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Last weekend of July. ☀️ Hope yours is a fun one. As we type, we're visiting with family in the Midwest, where the weather gods are keeping things interesting: Sunny! Rainy. Dry! Drenched.
Whatever you're doing, if you happen to be looking for a venture-y podcast this weekend, we have a new one for you, featuring Chi-Hua Chien and Eric Kim of Goodwater Capital, the consumer-focused venture firm that landed $1 billion in capital commitments recently, despite "consumer" being largely out of vogue right now. We covered a lot of ground with the pair, from its very global focus -- more than 60% of its bets are outside the U.S -- to how it has systemized seed investing.
Giant thanks to the team at Affinity, the "relationship intelligence platform for dealmakers," for supporting this week's episode. With Affinity, brand names in the investing world find, manage, and close more deals, according to the company. You can learn more about its automated relationship intelligence insights and tech (and some of those customers), here.
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Less than two weeks since Dutch e-bike company VanMoof was declared bankrupt in the Netherlands, its repair shop in London’s Battersea Power Station has been repossessed by the owners. Flagship stores and service hubs in all other European locations have also closed in the past two weeks, says Sifted. More here.
Who gets blamed for a road fatality in the era of self-driving cars, when humans are essentially babysitters of still-learning AI systems? In the case of Uber's fatal self-driving car crash in 2018, that question was answered today. The test operator during the crash, Rafaela Vasquez, pleaded guilty to one count of endangerment and was sentenced to three years of supervised probation, with no time in prison. Wired has the story.
Federal prosecutors today asked a judge to revoke FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s bail in a Manhattan court filing, claiming that the billionaire had violated the terms of the release and repeatedly tampered with witnesses. CNBC has more here.
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Research: the state of venture capital in 2023. While the slowdown began in 2022, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and subsequent shocks in the lending space shook the venture industry even further. To go beyond the headlines, Juniper Square surveyed nearly 100 venture capital professionals about their concerns, plans, and focus areas for the rest of the year. See what they had to say about the state of the industry. Download The State of Venture Capital: 2023 Benchmark Survey now.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Bright, a Mexico City startup backed by actor Leonardo Di Caprio that sells and finances solar equipment to businesses and consumers in Mexico, raised a $31.5 million Series C round. The Danish SDG Investment Fund was the lead. Contxto has more here.
EV.energy, which develops software for managing electric vehicle charging, closed a $33 million Series B this month. National Grid Partners led the all-equity round for the five-year-old, London-based startup. Aviva Ventures, Wex Venture Capital and Jaguar Land Rover's investment arm, InMotion Ventures, joined. Axios has more here.
Proprio, a seven-year-old Seattle startup whose software helps clinicians place incisions and guide the placement of hardware, such as devices that can help straighten a spine, raised a $43 million Series B round led by Sigmas, with additional participation from Bird B, AG, Wheelhouse Capital, DCVC, and BOLD Capital Partners. The company has raised a total of $85.1 million. GeekWire has more here.
Super7, a 22-year-old San Francisco company that produces lifestyle-oriented collectibles, toys, and apparel, raised a $12 million round. The Newcastle Network was the deal lead. CityBiz has more here.
VEIR, a four-year-old startup based in Woburn, Ma., that is developing superconductors that it claims will lead to the transmission of 5-10X more energy than the current grid, raised an additional $24.9 million in Series A-2 funding. Investors included Breakthrough Energy Ventures, The Engine Fund, Congruent Ventures, Fine Structure Ventures, Galvanize Climate Solutions, and VXI Capital. The company has raised a total of $36.7 million. More here.
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CompScience Insurance Services, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that makes workplace safety recommendations by analyzing security video with AI and data science techniques, raised a $10 million Series A round led by Valor Equity Partners, with Four More Capital also contributing. The company has raised a total of $20 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.
Exponential Exchange, a two-year-old startup based in Washington, DC, that provides financial tools for customers ranging from hedge funds to rental car companies, raised a $7.4 million in a seed round round. MaC Venture Capital led the deal, with Autotech Ventures and Avanta Ventures also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $8.8 million. More here.
Helpful, a Cambridge, Ma., startup whose app is designed to help caregivers by bringing together insurance benefits, medical records, and caregiving resources into one place, raised a $7.5 million seed round. Redesign Health led the transaction. TechCrunch has more here.
Licify, a six-year-old startup based in Bogota, Colombia, that is providing procurement software for the construction industry, raised a $3.4 million round Brick & Mortar Ventures and Accion Venture Lab co-led the transaction, with additional investment from Dash Fund, G2 Momentum Capital, and Columbia University’s VC fund. More here.
MSPbots, a four-year-old Chicago startup that is developing LLMs for different business use cases, raised a $5 million seed round from Mercury. CRN has more here.
SuperFi, a two-year-old London startup that offers consumers customized debt prevention tools and services, raised a $1 million pre-seed round. Ascension's Fair By Design fund was the deal lead, while Force Over Mass also took part. FinTech Futures has more here.
Switchboard, a San Francisco startup that aims to simplify the development of data tools within an organization, raised a $7 million Series A round. GFT Ventures and Quest Venture Partners were the co-leads. VentureBeat has more here.
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Portfolios with 5% in art have higher returns. Research has proven that an investment portfolio with 5% invested in contemporary art has historically driven higher returns versus a “traditional” portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds. Thanks to Masterworks, anyone can now invest in shares of multi-million dollar art, for just a fraction of the cost. With a 100% positive net returns track record, Masterworks investors have realized net returns of 17.8%, 21.5%, and 35%. Now, StrictlyVC readers
can skip the waitlist with this exclusive link.
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Prime Movers Lab, a Jackson, Wyo.-based venture firm focused on investments in breakthrough scientific startups, says it has raised $245 million in capital commitments for its third early-stage fund (fourth overall fund). The fund brings the firm's total assets under management to more than $1.2 billion. More here.
Wex, a publicly traded, Portland, Me.-based payment processing company, says its board has authorized a new investment arm of WEX, WEX Venture Capital, to invest up to $100 million through the end of 2025, which will likely be made predominantly in early-stage companies focused on the energy transition, including areas such as fleet electrification, the electric vehicle charging ecosystem, energy management and optimization, and adjacent technology. WEX Venture Capital has already started to deploy capital, including minority investments in Chargetrip and ev.energy. More here.
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AngelList, which famously provides tools for startup fundraising, is getting into the private equity business. Kind of. According to TechCrunch, the outfit quietly acquired a YC-backed company last month called Nova that has built investor management software for institutional private funds. Terms of the deal aren't being disclosed, but it's just the second acquisition since AngelList was founded in 2010. (The other was Product Hunt.) More here.
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Per the WSJ, Melinda French Gates has decided to continue as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, working alongside her now ex-husband Bill Gates to manage one of the world’s largest and most influential philanthropies. French Gates and Gates had agreed that she would resign and exit with additional funds for her own philanthropic work if after two years following their divorce either one decided joint leadership wasn’t working.
Dell co-COO Chuck Whitten says he's resigning next month; Bloomberg attributes the move to the historic slowdown in computer demand.
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China-focused venture capital funds raised $2.7 billion in the second quarter, a drop of more than 50% from the first quarter, according to a new report from Preqin, the alternative assets research firm.
Four careers where workers will have to change jobs by 2030 due to AI and shifts in how we shop, according to a McKinsey study.
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The already-strict App Store review process is about to get even more strict to crack down on fingerprinting, a technique for tracking users across different apps and websites. 9to5Mac has more here.
Google has recently begun plugging state-of-the-art language models into its robots, giving them the equivalent of artificial brains. The secretive project has made the robots far smarter and given them new powers of understanding and problem-solving. The New York Times has more here.
Wow, even NASA is launching its very own streaming platform. While the space agency already livestreams launches and other events on its website, its new NASA+ service, planned to "launch' this summer, will feature not just live broadcasts but also collections of original video series. Engadget has more here.
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If Oppenheimer recruited Walter White.
How Netflix's tech feeds its success.
Trader Joe's falafels might have rocks in them.
Taylor Swift's seismic impact on Seattle.
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Restive Ventures: Investing in fintech founders from the get-go! We specialize in pre-seed and seed stages, offering capital to fuel your fintech business from the start. We love partnering with founders, getting in the trenches with them, and connecting them with leaders in tech and finance to boost their growth. Interested in working with us? Apply today. Applications are open until this coming Tuesday, August 1, 2023.
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