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U.S. President Joe Biden escalated his confrontation with China today by signing an executive order banning American investments in key technology industries that could be used to enhance Beijing’s military capabilities. The order will prohibit venture capital and private equity firms from investing in Chinese efforts to develop semiconductors and other microelectronics, quantum computers and certain AI applications. (Oof.) The United States has never before attempted broad limits on the flow of investment into China, notes the New York Times. It has more here. (Readers, if you have thoughts on how this impacts the world of venture capital and/or your own work, we welcome your insights.)
According to the FT, China’s internet giants Alibaba, ByteDance, Baidu and Tencent are rushing to acquire high-performance Nvidia chips vital for building generative AI systems, making orders worth $5 billion in a buying frenzy fueled by fears the U.S. will impose new export controls. More here.
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ADARx Pharmaceuticals, a four-year-old San Diego startup that is developing RNA therapeutics for treating diseases across a range of therapeutic areas, including genetic, cardiovascular, complement-mediated, and central nervous system, raised a $200 million Series C round co-led by Bain Capital Life Sciences and TCGX, with Blackrock, Commodore Capital, Cormorant Asset Management, HB Healthcare Investments, Invus, Marshall Wace, Redmile Group, T. Rowe Price, Venrock, Vivo Capital and previous investors Ascenta Capital, Lilly Asia Ventures, OrbiMed, and SR One Capital Management also piling on. The company has raised a total of $332
million. FierceBiotech has more here.
Alltrna, a five-year-old startup based in Cambridge, Ma., that aims to treat genetic conditions by focusing on transfer RNA molecules, raised a $109 million Series B round. Flagship Pioneering was one of the investors. The company has raised a total of $159 million. BioPharma Dive has more here.
Moove, a three-year-old, Nigeria-based vehicle financing startup, has raised $76 million in equity and debt in deal that values the company at $550 million. The sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company is leading the round, with the debt coming from an investor group that includes asset management giant BlackRock. The FT has more here.
Tome, a three-year-old startup that uses AI to make it easier to create and design presentations, has talked to investors about raising new money that could double its valuation to up to $600 million, according to The Information. The new financing could amount to $60 million, according to one of the outlet's sources. The reported talks come just five months after the San Francisco outfit announced it raised $43 million in Series B financing led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. More here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Capstan Medical, a two-year-old Santa Cruz startup that is developing minimally invasive technology to address heart valve disease, raised a $31.4 million Series B round led by Eclipse Ventures, with Intuitive Ventures and Puma Venture Capital also taking part. More here.
Deepset.ai, a five-year-old Berlin startup that has built a platform for building enterprise apps powered by large language models like ChatGPT, raised a $30 million round led by Balderton Capital, with additional funds provided by GV and Harpoon Ventures. The company has raised a total of $45.6 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Sweet Security, a Tel Aviv startup that provides businesses with a cloud-based security suite that aims to help security teams quickly stop attacks on cloud workloads, raised a $12 million seed round led by Gilot Capital Partners, with CyberArk Ventures also pitching in. TechCrunch has more here.
Symmetry Systems, a five-year-old startup based in San Jose, Ca., that maps out an organization’s data and helps it define policies for sharing data, raised an $18 million round led by Prefix Capital, with participation from W11 Capital, TSG, and Forgepoint Capital. The company has raised a total of $36 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Weights & Biases, a six-year-old San Francisco startup whose AI and machine learning development platform counts OpenAI as a customer, raised a $50 million round at a $1.25 billion valuation. Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman were the co-leads, with previous investors Coatue, Insight Partners, Felicis, BOND, and BloombergBeta also participating. The company has raised a total of $250 million. TechCrunch has more here.
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Dropzone AI, a months-old, Seattle-based autonomous alert investigation platform for security operations teams, raised a $3.5 million seed round led by Decibel Partners, with participation from Pioneer Square Ventures Fund and notable angel investors, including Oliver Friedrichs, CEO of Pangea Security; Jon Oberheide, co-founder of Duo Security; and Jesse Rothstein, co-founder and CTO of ExtraHop. VentureBeat has more here.
DotBio, a six-year-old Singapore startup that specializes in antibody therapies, raised a $5.6 million pre-Series A round co-led by Proxima Ventures and Gaorong Capital, with additional investors including Chaperone Investment, Protect Biotech, and AIM-HI Accelerator Fund. The company has raised a total of $8.1 million. The Business Times has more here.
Flo Recruit, a seven-year-old Austin startup that aims to help law firms attract talent from law schools and other firms, raised a $4.2 million seed round co-led by LiveOak Venture Partners and Moneta Ventures, with Tau Ventures and Alumni Ventures also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $14.8 million. Built in Austin has more here.
Matter, a 2.5-year-old, Bristol, England startup behind a new type of reusable filter that it says can catch microfibers before they reach the sea, has raised $10 million in Series A funding co-led by S2G Ventures and SoundWaves, an ESG investment fund of Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary. Other backers in the round include Leonardo DiCaprio’s Regeneration.VC, Katapult Ocean, and a small number of strategics, says Matter. TechCrunch has more here.
Puck, a two-year-old New York digital media startup with 240,000 subscribers (30,000 of them paid), raised a $10+ million Series B round at a $70 million valuation. J Rothschild Capital Management was the lead investor. The Wrap has more here.
Treehouse, a Detroit startup that delivers turnkey installations for home EV charging, raised a $10 million round co-led by Montage Ventures and Trucks VC co-led, with CarMax, Assurant Ventures, Acrew Capital, Gutter Capital, Detroit Venture Partners, Holman, and Automotive Ventures also investing. More here.
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Tech veteran Chris Messina and write-podcaster Brian McCullough are launching a new $15 million fund aimed at AI startups. The backers include Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, and Dennis Crowley, who are all investing personally. TechCrunch has more here.
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What led to EV darling Proterra's bankruptcy.
Private equity firm Symphony Technology Group today agreed to buy media editing software maker Avid Technology for about $1.4 billion, including debt. The deal represents a 32% premium to Avid's closing share price on May 23, the day before Reuters reported the company was exploring a sale. Founded in 1987, Avid sells its tech primarily to entertainment industries. Its products -- which were reportedly used in the production of "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Avatar: The Way of Water" -- include Media Composer, MediaCentral and AirSpeed. Reuters has the story here.
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Despite a loss in population during the pandemic, average rents in Manhattan are now up 30% compared to 2019. The average monthly rent in July was $5,588, up 9% over last year and marking a new record.
Meanwhile, a research firm Capital Economics is predicting that values in San Francisco’s office sector will fall at least 40% (more) by 2025.
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From robots to recycled vapes, Ukraine’s war effort gets inventive.
The great streaming giveaway is over.
Good news for OpenAI and other large language model companies: it sounds like rival Stability AI is coming apart at the seams.
The SEC will file an "interlocutory appeal" of a judge's ruling on Ripple's programmatic sales of XRP, the regulator said in a court filing today. A federal judge ruled last month that while Ripple's direct sales of XRP to institutional investors violated securities law, its programmatic sales to retail investors through exchanges did not. CoinDesk has more here.
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SaaStr Annual 2023, the world's largest SaaS and Cloud event, is almost here! Don't miss this three-day event, Sept. 6-8 in SF that will bring together 12,000 global SaaS founders, executives, and investors for a series of high-quality content sessions and networking opportunities, including Founder and VC matchmaking. The leaders of companies like Asana to Zoom will take the stage to share their actionable insights on scaling. Readers can grab 20% off tickets with code strictlyvc (until tickets sell out.)
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