Deals of the Week, January 8 to 15 – Growth Business roundup 15 Jan 2021
Growth Business roundup of Deals of the Week, January 8 to 15, listing seed funding, venture capital and crowdfunding deals of note
£6.5m rolls in for used car management company
IT Fleet Automotive, a managing company for used car programmes of several major manufacturers in UK, has received a £6.5m facility comprising a £4.5m receivables finance line, together with an additional £2m CBILS term loan from Arbuthnot Commercial ABL.
The combined refinance package provides further liquidity for the business to manage the impact of COVID-19 and an increase in working capital to fund future growth.
Beringea: VCs will regret overpaying during the pandemic
Beringea s chief investment officer Karen McCormick talks to City A.M. about where VCs went wrong this year.
2020 is on track for a record year of VC investment but after a slow start followed by an avalanche of deals in September VCs should be in self-reflection mode.
City A.M. spoke to the refreshingly honest Karen McCormick, chief investment officer of Beringea about the lessons learned from the pandemic and where VCs went wrong.
Beringea primarily invests in and around Series A and McCormick affectionately describes the firm as “total dinosaurs in some ways” given they have been around for 30 years.
The big story: FTC and 48 state AGs sue Facebook
They’re separate suits, although the two groups coordinated their investigations. Both suits claim that Facebook has behaved illegally when it acquired Instagram and WhatsApp, and that it used its monopoly power to suppress competition. The FTC suit also calls for Instagram and WhatsApp to be split off from the company.
In response, Facebook tweeted, “Years after the FTC cleared our acquisitions, the government now wants a do-over with no regard for the impact that precedent would have on the broader business community or the people who choose our products every day.”