Hot takes feel lukewarm these days. I’d wager that if we spent less time arguing about cold brew versus iced coffee, that same energy could be pivoted to shed light on more pressing topics.

Complacency about caffeine is not a sin, people.

Want this email every weekend? Subscribe here to Crunchbase News emails! 

For example, we wrote about how Webflow raised a $72 million Series A this week. A debate followed on whether it was fair to compare Webflow to other companies that have raised outsized Series As. In this case, it felt helpful to use a take to clarify how ���ٳ󾱲԰����about the ever-changing definition of this round.

Plus, it sets the scene for the next section I want to get into: the funding rounds we covered this week.

Starting big, Ibotta, an in-app coupon company,��raised a nine-figure Series D. It’s the only tech unicorn in Colorado right now. Another company worth around $1 billion dollars, Cybereason,��raised $200 million led by Softbank (We covered SoftBank’s earnings as well, so head here to learn about how the Vision Fund is doing).

While SoftBank’s name pops up in some of the biggest deals we see, reporting on smaller news gives us the best ins for big trends. For example, when Airbnb acquired another company,��we looked at the broader travel startup market. Or as Lyft and Uber reported their Q2 performance,��we asked what it meant for other ride-hailing companies. We also got into the cannabis market with LeafLink’s $35 million raise, and how Smart News is joining a friend group of Chinese-news focused unicorns. For quirkier hits, check out Last Week In Venture.

Beyond breaking news,�� took us through a growing trend of hypergiant rounds, which are private financing totals of $250 million or more. We also took a look at two different geographic regions: ’s look at a lukewarm Texas VC scene, and  inaugural column on Boston,��which had its slowest July in VC funding since 2014.

Finally, to better learn about the people behind the constant deals we read about,�������Գٱ��������ɱ����NFX’s co-founder James Currier, and I chatted with Alex Marshall from First Round Capital. Learn about why one thinks Buzzfeed is dead, and why the other can’t handle hearing about crypto.

Until next week,

�������ܲ��ٰ����پ��Dz�:��.

P.S. I put out a personal newsletter every Monday, if you’re interested!

Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily

Boston-based , , ,��, and several angel investors also participated in the round. Accel’s will join the company’s board as part of the financing.

The San Francisco-based company says it “gives more people the ability to create powerful websites and applications without having to write code.” With over 45,000 customers, including and , Webflow says it is profitable and, according to , has been for two years with annualized revenue of over $20 million. It plans to use the new capital to build out its executive team and hire in general. (The company currently has over 120 employees, up from about 70 a year ago, according to CEO and co-founder ).

Webflow also wants to continue growing its customer base, and plans to invest in “extensibility, accessibility, performance, security, and data privacy” to do so. Current customers range from individual freelancers to Fortune 500 companies. They include Johnson & Johnson, Yelp, and Adobe, among others.

A $72 million round for a company of 120 people is quite outsized; presumably the firm will hire rapidly to scale its workforce to match its capital base. Or in more crass terms, the company will quickly expand its spend. (This is a standard move post-financing for nearly any startups, we’re merely reacting to the scale of new funds that Webflow now has at its disposal compared to its new capital base.)

In a , detailed the company’s early struggles, noting the company launched almost six years ago. Several months later, the company was accepted into . But the company’s trio of co-founders were struggling. All had left their previous jobs, according to Magdalin, “and had no meaningful income.” Magdalin had cashed out his 401-K to pay for surgery for one of his daughters, and he and his wife “had racked up over $50K in credit card debt.”

Webflow eventually landed $2.9M from several seed funds and angels, with contributing more than half its seed round.

Not Alone

While Webflow’s Series A is certainly outsized compared to historical norms, the company is in raising such a huge sum for what should be its first institutional round (the real definition of a Series A). Indeed, some other entrants for large nine-figure Series A financings in 2019 include for biotech company , for London-based fintech startup , and for South Korean cryptocurrency exchange platform .

The list continues. Turning to China, for example, raised a , for supply chain focused business and more.

In short, yes, Webflow’s Series A round is abnormal historically. It is also perfectly normal when it comes to 2019.

Illustration: .