CNBC -- The team announced it’s using a germ-killing robot made by San Antonio-based company Xenex*. The firm specializes in disinfection for health-care services and is a Battery portfolio company.
Forbes --U.S. information-technology spending is poised to hit more than $1.8 trillion this year—and more of that spending is moving to the cloud. In late August, a trio of cloud-native companies—Snowflake, JFrog* and Sumo Logic*—all revealed registrations to go public.
Bloomberg -- With roots in Israel, JFrog* didn’t initially get the attention it deserved from Silicon Valley, said Dharmesh Thakker, a general partner at Battery Ventures. “Nobody really knew this sleepy little company with strong fundamentals,” said Thakker, who took a board observer seat at the company after investing. He said that he’s seeing more and more promising startups getting their start outside of the U.S.
TechCrunch -- “I think we’re building the biggest company in gaming,” founder and CEO of PlayVS* Delane Parnell said in an interview at Disrupt 2020 this week. With around 20,000 high schools signed up currently and nearly a hundred million dollars in the bank to grow with, it’s not a totally unrealistic statement.
TechCrunch -- There’s definitely a lot of talk about SPACs these days. But the tried-and-true IPO is still the long-term liquidity goal for most tech startups. CEOs dream of ringing the bell on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, or seeing their face splashed across Nasdaq’s giant video screen in Times Square.
Forbes -- Once an outsider category, cloud computing now powers every industry. Look no further than this year’s Forbes Cloud 100 list, the annual ranking of the world’s top private cloud companies, where this year's standouts are keeping businesses surviving—and thriving—from real estate to retail, data to design. Many of Battery's portfolio companies made the list.
Forbes -- The New York-based startup announced on Wednesday that it had raised $200 million from private equity firm Hellman & Friedman in a Series G round that values Sprinklr at $2.7 billion. Hellman also bought $300 million in secondary shares of Sprinklr in addition to its primary investment.
TechCrunch -- Progress, a Boston-area developer tool company, boosted its offerings in a big way today when it announced it was acquiring software automation platform Chef* for $220 million.
Fortune -- Lucid Lane* CEO Adnan Asar writes about how the decision to postpone these so-called elective surgeries may have severe consequences—including deepening the opioid crisis. Based on what we already know about the connection between preoperative pain management and opioid dependency, the coronavirus pandemic is creating a perfect storm.
TechCrunch -- For the third time since last February, Gong has raised a significant sum. In February, the company scored $40 million. In December, it grabbed another $65 million, and today it was $200 million on a $2.2 billion valuation. That’s a total of $305 million in less than 18 months.
CNBC -- Neeraj Agrawal, a partner at Battery Ventures and an investor in software start-ups, estimated there could be 10 to 15 venture-backed IPOs for the remainder of the year, whereas previously the "expectation was there would be zero" in the last few months of 2020.
Business Insider -- It doesn't happen often, but Silicon Valley CEOs, founders, investors, and employees have found something they can all agree on — President Donald Trump's ban on visas for foreign workers is bad news for tech. Neeraj Agrawal was interviewed for this article.
The New York Times -- Cross River* has cranked out more loans under the federal Paycheck Protection Program than all but three of the country’s biggest lenders. From its address on the west side of the Hudson River to its tiny balance sheet, Cross River Bank is nothing like Manhattan’s Wall Street behemoths. But as part of the government’s efforts to stave off an economic catastrophe, it stands among giants.
TechCrunch -- Recently TechCrunch has been focusing a bit more on the Boston-area startup and venture capital ecosystem. This first edition deals with the world we live in today, and the remainder will detail what Boston-area investors think about the future. Battery Ventures' Neeraj Agrawal was interviewed for this article.
CNBC -- The 2020 CNBC Disruptors are 50 private companies at the epicenter of a changing world, poised to emerge from the pandemic as the next generation of billion-dollar businesses. Battery-backed Databricks* lands at #36 on the list.
Good Morning America -- Kennedy is one of three robots the Beverly Hills Hilton is using from the San Antonio-based company Xenex Disinfection Services. The firm said it has been deploying UV light robots in over 500 hospitals around the world for nearly a decade, working with large health care institutions like the Mayo Clinic and MD Anderson.
Freight-Waves -- Self-driving truck company Kodiak Robotics has released a 49-page safety self-assessment report that aims both to demonstrate the startup’s commitment to public safety and provide a detailed portrait of how the company programs and operates its autonomous vehicles.
Forbes -- Peter Brodsky was running an engineering team at SoundCloud in 2013 when he first got the urge to automate away some of his job. Brodsky says. “Before we ever got the chance, we discovered that what we were doing through code, larger organizations were doing by hand.”
Forbes -- When forecasts, targets and financial planning fall away, the most valuable asset a company has left is its people. And as video tech company Vidyard discovered during the recent pandemic, a collaborative and positive company culture could be the difference between flourishing and failing.
TechCrunch -- One would think it’s a given that investment strategies would change in the strange times we find ourselves. With the economy staggering and so much general uncertainty, it seems caution would be the watchword of the day, especially in the enterprise. But enterprise investors aren’t necessarily looking at what’s going on right now. Battery Ventures' Dharmesh Thakker was interviewed for this article.
TechCrunch -- How does an investor know what’s a worthwhile security solution and not snake oil? And in an already saturated security startup space, who can you trust to keep your company’s data safe? Battery Ventures' Dharmesh Thakker was interviewed for this article.
TechCrunch -- Cybersecurity is by far the most important area in any industry. Without it, we would be in hacker open season. But cybersecurity is difficult to get right. One wrong move and you can leave the door open for data breaches, ransomware and nation state-backed espionage. Battery Ventures' Dharmesh Thakker was interviewed for this article.
Business Insider -- Some say venture investing is essentially a sales job. But instead of hawking a product or service, investors have to sell themselves. But unlike software sales, venture is a notoriously exclusive industry to break into. Battery Ventures "rising star" Sanjiv Kalevar was interviewed for this piece.
Forbes -- For the sixth year in a row, Forbes has teamed up with TrueBridge Capital Partners to search the country for the 25 fastest-growing venture-backed startups most likely to reach a $1 billion valuation. Battery Ventures-backed Gong.io made the list.
TechCrunch -- Startups are uniquely positioned to help companies solve these new modern kinds of problems, and venture capitalists certainly understand all of these dynamics and are always dutifully searching for startups that could help companies shift to a digital future more quickly.
Forbes -- San Francisco-based Amplitude Analytics, which provides software to companies that helps monitor which online products and features jive with customers, raised $50 million in a series E funding round.
Business Insider -- Sanjiv Kalevar of Battery Ventures was featured on this list of the 23 rising stars in the enterprise VC world, hunting for that next breakout enterprise company that no one has ever heard of.
TechCrunch -- CRM startup Kustomer announced today it is acquiring Reply.ai, a startup originally founded in Madrid that has built a code-free platform for companies to create customised chatbots to handle customer service enquires that use machine learning to, over time, become better at responding to those inbound contacts.
TechCrunch -- Even in these trying economic times, there are some services that companies can’t do without. Having good security tools is one of them. Expel, a four-year-old startup that offers security operations as a service, announced a $50 million Series D financing today.
TechCrunch -- UpKeep, a mobile-first platform for maintenance and operations collaboration, has today announced the close of a $36 million Series B financing round.
