SHI International founder Thai Lee.
• Austin is the fastest-growing large city in America, according to WalletHub.
• Tyler Haney of Outdoor Voices and Kendra Scott on Inc’s Female Founders 100: Agitators
• 3M, the industrial and consumer product company, is planning to close its 36-year-old manufacturing plant in Northwest Austin by the end of 2019. The move will impact 120 employees.
• ABJ’s Best CEOs of 2018
• Dating app Bumble will be expanding into India with the support of its new investor and advisor Priyanka Chopra. Following a bitter legal saga, Bumble has turned down Match’s buyout offers and has since announced that it’s exploring an IPO.
• Cratejoy, a curated box subscription startup in Austin, sheds nearly half of workforce amid restructuring effort
• New York City-based CLEAR, which provides biometric identity at airports, is opening a new office at The Domain and add 30 new jobs in software engineering, development and operations. The company is backed by investors including T. Rowe Price, The Priceline Group, and Delta.
• UT Austin graduate Jim Allison wins Nobel Prize for breakthrough cancer treatment

Events This Week

• October 9th, Emerge ICO Summit
• October 10th, Startup Grind Austin with Heather Brunner, CEO of WP Engine
• October 11th, Austin Inno’s 50 on Fire 2018

LiveOak Venture Partners

Think you might be a fit for LiveOak, if I missed a deal, or have feedback, you can reach me at [email protected] If your company is recruiting for a senior level position, happy to include a shout-out.

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