Sourcery Upgrade ✨ Thiel Olympics, Meta Earnings, Super Bowl, Neuralink
(1/28-2/2) Databricks/Einblick, Nobull/Tom Brady, Metronome, Portal, Cruz, Accompany Health, Benepass, Kore.ai, Codeium, Oasis Security, Plex, Owner, Sema4.ai, LightBeam, Nile, Roofer.com, p0
Happy February!
Anyone excited for the Super Bowl this Sunday? We are. And we have some expensive predictions below sponsored by Supergut.
Sourcery Gets an AI-Upgrade ✨
As some may have noticed, we’ve started to incorporate some updates and additions to Sourcery. After writing for 4 years, we’ve really started to pick up in growth in the last 12 months, and it’s about time we upgraded!
Here’s what we’re up to:
Sourcery will now be sent by “Sourcery”not me (Molly)
Testing out new subject lines styles
Reformatting links for a cleaner layout
Incorporating new formats & additional newsletters to learn about deals, investment theses, & market outlooks
I.e: Our recent video interview with Xander Oltmann on the state of SaaS & his bet on vertically integrated monopolies in the world of AI
Collaborating with other Substackers & creators
Check out our collab with
on January's Top Tech Deals: Bilt Rewards, Devoted Health, Quantinuum & MoreWe’ll begin testing out recording weekly overviews for those who prefer an audio format
Subscribe to our new channels!
How can you help? Share with 2-3 friends so we can continue to 🚀
Musings
Meta - Happy 20th Birthday Facebook!
The headline of the Meta earnings call was efficiency and AI, says Altimeter’s Brad Gerstner [CNBC]
Meta is up +267% since Altimeter Capital Founder & CEO Brad Gerstner sent a letter to Facebook "Time to get Fit." He joins us now to talk about the incredible run and what's next for the stock. $META [X]
Meta shares jump after profit triples and company announces first-ever dividend [CNBC]
Meta shares jumped on better-than-expected results and a first-ever dividend payment.
The results show Meta’s online ad business continues to rebound from a brutal 2022.
Sales in the fourth quarter jumped 25% year over year, while expenses decreased 8% year over year to $23.73 billion.
Cloud
Cloud Giants Report Q4 ‘23: Amazon’s AWS, Microsoft’s Azure, Google’s Google Cloud [Clouded Judgement]
“What’s the TLDR? The hyperscalers are really starting to see the tailwind of new workload growth overtake the headwind of optimizations. Sometimes new workloads are AI related. Sometimes they’re classic cloud migrations. The hyperscalers benefit from massive scale, distribution, trust and depth of customer relationships in ways no other software companies do. They also are seeing AI revenue (largely compute) show up sooner than anyone else.”
Health
Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chip: what scientists think of first human trial [Nature]
To learn more about Neuralink, check out Contrary's Research Memo
Billionaire Peter Thiel Backs Doping-Friendly Olympics Rival — What To Know About The ‘Enhanced Games’ [Forbes]
Media & Entertainment
Joe Rogan signs ‘unexclusive’ $250M deal with Spotify, renewing to the platform with distribution rights to share his interviews across channels [AP News]
Taylor Swift is launching a Private Equity Firm? [X]
Creator Economy
Everyone’s a Sellout Now [Vox]
Super Bowl Ad Predictions
This weekend, over 100M+ Americans will tune in for Super Bowl Sunday, with about $500M+ of advertising vying for their attention.
Not that this’ll be a wagering category on DraftKings.. but our big bet? The world is about to witness its first-ever Super Bowl ads for GLP-1 weight loss drugs. Whether it’s a telehealth like Ro or one of the big pharmas, somebody with big marketing $$’s is about to throw a semaglutide hail mary (aka Ozempic).
What you’re almost guaranteed not to see is any mention of foods that boost GLP-1 naturally (aka Ozempic alternatives). That’s where Supergut comes in:
Your body already has a built-in weight loss system that works like Ozempic and Wegovy—a hormone produced in the gut called GLP-1
Certain foods like prebiotic fiber unlock it naturally by nourishing gut microbes which ramp up production of GLP-1 precursors like butyrate
Studies show that Supergut's blend of resistant starch and beta-glucan induces more weight loss than other dietary fibers.
We don’t know if the 49ers will win or whether Travis Kelce will continue to be the Internet’s boyfriend, but if you see a GLP-1 commercial this weekend, and you’re curious about boosting it naturally, then use code MOLLY for 30% off at supergut.com.
. . .
Last Week (1/28-2/2):
Relevant deals include the 60+ deals across stages below.
I've categorized the deals below into five categories, FinTech, Care, Enterprise & Consumer, HardTech, and Sustainability, and ordered from later-stage rounds to early-stage rounds. Highlighted deals include:
VC: Metronome, Portal, Cruz, Accompany Health, Benepass, Kore.ai, Codeium, Oasis Security, Plex, Owner, Sema4.ai, LightBeam, Nile, Roofer.com, p0, Coris, Chef Robotics, Inari, Watershed, Transmutex, Boston Metal
Acquisitions & PE: Databricks/Einblick, Nobull/Tom Brady, Ramp/Venue, Fabric/GYANT
Funds: Generate Capital, Basis Set, Alt Capital
Final numbers on Facebook’s 20th Birthday (yes, they’re still burning a lot $$ on the metaverse) are at the bottom.
Deals
Fintech:
Metronome, San Francisco, CA billing platform for software companies, raised $43M in Series B funding led by NEA with participation from existing investors a16z and General Catalyst. [Metronome]
Portal, San Francisco, CA bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading platform, raised $34M in seed funding from Coinbase Ventures, Arrington Capital, OKX Ventures, and others. [CoinDesk]
LoanStar Technologies, Swarthmore, PA embedded lending platform for credit unions and banks, raised $28M in funding led by Sageview Capital with participation from Launch Credit Union, TruMark Financial Credit Union, and others. [LoanStar Technologies]
Crux, NYC company developing a market for transferable tax credits, raised $18.2M in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from existing investors Lowercarbon Capital, New System Ventures, Overture, and The Three Cairns Group.
Cultivo, Pleasanton, CA company that identifies portfolios of nature-based projects for outside investment, raised $14M in Series A funding led by MassMutual Ventures and Octopus Energy Generation with participation from Salkantay Ventures and Peña Verde.
Compa, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based provider of market data to compensation teams, raised $10M in Series A funding led by Storm Ventures with participation from Penny Jar Capital, Indeed Ventures, NJP Ventures, Base10 Partners, and Acadian Ventures.
Mesh, an SF-based embedded finance solution for digital asset transfers and account aggregation, raised $6.5M led by PayPal Ventures. [Fortune]
Finvest, an SF-based app for investing in U.S. treasuries, raised $2.7M from Bayhouse Capital, Unpopular Ventures, YC, Olive Tree Capital, Pioneer Fund, and Fractal Ventures. [TechCrunch]
Indemn, a New York-based provider of insurtech product configuration and underwriting solutions, raised $1.9m in pre-seed funding. Markd led, and was joined by Afterwork Ventures and Everywhere Ventures. [PR Newswire]
. . .
Care:
Accompany Health, Bethesda, MD primary, behavior, and social care provider for low-income patients, raised $56M in Series A funding from Venrock, ARCH Venture Partners, IVP, Granite Capital Management, and Evidenced. [FinSMEs]
Benepass, NYC platform for implementing and tracking employee benefits, raised $20M in funding led by Portage and Clocktower Technology Ventures with participation from Workday Ventures, Threshold Ventures, and Gradient Ventures. [Axios]
Vital Interaction, an Austin, TX developer of patient communication technology for health care providers, raised $15M in Series A funding led by Next Coast Ventures with participation from existing investors Michael Dearing and Walter Kortschak.
Foodsmart, SF telenutrition startup, raised $10M in Series C extension funding from Advocate Health, Memorial Hermann Health System, Intermountain Health, the American College of Cardiology, and Glen Tullman. [Axios]
Wisedocs, Toronto, CA platform for indexing, reviewing, and summarizing medical records, raised $9.5M in Series A funding led by Information Venture Partners with participation from Thomson Reuters Ventures and ManchesterStory.
CARPL, San Francisco, CA platform designed to make health care more accessible and affordable by connecting health care providers with AI applications, raised $6M in seed funding. Stellaris Venture Partners led the round and was joined by angel investors.
Perelel, Los Angeles, CA provider of vitamins designed for women’s different hormonal stages, raised $6M in Series A funding from Unilever Ventures, Willow Growth, and Selva Ventures.
Harbor, a D2C baby monitor and remote nursing platform, raised $3.7M in seed funding led by Trust Ventures with participation from Morrison Seger and Capital Factory. [Axios]
Lumata Health, an Oklahoma City, Okla-based eye care management platform, raised $5.5M in funding. Cortado Ventures led the round and was joined by Boyd Street Ventures and others.
Aster, SF pregnancy care and tracking platform, raised a $2.4M pre-seed led by Cake Ventures. [Axios]
. . .
Enterprise & Consumer:
Kore.ai, an Orlando, Fla.-based conversational and generative AI platform for businesses, raised $150 million in funding. FTV Capital led the round and was joined by NVIDIA and existing investors Vistara Growth, Sweetwater PE, and others.
Codeium, Mountain View, CA AI-powered toolkit designed to improve coding efficiency, raised $65M in Series B funding led by Kleiner Perkins with participation from Greenoaks and General Catalyst. [Codeium]
Oasis Security, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based developer of security software for non-human identities like service accounts, raised $40M in funding led by Sequoia Capital with participation from Accel, Cyberstarts, and others.
Plex, a streaming media software provider, raised $40M in Series C funding from insiders like Intercap and Kleiner Perkins. [TechCrunch]
Owner, Palo Alto, CA platform for ordering, marketing, website-building, and more for restaurant owners, raised $33M in Series B funding led by Redpoint and Alt Capital with participation from Horsley Bridge, Activant Capital, and Transpose Platform Management.
Sema4.ai, Atlanta, GA AI assistant for knowledge workers, raised $30.5M in Series A funding from Mayfield, Benchmark, and Canvas Ventures.
Proof Technology, Denver, CO provider of document delivery services to law firms and government agencies, raised $30.4M in Series B funding led by Long Ridge Equity Partners with participation from Blue Heron Capital and TheLegalTech Fund.
LightBeam, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based data protection platform, raised $17.8M in Series A funding. Vertex Ventures US led the round and was joined by Dropbox Ventures and existing investors 8VC, Village Global, and angel investors.
Splash, a Denver, Colo.-based developer of sports strategy games, raised $14.1M in a Series A extension from Boston Seed, Velvet Sea Ventures, K5, Elysian Park, Acies Investments, Accomplice, Counterview, and others.
Podcastle, a podcasting platform, raised $13.5M in Series A funding led by Mosaic Ventures with participation from RTP Global, Point Nine Capital, Sierra Ventures, and AI Fund. [TechCrunch]
Nile, San Francisco, CA data layer for software-as-a-service applications, raised $11.6M in seed funding led by Benchmark.
Reken, San Francisco, CA cybersecurity platform designed to defend against AI threats, raised $10M in seed funding led by Greycroft and FPV Ventures with participation from Firebolt Ventures, Fika Ventures, Omega Venture Partners, Homebrew, and JAZZ Venture Partners.
Aim Security, Tel Aviv, Israel generative AI security platform for enterprise generative AI, raised $10M in seed funding led by YL Ventures with participation from CCL and angel investors.
Roofer.com, an Arlington, TX provider of roof health technology and services, raised $7.5M in seed funding led by Mucker Capital with participation from Soma Capital, HF0, Asymmetric Capital Partners, Alumni Ventures, HustleFund, and others. [Roofing Contractor]
p0, Wilmington, DE developer of preventative technology designed to locate safety and security issues in software, raised $6.5M in funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from Alchemy Ventures. [TechCrunch]
Crescendo, a San Francisco-based AI call center for businesses, raised $4.5M in seed funding from General Catalyst.
Fora, NYC AI bot designed specifically for executives, raised $3.8M in pre-seed funding. Converge led the round and was joined by GTM Fund, Zelkova Venture Partners, Acadian Ventures, 14Peaks, and others.
Coris, Palo Alto, CA provider of automated underwriting and risk infrastructure software, raised $3.7M seed funding led by Lux Capital and Exponent Founders Capital with participation from Y Combinator, Blank Ventures, and angel investors.
Wondercraft, London, U.K. provider of AI technology designed to turn text into audio productions, raised $3M in seed funding led by Will Ventures with participation from Y Combinator, ElevenLabs, and angel investors.
StreamAlive, a Basking Ridge, N.J. audience engagement monitor for video calls, live streams, and other applications, raised $1.6M in pre-seed funding from Speciale Invest and others.
. . .
HardTech:
Chef Robotics, an SF-based provider of commercial kitchen robotics, raised $14.75M in equity and debt funding from MaC Venture Capital, MFV Partners, Interwoven Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Construct Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Promus Ventures, and Red and Blue Ventures. [TechCrunch]
Haven Energy, Los Angeles, CA provider of home battery systems, raised $7M in Series A funding from Comcast Ventures, LifeX, TO VC, Habitat Partners, with existing investors Lerer Hippeau, Giant Ventures, and Raven One Ventures.
Inference.ai, Palo Alto, CA supplier of GPU models for AI development, raised $4M in seed funding led by Cherubic Ventures and Maple VC with participation from Fusion Fund.
Meteomatics, a Swiss weather intelligence startup, raised capital from Lockheed Martin's VC arm. [Axios]
. . .
Sustainability:
Inari, Cambridge, MA producer of AI-powered sustainable seed development, raised $103M in Series F funding. from Hanwha Impact, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Rivas Capital, NGS Super, State of Michigan Retirement System, and others. Bringing its cumulative equity raised to more than $575M. [Inari]
Watershed, San Francisco, CA platform designed for companies to report and manage their emissions, raised $100M in Series C funding led by Greenoaks with participation from existing investors Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Elad Gil, Emerson Collective, and more. [Watershed]
Transmutex, Swiss nuclear engineering startup, raised $23.2M. Union Square Ventures and Steel Atlas co-led, with participation from At One Ventures, HCVC, AlleyCorp, House Of Ventures, Presight Capital, Verve Ventures, FONGIT and Tiny Supercomputer Investment. [Axios]
Boston Metal, a Woburn, MA provider of services designed to decarbonize steelmaking, raised $20M in a Series C extension from Marunouchi Innovation Partners. [Boston Metal]
Acquisitions & PE:
Databricks, a San Francisco-based unified data analytics platform valued at $38B, agreed to acquire Einblick, a Somerville, MA visual data computing startup previously funded by Amplify Partners, Flybridge, Samsung Nnext Ventures, Osage University Partners, Koa Labs, and Dell Technologies Capital. [Fortune]
Bloomreach, Mountain View, CA e-commerce personalization provider last valued at $2.2B, acquired Radiance Commerce, a San Mateo, CA conversational commerce platform previously funded by Foundation Capital, Flight Ventures, and NEA. [Digital Commerce 360]
Nobull, Boston, MA sneaker maker owned by Mike Repole's Impact Capital, is merging with both Tom Brady's Brady apparel company and TB12 health & nutrition company. [CNBC]
Vista Equity Partners completes EngageSmart, a Braintree, MA provider of customer engagement software and integrated payments solutions, acquisition for $4B. [EngageSmart]
Ramp, a New York corporate finance automation startup last valued by at $5.8B, acquired AI-powered procurement startup Venue. [PYMNTS]
Fabric acquired GYANT, a San Francisco, CA conversational AI medical assistant designed to automate busywork and provide care to health care patients. Financial terms were not disclosed. [FinSMEs]
SmartBear, backed by Vista Equity Partners and Francisco Partners, acquired Reflect, a Philadelphia, PA AI-powered no-code testing platform for web applications. Financial terms were not disclosed. [Reflect]
Autodesk (NAS: ADSK) agreed to acquire Payapps, a Melbourne, Australia provider of construction payment and compliance management solutions. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Blackford Capital acquired Data Science Automation, an automation engineering services and training firm. Financial terms were not disclosed. [Blackford Capital]
Blackhawk Network, backed by Silver Lake, agreed to acquire Tango Card, a Seattle, WA digital rewards, e-gifting, and payments platform. Financial terms were not disclosed. [PE Hub]
Funds:
Generate Capital raised $1.5B to invest in low-carbon infrastructure. [Axios]
Giant Ventures, London, U.K. venture capital firm, raised $250M across two funds: a $100M seed stage fund focused on climate tech, healthtech and what Giant calls “inclusive capitalism,” and a $150M growth stage fund focused on climate. [Sifted]
Basis Set, San Francisco venture capital firm, raised $185M for its third fund focused on AI & automation companies. [Newcomer]
Alt Capital, San Francisco venture capital firm, founded by Jack Altman raised $150M for its third fund focused on enterprise software startups, [The Information]
Final Numbers from Chartr
Facebook has officially left its teenage years behind, with the social networking platform that started in a Harvard dorm room celebrating its 20th birthday on Sunday.
Just a few days earlier, the company’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was being grilled by a Senate committee over concerns about child safety on the “Family of Apps” under the holding company monolith that is Meta, which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Reality Labs (Meta’s virtual reality division). However, Thursday brought a more celebratory itinerary for Facebook execs, as Meta reported a lights-out quarter, sending shares up more than 20%, adding $196bn to the company’s value — the largest one-day gain in Wall Street history.
For investors, there was a lot to like about Meta’s update. Yes, the company is still talking a lot about the metaverse — and spending billions of dollars trying to build it — but its core social media business is so wildly profitable that we’re running out of superlatives to describe it.
Instagram vs. Reality
Somehow, 20 years on from Facebook’s founding, the company is still signing up new accounts, with daily active users hitting 3.19 billion — and now, Meta is better than ever at monetizing those eyeballs. Indeed, the average US or Canadian user was worth an eye-watering $226 in revenue for Meta last year. That means the company is extracting $18+ of value from you every month, holding your attention with content that — for the most part — has been uploaded freely to its platform, without costing Meta a single dollar.
Most companies could never dream of burning $40bn over 3 years developing a new product. But, then again, most companies don't have a business that has churned out $163bn of operating profit to fund that investment.
And, while virtual reality has yet to become actual reality for many Meta-owned platform users, there’s already some fierce competition in the form of Apple's long-awaited Vision Pro VR headset, which hit shelves on Friday having sold an estimated 200k pre-order units at $3,499 apiece.
Bot pursuit
Although Meta is still waiting for its big bet on VR to pay off, the company didn't shy away from pouring resources into AI as the sector exploded last year. Meta launched LLaMA 1, its first iteration of a generative AI large language model, in February 2023, and only a year later it has already begun training LLaMA 3, its latest attempt in building towards artificial general intelligence (AGI).
If you want to get a sense of where Zuckerberg & Co’s focus is, earnings calls aren’t a bad place to start. The term “metaverse” came up a total of 20 times in the earnings call from Q2 2021, as the company rebranded to “Meta” to better encompass its virtual world vision. But, recently, “AI” has been getting all the love — with a whopping 72 mentions in Meta’s Thursday call.
Love Sourcery? Want some merch? Check out our shop: sourcerymerch.com
P.S. we just got some Holographic Stickers that ship faster than the Apple Vision Pro, plus if you upgrade to an ‘annual paid’ subscription you get a free hat of your choosing.
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.
I told you this needs to be a podcast. These interviews are great. I got to watch some of your first one so much insight. I will go finish. I want to let you know. You did a great job.