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The San Francisco-based startup had raised just over $20 million since it was founded in 2015. Its last fundraise, a $16.5 million led by , took place in March 2018. Previous investors include , , and 9Point Ventures.

At the time of its Series A, Starsky announced that it had successfully driven its self-driving cargo truck for seven miles without a driver, according to .

“No safety driver behind the wheel, no engineer hiding on the bunk. We are the first company to make driverless trucks a reality,” Starsky Robotics’ co-founder CEO said in a blog post then.

Fast-forward just over two years, and Seltz-Axmacher published a with a far more somber tone titled simply, “The End of Starsky Robotics.” He wrote:

“In 2015, I got obsessed with the idea of driverless trucks and started Starsky Robotics. In 2016, we became the first street-legal vehicle to be paid to do real work without a person behind the wheel. In 2018, we became the first street-legal truck to do a fully unmanned run, albeit on a closed road. In 2019, our truck became the first fully-unmanned truck to drive on a live highway.

And in 2020, we’re shutting down.”

It’s unclear exactly how many employees will be affected by the shutdown, but a photo from February 2019 posted on Seltz-Axmacher’s blog shows “much of Starsky’s office team,” with just under three dozen employees.

In a March 19 , Seltz-Axmacher details how things fell apart at the company. By Nov. 12, 2019, Starsky’s $20 million Series B had fallen through, and most of the team was furloughed just three days later in what he described as “probably the worst day of my life.” The founders then started working on selling the company, and “making sure the team didn’t go without shelter.”

What happened?

With so many autonomous vehicle funding companies raising millions of dollars as of late, one has to wonder what happened in the case of Starsky Robotics.

Seltz-Axmacher blames timing in part for his company’s demise.

In his blog post, he said the space was too overwhelmed “with the unmet promise of AI to focus on a practical solution.”

He continued:

“As those breakthroughs failed to appear, the downpour of investor interest became a drizzle. It also didn’t help that last year’s tech IPOs took a lot of energy out of the tech industry, and that trucking has been in a recession for 18 or so months.”

Seltz-Axmacher also noted that investors didn’t seem to care for the company’s model of being the operator. He also claimed that Starsky’s “heavy investment into safety didn’t translate for investors.”

Currently in the process of selling the assets of the company, Seltz-Axmacher said those assets include a number of patents essential to operating unmanned vehicles.

Meanwhile, ’s raised a staggering $2.25 billion earlier this month. That deal came just 10 months after rival self-driving car outfit at an approximate $18 billion post-money valuation. In February 2019, self-driving car startup raised $530 million in a led by .

Starsky’s competitors include (which raised last September) and Canada’s .

According to VentureBeat, in September 2017 Starsky Robotics completed the longest end-to-end autonomous trip on record. “After Hurricane Irma hit southwestern Florida, the company used one of its trucks to aid recovery efforts, hauling water 68 miles from one end of the state to the other without human intervention.”

I’m no self-driving expert but that sounds pretty cool.

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The firm’s guidance to  startups is to assess their runway (as future financing might become challenging), reassess sales forecasts, raise return on investment for marketing spend, and assess headcount and capital spending. All business fundamentals need to be looked at once again.

The most striking statement in the post is: “In downturns, revenue and cash levels always fall faster than expenses.”

For startups dependent on venture cash to grow, belt tightening to extend the runway–provided you are not too late and raising this quarter–might make sense. In Crunchbase data, we have not yet seen funding slow down. However, funding rounds announced recently were closed in the past couple of months, with conversations and diligence stretching back to a very different funding climate.

In October 2008 Sequoia’s “RIP Good Times” described by TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington as a ” the message was dire with “cuts are a must” and “Get Real or Go Home”.

In the 2008 RIP report, Sequoia claimed the following:

New Realities

• $15 million raised at $100 million post is gone
• Series B/C will be smaller
• Customer uptake will be slower
• Cuts are a must

Need to become cash flow positive

• Increased challenges
• M&A will decrease
• Prices will decrease
• Acquiring entities will favor profitable companies
• IPOs will continue to decrease and take longer

Saying “cuts are a must” might be interpreted as sounding cruel.

In the middle of a health crisis, where people in nonessential industries are mandated to stay home, and with heavy job losses predicted for the travel, hotel and retail industries, getting a new job will be more difficult.

Some jobs are opening up, however. just announced it is hiring to up to 100,000 new full- and part-time workers in delivery and fulfillment centers to address the crisis.

Investors are aware that in the last downturn, new companies–formed in 2008 and its aftermath in 2009–have become significant technology companies. Those companies include , , , , , and . Investors will continue seeking those opportunities, having raised unprecedented funds themselves with no shortage of money to invest. And with valuations likely to be capped, this might just be a good time to invest.

Sequoia signs off with: “Stay healthy, keep your company healthy, and put a dent in the world.”

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Last week, distributed a memo to founders and CEOs of its portfolio companies about the worsening economic situation as coronavirus spreads, and many other media outlets reported.

I’ve also seen posts all over from people cautioning about a slowdown in VC funding and reacting with concern to the tumultuous state of the public markets.

So I decided to ask around myself.

I didn’t get as many replies as I expected. Perhaps folks just don’t want to share their revised strategies. Perhaps they’re still trying to figure it out. I’m not sure, but for now, here’s what , general partner of Austin-based, told me on the topic. (For those that don’t know, Silverton Partners is arguably one of Austin’s most active early-stage VC firms with $384 million under management.)

Warning to executives

Flager shared with me some highlights of a note he sent out to key executives across Silverton’s portfolio this week.

Essentially, Flager said it is “prudent to assume that fundraising velocity will slow from the fast pace we’ve seen as investors take time to process the new macroeconomic environment.”

He pointed to what transpired economically in 2001 (after 9/11) and 2009 (after the economic downturn) as a reference to what people should likely expect to happen this year.

“Most investors react to uncertainty with increased caution. Travel restrictions will also make it more difficult to meet investors,” Flager wrote.

Additionally, he said that valuations will likely see pressure from multiple angles.

“First, volatility in the stock market and declining multiples will inevitably play through to the private markets. Companies that haven’t ‘gotten the memo’ and are still recklessly buying growth and burning lots of cash doing so will increasingly be viewed as risky and will see that risk premium reflected in their value,” Flager continued in his note to executives across Silverton’s portfolio. “In some cases these businesses will not be able to attract additional investment at any price. Do not be one of them.”

He also suggested that if a startup in Silverton’s portfolio is in the middle of closing a round or in the latter stages of a fundraising process, “it may make sense to take additional capital.”

“More runway in this environment could mean the difference between life and death for your business,” Flager said.

In September 2019, we covered how Silverton had filed paperwork signaling its intent to raise not just one, but a pair of new venture capital funds. The firm was reportedly aiming to raise $120 million for its sixth fund, as well as for a $20 million “opportunity fund.”

In May 2018, we reported on the firm closing on its fifth fund, in which it raised $108 million in an oversubscribed round of funding.

Silverton has made 131 knownover its 14-year lifetime at least 42 of them – and had 28 known . Startups it has backed include insurance comparison marketplace , as well as and , a woman’s shaving products startup that was recently acquired by P&G.

Some of Silverton’s more recent investments include participating in Austin-based last-mile delivery startup $10.5 million and cybersecurity company $21 million Series B raise (which was led by , ’s venture arm).

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DoorDash said in its announcement that the number of shares on offer and a target price range for the transaction “have not yet been determined.”

The brief statement also adds that the IPO “is expected to take place after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions.” In recent days, the U.S. stock market has experienced significant downward pressure amid concerns about the spreading SARS-CoV-2 virus and speculation about the scale of its impact on the global economy.

As of 2017, the SEC has granted smaller, high-growth companies a path to initially file their S-1 registration statements confidently, allowing for regulatory review without immediate exposure to scrutiny from the media and would-be public market investors. Confidentially filed S-1 documents are made public prior to IPO.

According to Crunchbase data, San Francisco-based DoorDash has raised in equity funding since its inception in 2013. Its last private market valuation was approximately $12.6 billion, post-money, earned in .

The include the likes of , , , , , the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund , and the .

DoorDash has never released a complete picture of its financials, which will be part of the IPO process. The company is not profitable and was expected to lose $450 million on revenue of between $900 million and $1 billion in 2019, according to from .

The company faces a number of labor disputes, as its “gig economy” workers are treated as independent contractors and are not eligible to receive benefits like health insurance. Earlier in February DoorDash was as it works through individual cases brought by 5,010 drivers for the platform who believed the company was in violation of California labor law.

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The fresh cash also lifts Pony’s valuation to the over-$3 billion mark. The company now has in total funding, according to Crunchbase.

Pony.ai was founded in December 2018 and started testing its robotaxi service (PonyPilot) in late 2018 in China, according to a company . It also introduced a robotaxi pilot service in California in November 2019.

This isn’t Toyota’s first rodeo with Pony.ai. The auto giant partnered with the startup in August 2019 for autonomous driving pilots in China.

The new investment will “expand the partnership’s scope of collaboration,” Pony said in the statement. “In addition to co-developing autonomous driving technology, Pony.ai and Toyota will look beyond the vehicle itself to explore further possibilities on mobility services.”

Toyota’s investment makes sense, as large automakers have been doubling down on investments in car technology startups. As Crunchbase News previously reported, since the beginning of 2019, automakers have led funding rounds valued at more than $6 billion.

Toyota ranked as the second-most active automaker investor by round count, according to Crunchbase data current as of January 2020. Toyota has also led funding rounds for startups and .

Pony.ai’s other investors include and . It last raised in April 2019, according to Crunchbase.

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Maven provides on-demand access for virtual care, along with services like breast milk shipping and fertility clinic referrals. Its backers include firms like , which led the Series C round, and .

With the new funding, Maven will double-down on growth and roll out new products, CEO Kate Ryder said in an interview with Crunchbase News. The company recently introduced Maven Wallet, a way for users to manage receipts for services like egg freezing, adoption and surrogacy reimbursement. Later this year, the company will roll out Maven Pediatrics, a pediatric service for working parents, Ryder said. 

The company, which was founded in 2014 and is based in New York, plans on hiring employees across the board, but especially within engineering and clinical research. Maven has about 110 employees now and plans to end the year with about 200 employees. It also plans on opening up a second office either in the second half of this year, or the first half of next year, Ryder said, though the location is undecided.

Maven last raised money in September 2018, when it landed $27 million for its Series B round, which was led by and Sequoia Capital. 

The new cash brings Maven’s total funding to more than $87 million, with investors including CEO Anne Wojcicki and actresses Mindy Kaling, Reese Witherspoon and Natalie Portman.

High-profile Backers

Kaling, Witherspoon and Portman invested in Maven for its Series B round, but the company didn’t announce it at the time. The connection to the actresses and investors came through Sequoia–partner Jess Lee is a board member of , which is connected to the Time’s Up initiative (Witherspoon is a backer). 

“I think it is really a collective effort across industries to get more women into leadership positions,” Ryder said.

Since its founding, Maven has helped more than 5 million women and families access care, and has 1,700 providers across 20 different specialties. Maven tripled its client base last year, Ryder said, though she declined to disclose any revenue figures.

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New investors and 1 co-led the round, which comes along with a new partnership with Salesforce.

Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman said in an interview with Crunchbase News that the company wasn’t looking to raise money, as it is “well-capitalized” and hasn’t really dipped into the last round it raised. But with the new partnership with Salesforce, it needed to find a way to bring its new partner to the cap table.

“We would not have raised a round if it hadn’t been for the partnership,” Slootman said.

He wouldn’t give details about what the partnership entails (they’ll share more information during its conference in June), but said the vast majority of Snowflake customers are also Salesforce customers, and the startup has been getting requests to work with Salesforce for years.

“At a high level, the partnership is about allowing Salesforce data to very easily, seamlessly, frictionlessly be shared on the Snowflake platform,” he said.

There won’t be any real operational changes with the new funding, Slootman said, but some of the equity will be converted to cash. The company finished its 2019 fiscal year with 174 percent year-over-year revenue growth.

For sure, $479 million is a huge sum to raise, and an impressive valuation–about triple what it was last valued (about $3.9 billion). It also makes Snowflake even more special and rare than a regular old unicorn, as it’s now reached decacorn status.

San Mateo, Calif.-based Snowflake has been steadily increasing its funding amounts until this point. So, in the spirit of nostalgia, let’s take a look back at its funding history.

The Money

Snowflake raised just under $1 million ($900,000 to be exact) in a 2012 seed round, before securing its $5 million Series A led by Sutter Hill Ventures in August 2012. Its Series B came a little over two years later in October 2014, with $26 million in a round led by Redpoint. You can see its funding history below in a neat chart made by our own Jason D. Rowley.

The company netted $79 million in a Series C round led by Altimeter Capital in June 2015, before it started raising supergiant rounds (we define those as rounds of $100 million or larger).

Snowflake raised a $105 million led by in September 2017, with a post-money valuation of about $500 million, according to Crunchbase. It reached unicorn status around the time of its $263 million in January 2018. According to Crunchbase, the company had a pre-money valuation of $1.2 billion at the time.

The rounds have only continued to get bigger with Snowflake’s last round being a $450 million led by in October 2018.

So what’s next for Snowflake? Slootman said an IPO would be next, but the company is in no hurry. The earliest Snowflake could go public would be July, but that doesn’t mean they will then.

“We’re very focused on the content itself, which means the data, and driving high-value data assets onto the platform, which is what we view Salesforce to be,” Slootman said. “That data is very valuable, not all data is created equal.”

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The financing values the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company at nearly $3 billion, it said, and brings its, according to Crunchbase data. Netskope’s last funding–a $168.7 million –closed in November 2018, propelling it to unicorn status.

New investors and participated in its latest round, as well as all existing investors including (which led its Series F), , , , , and .

Netskope describes itself as an alternative to “legacy, outdated security solutions that have failed to keep up with enterprises’ rapid adoption of new cloud and mobile technology, which have dissolved the ‘perimeter’ of a business’ network that traditional solutions were originally built for.”

Put more simply, Netskope’s Security Cloud offering aims to give companies visibility and real-time data and threat protection when accessing cloud services, websites and private apps from anywhere, on any device.

Netskope CEO said that when he started the company in 2012, “it was clear that the cloud was changing everything, but few saw how it would disrupt security.”

, managing partner at Sequoia Capital Global Equities, said his firm believes Netskope is the “unrivaled leader driving innovation” across cloud, data and network security.”

Besides seeing 80 percent enterprise customer growth (25 percent of which is among the Fortune 100), the company says it has boosted its headcount by 50 percent with a focus on engineering and sales. Specifically, Netspoke says it has 1,000 customers and added 300 employees in less than a year’s time. It now has nearly 1,000 employees.

In addition to its new headquarters in Santa Clara, Netskope has opened new offices in Paris, São Paulo, Seattle, New York, St. Louis, San Francisco and Tokyo. It’s also expanded into new markets including Australia, Singapore, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Italy, Spain and Germany.

As far as vertical markets are concerned, Beri told Crunchbase News that “there is not an industry that is immune to the security concerns” Netspoke addresses.

“That in mind, we continue to see massive uptake in regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare, and retail,” he said.

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On the U.S. side, Sequoia Capital U.S. Growth Fund VIII, L.P. raised $998.5 million, according to . 120 limited partners invested in the fund.

On the Chinese side, the firm closed $1.7995 billion for and $549.5 million for .

Sequoia’s fifth China Growth Fund is its largest yet, coming in at twice the size of its fourth. Sequoia raised $899.5 million for China Growth Fund IV between 2016 and 2017, according and news reports.

The three filings updated today were initially submitted on June 19, 2018, and they indicate that the firm closed its first hard capital commitments for the funds in the days following the filings.

On that same day, Sequoia Capital also for its sixth India-focused venture fund, which closed out $695 million in mid-August 2018. Other filings from mid-June 2018 include and , which have yet to be updated at the time of writing.

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led the round, which included participation from previous investors (the firm led Snapdocs’ $15 million Series A in 2017) and . The financing brings Snapdocs’to just over $43 million since it was founded in 2012. The San Francisco-based company went through accelerator program in the 2014 winter batch.

Snapdocs claims its platform currently powers over 10 percent of all U.S. residential mortgage transactions, which amounts to about $150 billion in real estate transactions annually. It helps process about 750,000 real estate closings a year and has developed a network of over 50,000 industry service providers such as lenders, title companies and notaries.

, the company’s founder and CEO, said Snapdoc is is not out to try and disrupt the industry. It’s instead trying to help its players “work better together.” It also aims to reduce the time borrowers spend at the closing table from over an hour to just 15 minutes by doing things such as giving them the ability to review lengthy documents digitally beforehand, for example, according to King.

“You have 12 different industries trying to interact to make a real estate transaction happen. We’re focused on helping those parties coordinate better,” he said. “Our goal has been to become the connective tissue to help those different industries improve their workflow in a more seamless, automated way by tackling the complex underlying machinery of the entire process.”

King told me that Snapdocs has intentionally opted not to raise too much funding because it’s “not the type of company trying to burn tons of capital.”

“My last company was bootstrapped, so we have that in our DNA,” he told me. “In almost every fundraising round, we’ve had opportunities to raise at higher valuations but we believe if you’re going to build a really enduring company, it’s more important to pick the right partners.”

The company will use the new capital to help “fuel growth” and further invest in its technology. It’s also planning to grow its recently-opened Denver office.

As part of the funding round, , managing partner of F-Prime Capital’s tech fund, will join Snapdocs’ board.

“Residential mortgage is a $2 trillion industry and one of the largest sectors yet to be digitized,” said F-Prime Capital’s Jegan in a written statement. “The entire closing process is cumbersome and in need of a better workflow for collaboration, coordination and transparency. Snapdocs has built the leading vertical SaaS solution to this problem and is well-positioned to become the industry’s platform for digital mortgage closings.”

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