Silicon Valley Funding News - Week of October 24, 2022. Swift Navigation Raised $100M Series D

Race Capital Venture Summit 2022 is a wrap!

I am so thankful to Sam Bankman-Fried, Founder of FTX, Roelof Botha, Managing Partner at Sequoia Capital, Ion Stoica, Founder of Databricks and Opaque Systems, and Anatoly Yakovenko, Co-Founder of Solana for being there for us.  Now my 10 weddings are over, and I am off to FII, Web Summit and Breakpoint.  Catch up with some of you there?

Here are a few great reads for this week:

• ✏️ History of Benchmark Capital - I really enjoyed the Acquired's latest podcast on Benchmark Capital. Twice it has produced the highest returning fund of its cycle, each time with a 100% different GP lineup. It's very cool to show how a successful generational transfer of GPs should be done. 
• 🇨🇳 The US Clobbers China's Chip Industry - The US wants to make sure China cannot buy, develop or even maintain their semiconductor industry. China consumes more than 75% of the semiconductors sold globally, but produces only about 15% of global output. If China “retaliates in any other industries, it’s going to be disastrous. Watch my comments on Yahoo News and CBS News. 
• 🚀 Aptos Mainnet Launch - Aptos Labs blockchain launched its mainnet last Monday, becoming the first of the Facebook spin-off networks to premiere and putting to the test its $4B valuation. Aptos is the brainchild of several former Meta's Diem team.  Aptos blockchain’s code is written with Move, a Rust-based programming language. Check out the latest statistic on their launch.   
• 🌱 Sequoia Arc program - Sequoia is launching a seed-stage program.  🌱15 companies, 8 weeks with 💰$1M up-front investment. Y Combinator, founded in 2005, has become the best recognized accelerator. Still, it is a lot to run a program (me coming from 500 Startups).  The recent shuttering of On Deck is a reminder that while these programs provide nascent companies access to investors, mentorship and practical support, they are also businesses themselves.
• 🦦🦦🦦 Ottr Finance - I am excited to announce we at RaceCapital have led a $3.1M pre-seed investment in Ottr Finance along with our friends at Circle Ventures and Slow Ventures.  See announcement on Axio.

This week a total of 15 startups raised $357.1M in funding, 0 M&As:

• $171M goes to 5 Enterprise startups
• $1.6M goes to 1 FinTech startup
• $3.3M goes to 1 Legal Tech startup
• $20M goes to 1 Marketplace startup
• $30M goes to 1 Gaming startup
• $2.5M goes to 1 Wellness startup
• $3.5M goes to 1 BioTech startup
• $15M goes to 1 Healthcare startup
• $103M goes to 2 Automotive startups
• $7.2M goes to 1 Renewable Energy startup