Sourcery → Diplo's Run Club

OnlyFans, Own Co, Safe Superintelligence, Sakana AI, You.com, Zamp

Sep 11, 2024

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Hello from SF

Where Diplo might’ve just given the city some fun points. TBD if it’s artificial and temporarily provided by Diplo’s Run Club.. or if SF actually is.. fun? Over 14K people participated in the event, the 5K run started at Pier 30, went up to the Ferry building, down the Embarcadero to Oracle Park stadium and back. After crossing the finish line you were greeted with a fancy medal, bananas, and a path to the rave that Diplo DJ’d straight after. At 9:30AM. On a Sunday. Fun.

Shoutout to Lauren for initiating the LA to SF swap

In other news, last night the Acquired podcast gathered 8K people in SF’s packed Chase Center for a live interview with the one & only Zuck. And his outfit was ‘fresh.’ One of the hottest events of the week. In true SF fashion.

Musings

All-in Summit in LA has begun.. here are some clips

Sergey Brin, Elon Musk, JD Vance + more to come

Macro

Is "Founder Mode" Insightful? Plus AI Valuations, Putin's Telegram, and Unrealized Gains Tax [This Won’t Last]
- Pretty critical conversation against ‘Founder Mode’ joining the likes of the All-in crew who are also against this branding campaign
- FYI new pod with Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, & Zach Weinberg from the Turpentine team!
How Medical Establishment Keeps Americans Sick, and Evils of Censorship, w/ Makary & Naval Ravikant [Megyn Kelly]
- Never thought I’d see this duo together

AI

Klarna shuts down Salesforce as service provider, Workday to meet same fate amid AI initiatives [MSN]
- Klarna is pulling a Chamath 8090 and building in house AI apps to cut budgets.. it’s too bad the pay later option wasn’t available (more here) - this is sending some terrors to software service providers if this trend picks up from their large accounts

HardTech

Inside Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant [BG2 w/ Bill Gurley & Brad Gerstner]
- Fantastic conversation on the state of nuclear energy & the critical need for the US to stay competitive against China’s rapid nuclear growth in the age of intensive AI usage + energy dependency
TSMC’s Arizona Trials Put Plant Productivity on Par with Taiwan [Bloomberg]
Palmer Luckey Interview: Arsenal-1, US Manufacturing, Tariffs, Heretical Thoughts & The Election [Pirate Wires]

OnlyFans Payments Surged to Record $6.6 Billion in 2023, up 19% [Variety]
- Breakdown of revenue growth + fun chart
Chart: Over the past 20 years the S&P 500 has experienced 31 down days of 1% or worse each year on average [Ritholtz]

Last Week (9/3-9/6):

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:

Safe Superintelligence, Sakana AI, You.com, Zamp, Cortex, Laravel, eGenesis, Cobre, Unlock, Atlas Space, Reonic, Portex, Signol

Acquisitions & PE

Banyan/Automated Systems, Amazon/Covariant, Salesforce/Own Co, MyCarrier/Curant, Intel/Mobileye, MyndYou, Paylocity/Airbase, Covr/Data IQ

Funds

Wischoff Ventures, Slauson & Co. Asylum Ventures

Final Numbers

Safe Superintelligence valuation & Claude’s monthly user growth by the tens of millions

VC Deals

Fintech:

- Cobre, a Bogotá, Colombia-based corporate treasury and payments platform, raised $35 million in Series B funding. Oak HC/FT led the round and was joined by existing investors Kaszek, QED, and Canary.

- Unlock Technologies, a Tempe, Ariz., home equity agreement provider, raised $30m in Series B funding from D2 Asset Management, Saluda Grade, Second Century Ventures, and Reach. It also secured a $250m capital commitment from D2 for origination

- nOps, a San Francisco, Calif.-based AWS cost optimization platform, raised $30 million in Series A funding from Headlight Partners.

- Sedric AI, a New York City-based AI compliance platform for financial institutions, raised $18.5 million in Series A funding. Foundation Capital led the round and was joined by Amex Ventures and existing investors StageOne Ventures, The Garage, and others.

- Ume, a São Paulo, Brazil-based payment network and merchant services platform, raised $15 million in Series A funding. PayPal Ventures led the round and was joined by NFX, Globo Ventures, Clocktower Ventures, and others.

- Zamp, a Miami provider of sales tax software, raised $10m in Series A funding. Valor Equity Partners led, and was joined by Venus Williams and Day One Ventures

- Drip, a creator engagement platform built on Solana, raised $8m in seed funding. NFX led, and was joined by Progression and Coinbase Ventures.

- Palm, a Stockholm, Sweden-based AI powered treasury management system, raised $6.1 million in seed funding. Speedinvest and Target Global led the round and were joined by Upfin, Liquid2, Greens, and angel investors.

- Linker Finance, a Pasadena, Calif., platform for community banks, raised $3.7m in seed funding co-led by Ten One Ten Ventures and Chingona Ventures.

- Agree, a San Francisco, Calif.-based contracts and payments platform, raised $3 million in pre-seed funding. Better Tomorrow Ventures led the round and was joined by 8-Bit Capital, Everywhere Ventures, Expedite Ventures, and others.

- Capsa AI, a private equity due diligence startup, raised €2m in seed funding led by Outward VC, with participation from Cornerstone VC and Antler

Care:

- eGenesis, a Cambridge, Mass.-based engineered organs developer, raised $191 million in Series D funding. Lux Capital led the round and was joined by DaVita, Eisai Innovation, NATCO Pharmaceuticals, existing investors ARCH Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Farallon Capital Management, and others.

- OrsoBio, a Menlo Park, Calif., developer of obesity treatments, raised $67m in Series B funding. Ascenta Capital and Woodline Partners co-led, and were joined by insiders Samsara Biocapital, Longitude Capital, Enavate Sciences, NuevaBio, and Eli Lilly

- Doccla, a London, England-based virtual ward and remote patient monitoring services provider, raised £35 million ($46 million) in funding. Lakestar led the round and was joined by Elaia and existing investors General Catalyst, Bertelsmann Investments, and Speedinvest.

- Thatch, an SF-based ICHRA health benefits startup, raised $38m in Series A funding co-led by Index Ventures and General Catalyst

- CytoTronics, a Boston, Mass.-based semiconductor-based platform for cell biology discovery, raised $13.5 million in a seed extension. LYFE Capital and existing investor Anzu Partners led the round and were joined by Legend Star, RIT Venture Fund, Draper Associates, existing investor BoxOne Ventures, and others.

- Circadian Health, a West Palm Beach, Fla.-based virtual cardiometabolic provider, raised $7.5 million in funding. HC9 Ventures led the round and was joined by Memorial Hermann. Health System.

- Arvo, a São Paulo, Brazil-based healthcare transactions AI platform, raised R$ 25 million ($4.5 million) in funding. Canary and K50 funds led the round and were joined by Latitud, Preface, and Endeavor Scale-Up Ventures.

- Flex, a provider of infrastructure for accepting HSA and FSA payments, raised $3.2m in seed funding from YC, SV Angel, Precursor and Liquid 2 Ventures

Enterprise/Consumer:

- Safe Superintelligence, Co-Founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, fellow OpenAI vet Daniel Levy, and former Apple AI chief Daniel Gross, has raised over $1 billion in first-round funding

- Zepto, a Mumbai, India-based grocery delivery app, raised $340 million in funding. General Catalyst led the round and was joined by Dragon Fund, Epiq Capital, and existing investors StepStone, Lightspeed, DST, Contrary, and others.

- Sakana AI, a Japanese generative AI startup, raised over $100m in Series A funding from NEA, Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, and Nvidia.

- MirrorWeb, an Austin, Texas-based digital communications archiving, supervision, and surveillance software, raised $63 million in funding from Mainsail Partners.

- Cortex, a San Francisco, Calif.-based productivity platform for engineers, raised $60 million in Series C funding. Scale Venture Partners led the round and were joined by World Innovation Labs, Cross Creek, Alpha Square Group, and others.

- Oyster, a San Francisco, Calif.-based global employment platform, raised $59 million in Series D funding. Silver Lake Waterman led the round and was joined by existing investors Emergence Capital, Stripes, Georgian, and others.

- Laravel, a Benton Ark.-based PHP web application framework, raised $57m in Series A funding from Accel

- You.com, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based search engine, raised $50m in Series B funding. Georgian led, and was joined by Salesforce Ventures, NVIDIA, Softbank Ventures Asia, DuckDuckGo, and Day One Ventures.

- Thatch, a San Francisco, Calif.-based health benefits platform, raised $38 million in Series A funding. General Catalyst and Index Ventures led the round and were joined by SemperVirens, The General Partnership, existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Avid Ventures, and others.

- Revefi, a Seattle data ops automation startup, raised $20m in Series A funding. Icon Ventures led, and was joined by Mayfield, GTM Capital, and StepStone Group.

- HomeLight, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based real estate technology platform, raised $20 million in a Series D funding extension. Zeev Ventures led the round and was joined by Stereo Capital, Menlo Ventures, and others.

- Fiddler, a Palo Alto, Calif., enterprise AI observability startup, raised around $19m in fourth-round funding

- Mintlify, a New York-based code documentation platform, raised $18.5m in Series A funding. A16z led, and was joined by Bain Capital Ventures and YC

- Hypernative, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based cybersecurity AI platform, raised $16 million in Series A funding. Quantstamp led the round and was joined by Bloccelerate VC, boldstart ventures, Borderless Capital, angel investors, and others.

- Entalpic, a Paris, France-based generative AI platform for materials discovery in the chemical industry, raised €8.5 million ($9.4 million) in seed funding. Breega, Cathay Innovation, and Felicis led the round and were joined by Jörg Weiser, Gilles Wainrib, Thomas Wolfe, and others.

- Acuvity, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AI security and governance platform, raised $9 million in seed funding. Foundation Capital led the round and was joined by Basil Alwan, Sri Reddy, Jonathan Siddharth, and others.

- DubClub, a Chicago, Ill.-based sports content platform, raised $7.5 million in Series A funding. Renegade Partners led the round and was joined by Isaiah Kacyvenski, Dave Gilboa, and others.

- Daisy, a Costa Mesa, Calif.-based home technology installation and services company, raised $7 million in Series B funding. Goldcrest and Bungalow led the round and were joined by existing investors Bullish and Burst Capital.

- All Hands AI, a Boston, Mass.-based open source AI agent for software developers, raised $5 million in seed funding. Menlo led the round and was joined by Pillar VC, Betaworks, Rebellion, and others.

- Blitzy, a Cambridge, Mass.-based software creation automation platform, raised $4.4 million in funding from Link Ventures, Bessemer, Flybridge, and others.

- Champion, an Indianapolis, Ind.-based AI-powered customer advocacy platform, raised $3.3 million in seed funding. Flyover Capital led the round and was joined by Bread & Butter Ventures, Stage 2 Capital, and existing investor High Alpha.

- Fastn, an Austin, Texas-based no-code data integration and orchestration platform, raised $2.6 million in seed funding. LiveOak Ventures and Antler led the round and were joined by Chris Bach and Kyle Hency.

HardTech:

- ATLAS Space Operations, a Traverse City, Mich.-based ground station services provider for satellite communications, raised $15 million in funding. NewSpace Capital led the round and was joined by Michigan Rise, Red Cedar Ventures, and existing investors Michigan Capital Network, Beringea, Wakestream Ventures, and Boomerang Catapult.

- Reonic, a German provider of digital tools for renewable energy installers, raised €13m in Series A funding. Northzone led, and was joined by insiders Point Nine and Puzzle Ventures

- Treble Technologies, a Reykjavik, Iceland-based sound simulation technology company, raised €11 million ($12.2 million) in Series A funding. KOMPAS VC led the round and was joined by Frumtak Ventures, the European Investment Bank, Omega Venture Partners, angel investors, and others.

- Portex, an SF-based freight procurement platform, raised $6.25m in seed funding led by Footwork Ventures, with participation by Cowboy Ventures, and Base 10

- Signol, a British startup aimed at reducing shipping and aviation emissions, raised £2.5m. TMV led, and was joined by Ultranav, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, and East Innovate

- Trestle, a provider of performance and analytics software for heavy construction, raised $2.3m in seed funding. Lerer Hippeau led, and was joined by MetaProp, Laconia Capital, Alumni Ventures, The LegalTech Fund, Redbud VC, and Meridian Ventures

Sustainability:

- Calyxia, a French startup focused on removing microplastics, raised $35m in Series B funding co-led by Lombard Odier Investment Managers and Bpifrance

- GALY, a Boston, Mass.-based cellular agriculture products developer, raised $33 million in Series B funding. Breakthrough Energy Ventures led the round and was joined by H&M Group and Inditex.

- Mantel Capture, a Cambridge, Mass.-based carbon capture system, raised $30 million in Series A funding. Shell Ventures and Eni Next led the round and were joined by Engine Ventures, New Climate Ventures, Hartree, and others.

- Oxylus Energy, a New Haven, Conn., developer of green methanol for aviation and shipping fuels, raised $4.5m in seed funding, per TechCrunch. Toyota Ventures and Azolla Ventures co-led, and were joined by Earth Foundry and Connecticut Innovations.

Acquisitions & PE:

- Banyan Software, an Atlanta portfolio company of Norwest Venture Partners, acquired Automated Systems, a Lincoln, Neb, provider of community bank tech solutions.

- Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) acqui-hired the co-founders and select staffers of Covariant, a Berkeley, Calif.-based robotic AI startup that had raised $220m from Index Ventures, Amplify Partners, Radical Ventures, CPPIB, Cascade Asset Management, Northgate Capital, Gates Frontier, and Temasek

- Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) agreed to buy Own Co., a New Jersey-based provider of data protection and management solutions, for $1.9 billion in cash. Own had raised over $500 million in VC funding, including at a $3.35 billion valuation in a 2021 round co-led by Alkeon Capital Management and B Capital Group.

- Blackstone agreed to buy AirTrunk, an Australian data center operator, for US$16.1b from Macquarie Group and PSP Investments.

- Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) agreed to acquire Tenyx, a Los Altos, Calif., developer of AI voice agents that had raised around $15m in VC funding.

- MyCarrier, a VC-backed freight shipping startup, acquired Curant, a Hermosa Beach, Calif.-based freight forwarding payments startup that had raised $2m from Better Tomorrow Ventures, Bam Ventures and Defy Partners Management

- Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) is weighing a sale of some of its 88% stake in self-driving tech company Mobileye (Nasdaq: MBLY)

- Aditude, backed by Volition Capital, acquired rival ad-tech firm Hashtag Labs

- Palo Alto Networks (Nasdaq: PANW)is paying $500m to buy some cloud security assets and customers from IBM (NYSE: IBM).

- Nordstrom's (NYSE: JWN) founding family offered to take the retailer private for $3.8b, or $23 per share

- MyndYou, a New York provider of conversational AI solutions for healthcare, raised funding from WindRose Health Investors

- Paylocity (Nasdaq: PCTY) is paying $325m to acquire Airbase, an SF-based spend management platform for SMBs that raised $90m (including at a $600m valuation) from Menlo Ventures, Craft Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, First Round Capital, Quiet Capital, Webb Investment Network, and BoxGroup.

- Blackstone and Vista Equity are in talks to buy Smartsheet (NYSE: SMAR), a Bellevue, Wash., workplace collaboration software maker with a $7b market cap

- Covr, a Salt Lake City-based provider of workforce management software to the post-acute care industry, raised funding from RF Investment Partners and Greenridge Growth Partners. It also acquired Data IQ, a Fort Worth, Texas-based business intelligence company

- Kiteworks, a San Mateo, Calif., email security company backed by Insight Partners and Insight Partners and Sixth Street Partners, acquired 123FormBuilder, a Romanian data collection startup that was seeded by 3TS Capital Partners and Catalyst Romania

Funds:

- Wischoff Ventures of Nashville raised $50m for its third fund

- PruVen Capital, a VC firm led by Ramneek Gupta (ex-Battery Ventures and Citi Ventures), raised $378.5m for its second fund. Prudential Financial is the core LP, but others include TIAA, Lincoln Financial, Generali, Nippon Life, Omaha Mutual, and Willis Towers Watson.

- SparkLabs raised $50m for a fund focused on AI startups.

- Asylum Ventures, a pre-seed and seed firm led by Nick Chirls (ex-Notation Capital), raised $55m for its debut fund.

- Mayfield is allocating $100m of its latest fund to an "AI garage" initiative

- Slauson & Co., an LA-based VC firm focused on "economic inclusion," raised $100m for its second fund

Final Numbers From Chartr:

Safe Superintelligence (SSI), a startup co-founded by OpenAI's former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, has raised $1 billion in a round of investment that values the company at $5 billion, according to an exclusive report from Reuters. The company has 10 employees.

That valuation is more than what iconic department store Macy’s ($4.2 billion) is worth. It’s more than triple what pizza giant Papa John’s International is worth.

The wave of AI hype that took Nvidia to a $3 trillion market cap is filtering all the way through the economy, and venture capitalists with deep pockets are willing to take bets that, even just 5 or 6 years ago, would have seemed ludicrous. Clearly, SSI is a special case and the expertise that someone like Ilya Sutskever brings is substantial, but with that kind of deal it is no wonder that nearly all of Silicon Valley’s ambitious founders say they’re working on AI in some shape or form.

Open rivalry

Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has become synonymous with AI chatbots, inspiring a swathe of competitors. One of those, Claude, is gaining serious traction with users.

From a company called Anthropic — a startup founded by former OpenAI employees (see above for how lucrative being an ex-OpenAI employee can be) — Claude has seen a surge in popularity since the release of Claude 3 in March. And yesterday, the Amazon-backed company announced its latest product, Claude Enterprise.

By entering the enterprise market, Anthropic is now competing for OpenAI’s 1 million corporate users. Like OpenAI, Anthropic’s offering boasts a promise that interactions with Claude won’t be used to train the model itself — a feature designed to appeal to the ongoing concerns around data privacy.

Last month, claude.ai received over 15 million visits across web and mobile platforms in the US, according to data from Similarweb. While those numbers are impressive, they still pale in comparison to ChatGPT’s 337 million visits in the same month — a gap that’s also reflected in the relative valuations, with Anthropic’s ~$18 billion valuation significantly overshadowed by OpenAI’s $100+ billion price tag.

With over 90% of Fortune 500 companies reportedly using some iteration of its products, OpenAI has a serious head start. But history shows that being first doesn’t guarantee long-term success. After all, Amazon wasn’t the first online marketplace, and Google wasn’t the first search engine. The chatbot wars are just getting started.

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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.