Sourcery ✨ 6k!, El Segundo Hackathon, OpenAI Sora
(2/12-2/16) 🥳 Lambda, Bugcrowd, HighArc, Antithesis, Meter, Scribe, Mindy, Nasdaq Private Market, Analog, Flow, Logo, PatientFi, Anatomy, RapidClaims, Flower Labs, Clarity, Knock, Overworld
Happy Wednesday
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Musings
Macro
Maybe Abercrombie & Fitch should replace Tesla in the 'Magnificent Seven' [Quartz]
Foundry Group is shutting down and won’t raise another fund [TechCrunch]
Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures and Samir Kaji on the 2024 Venture Market, IPOS, and Secondaries [TWIS]
AI
OpenAI launches Sora, their text-to-video model [OpenAI, X]
Sora can create videos of up to 60 seconds featuring highly detailed scenes, complex camera motion, and multiple characters with vibrant emotions.
OpenAI valued at $80B after tender offer deal led by Thrive Capital [Reuters]
Employees will be able to cash out their shares of the company rather than a traditional funding round which would raise money for the business
No, Sam Altman Isn’t Raising Trillions of Dollars For Chips [The Information]
Gemini Pro 1.5, the next version of its AI model with a 1,000,000+ token context length [Rowan Cheung, X]
Masayoshi Son Seeks to Build a $100 Billion AI Chip Venture [Bloomberg]
SoftBank has $41 billion cash pile and finances helped by Arm. Undertaking code-named Izanagi after Japanese god of creation
Future of the Internet
Chris Dixon on the Future of the Internet, Crypto, and Web3 [Moment of Zen]
Commerce
Coinbase bought ad space on the side of Liquid Death boxes [Coinbase on Linkedin]
Priced around ~$1/case for hopefully 200M grocery shoppers, let’s hope it’s not the bottom of the box 😂
Fun
We started playing this pictionary-esque GenAI Image guessing game Depicto.ai [Join our group]
If you have fun with riddles & image prompting try it out!
El Segundo Hackathon (Reported by Jacques @Upfront)
The El Segundo defense tech hackathon was the LA HardTech event of the year. The energy, drive, & ambition were palpable - it was incredible to see a new generation of young engineers choosing to orient their skills and careers towards rebuilding the industrial base versus the traditional big software company route. Plenty of caffeine, nicotine, and memes, but real building was going on - the winning team built a fixed-wing drone with optical sensors that could map an area and reference the data against pre-existing mapping data to enable navigation in GPS-denied environments. Not your typical hackathon!
Check out the recent WP profile on the iron-pumping founders in the ‘Gundo: How Silicon Valley learned to love America, drones and glory
. . .
Last Week (2/12-2/16):
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 VC deals include
Lambda, Bugcrowd, HighArc, Antithesis, Meter, Scribe, Mindy, Nasdaq Private Market, Analog, Flow, Logo, PatientFi, Anatomy, RapidClaims, Flower Labs, Clarity, Knock, Overworld, Guardrails AI, Seal Security, Skylo, LeoLabs, Quilter, Arch, Hippo Harvest, Rimere
Acquisitions & PE
Notion/Skiff, Salesloft/Drift, Perforce/Delphix
Final numbers on Mr Beast’s Businesses at the bottom.
Deals
Fintech:
- Nasdaq Private Market, a provider of liquidity solutions to private companies, raised $62.4M in Series B funding led by Nasdaq with participation from BNP Paribas, DRW VC, UBS, and Wells Fargo. [NPM]
- Analog, San Francisco, CA provider of cross-chain communication mechanisms, raised $16M in funding from Tribe Capital, Outliers Fund, NEAR, and Black Label Media. [Bitcoin.com]
- FlowFi, Los Angeles, CA marketplace of finance experts for entrepreneurs, raised $9M in seed funding led by Blumberg Capital with participation from Parade Ventures, Precursor Ventures, Special Ventures, 14 Peaks Capital, and Cooley LLP. [TechCrunch]
- Rogo, New York City generative AI platform designed for financial institutions, raised $7 million in seed funding led by AlleyCorp with participation from Company Ventures, BoxGroup, and ScOp Ventures. [Rogo]
- Mia Share, Salt Lake City, UT tuition solutions for trade and technical schools, raised $6.5M in seed funding led by TTV Capital with participation from CreativeCo Capital, Nine Four Ventures, Innovating Capital, and WYVC.
- Cascading AI, San Francisco, CA nextgen AI-enabled loan origination platform, raised $3.9M in pre-seed funding led by Peterson Ventures with participation from YC, The Sarah Smith Fund, and Clocktower Technology Ventures.
. . .
Care:
- PatientFi, Irvine, CA financing platform for elective procedures raised $25M from Questa Capital. [BusinessWire]
- Anatomy Financial, San Francisco, CA provider of AI-enabled financial solutions for medical and healthcare billing companies, raised $7.6M in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Meridian Street Capital, Live Oak Ventures, Cambrian Ventures and Peterson Ventures. [BusinessWire]
- RapidClaims, New York City-based provider of AI-powered medical claim automation software, raised $3.1M in seed funding. Together Fund led the round and was joined by Better Capital, Neon Fund, Peercheque, and DeVC.
- Spacegoods, London, U.K. nootropics and functional mushrooms brand, raised £2.5M ($3.1M) in seed funding led by Five Seasons Ventures with participation from Redrice Ventures, Slingshot Ventures, and G-FUND.
- Merit Medicine, Austin, TX AI-powered precitive medical cost and health insurance claims software for employers, raised $2M in seed funding from LiveOak Ventures.
. . .
Enterprise & Consumer:
- Lambda, San Jose, CA provider of cloud computing services for training AI software, raised $320M in Series C funding led by US Innovative Technology Fund with participation from B Capital, SK Telecom, Crescent Cove, and Mercato Partners.
- Bugcrowd, San Francisco, CA crowdsourced bug bounty platform, raised $102M led by General Catalyst with participation from Rally Ventures and Costanoa Ventures. [TechCrunch]
- Antithesis, Vienna, VA launched out of stealth for their autonomous software testing platform and raised $47M in seed funding from Amplify Partners, Tamarack Global, and First In Ventures.
- Meter, San Francisco, CA provider of enterprise internet infrastructure, raised $35M in funding led by Sam Altman and Lachy Groom with participation from Sequoia, John Bicket, Sanji Biswas, and Diane Greene. [Meter]
- Scribe, San Francisco, CA platform for documenting and sharing business processes, raised $25M in Series B funding led by Redpoint Ventures with participation from New York Life Ventures, Amplify Partners, Tiger Global, and XYZ Ventures. [Scribe]
- Flower Labs, Hamburg, Germany platform for training AI models, raised $20M in Series A funding led byFelicis with participation from First Spark Ventures, Factorial Capital, Beta Works, Y Combinator, and Pioneer Fund. [Fortune]
- Clarity, Tel Aviv, Israel real-time detection of deepfakes in videos, raised $16M in seed funding led by Walden Catalyst Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from Secret Chord Ventures, Ascend Ventures, Fusion VC, and Flying Fish Partners. [Clarity]
- Alembic, San Francisco, CA platform marketing attribution platform for enterprises, raised $14M in Series A funding led by WndrCo with participation from MXV Capital and Liquid 2 Ventures. [BusinessWire]
- Marqo, global AI-powered vector search platform, raised $12.5M in Series A funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from Blackbird VC, January Capital, and Rob Skillington. [Marqo]
- Knock, San Francisco, CA platform for building and integrating customer notifications, raised $12M in Series A funding led by Craft Ventures with participation from Afore Capital and Preface Capital. [Knock]
- Overworld, remote-based video game studio, raised $10M in seed funding led by Hashed, The Spartan Group, Sanctor Capital, and Galaxy Interactive, with participation from Hashkey, Big Brain Holdings, and Foresight Ventures.
- Helika, Toronto, CA data analytics & infrastructure provider for traditional and web3 gaming, raised $8M in Series A funding led by Pantera Capital with participation from Sparkle Ventures, Diagram Ventures, Sfermion, and others.
- Guardrails AI, San Francisco, CA platform to crowdsource fixes for GenAI model problems, raised $7.5M in seed funding led by Zetta Venture Partners with participation from Bloomberg Beta, Pear VC, Factory, and GitHub Fund. [TechCrunch]
- Seal Security, Tel Aviv, Israel open source vulnerability and patch management, raised $7.4M in seed funding. Vertex Ventures Israel led the round and was joined by Crew Capital, PayPal Alumni Fund, and Cyber Club London. [TechCrunch]
- Mindy, an email-based executive assistant, raised $6M in seed funding co-led by Founders Fund and Sequoia Capital. [TechCrunch]
- Motif Analytics, San Francisco, CA data analytics provider, raised $5.7M in seed funding led by Amplify Partners and Felicis with participation from InvestInData. [TechCrunch]
- Civic Roundtable, Boston, MA secure platform for government workers, raised $5M in seed funding from General Catalyst.
- Zylon, Madrid, Spain AI assistant, raised $3.2M in pre-seed funding led by Felicis with participation from LifeX Ventures, and Zypsy. [VentureBeat]
- SocialCrowd, Los Angeles, CA employee performance management platform, raised $1.6M led by Bread and Butter Ventures with participation from VC414, Serac Ventures, and Gala Capital Partners. [TechCrunch]
. . .
HardTech:
- Higharc, Durham, NC provider of generative design technology for homebuilding operations, raised $53M in Series B funding led by Spark Capital and Pillar VC with participation from SE Ventures, Fifth Wall, Starwood Capital, Standard Investments, Home Depot, and Ferguson.
- Skylo Technologies, Mountain View, CA direct-to-device satellite connectivity provider, raised $37M in funding led by Intel Capital and Innovation Endeavors with participation from BMW i Ventures, Next47, Samsung Catalyst Fund, and Seraphim Space. [Skylo]
- LeoLabs, Menlo Park, CA provider of space satellite tracking and insights, raised $29M in funding from GP Bullhound, 1941, Insight Partners, Velvet Sea Partners, and Space Capital.
- Fever, Stockholm, Sweden building an API-centric platform for virtual power plants, raised €10M ($10.8M) in seed funding led by General Catalyst with participation from La Famiglia and Norrsken VC. [Fever]
- Quilter, Los Angeles, CA developer of circuit board design automation technology, raised $10M in Series A funding led by Benchmark with participation from Coatue.
- Camus Energy, San Francisco, CA grid orchestration platform, raised $10M in a Series A extension led by Congruent Ventures and Wave Capital with participation from Align Impact and others.
- Arch, San Francisco, CA data intelligence platform for HVAC contractors, raised $6.2M in seed funding from Gigascale Capital, Coatue, Floodgate, ReGen Ventures, and MCJ Collective.
- First Bite, Redwood City, CA provider of go-to-market software for food manufacturers raised $2M in seed funding led by Bread and Butter Ventures with participation from Leadout Capital and Pathbreaker Ventures.
. . .
Sustainability:
- Hippo Harvest, San Francisco, CA developer of sustainable greenhouse technology and grower of fresh produce, raised $21M Series B funding led by Standard Investments with participation from Congruent Ventures, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Hawthorne Food Ventures, and Energy Impact Partners.
- Rimere, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based developer of plasma tech to convert natural gas into hydrogen and graphene, raised $10m investment from Clean Energy Fuels.
- Celadyne, Chicago, IL developer of fuel cells and other decarbonization and hydrogen solutions, raised $4.5M in seed funding led by Maniv and Dynamo Ventures with participation from EPS Ventures.
Acquisitions & PE:
- Notion, San Francisco, CA work collaboration platform valued at $10B in VC funding, acquired Skiff, a document storage and collaboration platform that raised $14.2M from investors including Sequoia Capital and high profile angels. [TechCrunch]
- Salesloft, funded by Vista Equity Partners, acquired Drift, a Boston, MA AI-powered buyer engagement platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Walmart (NYSE: WMT) is in talks to acquire Vizio (NYSE: VZIO), an Irvine, CA smart TV company, for more than $2B. [WSJ]
- Armis, funded by One Equity Partners, agreed to acquire CTCI, a Portland, software for advanced warning of cybersecurity attacks. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Perforce Software, funded by Francisco Partners and Clearlake Capital Group, agreed to acquire Delphix, a Redwood City, CA provider of data management software to automate data security. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- L Catterton is involved in a €1.4B take-private bid for Italian luxury shoemaker Tod's (Milan: TOD), alongside the company's founding Della Valle family. [Bloomberg]
Funds:
- AIX Ventures, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, raised $202 million for its second fund focused on early-stage AI companies.
Final Numbers
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