Austin Weekly Deal Highlights for November 25, 2018

From: “Mason Rathe” <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, 26 November 2018 00:15
To: [email protected]
Subject:Austin Weekly Deal Highlights 11-25-18

Austin Weekly Deal Highlights

By Mason Rathe – November 25, 2018

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Welcome back everyone! Your favorite newsletter here gently reminding you that more has happened over the past week than turkey and football. In this abbreviated work week, we saw ClearDATA raise a hefty $26M, and 1-800 Contacts founder Jonathan Coon sell his latest venture, Wikibuy, to Capital One. Fun fact, Coon was the producer of cultural phenomenon Napoleon Dynamite. Now, dust the bread crumbs off your chest, wipe the pie from your mouth, and let’s finish the year strong!

Austin Financing Activity

• ClearDATA, a security and compliance company focused on the healthcare cloud, raised a $26M Series E from investors include Humana Inc, Health Care Service Corporation, Norwest Venture Partners, and Merck GHIF. The company has raised approx. $80M to date.
• Lawgix, a legal platform for centralized compliance, quality assurance, and real-time vendor collaboration, raised $4.25M from undisclosed investors, according to Pitchbook. The company has raised over $5M from investors including Wild Basin Investments and CTAN.
• Living Security, a cybersecurity training company, raised $1.25M in seed funding led by Active Capital, and was joined by investors including Cathexis Ventures and Capital Factory.

Austin M&A Activity

• Wikibuy, who makes online price comparison tools, was acquired by banking giant Capital One, for an undisclosed amount.
• Wikibuy was founded in 2014 by 1-800-Contacts founder Jonathan Coon and Walt Roloson. Wikibuy did not have any publicly disclosed financing.

Other Relevant Activity

• Wealth and asset manager Brown Advisory, who has a large presence in Austin, has acquired Virginia-based Signature Family Wealth Advisors, a $4.3B RIA and multi-family office. In February, the firm acquired VC firm NextGen Venture Partners, who has an Austin office.
• San Antonio-based iHeartMedia, the biggest radio station owner in the country, agreed to acquire Jelli, a San Mateo, Calif.-based company bringing programmatic ad-buying to radio broadcasters. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Jelli had raised approximately $40.6M in funding from investors including Battery Ventures.
• Fish Technologies, an Addison-based operator of an integrated fan experience platform, was acquired by Patron Technology, via its financial sponsor Providence Equity Partners, for an undisclosed sum.

Austin People

• Lifesize, the developer of video communications technologies, hired Matt Hibbard as CFO, bringing to the mature technology business 20 years of experience, including with IPO’s. Hibbard was previously CFO at Distil Networks and Xoom. LifeSize was acquired by Logitech for $405M in 2009, after raising approx. $80M from investors including Austin Ventures.
• Private Equity firm Vista Equity Partners announced it is expanding its credit platform and has appointed David Flannery as president of its Vista Credit Partners business. Before joining Vista, Flannery was a senior managing director at GSO Capital Partners, which is Blackstone’s credit investment platform. Vista has more than $43B in cumulative capital commitments.
• Testlio, a San Francisco-based app testing company that went through the Techstars Accelerator in Austin, named Austinite Steve Semelsberger as its new CEO. Semelsberger was an early mentor for the company, became an advisor in 2014 and invested in the company’s seed round in 2015. He is the former CEO of YouEarnedIt and a former executive at Demand Media. Testlio has raised approx. $7.5M to date from investors including Altos Ventures and Geekdom Fund.
• Kony, an enterprise app development platform, appointed Rilla Delorier to its advisory board. Delorier is executive vice president and corporate strategy officer at Umpqua Bank. Kony has raised over $160M to date from investors including ORIX Growth Capital, Georgian Partners, and Insight Venture Partners.
• RF Code, a platform to reduce data center costs, named Tom Bishop as its VP of Data Center Services. Bishop was previously CTO for Bypass Mobile, and also was CTO of Honest Dollar. The company has raised approx. $60M to date from investors including Intel Capital and QuestMark Partners.

Austin News

• Austin was named the Number 1 Best Big Cities to Live in Right Now, with metrics including median family income, home price, and job growth. CNBC called Austin the No. 1 place to start a business.
• Investor opposition fades as Dell ups buyout offer to $120 per share of a VMware tracking stock, from the $109 per share offered in July, paving the way for Dell to return to the public markets.
• Wall Street is bullish on Yeti Coolers despite middling stock so far. Predictions range from the company doubling its stock price within the next year to reaching $1B in revenue in 2020.
• Several Austin tech leaders were honored with Stevie Awards that recognize women leaders in business, including Mood Media’s Jaime Bettencourt, YouEarnedIt’s Autumn Manning, Sputnik ATX CEO Oksana Malysheva.
• Enboarder, an Australian new employee engagement onboarding platform, has named Austin as its U.S. headquarters. The startup, which launched in 2015 has raised $4M from investors including Greycroft.
• Brett Hurt, CEO of data.world and cofounder of Bazaarvoice: The Entrepreneur’s Essentials #7: A call to action for CEOs on selling.
• Boeing and AI platform SparkCognition have launched SkyGrid, a joint-venture company that will develop an airspace management platform for unmanned aircraft.

Upcoming Events

• November 27th, TechTalk with Jan Ryan, founder of Women@Austin
• November 30th, Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition
• December 1st, Austin Startup Holiday Market, showcasing local companies selling their products
• December 6th, The Medical Device Summit
• December 6th, JBTVL Venture Expo