Speeding Into Luxury

Zeekr Shifts Gears With New Funding, Lemon Perfect Looks to Squeeze Out Success, and Kainos Makes a Billion Dollar Bet.

Author

Adam from VC Brags
February 13, 2023

Welcome Shareholders,

In this daily edition of the Brags Newsletter, we'll cover the latest on a Luxury EV Maker speeding into the market with new funding, a beverage company getting a big sip of success with its latest funding, and a Dallas-based private equity firm breaking records with its third fund.

So sit back, grab a snack, and enjoy!

Startup of the Day

  • Zeekr, the luxury brand of China's largest private market automaker Geely, is raising $750 million at a $13 billion valuation through a Series A just two years after being founded.

Investors in the round include Mobileye's founder and CEO Ammon Shashua, Chinese Battery Giant and Tesla Supplier CATL, Yuexiu Industrial Fund, Tongshang Fund, and Xin'an Intelligent Manufacturing Fund (which are state-owned investment vehicles). The funding is expected to be used to support the company's R&D and global expansion.

Zeekr has been aggressively expanding over the past year, now having 3,000 open positions across 30 cities in the world, including in R&D centers in Ningbo and Shanghai in China, and Gothenburg, Sweden. The funding comes a year after the company's last round, when it raised $500 million from investors, including Intel's corporate VC arm, CATL, and Chinese user-generated video site Bilibili. Zeekr has also been contemplating a US IPO, with reports that the company was planning to raise $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation sometime this year.

  • Atlanta-based Hydration Company Lemon Perfect has raised $37 million from investors in a new funding round that values the company at $150 million.

Investors in the round include Skyview Capital, Beechwood Capital, Melitas Ventures, LivWell Ventures, Riverside Ventures, and RCV Frontline. Founded in 2017 by former basketball coach Hufnagel, the sugar-free lemon water maker has quickly become a viral hit.

Lemon Perfect's new valuation represents a 50% jump compared to its last round when it raised $31 million from investors. The company was last targeting retail sales of $60 million in 2022 but hasn't disclosed numbers after its latest funding.

Who's Raising?

  • Private equity firm Kainos Capital said that it had raised the largest fund to date, with $1 billion in capital commitments for the Kainos Capital III LP.

Kainos, which primarily focuses on making investments across the food and consumer sectors, saw significant commitments and referrals from existing investors. The fund said that it would target family-owned businesses and corporate carveouts for companies in the food and consumer products sector with a minimum of $10 million in EBITDA.

The fund said that it could commit in excess of $300 million on a single transaction and potentially more with its co-investment program. The firm's previous portfolio companies include weight management products focused SlimFast, fresh produce supplier Country Fresh, private label spices maker Olde Thompson, and soup and meal solutions firm Kettle Cuisine.

Memes and Other Things

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