Silicon Valley Funding News - Week of April 10, 2023. Covariant Raised $75M Series C

This has been a very sad week in San Francisco with the murder of Bob Lee, occurring only a few blocks from where I live...maybe I should move too?

P.S. I am co-hosting a GlobalSF Women CEOs event with Mary Yee (CEO of Tatcha) and Frost Li (CEO of SocialChat) this coming Thursday. Join us!

Here are a few great reads and lists for the week: 

• 😭  Bob Lee, founder of Cash App, died after apparent stabbing attack in San Francisco - In 2022, San Francisco's violent crime rate was 647 per 100,000 residents, a rise from the 2020 rate of 550. Houston had a violent crime rate of 1,256 per 100,000 in 2020. Chicago was 987, Los Angeles 722, New York 578. San Francisco needs to do something!  Read more
• 🇧🇷 ❤️ 🇨🇳 and the Future of Money - On March 30, China and Brazil struck a deal to trade in their own currencies instead of the US dollar, which now means Brazil will accept trade settlements and investments in Chinese yuan, with an agreement reached between the Central Banks in February, and the appointment of a yuan clearing bank and access to the Cross-border Interbank Payment System. China is Brazil’s biggest trading partner, with a record US$150.5 billion in bilateral trade in 2022.  Meanwhile, Brazil’s yuan-denominated foreign-exchange assets reached a new high of 5.37% of the total by the end of 2022, surpassing euro assets to be the second-largest. Will this challenge the dominance or the US dollar?  What is the future of the Brazilian Real or Chinese yuan? Read more
• 🎮 The Complete History & Strategy of Nintendo - One of the my favorite podcasts so far in 2023 by the Acquired, I really enjoy the story of Nintendo.  Did not realize it is a 130 year-old playing card company, forged in the shadowy world of the Yakuza and shaped by a four-generation cycle of bitter family betrayal. And its unlikely transformation into a global multi-billion dollar media monopoly was led by an iron-fisted patriarch who — amazingly — never played a video game in his life!  Check it out 
• 🔎 Sundar Pichai Says Search to Include Chat AI - Google plans to add conversational AI features to its search engine would supercharge Google’s ability to answer an array of search queries, He dismissed the notion that chatbots posed a threat to Google’s search business. A few things we should note:
  • Google plans to allow users to ask follow-up questions to their original queries by thoughtfully integrating LLMs into search.
  • When Google in March opened public access to Bard, the company didn’t integrate it into its search engine.  Read more
  • Google has begun testing new AI features within Gmail and other work-related products, while Microsoft has embedded ChatGPT in their business software tools.
  • Google Brain and DeepMind hopefully will work closer together
  • Smaller AI models will become more useful over time, allowing companies to design their own and/or their users to run the algorithms on their own personal devices
• 💰 Global VC Funding Falls Dramatically Across All Stages - Global funding in the first quarter reached $76 billion — marking a 53% decline year over year from $162 billion in the first quarter of 2022. That’s even including a reported $10 billion investment into OpenAI — largely from Microsoft — and a $6.5 billion round for payments giant Stripe. Every funding stage last quarter was down 44%-54% year over year, a clear signal that the slowdown is not just confined to late-stage funding. Read more

This week a total of 10 startups raised $213.5M in funding, 1 M&As:

• $85M goes to 4 Enterprise startups
• $31M goes to 1 FinTech startup
• $3.5M goes to 1 Web3/Crypto startup
• $75M goes to 1 Robotics startup
• $9M goes to 2 BioTech startups
• $10M goes to 1 Manufacturing startup