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• The DoJ asserted that, while Plaid is still undeveloped, it could eventually present a threat to Visa’s market dominance.
• Plaid provides the payments platform undergirding many services such as Venmo. While it does not currently offer an online-debit platform, merchants agree that its protocols could have eventually replaced the current system.
• Visa’s CEO and Chairman Al Kelly asserted that the companies would have eventually fought off the suit.
• From Twitter: Self-proclaimed payments geek Tom Noyes thinks the decision to jump ship is good for Visa. Check out his thread explaining why here.
  

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• Given all outstanding shares, the company will have a market capitalization of $11.9B. 
• The company reported net losses of $113M on revenue of $510M in the year ending in June, shrinking from losses of $121M on $264M revenue YoY.
• At Affirm’s IPO price, CEO and founder Max Levchin, who is part of the PayPal Mafia, would own a stake in the company worth almost $1.4B.
• Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC is the largest outside investor in Affirm, with a stake worth almost $1.1B at the IPO price.

The following is based on a Financial Times article entitled Automotive tech start-ups take wild ride with Spacs

One of the many big changes 2020 brought about in the world of tech investing is the rise of the SPAC. Almost no type of company has taken greater advantage of this new method of going public than auto tech startups. The nine auto tech groups that listed via a SPAC last year have an aggregate market capitalization of $60B. They include, among others, QuantumScape, a battery company; the hydrogen truck start-up Nikola; and the LiDAR company Luminar Technologies.

Yet these companies only notched a total of $139M of revenue between them in 2020. Indeed, their massive market caps are based on...

Today's Funding 💸

AI/ML

• Roboflow (Des Moines, Iowa), computer vision models for AR/AI apps: $2.1M Seed led by Lachy Groom, Craft Ventures.

Biotech/Health

• Tessera Therapeutics (Cambridge, Mass.), early-stage gene-writing procedures: $230M from Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, Altitude Life Science Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, participation from Qatar Investment Authority, et al.
• Impulse Dynamics (Marlton, N.J.), heart failure treatment platform:...

QUICK HITS:

• This company raised $9.3M to help orgs gift employees with glamping trips, Peloton bikes, and virtual sommelier lessons. Check out Blueboard's Experience menu.*
• Zoom is looking to raise an additional $1.5B in its largest stock offering since its IPO in 2019. It will also grant its underwriter a 30-day option to buy up to an additional $225M of Class A shares at the IPO price.
• Chinese ride-hailing platform Didi Chuxing will tap investors for capital well above the $400M planned for its freight shipping business initial fundraising. Investors lodged bids for up to $3B.
• U.K.-based digital greeting cards company Moonpig is planning a $1.37B (£1B) London IPO.
• Nasdaq-listed Chinese video platform Bilibili filed for a secondary listing in Hong Kong to raise over $2B. 
• Future Ventures has closed its Fund II at $200M, on par with its debut fund which closed two years ago. The new fund will have a 15-year horizon and will focus on longer-term investments.
• Over 30,000 companies are building their eCommerce apps all without writing a single line of code.*

*This is a sponsored post.