Andreessen Horowitz introduced the Marketplace 100, a ranking of the largest and fastest-growing consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies.
The top 4 companies (Airbnb, Doordash, Instacart, and Postmates) account for 76 percent of the list’s total observed GMV
Fast-growing marketplace startups grow quickly in the early years—often >3-5x year-over-year
Read more a16z’s thoughts on marketplaces.
Following up on a previous post of M&As in the cybersecurity space – interests and activities are still strong.
Another private equity firm Symphony Technology Group (STG) just announced the acquisition of RSA from Dell for $2.075 billion in cash. STG partnered with Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board and AlpInvest Partners in the deal.
Dell acquired RSA when it bought EMC in 2015. RSA has over 12,500 customers according to the statement.
Earlier this month, Forescout was to be acquired by Apax and its partner Crosspoint Capital for $33 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.9 billion.
The purchase price represents a premium of approximately 30% over Forescout’s closing share price of $25.45 on October 18, 2019, the last full trading day prior to the release of the 13-D filings by Corvex Management L.P. and Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. on October 21, 2019, which disclosed they had formed a partnership to approach Forescout and accumulated a combined 14.5% ownership in the company.
Forescout recorded fourth quarter revenue of $91.3 million, compared to $84.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2018 (+8% growth); full year revenue of $336.8 million, compared to $297.7 million in the full year 2019 (+13% growth).
In January, Israeli IoT security firm Armis Security announced that it agreed to be acquired by NY-based Insight Partners at a valuation of $1.1 billion.
Insight will pay cash for the cybersecurity company, with participation from CapitalG for $100 million and rollover from some existing stockholders.
The Commonwealth is one of the world’s oldest political associations of states.
Its roots go back to the British Empire, when countries around the world were ruled by Britain.
Over time different countries of the British Empire gained different levels of freedom from Britain. Semi-independent countries were called Dominions.
The 1926 Imperial Conference was attended by the leaders of Australia, Canada, India, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, New Zealand and South Africa.
At the 1926 conference Britain and the Dominions agreed that they were all equal members of a community within the British Empire. The United Kingdom did not rule over them.
This community was called the British Commonwealth of Nations or just the Commonwealth.
Originally, the Commonwealth members all owed allegiance to the British king or queen.
When India and Pakistan became independent in 1947, King George VI ceased to be Emperor of India. India wanted to become a republic which didn’t owe allegiance to the British king or queen, but it also wanted to stay a member of the Commonwealth.
At a Commonwealth Prime Ministers meeting (the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan and Ceylon, and the Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs) in London in 1949, the London Declaration said that republics and other countries could be part of the Commonwealth.
According to the Declaration, India would be a sovereign independent republic, while continue her full membership of the Commonwealth of Nations and accept of The King as the symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and as such the Head of the Commonwealth.
The modern Commonwealth of Nations was born.
King George VI was the first Head of the Commonwealth, and Queen Elizabeth II became Head when he died.
But the British king or queen is not automatically Head of the Commonwealth. Commonwealth member countries choose who becomes Head of the Commonwealth.
Essentially, the Declaration separates the responsibility of Head of the Commonwealth from the King/Queen.
Meanwhile, there are 16 Commonwealth realms. A Commonwealth Realm (英联邦王国) is a country which has The Queen as its Monarch.
The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 54 independent and equal countries.
The most recently added member is The Gambia, which originally joined on 18 February 1965, withdrew on 3 October 2013, and rejoined on 8 February 2018.
The most recently joined new member is Rwanda in 2009. It is the second country to be admitted without a British colonial past or constitutional link to Britain. Mozambique, which joined in 1995, is the only other Commonwealth member without historic UK ties.
Rwanda will also host the 26th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2020.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is Head of the Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2018 appointed Charles, Prince of Wales to be her designated successor.
Current Charter.
UK’s national flag might be the one that records the most amount of world history.
The official full name of UK is “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”, while Great Britain is the island consisting of England, Scotland, and Wales.
UK’s flag consists of three elements.
The origin of the flag, the Cross of St. George, its association with St. George (the patron saint of England), and its adoption by England lack thorough and clear documentation.
The end result is that St. George finally rose to the position of the primary patron saint of England during the English Reformation when all religious flags, including all saints’ banners except for his were abolished.
The flag is associated with the Cross of St. Andrew. The tradition of Saint Andrew being the patron saint of Scotland develops in the 13th to 14th centuries.
In 1286, when Scotland was ruled by the Guardians of Scotland in the absence of a king, the saint was depicted on the Guardians’ seal, used to authenticate their legal documents and communications to the rest of Europe.
The Parliament of Scotland decreed in 1385 that every Scottish and French soldier (fighting against the English under Richard II) “shall have a sign before and behind, namely a white St. Andrew’s Cross”.
Wales virtually became an English colony after the invasion (The conquest of Wales by Edward I) between 1277 and 1283.
Henry (King Henry VIII of England) was proclaimed King of Ireland by the Crown of Ireland Act 1542, an Act of the Irish Parliament, which placed the new Kingdom of Ireland in personal union with the Kingdom of England.
In 1603, the year of Queen Elizabeth I‘s death, England and Scotland existed as completely separate nations, each with their own monarch and parliament. Elizabeth, being a spinster and therefore childless, expressed a deathbed wish that her cousin, King James VI of Scotland, be named as her successor to the English throne. Thus, the Scottish monarch was projected into the unique position of ruling two nations simultaneously. He ruled Scotland as King James VI and England as King James I.
In 1707, during the reign of Queen Anne, the parliaments of England and Scotland were united to form the new nation of Great Britain, and Anne officially adopted the 101 year old banner as the national flag of the newly created nation.
The St. Patrick’s Saltire, also known as the Cross of St Patrick, after Saint Patrick, the main patron saint of Ireland. “The Saltire became an established Irish symbol in 1783 with the founding of the Order of Saint Patrick by King George III to mark the legislative independence of the Kingdom of Ireland which lasted from 1783 to 1801.
In 1801, when Ireland became a part of Great Britain, the Union Flag was redesigned to include the Cross of St. Patrick (red, diagonal), the patron saint of Ireland. It is in this form that the British flag exists today.
Read the original report here.
| Company | Country | Total Equity Funding ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| OneWeb | United Kingdom | 3469 |
| Klarna | Sweden | 1122 |
| N26 | Germany | 683 |
| Glovo | Spain | 513 |
| BlaBlaCar | France | 449 |
| OutSystems | Portugal | 422 |
| Picnic | Netherlands | 329 |
| Vinted | Lithuania | 260 |
| RELEX Solutions | Finland | 222 |
| AMCS Group | Ireland | 202 |
| Trustpilot | Denmark | 179 |
| Acronis | Switzerland | 178 |
| Bolt | Estonia | 177 |
| Tricentis | Austria | 174 |
| DocPlanner Group | Poland | 137 |
| Odoo | Belgium | 104 |
| Job Today | Luxembourg | 81 |
| ivi | Russian Federation | 81 |
| Kolonial.no | Norway | 61 |
| AImotive | Hungary | 51 |
| Satispay | Italy | 50 |
| Mews Systems | Czech Republic | 42 |
| PDFfiler | Ukraine | 30 |
| Lidyana | Turkey | 25.17 |
| Capital.com | Cyprus | 25 |
| Netdata | Greece | 21 |
| Software Group | Bulgaria | 17 |
| FintechOS | Romania | 16 |
| Gambling.com Group | Malta | 16 |
| Banuba | Belarus | 12 |
| Minit | Slovakia | 11 |
| TripCreator | Iceland | 10 |
| Gjirafa | Albania | 8.7 |
| Mintos | Latvia | 7.8 |
| Gideon Brothers | Croatia | 5.7 |
| Eligma | Slovenia | 4.4 |
| Content Insights | Serbia | 3.6 |
In 2012, Novartis acquired a specialized facility from the former Dendreon for $43 million. Dendreon went bankrupt trying to establish its once-promising prostate cancer vaccine Provenge.
Dendreon’s Morris Plains, New Jersey, facility is a 173,100 square foot state-of-the-art IMF.
In July 2018, before EU approval, Novartis announced that it had signed an agreement with CellforCure, a French CDMO, to produce CAR-T cell therapies. Manufacturing at Cell for Cure’s site in Les Ulis, a city southwest of Paris, would mimic the processes Novartis has in place at its Morris Plains, New Jersey hub.
In August 2018, when Kymriah get approved in EU, Norvartis said it will spend CHF90 million over three years on an existing building at a production site in Stein, Switzerland. Novartis expects to initially have 260 positions and create up to 450 new jobs by 2021.
New manufacturing capacities are keys to scale up revenue and Novartis acknowledged existing production problems with out-of-spec doses.
In September 2018, Novartis paid $40 million for a 9% stake in Cellular Biomedicine Group (CBMG), a Shanghai-based firm which will manufacture CAR-T cell therapy Kymriah for the China market and license select proprietary technology to Novartis for global use.
In December 2018, Novartis went further to acquire CellforCure from LFB including the cell and gene manufacturing facility located in Les Ulis and the related adjacent land.
The Switzerland facility completed the first clinical production batch in September 2019 and inaugurated at the end of November.
In addition to manufacturing areas for novel CAR-T cell therapies, the new building also hosts the production of innovative, difficult-to-manufacture solid dosage forms such as tablets and capsules.
The manufacturing process of personalized cell therapies is more complex than mass production of traditional drugs.
The location is also extremely important which affects turnaround time.
Kite’s original lease of a 18,000 sqft site in Santa Monica supported its clinical trials while its 43,500 Los Angles facility opened in 2016 was designed for commercialization launch.
The El Segundo site is estimated to have the capacity to produce up to 5,000 patient therapies per year. The plant’s location, adjacent to Los Angeles International Airport, is intended to expedite receipt and shipment of engineered T-cells from and to patients across the United States and Europe. According to Kite, the time from when a patient’s materials are shipped to the facility to when the engineered T cells are returned to the patient is approximately 14 days.
When Yescarta was approved in Oct 2017, Gilead’s statement said in the ZUMA-1 pivotal trial, Kite demonstrated a 99 percent manufacturing success rate with a median manufacturing turnaround time of 17 days, which is important to patients given the potential for rapid disease progression in this population.”
In 2018, three month before Yescarta is approved in Europe, Kite leased a new facility in the Netherlands to engineer cell therapies in Europe – a 117,000 square-foot site in Hoofddorp (SEGRO Park Amsterdam Airport). The plant is expected to be operational in 2020 and saving 3-4 days in delivery (from Europe to LA). The current time including international delivery, from apheresis to delivery of Yescarta, is 26-29 days.
Meanwhile, in addition to the Netherlands facility, Kite said it had recently purchased a new building in Santa Monica from Astellas Pharma Inc. that will be used for cell therapy research, development and the expansion of clinical manufacturing capabilities, and has leased a 26,000 square-foot facility in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
In July 2018, it also added Michael Amoroso as Senior Vice President and Head of Worldwide Commercial, Cell Therapy. Mr. Amoroso was leading Ensai’s American commercialization of oncology business; but more importantly, he worked at Celgene on several oncology roles before serving as Commercial Lead, Global Marketing for Celgene’s CAR T programs. His current title is CMO of Kite.
In April 2019, Kite announced plans for a new 20-acre site in Frederick County, Maryland. Kite bought the 20-acre Urbana site in November 2018 for $7.5 million. The facility will have 62,000 square feet of office space and 217,000 square feet of manufacturing, plant, and shipping space.
On Gilead’s 2019 1st quarter earnings call, its new CEO said they will separate Kite into its own business unit.
In July 2019, Kite announced that Christi L. Shaw will join as CEO of Kite. Ms. Shaw was serving as Senior Vice President of Eli Lilly &. Co., and President of Lilly Bio-Medicines.
Later in July 2019, Kite announced plans for a new 67,000-square-foot facility in Oceanside, California, dedicated to the development and manufacturing of viral vectors, a critical starting material in the production of cell therapies. The facility will go live in the second half of 2021.
Back in 2017, when Kymriah by Novartis was first approved by FDA, it marked the beginning of commercializing CAR-T cell therapies in the US.
CAR-T therapies have shown superior effects in treating blood cancers. Kymriah’s initial approved indication is B-cell precursor ALL that is refractory or in second or later relapse for patients up to 25 years of age. There are approximately 3,100 patients aged 20 and younger are diagnosed with ALL each year; 15-20 percent of pediatric B cell precursor ALL patients relapse after their initial remission.
On Aug 28, 11 days after Kymriah’s approval, another CAR-T cell therapy company Kite Pharma was acquired by Gilead for $11.9 billion. The $180.00 per share acquisition price represents a 29% premium to Kite’s closing on Friday, August 25, and a 50% premium to the company’s 30-day volume weighted average stock price.
At the time of acquisition, Kite’s lead candidate was under FDA’s priority review and had submitted the first CAR-T therapy application in Europe for the treatment of relapsed/refractory DLBCL, TFL and PMBCL with the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
On Oct 18, FDA approved Kite’s Yescarta for use in adult patients with large B-cell lymphoma after at least two other kinds of treatment failed, including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma, high grade B-cell lymphoma and DLBCL arising from follicular lymphoma. DLBCL is the most common type of NHL in adults, with 24,000 new cases diagnosed each year in the US (1/3 of newly diagnosed NHL).
Concurrently, in Gilead’s press release, it estimated that in the US each year there are approximately 7,500 patients with refractory DLBCL who are eligible for CAR T therapy.
In May 2018, FDA expanded Kymriah’s approval for adults with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma as well.
In August 2018, Yescarta received European Marketing Authorization for adult patients with relapsed or refractory DLBCL and PMBCL, after two or more lines of systemic therapy; Kymriah was approved in EU for the treatment of pediatric and young adult patients up to 25 years of age with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) that is refractory, in relapse post-transplant or in second or later relapse; and for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory (r/r) diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) after two or more lines of systemic therapy.
In March 2019, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) has approved Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) for the treatment of two distinct indications – CD19-positive relapsed or refractory (r/r) B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and CD19-positive r/r diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL).
Kymriah was first approved by FDA based on 82.5% overall remission rate (ORR) reported at 3 months, of which all were MRD– (n=52/63).
On ASH 2018, Novartis presented an updated ORR rate of 82.3% (n=65/79); relapse-free survival was 62% at 24 months.
Yescarta was approved in 2017 based on an ORR of 72% (n=73/101), with a CR rate of 51%. SAEs Grade 3 or higher occurred in 48 (44%) patients. CRS occurred in 94% of patients; CRS Grade 3 or higher occurred in 13% of patients.
On ASH 2019, Gilead provided updates on ZUMA-1 that median overall survival (OS) was 25.8 months.
When Kymriah was approved for r/r DLBCL in 2018, the overall response rate (ORR) was 50% at 3 months (n=34/68). On ASH 2019, in the 24-month analysis of the JULIET trial, ORR was 52% (N=115).
Suntory’s whiskies, especially Yamazaki, has been in shortage in the past few years; the prices have been increasing constantly.
This week, Suntory unveiled a limited edition 55-year-old Yamazaki single malt whisky, which it will sell for 3 million yen ($27,347.31) a bottle. Only 100 bottles will be sold from June 30, and buyers will be chosen by lottery. Blended from whisky matured in mizunara and white oak casks, the edition will be the oldest version of Yamazaki.
The company in 2005 sold a limited edition of a 50-year-old Yamazaki for 1 million yen. One of them auctioned by Bonhams in Hong Kong in 2018 fetched HK$2.695 million.
In May 2018, it was reported that sales of Hakushu 12 Year and Hibiki 17 Year to be suspended in Jun 2018. Suntory said the demand was far outstripping supply and distillers were not being able to produce enough of it.
Before that, the demand for the Hibiki 12 year has become unsustainable and in 2015 Suntory announced it would be discontinuing the expression.
Currently the most commonly seen versions for Yamazaki are 12yr, 18yr, 30yr and Distiller’s Reserve (no age).
The Distiller’s Reserve version was launched in 2014, containing a range of liquid aged from around eight to 20 years. Blended by Suntory chief blender Shinji Fukuyo, the Yamazaki Distiller’s Reserve is a vatting of whisky matured in French oak Bordeaux wine casks, Sherry casks, mizunara casks (Japanese oak) and American oak casks, with some peated malt added. [thespiritsbusiness]
Yamazaki
Hakushu
Hibiki
Chita
The founder of Suntory, Shinjirō Torii (born in 1879), started with selling imported wine in Osaka in 1899.
Incorporation – the store became the Kotobukiya company in 1921.
In 1923, the Yamazaki Distillery was constructed – Japan’s first malt whisky distillery. It was built in the town called Yamazaki 山崎町 (now in Shisō 宍粟市, Hyōgo 兵库县), on the periphery of Kyoto. This region was formerly referred to as “Minaseno”, where one of the purest waters of Japan originates. Yamazaki Distillery is where the Katsura, Uji and Kizu rivers converge, providing a unique misty climate and one of Japan’s softest waters. The diversity of this region’s temperature and humidity creates ideal conditions for cask aging, known as the signature “Suntory Maturation”.
Production began in 1924 and five years later it launched Japan’s first single-malt whisky Suntory Whisky Shirofuda (white label) in 1929.
Keizo Saji (Torii’s son) becomes 2nd president in 1961 (at age of 42); Shinjirō Torii passed away in 1962.
In 1963, Kotobukiya changed its name to “Suntory” from “Torysan”, taken from the name of the whisky it produces.
In the same year, Musashino Beer Factory (in Fuchū 府中市, Tokyo 东京都) began its production of the Suntory Beer.
In 1972, Keizo built Chita Distillery on the shores of Chita Peninsula (Chita 知多市, Aichi 爱知县).
In 1973, Hakushu Distillery was established, in the Toribara locality of the former town of Hakushū 白州町 (now part of Hokuto 北杜市 in Yamanashi 山梨县), It is located in the foothills of Mt. Kaikomagatake.
Until the 1980s, whisky made at Yamazaki was bottled as Suntory blends. It began to market their distilleries in the way the Scottish market theirs, by branding the whisky for the distillery at which it is made. [Japanese Whisky Handbook by Gary Clark]
Saji pioneered the distillery’s move into single malt whisky in 1984, with the launch of Suntory Single Malt Whisky Yamazaki – the first time Yamazaki is used as the brand name. This was followed by Yamazaki 18 Years Old in 1992. [thespiritsbusiness]
In 1989, the 90th anniversary of the company’s founding, Suntory Hibiki was released. It is a blended whisky using whiskies from the three distilleries Yamazaki, Hakushu, and Chita.
Shinichiro Torii becomes the 3rd president in 1990.
In 1994, Hakushu Single Malt Whisky is launched.
In 2003, the Yamazaki 12 Years single malt whisky became the first Japanese whisky to win the gold medal at the International Spirits Challenge, the most authoritative liquor competition in the world.
