Snowflake increased its share price again to $120, giving it a valuation of about $33B. The company raised $3.4B by selling 28 million shares to investors, making it the biggest technology offering so far this year, and the largest software IPO ever.

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• The new valuation for the cloud computing company is more than twice as large as the $12.4B it received during its last private funding, indicating high demand on Wall Street for SaaS companies.
• The last US tech IPO to raise more than Snowflake's was Uber's $8.1B offering in May 2019. 
• The company began trading on the NYSE today under the symbol 'SNOW'. Its offering was further boosted by Berkshire Hathaway and Salesforce, both committing to buying $250M worth of stock each directly from the company. Berkshire also purchased $320M worth from Snowflake's former CEO Bob Muglia.
• The company grew its revenue by 175% in 2019 to $264.7M, while the first half of 2020 saw its sales more than double to $242M. Its losses almost doubled to $348.5M in 2019.
• Sutter Hill held the largest stake in Snowflake after buying 17% of its class B stock, which provides 10 votes per share. Other shareholders include Altimeter Partners (15.1% after the offering), Iconiq Strategic Partners (14%), Redpoint Ventures (9.1%), and Sequoia Capital (8.6%).
• From Twitter: Morgan Stanley's Anthony Pomliano provided a summary of Snowflake's financial just prior to its offering:
  

TikTok will reportedly become an independent, US-based company, with a majority stake held by its current parent company ByteDance. Oracle will be given a minority stake in the new company, which will encompass not just its US, but global operations.

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• Other US investors that vied for the company, including Walmart, will also take a stake.
• Oracle will be responsible for processing US users’ data, which will be stored in the US. ByteDance will retain control of TikTok’s AI algorithm, in accordance with the Chinese government’s new restrictions on technology exports.
• The proposal will reportedly see ByteDance set up a new base of operations in the US, which could create 20,000 jobs.
• The Chinese government has reportedly signaled its support for the plan. While Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin affirmed that the plan would create a US-based entity controlling TikTok’s global operations, the Committee on Foreign Investment has yet to make a recommendation on the deal.
• The success of the deal is dependent on President Trump’s assent, who said that the deal would be ruled on soon and emphasized his respect for Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who is a noted supporter of Trump.
• Dig Deeper: The WSJ looked into how the unlikely result of Oracle becoming TikTok’s US partner came to be.
• From Twitter: The Verge’s Zoë Schiffer notes that TikTok has long-held suspicion of Oracle as a data broker: 
  

Analyses Made Easy

Pitchbook’s Global Fund Performance Report*

*All figures and charts are from the report itself.

Venture Capital funds produced 15.9% returns (IRR) on a one-year horizon in 2019, making them the highest earners of six types of private fund strategies investigated in the report, which averaged 11.6% for the same metric. Private equity came in a close second place with 15.8% IRR. VC slipped behind PE on the three-year horizon and continues to fall as the time-frame is extended (see graph). 

While PE and VC tend to outperform, the analysts predict that they will be disproportionately hit by losses as their portfolio companies take hits caused by pandemic-related shutdowns. Meanwhile...

A Hard Look: Sequoia Capital

A new feature, created exclusively for Inside VC subscribers by our business researcher Nataraajan Arulolie, takes a deep look at the success of one of VC's most storied firms: Sequoia Capital. Today's edition is available to all subscribers, but future editions will be exclusively for premium subscribers. Click here to sign up to get all future Hard Look features, in addition to all of my other premium content, in an ad-free experience.

Sequoia Capital started investing in 1975 and has made 1,358 investments to date. Sequoia’s first investment was Atari in 1975, followed by Apple in 1978, and its popular investments include Google, LinkedIn, GitHub, Reddit, Zoom, Square, and Oracle. Sequoia has made 286 exits to date, with 33 in 2020 alone. Scroll down for a complete list of Sequoia's 2020 bets listed by round!

Sequoia’s investments in 2020:

Pre-Seed:

• Vara - Provides early access to wage 

Seed Funding:

• epiFi - a banking platform for millennials that encourages them to make better financial decisions 
• N8n.io - a workflow automation platform
• Muze - a creative messaging app 
• Mmhmm - video communication tool
• Docket - a productivity SaaS tool to organize meetings
• Elementl - Python library for data analysis based applications

Series A:

• Taos Data - big data platform designed for IoT
• The Org - built a database of organizational charts visible to the public to attract talent
• Empower - personal finance management app
• Alkira - a cloud platform that provides network as a service
• Tecton - data platform for machine learning 
• Knowde - a marketplace for chemicals, polymers, and ingredients
• Limbix - digital therapeutics provider for adolescent mental health
• Vise - portfolio management platform for financial advisors
• Mos - provides access to $135b government funds for college students 
• Evervault - provides a platform to create data cages so that sensitive data can be processed
• CaptivateIQ - sales commission automating software
• Twin Health - a healthcare company that helps to reverse type II diabetes
• Bulbulive Shopping Network - a video-based shopping app
• Eduvanz - low-interest-rate education loan provider

Series B

• Productboard - Product Management System to gather requirements, create roadmaps to build the product
• Finix - payment infrastructure provider to manage payments and reimbursements
• Lilt - language translation provider for software applications
• Truework - employment and income verification platform
• Loom - tool to create video messages

Series C

• ActionIQ - provides a platform to manage customer data
• Front - email app to manage customer communication
• Attentive - mobile messaging solution provider for SMS marketing
• Verkanda - enterprise security solution provider
• Maven Clinic - digital clinic that helps women and families during conception, pregnancy and postpartum
• Pyramid Analytics - analytics platform for data intelligence
• SafeBreach - data breach and cyber-attack simulation platform

Series D

• Medgenome - develops treatment for cancer, diabetes, Opthalmology and other rare diseases
• Figma - cloud-based design platform
• Cockroach Labs - develops elastic SQL database for modern applications
• Gong - provides revenue intelligence platform for sales teams
• Practo - provides a marketplace for scheduling in-person appointments and video consultations with doctors

Series E

• Cohesity - provides data center backup and recovery solutions
• Confluent - event streaming solution provider for big data analysis
• Amplitude - product intelligence platform
• Domino Data Lab - Data Science platform provider
• UIPath - provides RPA platform

Series F

• Stripe - online payment processing platform
• Netskope - security solution for cloud network

Series G

• Robinhood - mobile app for trading

Of the total 49 investments, 34 were early-stage investments and 15 were late-stage investments. Sequoia Capital was a lead investor in 17 of the overall 49 investments.

Quick Hits

• Crypto gaming startup Unikrn, which is backed by Mark Cuban, will pay the SEC a $6M fine for the $31M ICO it held in 2018. The SEC ruled the offering to be an illegal sale of unregistered securities, and the company must cease to use its token.
• The Justice Department has partnered with the SEC to investigate electric truck startup Nikola on the basis of reports claiming that it exaggerated the progress of its technology to investors.
• KKR, known for its buyout funds and close to closing its fourth Asian vehicle at $12.5B, is preparing a $1B fund to invest in young Asian tech companies.
• European evergreen fund Crista Galli Ventures launched with $65M to invest in seed and Series A rounds for deep tech, digital health, and personalized medicine.
• Slack is gathering industry leaders and product experts at Slack Frontiers, a free virtual conference dedicated to digital transformation.* 

We're hiring! Check out our available positions:

• Business Researcher
• Director of Research
• Growth Marketing Manager
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Today's Funding 💸

Agtech

• Brightseed (San Francisco, CA), plant nutrient identification platform for human use: $27M from Lewis & Clark AgriFood, Seed 2 Growth Ventures, Horizons Ventures, CGC Ventures, Fifty Years, Germin8, AgFunder.

Biotech/Health

• Hexagon Bio (Menlo Park, CA), genome-based medicines: $47M A led by The Column Group, participation from 8VC, Two Sigma Ventures.
• Medigate (New York, NY), IoT and medical device security and asset management platform: $30M B led by Partech, participation from YL Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, Blumberg Capital, Maor Investments.
• OnCall Health (Toronto, Canada), virtual care software: $6M A led by Base10 Partners.

Consumer

• Bulletproof (Seattle, WA), mind-body nutrition products: $30M from Beliv, Rocana Ventures, CAVU Venture Partners, Trinity Ventures.
• ZenSports (San Francisco, CA), P2P sports betting platform: $1.46M Seed led by Launch, participation from Cube Magic Gaming, et al.

Data/Analytics

• Devo Technology (Cambridge, MA), cloud-native data analytics and security:...