Deals in brief

Squarespace has raised $300m in a funding round that gives the website-building and hosting company a $10bn valuation, putting it squarely into the decacorn club. The funding round comes after Squarespace filed to go public with the Securities and Exchange Commission in January.

The New York-based company said it would use the influx of cash to “advance Squarespace’s growth initiatives”. Dragoneer, Tiger Global, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. and Spruce House backed the raise.

Squarespace’s core business is providing a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that allows customers to create websites using pre-built templates. Users can drag and drop elements to create customised layouts based on these existing designs. It has since expanded into ecommerce by providing hosting for online stores.

Tokopedia and Gojek, two of Indonesia’s most valuable tech firms, have reportedly signed a “conditional sales and purchase agreement”, paving the way for the two companies to merge into a $40bn powerhouse.

The deal would combine Tokopedia’s ecommerce business with Gojek’s ride-hailing and payments operations, creating a so-called super-app in the process,

Such all-in-one apps – like Chinese WeChat and AliPay – offer multiple services in one place, from hailing a taxi to ordering takeaway and sending messages.

Card payments startup SumUp is cashing in on investors’ trust with €750m in new funding, but won’t disclose its valuation. The company has historically been tight-lipped about how much it’s worth. It only confirmed rumours that it had passed the $1bn valuation milestone in 2019, seven years after its 2012 launch.

By raising a debt facility, rather than an equity round, SumUp said there was no new official valuation to disclose. Goldman Sachs, Temasek, Bain Capital Credit, Crestline and Oaktree Capital Management backed SumUp’s latest round.

Stripe has been named Silicon Valley’s most valuable privately-owned tech company ever after a $600m funding round gave it a $95bn valuation.

However, its new value fell short of some expectations that estimated it would at least push past the $100bn mark, which would’ve given Stripe hecacorn bragging right. It is unclear why the discrepancies between these expectations and the final deal occurred.

Allianz X, Axa, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Sequoia Capital and Ireland’s National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) backed the round.

Covid-19 social distancing rules helped Stripe to scale up its operations over the past year as ecommerce grew in popularity during the pandemic. Over 200,000 new European companies have signed up to the platform since the health crisis began.

Insurance tech startup Zego secured a $1.1bn valuation on the back of a $150m funding round in March, potentially making it the first UK-based insurtech to join the covered unicorn club.

Founded in 2016, Zego uses multiple data sources to offer motor insurance to fleets of business vehicles and self-employed drivers working for gig economy heavyweights like Deliveroo and Uber.

Venture capital group DST Global led the Series C raise. All of Zego’s previous backers also participated in the round, including Taavet Hinrikus, founder of Wise.

The latest private equity round brings Zego’s total funding to more than $200m. New investors joining the raise include venture capital firm General Catalyst, with its founder and MD Joel Cutler joining the Zego board.

Enterprise security intelligence company Recorded Future has acquired fraud analytics provider Gemini Advisory for $52m, in a move intended to bolster the Boston-based firm’s dark web services.

Gemini Advisory will continue to operate as an independent business within Recorded Future’s corporate structure.

Founded in 2017, Gemini provides service such as dark web brand monitoring, criminal alerts and mitigation consultancy. It said that its team has “spent years in undercover operations”, which includes consultancy work for the FBI’s cybercrime division.