Term Sheet — Friday, February 22

THREE THINGS

Happy Friday, Term Sheet readers.

THE DELIVERY WARS: Food-delivery startup DoorDash just raised $400 million in Series F funding. Temasek and Dragoneer Investment Group co-led the round, and were joined by investors including Softbank Vision Fund, DST Global, Coatue Management, GIC, Sequoia Capital, and Y Combinator.

The deal values the startup at $7.1 billion, which puts DoorDash right on the heels of its closest rival Grubhub, whose market cap is approximately $7.2 billion. Rival Postmates recently raised an additional $100 million in venture funding at a valuation of $1.85 billion and plans to go public later this year.

You may wonder — with companies raising mega-rounds every other month, isn’t the on-demand delivery market a little saturated? And let’s not forget about other delivery contenders like Amazon and Uber. The list of companies is long, but it looks the demand is there. Direct delivery of food could devour 40% of total restaurant sales, or $220 billion, by 2020, according to a 2017 Morgan Stanley estimate. And it’s still early days as far as technology and logistical efficiency are concerned.

“There may be room for more innovation than appears at first blush,” Cowen & Co. Analyst Thomas Champion told Coins2Day in November.

IPO WATCH: Pinterest has confidentially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering, according to The Wall Street Journal. The photo-sharing social network plans to list in late June, and it will seek a valuation of at least $12 billion. The New York Times recently published a profile on Pinterest with the headline, “Pinterest Is a Unicorn. It Just Doesn’t Act Like One.” It explains that Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann rejects Silicon Valley’s typical unicorn formula of moving fast, breaking things, chasing growth at all costs and bragging about every victory. Yet despite his approach — or maybe because of it — the company’s growth is accelerating. Let’s see what happens in the public markets.

WEEKEND READING: In the latest issue of Coins2Day, my colleague Jake Meth has an excellent long-form story on the dangerous appeal of Tide Pods. He explores how the design factors that have made laundry pods so successful are also potentially fatal flaws. He writes:

Consumer advocates and public health experts argue that, for all its well-intentioned efforts, the industry has refused to confront the brightly colored elephant in the room: the swirly, multi-hue design schemes that make the mini-packets look so much like candy. If manufacturers can bring themselves to make all pods look neutral and less inviting, says Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, “we can design this problem out of existence.”

Read the full feature here.

… On that note, I’d love to hear from you. What are some of your all-time favorite business features (profiles of companies or business leaders)? Send a link with a short explanation of what the article is about and why you enjoyed it to [email protected] with the subject line “Business Profile.” Have a great weekend!

VENTURE DEALS

• Panda Selected, a China-based shared kitchen provider, raised $50 million in Series C funding. Tiger Global led the round, and was joined by investors including DCM and Glenridge Capital.

• Circle Media Labs, a Portland-based software company that delivers screen time management and parental control solutions to families, raised $20 million in Series B funding. Investors include NETGEAR, T-Mobile US, Third Kind Venture Capital, and Relay Ventures.

• WaitWhat, a New York-based content company and podcast creator, raised $4.3 million in Series A funding. Cue Ball and Burda Principal Investments led the round.

• Stratifyd, a Charlotte, N.C.-based AI-powered analytics platform, raised $4 million in additional funding from Arsenal Growth.

• Capitalise, a fintech startup that brings lending to SMEs through a funding platform, raised £3.5 million ($4.5 million) in Series A funding. Investors include QED Investors and Hambro Perks.

• Zoba, a Boston-based platform for building and deploying spatial machine learning models, raised $3 million in seed funding. CRV led the round, and was joined by investors including Founder Collective and Mark Cuban.

• Eyelevel.ai, a conversational marketing platform provider for brands, raised $2 million in seed funding. Birchmere Venture led the round, and was joined by investors including Strawberry Creek Ventures, Inspiration Ventures and Berkeley SkyDeck.

• Clareto, a Richmond, Va.-based health data network, raised Series A funding an undisclosed amount. Health Catalyst Capital Management LLC led the round.

• Beamery, a London-based HR recruitment software provider, raised funding of an undisclosed amount, from Workday Ventures.

HEALTH AND LIFE SCIENCES DEALS

• Geneos Therapeutics, a Plymouth Meeting, Penn.-based developer of cancer therapies, raised $10.5 million in Series A funding. Santé Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Inovio.

PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS

• Summit Park recapitalized Exacta, a Cleveland-based provider of land surveys and field management services for residential and commercial real estate deals. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

• Red Collar Pet Foods, which is backed by Arbor Investments, acquired Hampshire Pet Products LLC, a Joplin, Mo.-based provider of baked and cold formed pet products. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

• Auxo Investment Partners made an investment in Andrie LLC, a Michigan-based bulk transporter of specialty products including liquid asphalt, cement, light oil petroleum products and calcium chloride. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

• Standout Capital acquired VisBook, a Norway-based provider of property management systems for hotels, activity centers and camping sites. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

• Platinum Equity agreed to acquire Livingston International, a Toronto-based international trade services firm. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

• SeventySix Capital made an investment in Diamond Kinetics, a Pittsburgh-based baseball and softball technology company. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

• PRA, a portfolio company of CI Capital Partners, acquired Koncept Events, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based event planning company. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

• Hamilton Robinson Capital Partners acquired American Roller Company, a Union Grove, Wisc.-based provider of engineered services and industrial rollers including rubber and urethane coverings, plasma coatings, and core fabrication. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

OTHER DEALS

• N3K acquired Cygna Labs, a Miami Beach, Fla.-based provider of compliance solutions. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

• Centriq Technology, a San Francisco based digital home management platform, raised $5 million in funding from HomeServe USA.

IPOs

• Mereo BioPharma, a London-based rare disease drug firm, withdrew its IPO. Previously, it filed an IPO of up to $81 million. The firm posted loss of $52.5 million in 2017. Woodford Investment Management (42% pre-offering), Invesco (26.9%), Novartis (19.5%), and Hargreave Hale (4%), back the firm. Cowen & Company, BMO Capital Markets and RBC Capital Markets were underwriters in the deal. It planned to list on the Nasdaq as “MREO.” Read more.

• Corsair Components, a keyboard and computer parts maker aimed at the gaming industry, is exploring an IPO that could value it at $1 billion, Reuter’s reports citing sources. EagleTree Capital backs the firm, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Credit Suisse Group AG, and Barclays have reportedly been hired to look into a deal. Read more.

• Centogene, a German-based biotech selling genetic testing products, is weighing an IPO on the Nasdaq, Reuters reports citing sources. DPE Deutsche Private Equity, Careventures, TVM Capital, and CIC Capital back the firm. Read more.

EXITS

• BV Investment Partners sold Reimagine Holdings, a Westport, Conn.-based provider of data creation and technology-enabled business intelligence, to Dynata. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

• Equistone Partners Europe acquired a majority stake in RENA, a Germany-based maker of machinery for wet-chemical surface treatments, from Capvis AG. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

• Providence Equity Partners agreed to sell Study Group, an Australia-based provider of international education, to Ardian. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

• JFrog acquired Shippable, a Seattle-based continuous integration and DevOps automation platform company. Financial terms weren't disclosed. Shippable had raised approximately $10 million in funding from investors including Madrona Venture Group, Divergent Ventures, SK Ventures and Vulcan Capital.