Silicon Valley Funding News - Week of June 12, 2023. Bitterroot Bio Raised $145M Series A

This has been one eventful week in Silicon Valley! From the launch of Apple's Vision Pro, Sequoia's breakup, the SEC's charges against Coinbase and Binance, and my first driverless ride in a Cruise!  No doubt it was a busy week.

Here are a few great reads for the week:

• Coinbase and Binance in the Hot Water with SEC - The SEC unveiled a barrage of charges against two of the world's largest crypto exchanges — Binance and Coinbase — kicking off a legal battle that will help define the future of cryptocurrencies. If the SEC prevails in the courts, it could potentially force crypto companies to register with the SEC, which would cause a sea of change.
• Apple's Vision Pro Ushers in the Era of Spatial Computing with the intent to blend digital content with the physical world, while allowing users to stay present and connected to others. Spatial computing was defined in 2003 by Simon Greenwold as "human interaction with a machine in which the machine retains and manipulates references to real objects and spaces". Apple pushed out many workshops on this topic during WWDC 2023. The presentation was certainly impressive, but at least one writer has bet everything that it will flop.
• 5 Mistakes Founders Should Avoid for their Pitch Decks - My favorites from this Fortune article:
  • Your pitch deck is your chance to make a first impression on investors. The goal of a pitch deck is to get a meeting with an investor.
  • Your pitch deck should always include 5 things: Team, Problem, Solution, Market and Traction.
  • When talking about the problem, be sure to include real numbers and data. This will help investors understand the magnitude of the problem and the need for your solution.
  • When talking about customers, be specific about who you are targeting. Don't try to be all things to all people.
  • My rules of thumb - For every 1 investor you talk to, you MUST talk to at least 10 potential users and customers.
• Can US investor continue to invest in China - Sequoia announced that the firm is going to break off its China and India units into separate entities.  As an investor, the bigger topics we should be aware of:
  • Reverse CFIUS - The Biden Administration has been preparing an executive order restricting U.S. investors’ ability to invest in Chinese companies that focus on artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and quantum computing. But this is not going to be successful without international coordination. 
  • U.S. investors invested $40.2 billion in 251 Chinese AI companies accounting for 37% of the $110 billion raised by all Chinese AI companies.
  • Chinese investors remain the dominant investors in Chinese AI companies. Between 2015 and 2021, at least 71% of the transaction value and 92% of the investment transactions had no US investor participation.
• San Francisco is Back in a Big Way - This year, San Francisco will host the APEC Summit - largest international government event ever to be held in the Bay Area. From November 12-28, 21 heads of government (including President Biden, President Xi of China and Prime Minister Kishida of Japan) and many other foreign ministers, trade ministers, finance ministers and CEOs will descend on the city.  This is the only event announced so far is the APEC CEO Summit.  Hopefully San Francisco can get its act together and clean up its streets before the doors open. This is the moment for SF to shine again.

This week a total of 16 startups raised $551.8M in funding, 1 M&As: 

• $102M goes to 4 Enterprise startups
• $4M goes to 1 Marketplace startup
• $10M goes to 1 Gaming startup
• $5M goes to 1 Hardware startup
• $10M goes to 1 Wearables startup
• $5.8M goes to 2 Food and Beverage startups
• $245M goes to 2 BioTech startups
• $60M goes to 2 Healthcare startups
• $110M goes to 2 CleanTech startups