Sourcery 🌳 Unicorn Counting, AI in Film, Apple Vision Pro
(1/15-1/19) Recraft, Digital Onboarding, Flowdesk, Fullcast, Kassable, Carmoola, PredictAP, Briq, Forta, Panacea Financial, weavix, Vicarious, Overmoon
South Bay x SoCal Zen
Embracing the South Bay this weekend, we watched Silicon Valley and hiked the Stanford Dish. The Dish might be one of the best ascend/descend mixes we’ve tried, it has gorgeous views, and while it’s oddly paved, it’s a pretty solid post-rain option.. I can understand why Steve Jobs hiked this frequently.
And in the spirit of LA, we meditated with our favorite new wellness device Therabody’s SmartGoggles (aka eye massager), kind of similar to an Apple Vision Pro? But they’re a 1/20th of the price & you’re eyes are closed 😂. Lastly, we utilized a gift card to this amazing wellness spa in Redwood City called SoliVana for the infrared sauna + cold plunge (no chance), and float tank (incredible zero gravity experience). Overall, not so bad for a rainy weekend!
Okay, now that we’re zen, let’s get back to tech madness
Unicorns are being rounded up (or shall we say audited?), starting with Cowboy Ventures’ latest report on the state of the $1 billion startups. Meanwhile, Battery Ventures recorded a 2x unicorn round-up in their OpenCloud 2023 presentation. AI is pushing all industries to innovate, including the creative arts & film, to rethink their org charts and long-term strategy as copilots and specialized models increase the productivity of the individual. Lastly, the Apple Vision Pro hit it big, and the manufacturing promo video was a star performer.
Musings
Battle of Unicorns
Welcome Back to the Unicorn Club, 10 Years Later, Cowboy Ventures
Aileen Lee, GP of Cowboy Ventures, coined the term “unicorn” to define $1 billion startup over 10 years ago and is back with an updated report, growing the herd from 39 in 2013 → 532 as of 2023
Unicorns aren’t out of the woods yet as the market shifts from valuation to scale, Battery Ventures
However, 2x to Cowboy Ventures, on slide 10 of Battery Ventures’ OpenCloud Report 2023, the team analyzed the market and found over 1,000 total companies with unicorn status.
Credit to whoever picked out all of those company logos in PNG format and added them to this slide below. Your work doesn’t go unnoticed.
Macro
Series A valuations, M&A in 2024, and M.A.N.G with Jason Shuman of Primary Ventures, David Weisburd of 10X Capital & Raja Doddala of Churchill Asset Management, TWIS
Investing in companies without product-market fit at a $50 million post-valuation is unlikely to yield good returns, making earlier-stage investments a potentially better vintage for investors.
Strategic investments by major tech companies like Microsoft & Nvidia in startups can distort valuations & may result in complex financial outcomes, including “double-counted equity value.”
Live from Davos! Milei goes viral, Adam Neumann's headwinds, streaming's broken model & more, All-In Podcast
AI
Pixar Co-Founder on AI and Storytelling, Motley Fool
Ed Catmull is a computer scientist – and a force of creativity. He helped bring to life beloved, generation-defining movies like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, and more.
Sharing insights on: don’t ignore the obvious, prepare, listen, & research rising trends, experience & training at Lucasfilm, response to Jeffrey Katzenberg on the rate of change & implications of AI on animated films, the greater importance of artists, creatives, & talented storytellers, and the lowered barrier to entry for creating anything just makes it cheaper, doesn’t make it automatically better
Check out highlights in our tweet → here
Cohere, a Toronto-based generative AI platform for enterprises, is in talks to raise up to US$1 billion in new funding, per the FT.
Cohere has raised around $440 million, including last summer at a $2.2 billion valuation, from firms like Index Ventures, Inovia, Nvidia, Oracle, Tiger Global, Salesforce Ventures, Thomvest Ventures, and Radical Ventures.
HardTech
Apple Vision Pro Sold Out, At Least For Pre-Order, Forbes
Vision Pro sales are estimated at 160k to 180k over the first 3 days for the $3,499-$3,899 VR device
As an Oculus Beat Saber fan, we’d be excited to try this out but we can’t justify the entry cost, can they lower it down to $199 like the rabbit?
. . .
Last Week (1/15-1/19):
Relevant deals include the 60+ deals across stages below.
I've categorized the deals below into five categories, FinTech, Care, Enterprise & Consumer, HardTech, and Sustainability, and ordered from later-stage rounds to early-stage rounds. Highlighted deals include Recraft, Digital Onboarding, Flowdesk, Fullcast, Kassable, Carmoola, PredictAP, Briq, Forta, Panacea Financial, weavix, Vicarious, Overmoon, Kusari, Chronosphere, Infield, Quantinuum, Lightship, Xyte, Digital Infrastructure Inc, Farm-ng; Snyk/Helios, L Catterton/Sploot Veterinary Care, Accertify; Reddit
Final numbers on America Now Imports More From Mexico Than China at the bottom.
Deals
Fintech:
- Digital Onboarding, a Boston-based customer engagement platform for banks and credit unions, raised $58m from Volition Capital. https://axios.link/48AI5aj
- Flowdesk, a Paris-based digital asset trading firm, raised $50m in Series B funding. Cathay Innovation led, and was joined by Cathay Ledger Fund, Eurazeo, ISAI, Speedinvest, BPI, and Ripple. www.flowdesk.co
- Fullcast, a Redmond, Wash.-based provider of revenue ops software, raised $34m in seed funding. Epic Ventures led, and was joined by Companyon Ventures, Firsthand Alliance, True Blue Partners, and Sepio Capital. https://axios.link/3O69jNO
- Kashable, a New York City-based platform that provides credit and financial wellness solutions as an employer-sponsored voluntary benefit, raised $25.6 million in Series B funding. Revolution Ventures and Moneta Ventures led the round and were joined by EJF Capital and Krillion Ventures.
- Carmoola, a London, U.K.-based direct-to-consumer car financing platform, raised £15.5 million ($19.6 million) in funding from QED Investors, AlleyCorp, VentureFriends, InMotion Ventures, and u.ventures.
- PredictAP, a Boston, Mass.-based platform designed to automate aspects of the invoice process for real estate accounting departments, raised $8 million in Series A funding. RET Ventures led the round and was joined by Wise Ventures.
- Briq, a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based financial workflow automation startup for construction companies, raised $8m in Series B extension funding at a $150m valuation from MetaProp, Tiger Global, Blackhorn and Eniac. https://axios.link/48DQdH6
- Tandem, a Chicago-based money management app for couples, raised $3.7m in seed funding led by Corazon Capital. www.usetandem.com
- Renzo, an Ethereum restaking protocol, raised $3.2m in seed funding. Maven11 Capital led, and was joined by Figment Capital, SevenX Ventures, and IOSG Ventures. https://axios.link/3tMtqtA
- Lative, a Dublin, Ireland-based software provider designed to help B2B revenue teams automate the sales planning and execution process, raised $3 million in seed funding. Elkstone Ventures led the round and was joined by Enterprise Ireland, Handshake Ventures, WestWave Capital, and others.
- Truewind, an accounting co-pilot startup, raised $1m from Thomson Reuters Ventures, per Axios Pro. https://axios.link/48GhOax
. . .
Care:
- Forta, a San Francisco-based company looking to improve access to clinical care through the use of AI, raised $55 million in Series A funding. Insight Partners led the round and was joined by Exor Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and others.
- Panacea Financial, a Little Rock, Ark.-based financial services platform for doctors, dentists, and veterinarians, raised $24.5 million in Series B funding from Valar Ventures.
- weavix, a Wichita, Kan.-based employee communication, efficiency, and safety platform for frontline workers, raised $23.6 million in Series B funding. Insight Partners led the round and was joined by Four More Capital, The Friedkin Group, and Perkins Cole.
- NEXT Life Sciences, a San Luis Obispo, Calif.-based developer of a non hormonal male contraceptive, raised $2.5 million in seed funding. The Family led the round and was joined by Transform VC and others.
. . .
Enterprise & Consumer:
- Vicarius, a New York City-based developer of software designed to autonomously remediate security vulnerabilities in software, raised $30 million in Series B funding. Bright Pixel led the round and was joined by AllegisCyber Capital, AlleyCorp, Strait, and others.
- Prismatic, a Sioux Falls, S.D.-based platform designed to help B2B teams integrate other apps and software their customers use, raised $22 million in Series B funding from Five Elms Capital.
- Recraft, a London, U.K.-based AI graphic design generator, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Khosla Ventures and Nat Friedman led the round and were joined by RTP Global, Abstract VC, Basis Set Ventures, Elad Gil, and angel investors.
- GolfForever, a Snowmass, Colo.-based developer of an at-home golf training system, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Clerisy led the round and was joined by Scottie Scheffler and Tom Kim.
- Overmoon, a San Rafael, Calif.-based vacation rental platform, raised $10m from NFX, Khosla Ventures, Camber Creek, 1Sharpe, and Sunsar Capital. https://axios.link/3vDzDIN
- Kusari, a Ridgefield, Conn.-based security platform designed to repair supply chain vulnerabilities, raised $8 million across pre-seed and seed funding rounds. J2 Ventures and Glasswing Ventures led the seed round and were joined by Unusual Ventures.
- Talofa Games, a San Francisco-based game developer, raised $6.3 million in seed funding. Chamaeleon led the round and was joined by a16z, Basis Set Ventures, Insight Partners, and others.
- Chronosphere, a New York City-based platform designed to help observability teams resolve incidents before they impact customers, raised $5 million in funding from CrowdStrike.
- Infield, a New York-based dependency management tool for developers, raised $3m in seed funding. Foundation Capital led, and was joined by YC and Firsthand Alliance. https://axios.link/3SoIJ5e
. . .
HardTech:
- Quantinuum, a Broomfield, Colo.-based developer and provider of quantum computing technology, raised $300 million in funding. JPMorgan Chase led the round and was joined by Mitsui, Honeywell, Amgen, and others.
- Lightship, a San Francisco and Boulder, Colo.-based manufacturer of all-electric RVs, raised $34 million in Series B funding. Obvious Ventures and Prelude Ventures led the round and were joined by Allegis Capital, THOR Industries, TechNexus Venture Collaborative, and existing investors Congruent Ventures, HyperGuap, and Alumni Ventures.
- Xyte, a Tel Aviv, Israel and Mountain View, Calif.-based platform designed to help manufacturers commercialize their hardware into a service, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Intel Capital led the round and was joined by Samsung Next and existing investors S Capital and Mindset Ventures.
- Digital Infrastructure Inc, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based platform where drivers can share vehicle data and earn rewards, raised $11.5 million in Series A funding. CoinFund led the round and was joined by Slow Ventures, Consensys Mesh, and others.
- Farm-ng, a Watsonville, Calif.-based developer of battery-powered farming robots, raised $10m Series A in funding. Acre Venture Partners led, and was joined by Xplorer Capital and HawkTower. https://axios.link/3HmFlBt
- The Realest, a Los Angeles, Calif.-based memorabilia marketplace and provider of authentication services, raised $4.6 million in seed funding. KB Partners led the round and was joined by BAM Ventures, NFX, Slow Ventures, FLÜS Investment Group, and others.
Acquisitions & PE:
- Snyk, a Boston-based developer security company valued by VCs at $7.4b, acquired Helios, an application runtime data capture company. www.snyk.io
- H.I.G. Capital acquired Patriot Pickle, a Wayne, N.J.-based manufacturer and distributor of pickles,
from Swander Pace Capital. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- L Catterton acquired a minority stake in Sploot Veterinary Care, a Denver, Colo.-based veterinary care platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- MPearlRock acquired nutpods, a Bellevue, Wash.-based producer of plant-based coffee creamer. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Accel-KKR agreed to acquire Accertify, an Itasca, Ill.-based provider of fraud prevention, chargeback management, and other protection services for businesses, from American Express (NYSE: AXP). Financial terms were not disclosed.
- LiveRamp (NYSE: RAMP) agreed to acquire Habu, a San Francisco, Calif.-based platform designed for brands and media companies to share customer data with business partners and publishers, for approximately $200 million in cash and stock.
- Uber is shutting down Drizly, an alcohol delivery service it bought three years ago for $1.1 billion, as Axios was first to report yesterday.
- Accenture (NYSE: ACN) acquired Impendi, a New York-based provider of sourcing and procurement services to private equity clients. www.impendi.com
- Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) agreed to make a minority investment in Diamond Sports Group, the country's largest regional sports network, as part of a bankruptcy reorganization plan. https://axios.link/3Sjwo23
. . .
IPOs:
- Reddit, a San Francisco-based social media platform, plans to sell approximately 10% of its shares in an IPO in March, per Reuters. The company confidentially filed to go public in 2021, and was valued near $10 billion in a funding round the same year. Reddit is an independent subsidiary of Advance Publications.
Funds:
- Aramco, the Saudi oil giant, is injected an additional $4b into its venture capital arm. https://axios.link/47DNzj5
- Thomvest Ventures, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, raised $250 million in funding for a new fund focused on the financial and real estate technology, cybersecurity, cloud, and AI infrastructure sectors.
- Act One Ventures, a Los Angeles, Calif.-based venture capital firm, raised $73 million for its third fund focused on business software companies.
Walled off
China’s ongoing trade war with the US — which has involved disputes and tariffs over everything from steel to washing machines, corn to cars, and has most recently focused on the increasingly important semiconductor industry — has accelerated China’s transition to a domestically-focused economy. Indeed, as we charted about last year, China is no longer America’s largest source of goods imports.
Bear in a China shop
Figures from the US Census Bureau reveal that, with data recorded up until the end of November, the US had imported just $393bn of goods from China in 2023, down a staggering 21% on the year before, and only just ahead of the $388bn that the US imported from Canada. Furthermore, on Wednesday, China’s stock market had its worst trading day since 2022, as investors sold on concerns about Chinese real estate, slowing growth, and demographics.
Xi Jinping wants China to untangle itself from the western world, building a more domestic-focused China to solidify his position at home. That is a tricky tightrope to walk when hundreds of millions of people have come to rely on the prosperity wrought by a booming economy — and it’s made even more difficult to navigate when demographic winds shift strongly against you.
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P.S. we just got some Holographic Stickers that ship faster than the Apple Vision Pro.
The material presented on Molly O’Shea’s website are my opinions only and are provided for informational purposes and should not be construed as investment advice. It is not a recommendation of, or an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy, any particular security, strategy, or investment product. Any analysis or discussion of investments, sectors or the market generally are based on current information, including from public sources, that I consider reliable, but I do not represent that any research or the information provided is accurate or complete, and it should not be relied on as such. My views and opinions expressed in any website content are current at the time of publication and are subject to change. Past performance is not indicative of future results.