Sourcery → LATechWeek

Permira/Squarespace, Stripe/Bridge, Decagon, Justo, Ghost, DataBank, Lightmatter, Vanilla, Numeric, Oshi Health, Flock Safety/Aerodome

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LA Tech Week

Well, that was a lot. LA Tech Week came back swinging with a handful of incredible events from Beverly Hills to Malibu, Santa Monica to “Thank God for El Segundo,” Pasadena, & more. Shoutout to the incredible team at Mantis, with co-hosts Lightspeed, for throwing another incredible “Closer Out” (pun intended) party of the year, this time with special guest Ty Dolla $ign. Unbelievable! (..I see you Emlyn). 

With absolute bias, my favorite event of the week was Genius Ventures’ Venice Dinner, catered by Le Great Outdoor and accompanied by an incredible group of 40+ Founders, Investors, Engineers, and more. Individuals included Founders of Superhuman, Bezel, Pager Guild, Capital, and Hume. Executives from SpaceX & Brex and investors from Bedrock, Commodity Capital, Helena, Kleiner Perkins, Ethos, Vine Ventures, 137 Ventures, Coatue, Streamlined Ventures, Kyber Knight Capital, SNR, Lightspeed, Island Green, Mantis, & Azuro Capital. Big thank you to Ben & Adam 🥳

Musings

Macro

• This top-tier VC’s Goal is to NEVER be on the VC Midas List [Hunter Walk]

• Uber has discussed a bid for travel booking company Expedia [CNBC]

• From Elon Musk to cop car chases, how a software engineer launched a police AI startup [TechCrunch]

• 1,191 private companies valued at over $1B+.. This list is longer than a CVS receipt. [Kyle Harrison]

AI

• Amazon, Google make dueling nuclear investments to power data centers with clean energy [AP]

• Welcome Jensen Huang  [BG2 w/ Bill Gurley & Brad Gerstner]

• Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws [20VC]

Space

• SpaceX made history w/ a 397-foot rocket & a pair of “chopsticks” [Contrary Research]

• Elon & SpaceX Landing Rockets, Joe Rogan, & Pirate Idol  [Pirate Wires]

• Launch Cost Rapid Descent [All In]

Events

Live in Westport CT & work in Tech / VC? Cool. Me too. Come to the StartUp Westport Young Innovators Forum November 25th where I’ll be moderating a panel between some of the hottest companies to come out of Staples High School

• Dylan Diamond, Co-Founder and CEO, Saturn Technologies

• Max Hammer, Co-Founder and CEO, CrowdVolt

• Josh Karol, Co-Founder and CTO, CrowdVolt

• Jack Sharkey, Co-Founder and CTO, Whop

Top Interviews

• Jeff Morris Jr, Chapter One | Difficult Market for VCs, Is it ‘so over’?? 

• Alex Kolicich, 8VC | AI & Defense Tech Renaissance Palantir, Anduril, SpaceX, OpenAI

• Impulse Labs, Trojan Horse for Battery-Powered Homes | Backed by Lux Capital w/ $25M Raised to Date

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Last Week (10/14-10/18):

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: 

Decagon, Justo, Ghost, DataBank, Lightmatter, Vanilla, Numeric, Oshi Health

Acquisitions & PE

Permira/Squarespace, Stripe/Bridge, Flock Safety/Aerodome, Amplitude/Command AI

Funds

20VC, Insight Partners, Adam Street Partners, Buckley Ventures

Final Numbers

Meta Layoffs, Going Nuclear

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VC Deals 

Fintech:

- Vanilla, a Salt Lake City provider of estate planning software for financial advisers and wealth managers, raised $35m in Series B extension funding. Insight Partners led, and was joined by Venrock and Vanguard

- Numeric, a San Francisco-based AI accounting automation platform, raised $28 million in Series A funding. Menlo Ventures led the round and was joined by IVP and Socii Capital, existing investors Founders Fund, 8VC, Long Journey, and others.

- Bitnomial, a Chicago-based digital asset derivatives exchange company, raised $25 million in Series C funding. Ripple led the round and was joined by others.

- SPRX Tax, AI-driven approach to the tax credit application process, raised $12 million Series A round, led by Vertex Ventures US with participation from Y Combinator, Restive, and Rebel Fund

- Herald, a New York City-based digital infrastructure provider for commercial insurance, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Lightspeed Venture Partners and Brewer Lane Ventures led the round and were joined by Afore Capital and Underscore Venture Capital.

- Solv Protocol, a Bitcoin staking protocol platform, raised $11m at a $200m valuation from Nomura subsidiary Laser Digital, Blockchain Capital, and OKX Ventures

- Kick, an SMB bookkeeping automation startup, raised $9m in seed funding co-led by General Catalyst and OpenAI Startup Fund

- Predicate, a New York City-based transaction prerequisites network, raised $7 million in funding. 1kx and Tribe Capital led the round and were joined by Reciprocal Ventures, Hashkey Capital, White Star Capital, angel investors, and others.

- Concourse, a New York City-based AI analysts developer for finance teams, raised $4.7 million in funding from a16z, Y Combinator, CRV, and BoxGroup.

- Drop Protocol, a New York City-based liquid staking protocol for Interchain assets, raised $4 million in seed funding. CoinFund led the round and was joined by CMS Holdings, Anagram, Interop Ventures, Cosmostation, and angel investors.

Care:

- Cytovale, a San Francisco-based commercial-stage medical diagnostics company, raised $100 million in Series D funding. Sands Capital led the round and was joined by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, Global Health Investment Corporation, and Breakout Ventures.

- Oshi Health, a New York City-based digestive healthcare provider, raised $60 million in Series C funding. Oak HC/FT led the round and was joined by existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Flare Capital Partners, Frist Cressey Ventures, and others.

- Alchemy, a San Francisco-based in-house pharmacies developer for HIV clinics, raised $31 million in seed funding. a16z Bio + Health led the round and was joined by Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners, Banc of California, and existing investors Twine Ventures, Springbank, and AlleyCorp.

- Hello Cake, a Los Angeles-based sexual wellness brand, raised $18 million in Series B funding. Silas Capital and Strand Equity led the round and were joined by StepStone Private Venture and Growth Fund, AF Ventures, Bullish Brand Partners, and DCND Ventures.

- Ash Wellness, a New York-based at-home testing company, raised $10m in Series A funding led by Merck Global Health Innovation Fund

- Legion Health, an Austin, Texas-based digital health operations company, raised $6.3m in seed funding from Alumni Ventures, YC, Acequia Capital, and Soma Capital

- SuppCo, a New York City-based supplement tracking and optimization platform, raised $5.5 million in seed funding. Union Square Ventures and True Ventures led the round and were joined by Box Group, Compound, and others.

- Parakeet Health, a San Francisco-based generative AI voice company for healthcare providers, raised $3 million in seed funding. Canvas Ventures led the round and was joined by CoFound Partners, StoryHouse Ventures, Tom Lee, Adam Messinger, and others.

- Manifest, a New York City-based digital wellness company, raised $3.4 million in funding from a16z Speedrun, HF0, Florida Funders, angel investors, and others.

- Flora Fertility, a Toronto-based fertility benefits solution provider, raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding. Highline Beta led the round and was joined by Cartography Capital, Everywhere Ventures, and angel investors.

Enterprise/Consumer:

- Decagon, a San Francisco-based AI customer support agents developer, raised $65 million in Series B funding. Bain Capital Ventures led the round and was joined by Elad Gil, A*, Accel, and others.

- Jüsto, a Mexico City-based online grocer, raised $50 million in funding. Existing investor General Atlantic led the round and was joined by others.

- Galileo, a San Francisco-based enterprise GenAI evaluation and observability platform, raised $45 million in Series B funding. Scale Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Premji Invest.

- Neuron7.ai, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based resolution accuracy platform, raised $44 million in Series B funding. Smith Point Capital led the round and was joined by Nexus Venture Partners and Battery Ventures.

- Azra Games, a Sacramento-based mobile role-playing games developer, raised $42.7 million in Series A funding. Pantera Capital led the round and was joined by a16z crypto, A16Z GAMES, and NFX.

- Ghost, a B2B retail inventory marketplace, raised $40m in Series C funding, per Fortune. L Catterton led, and was joined by USV, Cathay Innovation, Equal Ventures, and Eniac Ventures

- Port, a Tel Aviv-based internal developer portals creation platform, raised $35 million in Series B funding. Accel led the round and was joined by Bessemer Venture Partners, existing investors Team8, TLV Partners, and others.

- Everstage, a New York City-based sales commissions management platform, raised $30 million in Series B funding. Eight Roads Ventures led the round and was joined by existing investors Elevation Capital and 3one4 Capital.

- Monogoto, a Los Angeles-based software-defined connectivity solutions provider, raised $27 million in Series A funding. Toyota Ventures led the round and was joined by Samsung Next, The ACTIVE Fund, Assembly Ventures, existing investors Triventures, Singtel Innov8 Ventures, and others.

- Towns, a Brooklyn-based on-chain messaging platform, raised $25.5 million in Series A funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark, and Framework

- ForceMetrics, a Denver-based decision-assist public safety platform for first responders, raised $22 million in funding. Costanoa Ventures led the round and was joined by the Hobson Lucas Family Foundation, Stand Together Venture Labs, GovTech Fund, and others.

- SynthBee, a Fort Lauderdale-based computing intelligence platform developer, raised $20 million in seed funding from Crosspoint Capital Partners.

- Ithaca, a San Francisco-based open source tools developer, raised $20 million in funding from Paradigm.

- Omnea, a London-based AI-powered procurement orchestration and supplier risk management platform, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Accel led the round and was joined by existing investors First Round Capital and Point Nine.

- DeNexus, a Boston-based end-to-end cyber risk management provider for industrial networks, raised $17.5 million in Series A funding. Punja Global Ventures led the round and was joined by AXA XL, Prosegur/SegTech, and HCS Capital.

- Autone, a London-based AI-powered retail inventory management platform, raised $17 million in Series A funding. General Catalyst led the round and was joined by existing investors Speedinvest, YCombinator, Seedcamp, angel investors, and others.

- zkPass, a New York City-based oracle protocol verifying web private data, raised $12.5 million in Series A funding from Innovation Capital, Animoca Brands, L2 Iterative Ventures, and others.

- Agency, a Boston-based AI-driven customer success workflows platform, raised $12 million in seed funding. Sequoia Capital and HubSpot Ventures led the round and were joined by angel investors.

- dottxt, a Dover, Delaware-based LLM interaction platform, raised $11.9 million in funding. Elaia led the $3.2 million pre-seed round, EQT Ventures led the $8.7 million seed round, and they were joined by Seedcamp, Common Magic, Kima, and others.

- DocJuris, a Houston-based contract review and negotiation AI platform, raised $8 million in Series A funding. Silverton Partners led the round and was joined by existing investors Watertower Ventures, Surface Ventures, and Seed Round Capital.

- Truthset, a San Francisco-based data validation-as-a-service provider, raised $5 million in Series A funding. Data Point Capital led the round and was joined by others.

- Cambri, a Helsinki-based AI-powered insights and innovation platform, raised $8 million in funding. Octopus Ventures led the round and was joined by S4S Ventures, existing investors OpenOcean, Spintop Ventures, and The 98.

- Clerk Chat, an SF-based AI telecom platform for enterprises, raised $7m. Race Capital led, and was joined by HF0, Mento VC and Altair VC

- Tako, a San Francisco-based AI search engine for data visualization, raised $5.8 million in seed funding. Kevin Hartz and Ramtin Naimi led the round and were joined by Stanley Druckenmiller, Kevin Warsh, Gokul Rajaram, and others.

- Abel, a San Francisco-based AI-generated body camera footage reports company for police, raised $5 million in seed funding. Day One Ventures led the round and was joined by Y Combinator, Long Journey Ventures, and others.

- Early, a Tel Aviv-based generative AI code quality platform, raised $5 million in seed funding. Zeev Ventures led the round and was joined by Dynamic Loop Capital.

- Deck, a Montreal-based utility data access platform, raised $4.5 million in seed funding. Golden Ventures and Better Tomorrow Ventures led the round and were joined by Luge Capital.

- Infactory, a San Francisco-based AI fact platform, raised $4 million in seed funding. Bee Partners led the round and was joined by FJ Labs, Andressen Horowitz’s Scout Fund, Alumni Ventures, and the Rappi cofounders.

- Strella, a New York City-based customer research automation and acceleration AI platform, raised $4 million in seed funding. Decibel led the round and was joined by Unusual Ventures.

- Edgee, a San Francisco-based open source edge computing platform, raised $2.9 million in pre-seed funding from Serena and VentureFriends.

- Keep, a Tel Aviv-based open-source AIOps platform, raised $2.7 million in pre-seed funding. Runa Capital led the round and was joined by Firestreak, Y Combinator, and angel investors.

- FullyRamped, a San Francisco-based AI role play platform for sales teams, raised $2.3 million in pre-seed funding. BoxGroup, MaC Venture Capital, and NOMO Ventures led the round and were joined by Greylock and Sequoia.

HardTech:

- DataBank, a Dallas-based enterprise-class data center provider, raised $2 billion in funding. AustralianSuper led the round with a $1.5 billion investment, acquiring a minority stake, and was joined by existing investors, who committed $483 million.

- Lightmatter, a Mountain View, Calif.-based photonic supercomputing developer, raised $400 million in Series D funding. T. Rowe Price Associates led the round and was joined by existing investors Fidelity Management & Research Company and GV.

- Path Robotics, a Columbus, Ohio-based developer of autonomous robotic welding systems, raised $100m. Matter Venture Partners and Drive Capital co-led, and were joined by Yamaha Ventures, Taiwania Capital, MediaTek, Catapult Ventures, Gaingels, Addition, Tiger Global, and Basis Set

- ODD, a Japanese maker of diamond semiconductor amplifiers, raised around $27m. Globis Capital Partners led, and was joined by Coral Capital, aSTART, Green Co-Invest Investment, Japan Post Bank Spiral Regional Innovation Fund, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, SMBC VC

- Treehouse, a San Francisco-based software-enabled installation platform for electrification projects, raised $16.6 million in Series A funding. Flourish Ventures led the round and was joined by Eaton, Veriten, MassMutual Ventures, existing investors CarMax, Montage Ventures, Acrew Capital, and others.

- Beacon AI, a San Carlos, Calif.-based aviation intelligence technology developer, raised $15 million in Series A funding. Costanoa Ventures led the round and was joined by Scout Ventures, Sam Altman, and JetBlue Ventures.

- Agtonomy, a San Francisco-based AI automation software developer for agriculture and land maintenance, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Autotech Ventures led the round and was joined by Rethink Food, Allison Transmission, Black Forest Ventures, and existing investors Toyota Ventures, Flybridge, and Cavallo Partners.

- Paladin, a Houston-based drone as first responder solution provider, raised $5.2 million in seed funding. Gradient led the round and was joined by Khosla Ventures, 1517, Toyota Ventures, and others.

- BackOps.ai, a San Francisco-based AI-driven supply chain logistics and operations automation platform, raised $2 million in pre-seed funding. Gradient led the round and was joined by 10VC.

Sustainability:

- Koloma, a Denver-based green hydrogen startup, raised $50m in Series B extension funding (structured as a SAFE note) from backers like Japan's Osaka Gas and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries

- REsurety, a Boston-based sustainability goals-oriented software and services provider, raised $32 million in Series C funding. S2G Ventures and Citi led the round and were joined by Angeleno Group and existing investors.

- OroraTech, a Munich-based wildfire intelligence platform developer, raised €25 million ($27.3 million) in Series B funding. Korys, the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund, and existing investor Bayern Kapital led the round and were joined by existing investors Edaphone Private Impact Fund, Ananda Impact Ventures, ConActivity KG, Findus Venture, and others.

- Fin, a London-based sustainable logistics provider, raised $7 million in seed funding. MaC Venture Capital led the round and was joined by Side Door Ventures, Pearls Capital, and Simplex Ventures.

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Acquisitions & PE:

- Permira acquired Squarespace, a New York City-based brand and business website building platform, for approximately $7.2 billion in cash.

- Stripe Acquires Stablecoin Platform Bridge in Record $1.1 Billion Deal

- Flock Safety an Atlanta-based provider of public safety tech valued by VCs at over $4b, acquired Aerodome, a Los Angeles based developer of drone-as-first-responder tech. Flock, while Aerodome had raised over $21m from CRV, a16z, Karman Ventures, and Ford Street Ventures