Ramp Hits $13B

Hermit Mode, CoreWeave, MrBeast, Bitwise, Eikon, NinjaOne, Shop Circle, Lovable, Quantum Machines

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Hello from Fiji.. 🌴

Where I am living for the next couple of weeks on a secluded, ‘locked-in,’ ‘productivity retreat’ devoted to making this tech & VC newsletter/podcast 100x better. If you are interested in learning more about my whereabouts.. here you go.

DM me if you’re here!

That being said, change is coming. We’re making cuts. Choose wisely..

Musings

Apart from the weird surge in military startups funded below, Musings this week went a little wild.

Macro

• The Time and Money Company: Behind Ramp's $13 Billion Valuation [Eric Glyman Co-founder & CEO]

• CoreWeave reveals 737% 2024 revenue surge to $1.92B in US IPO filing [Reuters]

• With nearly 10M views.. Elon Musk on JRE

• Why Robinhood is Ripping | is robinhood's position as fintech's new main character all hype — or all substance? [Pirate Wires]

AI

• Building Granola [Invest like the best]

• Grok 3, AI Memory & Voice, China, DOGE, Public Market Pull Back [BG2 w/ Bill Gurley & Brad Gerstner]

• Jonathan Ross, Founder & CEO @ Groq: NVIDIA vs Groq - The Future of Training vs Inference [20VC]

HardTech

• America’s Industrial Reboot: A Massive Tech Opportunity [Coatue]

• Radiation as a service: How the private sector can protect America’s space infrastructure [J.C. Btaiche]

More

• Jeff Bezos Shakes Up The Washington Post, Media Collapse, and Reddit Is Pro-Terrorist [Pirate Wires]

• How Tech Created the Online Fact-Checking Industry [Pirate Wires]

  • Interviews with 'trust and safety' workers at meta, tiktok, snapchat, google, and other tech companies reveal a broken system that collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions

• Epstein Files Flop, State of the Market, Autonomous Robots, Trump's Gold Card, Friedberg on Jeopardy [All-In]

• The infamous Fyre Festival is set to return, with tickets reaching $1.1 million for the highest-tier package.

• Trump said the US would soon roll out a $5 million “gold card” visa, offering permanent residency and a pathway to citizenship for wealthy foreigners.

Top Interviews

• Packy McCormick, Not Boring | Investing in Ramp, Scale AI, Replit, Varda, Fuse, Hadrian, Earth AI

• Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour | The Future of Prediction Markets + Raising $110M From Investors Like Sequoia

• The Viral Gen Z App backed by Jeff Bezos, Marc Benioff & Dara Khosrowshahi | Dylan Diamond, CEO of Saturn

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Last Week (2/24-2/28):

Relevant deals include the 70+ deals across stages below. I've categorized the deals below into seven categories, Fintech, Care, Enterprise / Consumer, HardTech, Sustainability, Acquisition/PE, and Fund Announcements, and ordered from later-stage rounds to early-stage rounds.

Highlighted VC Deals include:

CoreWeave, MrBeast, Bitwise, Eikon, NinjaOne, Shop Circle, Lovable, Quantum Machines

Acquisitions & PE

Just Salad, Celsius/Alani, Motorola/RapidDeploy, MongoDB/Voyage AI

Funds

Footwork, Perplexity

Final Numbers

NVIDIA Revenue per Employee

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VC Deals

Fintech:

- Bitwise, a crypto-focused asset manager, raised $70m led by Electric Capital, with participation from MassMutual, Highland Capital, MIT Investment Management Co., Haun Ventures, ParaFi Capital, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, Blockchain Coinvestors, and Nikesh Arora.

- Taktile, a New York City-based decision automation platform for financial services, raised $54 million in Series B funding. Balderton Capital led the round and was joined by existing investors Index Ventures, Tiger Global, Y Combinator, and others.

- Metronome, an SF-based provider of usage-based billing for software companies, raised $50m in Series C funding led by insider NEA. Other backers include a16z, General Catalyst, Workday Ventures, Greyhound Capital, Truebridge Capital Partners, Activant Capital, SineWave Ventures, and Megalith Ventures.

- Auditoria.AI, a San Jose-based AI agent for CFO offices, raised $38 million in funding. Innovius Capital led the round and was joined by Dell Technologies Capital, Sentinel Global, and existing investors Venrock, NeoTribe Ventures, Engineering Capital, and KPMG Ventures.

- Capim, a Sao Paulo-based financial solutions provider for the dental sector, raised $26.7 million in Series A funding. QED Investors and Valor Capital led the round and was joined by Endeavor, Saison, Actyus, and existing investors ONEVC, Canary, and NXTP.

- Venn, a Toronto-based Canadian banking platform, raised $21.5 million in Series A funding. Left Lane Capital led the round and was joined by XYZ Venture Capital, Intact Ventures, and Gradient.

- Subscript, a San Francisco-based revenue management platform for B2B SaaS companies, raised $15 million in Series A funding. Pelion led the round and was joined by First Round Capital, Kapor Capital, Forum Ventures, and Fresco Capital.

- Venn, a Canadian business banking and expense manage startup, raised US$15 million in Series A funding led by Left Lane Capital

- Vayu, a Tel Aviv-based revenue and billing management platform for B2B companies, raised $7 million in seed funding round. Flint Capital and The Garage led the round and were joined by existing investors Fresh.Fund, Secret Chord Ventures, and angel investors.

- Ethos, a New York City-based model risk management platform, raised $6 million in seed funding. Canapi Ventures led the round and was joined by Capital One Ventures and Better Tomorrow Ventures.

- Raise, a crypto platform for gift cards, raised $63m. Haun Ventures led, and was joined by Paper Ventures, Selini Capital, and GSR Ventures.

- Adaptive Insurance, an Austin-based AI-powered climate insurance solutions provider, raised $5 million in seed funding. Congruent Ventures led the round and was joined by Montauk Climate, Generation Space, and others.

- Quanta, a San Francisco-based AI-powered accounting service provider for software businesses, raised $4.7 million in seed funding. Accel led the round and was joined by basecase, Comma Capital, Designer Fund, Operator Collective, and angel investors.

Care:

- Eikon Therapeutics, a Hayward, Calif.-based drug discovery biotech, raised $350.7 million in Series D funding. Lux Capital led the round and was joined by Alexandria Venture Investments, The Column Group, Foresite Capital, and General Catalyst.

- Loyal, a San Francisco-based longevity drugs for dogs developer, raised $22 million in Series B-2 funding from Valor Equity Partners, Collaborative Fund, and others.

- Patlytics, a New York-based patent analytics platform, raised $14m in Series A funding. Next47 led, and was joined by Gradient Ventures, 8VC, Alumni Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, and Myriad Venture Partners.

- Charta Health, a San Francisco-based AI automated chart review and medical billing platform, raised $8.1 million in seed funding led by Bain Capital Ventures and was joined by SV Angel, South Park Commons, SpringRock Ventures, Refract Ventures, and angel investors.

- Ignota Labs, a Cambridge, England-based company rescuing failed drug development projects, raised $6.9 million in seed funding. Montage Ventures and AIX Ventures led the round and were joined by Modi Ventures, Blue Wire Capital, and Gaingels.

- Sonar Mental Health, a Sacramento-based AI-powered mental health platform for students, raised $2.4 million in pre-seed funding. Nina Capital led the round and was joined by GSR Ventures, J4 Ventures, and the Stanford University Social Impact Founder Fellowship.

- SimCare AI, a Chicago-based AI-powered clinical training platform, raised $2 million in seed funding. Y Combinator and Drive Capital led the round and were joined by Harper Court Ventures Fund, Singularity Capital, Triple S Ventures, and others.

Enterprise/Consumer:

- MrBeast (aka Jimmy Donaldson) is seeking to raise "a couple hundred million dollars" at a $5b valuation

- NinjaOne, an Austin, Texas-based IT platform for endpoint visibility, raised $500m in Series C extension funding at a $5b valuation co-led by Iconiq Growth and CapitalG.

- Shop Circle, a London-based provider of e-commerce software for brands, raised $60m in Series B funding. Nextalia Ventures led, and was joined by Endeavor Catalyst, along with existing investors such NFX, QED Investors, 645 Ventures, 3VC, and i80 Group.

- Taktile, a New York-based automated business decision engine, raised $54m in Series B funding. Balderton Capital led, and was joined by insiders Index Ventures, Tiger Global, YC, Prosus Ventures, Visionaries Club, and Larry Summers.

- Mimic, a Palo Alto-based ransomware defense technology developer, raised $50 million in Series A funding. GV and Menlo Ventures led the round and were joined by existing investors Ballistic Ventures, Team8, Wing Ventures, and Shield Capital.

- Relay, a London-based e-commerce technology developer, raised $35 million in Series A funding. Plural led the round and was joined by existing investors Project A and Prologis Ventures.

- Bridgetown Research, a Seattle-based business research AI agents developer, raised $19 million in Series A funding. Lightspeed and Accel led the round and were joined by others.

- Workhelix, a Palo Alto-based AI deployment and impact measurement platform, raised $15 million in Series A funding. AIX Ventures led the round and was joined by Andrew Ng’s AI Fund, Accenture Ventures, BGV, and others.

- Edera, a Seattle-based workload isolation technology developer, raised $15 million in Series A funding. M12 led the round and was joined by Mantis VC, IQT, existing investors Eniac Ventures, 645 Ventures, FPV Ventures, and others.

- Lovable, a Swedish developer of an "AI fullstack engineer," raised $15m in pre-Series A funding led by Creandum.

- RAD Security, a San Francisco-based cloud infrastructure security provider, raised $14 million in Series A funding. Cheyenne Ventures led the round and was joined by Forgepoint Capital, Lytical Ventures, Akamai, and existing investors .406 Ventures, Vertex Ventures, and Gula Tech Adventures.

- Patlytics, a San Francisco-based AI-powered patent platform, raised $14 million in Series A funding. Next47 led the round and was joined by existing investors Gradient, 8VC, Alumni Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, and Myriad Venture Partners.

- Goose, a Chicago-based operating system developer for pet care providers, raised $13.4 million in seed funding from B Capital, First Round Capital, The 81 Collection, and others.

- HouseWhisper, a workflow management assistant for real estate agents, raised nearly $10m in seed funding from Mayfield, PSL Ventures, and 75 and Sunny Ventures.

- Anagram, a New York City-based security training platform for employees, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Madrona led the round and was joined by existing investors General Catalyst, Bloomberg Beta, Operator Partners, and Secure Octane.

- Highstock, a New York City-based unsold inventory platform for wholesale buyers, raised $5.5 million in seed funding. Greylock led the round and was joined by Max Mullen.

- Firstwork, a San Francisco-based AI-powered frontline workers workforce management platform, raised $5 million in seed funding. Gradient led the round and was joined by YCombinator, SOMA Capital, 468 Capital, and others.

- Musubi, a Santa Barbara-based AI-powered content moderation platform, raised $5 million in seed funding. J2 Ventures led the round and was joined by Shakti Ventures, Mozilla Ventures, and existing investor J Ventures.

- Henry AI, a New York City-based AI-powered commercial real estate analyst, raised $4.3 million in seed funding. Susa Ventures and 1Sharpe Ventures led the round and were joined by RXR, Arden Venture Arms, Singularity Capital, and others.

- Breakout, a San Francisco-based AI-powered sales rep developer, raised $3.3 million in seed funding. Village Global led the round and was joined by Recall Capital, Z21 Ventures, and angel investors.

- WilsonAI, a Dover, Del.-based AI legal assistant, raised $1.7 million in pre-seed funding. Nomad Ventures led the round and was joined by Autopilot Ventures, Entrepreneur First, Transpose, angel investors.

HardTech:

- Quantum Machines, a Tel Aviv-based quantum control solutions provider, raised $170 million in Series C funding. PSG Equity led the round and was joined by Intel Capital, Red Dot Capital Partners, and existing investors.

- Skylo, a Mountain View, Calif.-based satellite connectivity company, raised $30 million in funding. NGP Capital led the round and was joined by Westly Group, existing investors Intel Capital, BMW i Ventures, Samsung Catalyst Fund, Next47, and others.

- VerAI Discoveries, a Boston-based AI-powered mineral assets discovery platform, raised $24 million in Series B funding. Insight Partners led the round and was joined by existing investors Blumberg Capital, Chrysalix Venture Capital, and Orion Industrial Ventures.

- Albert Invent, an Oakland-based AI-powered research and development platform for chemical innovation, raised $20 million in funding, valuing the company at $270 million. J.P. Morgan Private Capital’s Growth Equity Partners led the round and was joined by Coatue and TCV.

- Cambium, a Halethorpe, Md.-based supply chain platform for the wood industry, raised $18.5 million in Series A funding. VoLo Earth Ventures led the round and was joined by NEA, Dangerous Ventures, Tunitas Ventures, existing investors MaC Venture Capital, Rise of the Rest, 81 Collection, and others.

- Magdrive, an Oxfordshire, England-based satellite propulsion technology developer, raised $10.5 million in seed funding. VC Redalpine led the round and was joined by Balerion, Founders Fund, Alumni Ventures, and others.

- Claros, a McLean, Va.-based power management company, raised $9.8 million in funding from Red Cell Partners, General Catalyst, Virginia Venture Partners, Composite Capital Partners, and others.