Peter Thiel makes a personal investment in smart home tech
Smart home company Vivint has picked up $100M in a round co-led by Peter Thiel and former U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Solarmere Capital to further develop its home automation subscription service. Founded in 1999 and acquired by Blackstone Group in 2012 for over $2B, the Utah-based company posted $650M in revenue for 2015. (For context, Alphabet-owned Nest reported $340M in sales last year.)
Down round alert
Things continue to look grim for Rocket Internet’s fashion-focused companies. Today, the Berlin-based incubator announced that Global Fashion Group raised “at least” $340M at a $1.1B valuation – a down round from the $3.5B valuation it received in June. Existing shareholders Kinnevik and Access Industries will participate in this round, with Rocket Internet contributing more than $100M on its own.
“Practice safe financing”
What makes uncapped convertible notes especially bad? According to Joe Lonsdale of 8VC, entrepreneurs should (almost) never raise a round on an uncapped note, because it pits the incentives of the investor and the company at odds with each other. However, there is one scenario where an uncapped note might make sense: the insider-led bridge round, where the note is expected to be short-lived.
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