INTELLI™ Weekly Insights
Wednesday, November 16, 2022 | Volume 1 Series 26 | 3D Printing, IVP, and more!
☕ We’ve got another round of news and updates brought to you by the team at INTELLI™. Sit back and delve into 3D Printing Stats, updates on IVP, and more funding signals.
🖨 3D Printing: A Tiptoeing Startup for Investors
Like most tech companies that made market debuts during the go-go days of 2020-21, 3D printing brands have been getting clobbered in recent quarters.
For instance, Chicago-based Fast Radius, which provides software and manufacturing offerings for engineers to design and make commercial grade parts, announced that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The move comes just nine months after going public through a SPAC merger at an initial market valuation of $1.4 billion. Lead venture backers counted UPS and Drive Capital, and Goldman Sachs as a post-IPO investor.
Other 3D printing players are down too, including two Massachusetts companies — Desktop Metal and Markforged — that launched some of the larger offerings. Desktop Metal, the first one on our list to go public, has shed over $1.75 billion from its market cap since making its debut in December 2020. Markforged, meanwhile, posted earnings the same day, revealing year-over-year revenue growth of just 5% plus a wider net loss.
But looking at the funding tallies for 2022, it doesn’t appear that startup investors have turned fully bearish on the 3D printing space.
Some raised very large rounds, including:
Austin, Texas-based Icon, a construction technology company known for its 3D-printed homes, led the pack with a $185 million Series B extension in February, bringing total funding to over $450 million.
Tel Aviv-based Redefine Meat, which employs 3D printing in production of its plant-based meat alternatives, raised $135 million in a January round.
Los Angeles-based SprintRay, a 3D printer manufacturer that focuses on digital dentistry, raised $100 million in an October Series D.
Looking at the terrible performance of recent public market entrants with ties to 3D printing, it’s probably not an opportune time for the latest big funding recipients to plan debuts. Nor, for that matter, is anyone focused on 3D printing likely to pull off a big IPO right now. Looking more broadly at funded startups in the 3D printing space, it’s easy to walk away with the impression that our world would be a much cooler place if these kinds of innovations were happening at scale.
For now, however, public markets don’t seem to be sharing in that enthusiasm.
Want to read more and see the Crunchbase data? Click here.
📉 IVP Cools Down Investment Pace
IVP has significantly slowed from last year’s heated market.
IVP is one of the oldest venture firms from Silicon Valley’s Sand Hill Road. In its 40-plus years, it has invested in more than 400 companies and has a 40-year IRR of 43%.
After taking part in 26 funding deals in the second and third quarters of 2021 — when the venture market reached record heights — IVP slowed that investment cadence to just eight deals in the same two quarters this year.
With deal count significantly down, so is the value of the rounds IVP has invested in recently. In Q2 and Q3 of last year combined, IVP’s more than two dozen rounds totaled more than $5 billion. The eight rounds it took part in for the same two quarters this year totaled less than $900 million.
Read more here.
💰 INTELLI™ Featured Venture Deals
Near, a SaaS platform that offers a unique source of intelligence on People, Place, and Product data raised $100M in a Debt Financing round led by Blue Torch Capital.
Clove Dental, a dental chain that provides end to end oral healthcare services raised 5.5B INR in a Series D round led by Investcorp.
Athletic Brewing, a food and beverage company that specializes in manufacturing non-alcoholic craft beer raised $50M in a Corporate Funding round led by Keurig Dr Pepper.
Fathom Health, which offers a medical coding automation platform powered by artificial intelligence raised $46M in a Series B round led by Alkeon Capital.
Nykaa, an online marketplace for different beauty and wellness products raised 2.1B INR in a Post-IPO Equity round led by Aberdeen Standard Investments.
Equals, a spreadsheet startup aiming to challenge and replace Excel with its next-generation spreadsheet raised $16M in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Hwy Haul, a next-generation digital freight platform for fresh produce raised $10M in a Funding Round led by Eileses Capital.
Stay tuned for more updates brought to you by PreIPO INTELLI™