Here in the In the final days of 2020, a surprising number of new unicorns have come to light. The mad rush what investors see in seed-stage startups seems to be reflected in later stages as well.
The fact that the deal is still alive is no surprise, but the cadence with which the market crowns new unicorns is slightly surprising given the time of year. I stopped expecting a slowdown in venture capital, but I anticipated it some deceleration in huge shifts and resulting unicorn ratings so close to Christmas.
The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on Extra Crunch or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.This morning, after comparing a PitchBook-derived $ 500 million post-money valuation for Bolt's C series that its CEO said had roughly doubled in its C1 series, ProWellTech found that the online checkout software company probably got a new rating right around the unicorn brand. Bolt's PR team refused to share a new assessment or to evaluate our math, saying its structure was "okay".
A new unicorn - or maybe almost a unicorn - wasn't enough for the day. The Information broke the news this afternoon that Ironclad, which sells contract management software, has put together a round worth "at least $ 100 million", valuing the company at "more than $ 950 million". Similar to Bolt, this unicorn rating or just below is also a double or better from his last private round.
Indeed, two new unicorns were insufficient: a third the company also made its mark today, namely Qualia, which trumpeted the valuation result in a statement. Qualia makes real estate software.
Three unicorns in one day are busy. Seeing three of them come to light on December 21 is a little crazy.
And they're certainly not the only startups we've seen horns popping up and running on all fours in the past few days. There's Boom, Zenoti and BigID even in the last week or so. There are at least six new unicorns since about mid-December. Wild!
Let's talk about the rounds and see what we can learn from them.
Hello, new unicorns
To start with Bolt, there are some lessons to take away. First: Not every company that secures a unicorn (or near-unicorn valuation) wants to make a noise about it. We knew this, but the company's current shy attitude underscores the point. The second from Bolt is that domestic investors are more than willing to crown unicorns in their portfolios.
According to CEO Ryan Breslow, after his company upped its C Series, the round's lead investor offered the company another term sheet. But WestCap wasn't its only protagonist. General Atlantic has also arrived, giving two clues to the $ 75 million investment. Bolt had already decided to call his new round Series C1 before General Atlantic entered into the deal, the addition of which brought $ 15 million to what was previously a $ 60 million investment.
Bolt's round fits perfectly with a number of trends we have observed: internal rounds are bullish and non-bearish in 2020, the fastest growing companies that have garnered two rounds this year and the incredible attention from investors of venture capital towards startups that had not simply survived COVID -19, but benefited from how it shook the market.
Addressing to Battleship, around $ 100 million to around $ 950 million valuation is as basic as a unicorn round can get. And since it's been over a year since her last round, you might think there's not much to learn in her case.
