Term Sheet: Dec. 02, 2019

Our daily brief on deals and dealmakers. Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. follow Subscribe Send Tip December 2, 2019 Good morning and welcome back from the holiday weekend—I hope you had a relaxing Thanksgiving. Jen Wieczner here, filling in for Polina while she’s in Bulgaria. This morning, Fortune published its "2020 Crystal Ball, Predictions for the Economy, Politics, Technology, and More." It's full of forecasts on issues Term Sheet readers have been following closely: • Tesla will have to raise capital again • Saks, after its parent company goes private, will merge with Neiman Marcus •  Facebook will kill its Libra cryptocurrency project (after the withdrawal of high-profile partners like PayPal) And that's just for starters. One Fortune prediction that may be less optimistic than it appears at first glance: The S&P 500 will stand at 3,200 at the end of 2020. While that figure represents a never-before-seen record for the stock market index, it's actually just under 2% higher than where the S&P 500 closed last week, on Black Friday. In other words, if stocks keep up their recent rally (the S&P 500 rose 3% in November), the market could already reach 3,200 by the end of this year—which means, by our predictions, that 2020 could end up being a wash for stocks (though that's not to say there won't be plenty of seesawing throughout the year). It might be time for the market to take a breather after all: The S&P 500 is up more than 25% so far this year, on track for its best performance since 2013—as long as there's no repeat of last year's December panic. Given those lofty market levels, it’s interesting that recently, even two of the most cash-rich companies in the world were not willing to pay the high price to acquire some of the hottest targets. First, Facebook lost out on buying Fitbit, according to CNBC, after bidding 5 cents less per share (or just $10 million less) than Google for the wearable health tracker company. Then, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway was outbid by Apollo Global, the private equity firm, when it tried to acquire Tech Data, a distributor of Apple products and other technology, also according to CNBC. Buffett's offer was $5 a share, or about $140 million, below Apollo's—though that's a drop in the bucket compared to Berkshire Hathaway $128 billion in cash. If neither Buffett nor Zuckerberg is comfortable with some of the current prices commanded in the market, it may not be long before other investors can't stomach them anymore either. Jen Wieczner Twitter: @jenwieczner Email: jen.wieczner@fortune.com . . VENTURE DEALS - Figure Technologies, a San Francisco-based fintech cofounded by SoFi cofounder Mike Cagney, appears to have raised $103 million per a SEC filing. Read more.  - Tray.io, a San Francisco-based platform for workflow automation, raised $50 million in Series C funding. Meritech Capital, led the round. - Genvid Technologies, a New York-based video streaming engine, raised $27 million in Series B funding. Galaxy Interactive led, and was joined by investors including Valor Equity, K5 Global, March Capital Partners, OCA Ventures, Makers Fund, and Horizons Ventures. - Trouva, a London-based marketplace for brick-and-mortar boutique stores in spaces including clothing and home decor, raised £17 million ($21.8 million) in funding. Octopus Ventures, C4 Ventures, and Downing Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors BGF and LocalGlobe. Read more. - Gorgias, a startup focused on using AI in customer service, raised $14 million in Series A funding. Read more. - Kasada, a Sydney Australia-based cybersecurity startup focused on bots, raised $7 million in Series A funding led by In-Q-Tel. - Ockam, a San Francisco-based company maker of developer tools for IoT applications, raised $4.9 million in seed funding. Investors include Core Ventures, Okta Ventures, SGH Capital, and Future Ventures. Read more. - Altitude Sports, a Montréal-based high-end outdoor clothing retailer, raised funding from BDC Capital's Growth and Transition Capital division. Financial terms weren't disclosed. PRIVATE EQUITY DEALS - The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board acquired a 12.4 percent stake ($255.9 million) in  Smartfit Escola de Ginástica e Dança S.A, São Paulo, Brazil-based fitness chain operating in Latin America.  - Kensington Capital Partners acquired the surgical division of Centric Health Corporation, a Toronto-based healthcare provider, Financial terms weren't disclosed. - Foreside Financial Group, a portfolio company of Lovell Minnick Partners, agreed to acquire Quasar Distributors, the Milwaukee-based mutual fund and ETF distribution business of U.S. Bancorp. Financial terms weren't disclosed. - Ardenton Capital Corp invested in Pebbles Care, a Leeds, U.K.-based provider of residential care homes and specialist school academies for young people. Financial terms weren't disclosed. - Newlook Capital invested in InSite, an Alabama and Georgia-based provider of wastewater treatment facilities. Financial terms weren't disclosed. . Content From Refinitiv Are your investment's green credentials a red flag? See the warning signs in our transparent Environmental, Social and Governance data, covering 400+ individual metrics. Get a detailed picture . OTHER DEALS - Facebook agreed to acquire Beat Games, the Czech Republic-based developer of VR games including Beat Saber. Financial terms weren't disclosed. IPOS - Thai Beverage, the maker of Chang and Archa beer, is weighing a Singapore IPO of its brewery business businesses that could value it at $10 billion, Bloomberg reports citing people with knowledge of the matter. Read more. - ChinaData Group, a Beijing-based data-center operator, is seeking an IPO that would value the company at over $1 billion, Bloomberg reports citing sources. Bain Capital backs the firm. Read more. F + FS - Storm Ventures, raised $130.4 million for a sixth fund, per an SEC filing. Read more. EXITS - Palo Alto Networks agreed to acquire Aporeto, a San Jose, Calif.-based cloud security firm, for $150 million. Aporeto previously raised funding from venture firms including Comcast Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, and Wing VC.  - The Jordan Co. acquired the polymer additives division of Arsenal Capital Partners-based Polymer Solutions Group, a Cleveland-based maker of chemicals. Financial terms weren't disclosed. - Intel is seeking to sell its connected home unit, per Bloomberg citing sources. Read more.  . IF YOU LIKED THIS EMAIL... Share today's Term Sheet with a friend. Did someone share this with you? Sign up here. For previous editions, click here. For even more, check out Data Sheet, Fortune's daily newsletter on the latest in tech news. Sign up here.  . Email Us Subscribe share: . This message has been sent to you because you are currently subscribed to Term Sheet. 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Data Sheet: Biting the hand that fed him

Your daily download on the business of technology. Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. follow Subscribe Send Tip December 2, 2019 The demonization of Silicon Valley continues. On HBO’s Silicon Valley, fictional billionaire Gavin Belson has turned ethicist and siren for the evils of tech. In real-life academia, Harvard's Shoshana Zuboff has provoked a strain of regulatory thought that the surveillance capitalists—Google, Facebook and Internet wannabes—have built outsized power with ill-gotten gains. And elsewhere in real life, investor Roger McNamee has become, in The New Yorker's words, "Big Tech's Big Defector." Having known McNamee for a couple decades, I found the in-depth profile of him in the current issue entertaining and true. Writer Brian Barth calls McNamee tech's "eccentric uncle," an apt description. McNamee's perspective is broad and deep. He started his professional life picking tech stocks for a mutual fund. He was among the first Silicon Valley investors to take stakes simultaneously in private and public companies, a more common practice today. And while many note that his Elevation Partners made a killing by investing in Facebook, few remember that the investment also saved a struggling fund. Now McNamee has turned against tech, particularly Facebook and Google. He shares Zuboff's concerns that the too-powerful companies are a threat to life as we know it. Unlike Zuboff, McNamee is biting the hand that has fed him—an act I'd argue bolsters his credibility rather than hurts it. McNamee and others are waging an energetic and enthusiastic regulatory, legislative, and PR campaign against Big Tech, which has tremendous regulatory, legislative, and PR resources of its own. Does tech deserve to be demonized? Of course it does. It has grown arrogant. It has become a caricature of its lofty values. And it has fallen far short of its world-changing goals. Moments like this have a somewhat predictable life cycle, with the pendulum inevitably swinging back. The time has not yet come. *** I read Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys in a couple days over the weekend. It's a crushing, elegant, highly readable novel about racism in America. I recommend it … I also recommend this smart piece in The Atlantic by Jerry Useem, who reported on Boeing for Fortune nearly 20 years ago and has made one of the most astute observations I've seen about what led to the company's current crisis. Spoiler alert: Managers who wipe out a storied corporate culture will reap what they sow … Finally, here's a great interview in The Financial Times with journalist and author Ronan Farrow. He is incredibly accomplished for any age, let alone for his 31 years. His work is a reminder of why journalism, including business journalism, has the ability to take account of the powerful and hold the powerful to account. Adam Lashinsky Twitter: @adamlashinsky Email: adam_lashinsky@fortune.com This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman. . . NEWSWORTHY Blanked out. Short video app TikTok apologized last week after deleting a teenage girl's post that was critical of China. The service, owned by Chinese Internet company Bytedance, is under investigation for possibly posing a security risk to the United States. Lost in the fog. Speaking of political missteps, Apple has begun showing the Crimea region of Ukraine as part of Russia on iOS's Maps app. The United States and most other countries have refused to recognize Russia's forced annexation of the region after its invasion in 2014. Apple said it is reviewing the situation. Who's been naughty and who's been nice. Want to get a jump on your holiday shopping–or just need to replace that rickety old laptop you've been carrying around for years? It's "Cyber Monday" and Wired has an excellent round up of all the tech bargains. Adobe Analytics, which tracks online sales, says the day's intake should exceed $9 billion, up almost 20% from last year. FOOD FOR THOUGHT If social networks and other online spaces have caused as much trouble as Roger McNamee and some others say, it may be time to look for alternatives. Writer Annalee Newitz explores what could be next for messaging, sharing, and exploring online, in a New York Times piece called "A Better Internet Is Waiting for Us." There are no simple answers, however. The legacy of social media will be a world thirsty for new kinds of public experiences. To rebuild the public sphere, we'll need to use what we've learned from billion-dollar social experiments like Facebook, and marginalized communities like Black Twitter. We'll have to carve out genuinely private spaces too, curated by people we know and trust. Perhaps the one part of Facebook we'll want to hold on to in this future will be the indispensable phrase in its drop-down menu to describe relationships: "It's complicated." Public life has been irrevocably changed by social media; now it's time for something else. We need to stop handing off responsibility for maintaining public space to corporations and algorithms — and give it back to human beings. We may need to slow down, but we've created democracies out of chaos before. We can do it again. . Content From Guild Education as a Corporate Strategy Take it from the Fortune 1000: Support your people and you'll strengthen your business. Guild offers the single most scalable solution for preparing the workforce of today for the jobs of tomorrow. See how Guild does education benefits better.  . IN CASE YOU MISSED IT 2020 Crystal Ball: Predictions for the Economy, Politics, Technology, and More By Fortune Staff Airbnb Changed New Orleans—And Now New Orleans Can't Live Without It By Tracey Lindeman Can an App Drive More Voters to the Polls in 2020? This Entrepreneur Has High Hopes It Will By Melanie Eversley Want a SIM Card in China? You'll Now Need to Get Your Faced Scanned First By Grady McGregor Europe Is Terrified of Digital Currencies in the U.S. and China—But Can't Manage to Develop Its Own By Geoffrey Smith The Global Internet Is Splintering Apart and No-One Is Patching It Up By David Meyer BEFORE YOU GO If you, like Adam, are looking for a next big read, you'll find some juicy ones on Fortune's list of the 10 best business books of the year. New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey fill in the backstory of their seminal reporting on sexual-abuse cases in their book She Said, which can be read along with the similarly-themed Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow. But my first read from the list is going to be Jenny Odell's modern advice book: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. Aaron Pressman On Twitter: @ampressman Email: aaron.pressman@fortune.com . If You Like This Email... Share today's Data Sheet with a friend. Did someone share this with you? Sign up here. For previous editions, click here. For even more, check out Term Sheet, Fortune's daily newsletter on deals and dealmakers. Sign up here.  . Email Us Subscribe share: . This message has been sent to you because you are currently subscribed to Data Sheet. Unsubscribe Please read our Privacy Policy, or copy and paste this link into your browser: https://fortune.com/privacy/ FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice. For Further Communication, Please Contact: Fortune Customer Service 40 Fulton Street New York, NY 10038 Advertising Info | Subscribe to Fortune