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Tomorrow, the Federal Reserve is scheduled to release a highly anticipated review of its supervision of Silicon Valley Bank, the favored bank of venture firms and tech start-ups that failed spectacularly in March, setting off a crisis of confidence for the banking industry and regional banks in particular. The Associated Press has more here.
Snap today reported that its revenue fell in the first quarter for the first time since it went public. As the New York Times notes, the app maker has struggled to adjust to a difficult economic environment, one exacerbated by upgrades to the platform on which it sells ads, which "disrupted" its ads business. It did grow its daily users to 383 million, a 15% increase over last year.
Amazon meanwhile reported surging growth today as it rebounded from stagnant sales after a post-pandemic slowdown, but its cloud-computing business showed further signs of cooling. The WSJ has more here.
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Clara, a nearly three-year-old, Sao Paulo, Brazil startup that helps companies manage employee spending, raised a $60 million Series B extension round led by GGV Capital, with Acrew Capital, Citius, Citi Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst, Ethos, Commerce Ventures, Goanna Capital, Bayhouse Capital, and Fluent Ventures as well as previous investors Monashees, Coatue, Picus Capital, DST Global Partners, Alter Global, and General Catalyst also piling on. The company has raised a total of $160 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Foresight Diagnostics, a three-year-old startup based in Aurora, Co., that says it is developing highly sensitive cancer tests, raised a $58.75 million Series B round led by Foresite Capital, with Civilization Ventures, Bluebird Ventures, Pear Ventures, Agent Capital, Stanford University, and The University of Colorado Healthcare Innovation Fund also taking part. More here.
Pinecone, a four-year-old New York startup that provides long-term memory for large language models like OpenAI’s GPT-4, raised a $100 million Series B round at a $750 million valuation. Andreessen Horowitz was the deal lead, while Iconiq Growth and previous investors Menlo Ventures and Wing VC also participated. VentureBeat has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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DeepHow, a four-year-old, Detroit-based startup founded by former Siemens researchers to use AI to accelerate skills training for shop-floor and other skilled trades workers, has raised $14 million in Series A funding. Owl Ventures (a venture firm that specializes in edtech) led the round, joined by LG Tech Ventures and previous backers Sierra Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Osage Venture Partners, and Foothill Ventures. AIThority has more here.
Energy Dome, a three-year-old Milan startup that uses compressed carbon dioxide to store energy, raised a $44 million Series B round co-led by Eni Next and Neva SGR, with additional capital provided by Japan Energy Fund and Elemental Excelerator, as well as previous investors Sustainable Impact Capital, CDP Venture Capital, Invitalia, Novum Capital Partners, and 360 Capital. The company has raised a total of $59.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Fireside, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that has developed a streaming app for live content, raised a $25 million Series A round at a $138 million post-money valuation. Investors included Mark Cuban, Paris Hilton, and Redbeard Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Levitate, a six-year-old startup based in Raleigh, N.C., that makes tools for businesse to create and send personalized emails, newsletters, and other communications, raised a $14 million Series C round. Investors included Bull City Venture Partners, Tippet Partners, Protagonist, and The Tweener Fund. The company has raised a total of $40 million. More here.
M3ter, a three-year-old London startup that helps businesses optimize their pricing strategies, raised a $14 million Series A round led by Notion Capital and including previous investors Insight Partners, Union Square Ventures, and Kindred Capital. The company has raised a total of $31.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Pattern Bioscience, a seven-year-old Austin startup that is developing rapid diagnostic tests for bacterial infections, raised a $28.7 million Series C round co-led by Illumina Ventures and Omnimed Capital, with AMR Action Fund and Daleshaw also contributing. More here.
Relay, a five-year-old startup based in Raleigh, NC, that builds workflow software for frontline workers, raised a $13 million Series A round. Investors included Sovereign's Capital and Wind River Ventures. More here.
Therini Bio, a seven-year-old San Francisco startup that is developing drugs to combat Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and a variety of retinal diseases, raised a $36 million Series A round. Dementia Discovery Fund, MRL Ventures Fund, Sanofi Ventures, and SV Health Investors’ Impact Medicine Fund co-led the deal, while Eli Lilly and Company as well as previous investors Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, Dolby Family Ventures, and Foundation for a Better World also chipped in. The company has raised a total of $53 million. EndPoints News has more here.
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8 Myles, an eight-year-old startup based in McLean, Va., that distributes frozen food that it calls “clean comfort food” to chains such as Whole Foods Market and Target, raised a $1 million seed round from Andreessen Horowitz, Virginia Venture Partners, The Enterprise Center, gener8tor, and Kompass Ventures. Food Business News has more here.
AaDya Security, a four-year-old Detroit startup that provides cybersecurity services to small- and medium-size enterprises, raised a $5 million Series A round led by Left Lane Capital, with 645 Ventures, Firebrand Ventures, Gaingels, and Invest Detroit also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $12.8 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.
AirOps, a one-year-old Miami startup that helps business teams deploy task-specific AI tools within their existing workflows, raised a $7 million seed round led by Wing VC; additional investors included Founder Collective, XFund, Village Global, Apollo Projects, and Lachy Groom. Refresh Miami has more here.
Amboss Technologies, a two-year-old, Portland, Or., that uses machine learning to offer routing and tools for decentralized finance, raised a $4 million seed round led by Stillmark and joined by Valor Equity Partners and Draper Associates. More here.
Bastion Cyber, a months-old French startup whose platform allows SMEs to pick and choose from various cybersecurity services depending on their needs, raised a $2.8 million seed round from Kima Ventures, Frst, Global Founders Capital, and Motier Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Ctrl, a two-year-old Tel Aviv startup that enables companies to update customer information, summarize calls, and fill out templates through uniting different CRM apps, raised a $9 million round co-led by LocalGlobe and Earlybird, with Dig Ventures and Jibe Ventures also anteing up. Calcalist has more here.
Dori, a two-year-old Atlanta startup that says its platform uses generative AI to automate the process of drafting and negotiating venture capital agreements, announced that it raised a $2 million seed round last year. Counterpart Ventures, Correlation Ventures, and Service Provider Capital were the investors. LawSites has more here.
IDPartner, a San Francisco startup that has built a consumer ID verification platform, raised a $3.1 million seed. Abstract Ventures was the deal lead, while Foundation Capital, Circle Ventures, Firsthand Alliance, Correlation Ventures, Success Venture Partners, and Aleo also participated. Finextra has more here.
Openlayer, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that provides a platform for testing and verifying machine learning models, raised a $4.8 million seed round led by Quiet Capital, with additional participation from Picus Capital, YCombinator, Hack VC, Liquid2 Ventures, and Mantis VC. SiliconANGLE has more here.
Plumery, a one-year-old Amsterdam startup that is building a software API to help banks speed up the launch of new features, raised a $4.5 million seed round co-led by Headline and Better Tomorrow Ventures; Seedcamp and Cocoa Ventures also took part. Sifted has more here.
POSH, a four-year-old New York startup that has built an event management and ticketing platform, raised a $5 million seed round co-led by Companyon Ventures and EPIC Ventures, with Cameron Dallas, Day One Ventures, Pareto Holdings, and Joshua Browder also investing. TechCrunch has more here.
VFC, a three-year-old UK startup that produces vegan chicken tenders, raised a $7.4 million from Veg Capital. Vegconomist has more here.
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Don’t miss this chance to hear from Samantha Santaniello, Head of Business Development & Partnerships at MassMutual Ventures, and Dan Polonka, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Affinity! They discussed Affinity's new dealmaking benchmark data and what it takes to be a top VC in today’s market.
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iLearningEngines, a Bethesda, Ma.-based training software company, has agreed to go public through a merger with blank check company Arrowroot Acquisition Corp. in a deal that values the combined company at $1.4 billion, Reuters wrote earlier today The deal will reportedly provide iLearningEngines with $143 million in gross proceeds, some of which will be used for future acquisitions. It isn't immediately clear if iLearningEngines ever raised venture funding; Crunchbase does not list any related
information.
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Kevin Gasque has been hired into the venture firm Greycroft as its new CFO and COO; he comes to the firm via the Carlyle Group.
ARM's San Jose-based CEO Rene Haas has been nominated by SoftBank to join its board, ahead of what could be the biggest IPO in history by a semiconductor company. (So hopes SoftBank, which acquired ARM in a $32 billion deal in 2016.) Silicon Valley Business Journal has more here.
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Clubhouse, the social audio app that gained notoriety during the pandemic, is laying off more than 50% of its staff as it doubles down on its offerings, founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth said in a memo to staff today. Those who were impacted will receive severance and continued healthcare coverage for the next few months. When asked by TechCrunch, a spokesperson for Clubhouse declined to comment on the number of people impacted by today’s workforce reduction or the number of employees who remain at the company. Last October, Davison told TechCrunch that Clubhouse had close to 100 employees. More here.
Chief, a professional network designed for women in leadership, has cut 14% of staff, or 43 jobs today, saying in an email seen by TechCrunch that the move is a response to the economy and that the outfit is restructuring to further focus on its members' experience. More here.
Cloud storage giant Dropbox today joined the fray of tech companies announcing layoffs. The company today announced that it would be laying off 16% of its staff, equivalent to about 500 employees, due to slowing growth, and — in the words of CEO Drew Houston — because “the AI era of computing has finally arrived.” TechCrunch has more here.
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Inside Apple, Siri remains widely derided for its lack of functionality and improvements. The Information takes a look here.
Time is removing the paywall on its website on June 1 in a bid to reach a wider audience. It’s a stark departure from the current thinking among many publishers in digital media. The Information has more here.
At Charles Schwab, being a big bank has become a big problem.
Amnesty International today published a "call for leading venture capital firms to respect human rights and conduct human rights due diligence on their investments and investors," following the recent disclosure that the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund currently invests in numerous venture capital firms and tech accelerators, including Andreessen Horowitz, Haun Ventures, NEA and Silver Lake. More here.
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