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We will be hosting "Meet Our Fund", a two-day reverse demo day where 25 venture capital funds and accelerators will pitch to 10k+ founders! This event is free thanks to our many sponsors, including BurnRate.io, a revenue tracking platform that helps you pinpoint exactly when and how to grow your business.
If you are interested in attending our event, click here to reserve your spot!
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DocuSign acquired Clause, a digital contracting tool developer. DocuSign plans to integrate the acquiree's "smart agreements" that deploy computer code to execute tasks automatically. (Click To Tweet)
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QuintoAndar, a Brazilian prop-tech startup, raised a $300M Series E round at a $4B valuation. Ribbit Capital led the round with SoftBank's LatAm-focused Innovation Fund, LTS, Maverik, Alta Park, Kaszek Ventures, Dragoneer, and others.
More:
- The company's marketplace platform simplifies residential real estate rental for landlords and renters and connects home buyers and sellers. The company guarantees rents to the landlords working through its platform.
- QuintoAndar plans to grow into a one-stop real estate shop that offers mortgage, title, insurance, and escrow services and become an end-to-end solution for long-term rentals.
- The company currently manages 100,000 rentals and adds another 10,000 each month. The platform offers 60,000 properties for sale, and its transaction amount grows by 50% to 100% QoQ.
- QuintoAndar currently incurs loss due to expenses associated with business expansion.
- During the last $250M funding round in September 2019, the company became a unicorn. The company raised $635M since it was founded in 2013.
- The new funding will be used to hire new talent, improve product, tech core, and scale globally from the 40 Brazilian cities the rental platform is present in.
Zoom out:
- QuintoAndar aims to provide a seamless experience for tenants by removing the need for a guarantor, large security deposit, or rental insurance while fully guaranteeing on-time rent payments for landlords. The company's platform also offers protection against any damages the renter may make to a property and allows them to source repair or maintenance services through its own network of service providers.
- The rent guarantee is offered for payments from tenants with a good credit score. QuintoAndar operates this business by insuring cash flows with an undisclosed third party.
- Depending on a country's legal setup, a company that provides this type of payment guarantee may or may not participate in the tenant screening. Doing this ensures their high financial reliability, lowers the risk of non-payment, and decreases the insurance premiums payable to a third party.
- For countries with a higher average tenant quality, the non-payment rate for landlords may be lower, meaning they would only be willing to pay a low premium for this type of insurance. In this case, reselling this insurance to a third-party company (like QuintoAndar does) drives the margin of this business to a minimum. Service providers may turn the delayed payment into a short-term loan, thus billing the interest directly to tenants.
- Some companies (such as Guarantors) offer tenants to pay a non-refundable payment to the landlord, which is lower than the traditional damage deposit, which they can skip in this case. With this model, landlords end up retaining 2-3 times more money than through claiming deposits when necessary. In the meanwhile, it significantly reduces the funds that tenants have to provide at the lease signing.
- Startups operating in this space:
- Rhino — swaps security deposits for monthly insurance payments. Raised $132.7M to date. Flatfair, Garantme, Fronted operate with a similar business model.
- Jetty — reduces bad debt for landlords. Raised $40.5M.
- LeaseLock — AI-driven platform, which offers renters to pay a one-time fee to get approved and pays the rent if tenant defaults on payment. Raised $63.5M.
- Obligo omits security deposits, allowing landlords to directly bill tenants for damages. Operates through open banking technology. Raised $22.5M to date.
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A MESSAGE FROM DELL FOR ENTREPRENEURS
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Canadian software startup Vendasta raised $99M after rolling back its IPO plans. The round was funded by New York's Lugard Road Capital, Nicola Wealth, the Canadian Business Growth Fund, and undisclosed investors.
More:
- The company offers an end-to-end e-commerce platform to professionals who sell B2B digital solutions. Vendasta's white-labeled solutions allow businesses to introduce new products, generate leads, drive new business through marketing automation, and manage digital presence and online reputation.
- Its platform connects more than 50,000 channel partners to over 5 million SMBs. The company recorded $42.6M in revenue and a net loss of $14.8M last year, after $34.5M in sales and $9.1M loss reported in 2019.
- The startup previously filed for IPO on Toronto Stock Exchange in March, aiming to raise $100M. The company abandoned its plans in April as it struggled to sell shares to institutional investors due to a cooldown in demand for Canadian tech IPOs, reports BetaKit.
- The new funding will be used to expand its business, talent pool, enhance the technology and bring on more channel partners, according to Brendan King, Vendasta's CEO.
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Indian payments provider Paytm is looking to raise $3B during its IPO later this year at a valuation between $25B-$30B. Paytm has the largest share of the Indian digital payments market, despite competing against giants like Walmart's PhonePe, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, and WhatsApp Pay.
More:
- Paytm could go public during India's Diwali festival season, which begins Nov. 4. This is the country's biggest shopping period.
- Paytm users make over 1.4 billion transactions every month, and the company has more than 20 million merchant partners.
- The business has seen demand surge during the pandemic, and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said the most recent quarter was its best ever.
- A $3B raise would make Paytm the most raised by an Indian company ever. It counts Berkshire Hathaway, SoftBank, and Ant Group as investors.
Similar news:
- Payment company Paymentus saw its share price open up 37% at $28.76. The company raised $210M by pricing 10 million shares at $21 and currently enjoys a $3.4B valuation.
- Boston-headquartered payment platform Flywire offered 10.4M shares at a price of $24 each to raise $251M at a $3B valuation.
This story first appeared in Inside E-Commerce. You can read the original story here.
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Quick Hits:
- You could have finished that project by now. Get used to getting to the finish line faster with expert freelancers by your side.*
- Mobility-as-a-Service operator MaaS Global acquired Wondo, an urban mobility marketplace, to expand to new markets and increase our B2B and B2C service offering.
- After Circle received $440M in fresh capital, the USDC provider is reported to be considering a SPAC deal. Circle’s target valuation, if a SPAC deal were to occur, would be around $4B.
- Reach, a blockchain infrastructure startup, raised $12M. The development platform for creating dApps completed its funding round after previously receiving funds from the Algorand Foundation.
- DocuSign, a cloud-based electronic signature platform operator, acquired Clause, a digital contracting tool developer. DocuSign plans to integrate the acquiree's "smart agreements" that deploy computer code to execute tasks automatically, helping to increase efficiency and lower costs into its product.
- The strongest customer relationships are built on trust—not third-party cookies! Download the eBook to start your first-party data strategy.*
* This is sponsored content.
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Upcoming events hosted by Inside.com
- June 8th & 9th, 2021– Inside Venture Capital: Meet Our Fund
- July 8th, 2021– Inside Crypto: Mastering NFTs
To register for our events visit: events.inside.com
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Ravil Rakhmatullin is a Business Researcher at Inside and has worked on developing complex data-intensive products that transformed the core way the businesses are run. Passionate about moving the needle when it comes to the adoption of deep AI that informs business strategy and transforms enterprises, instead of running specific functions in secondary tasks. Morbidly interested in following the continuous evolution and growing economic and social importance of platforms/marketplaces and FinTech. A big believer in using self-learning algorithms for the good of humanity, fostering transparency in decision making, holding people and institutions accountable, and fighting institutionalized inequality and injustice.
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EDITOR
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Beth is a tech writer and former investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic. She lives in the desert of Scottsdale, Ariz. with her husband and two cats.
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