WeWork files for Chapter 11, a damning report about Cruise, and a fast look at the giant new fund of "solo GP" Elad Gil

We're beginning to map out our first StrictlyVC evening of 2024! Save the date or even grab your ticket. It's all happening January 24, a Wednesday night, at the beautiful San Francisco headquarters of Cloudflare (which, as some of you might recall, also generously hosted us back in 2019). 

We're so excited; we haven't had the chance to put one of these together since this past January, when along with other notable guest speakers, Sam Altman came and kicked off what has been a year like no other(!).

We'll have more details in the coming weeks and months about who's coming this time around. 🎉🎉. In the meantime, don't wait too long to snag a seat, and if you'd like to partner with us on the evening, please let us know; we'd love to talk with you. 

The Intercept says its review of Cruise's internal documents shows the autonomous car company kept its vehicles on the road despite knowing they had a hard time recognizing children. The report puts a lot of pressure on Cruise's parent company, GM, which has already invested many billions of dollars into the loss-making unit. 

WeWork has (finally) formally filed for bankruptcy.

At its first-ever developer conference, OpenAI announced a faster AI engine called GPT-4 Turbo and a new way to create custom versions of ChatGPT. It also said it will pay the legal fees of business customers who are hit with copyright lawsuits.

The AI arms race is on: Chinese startup 01.AI (which just announced a new round; see below) released an open-source AI model that experts believe may outclass Meta’s LLaMA 2 LLM. 

Italy's Finance Police seized $835 million in funds from Airbnb for failing to pay withholding taxes on almost $4 billion in bookings. 

The State of Venture Capital - a look back at Q3 2023. While Q2 saw a promising upswing in capital raised by venture funds, new data puts Q3 at a nearly decade-long low. In Juniper Square’s latest update, Eugene Tetlow, Head of Strategy for Private Equity and Venture Capital, breaks down Q3’s VC fundraising trends, surprising exit values, and average fund sizes. Get the insights.

Aleph Alpha, a four-year-old German startup that is developing an AI LLM based on European data, raised a $500 million Series B round. Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence, Schwarz Group, and Bosch Ventures were the co-leads, with additional participation from Christ&Company Consulting, HP Enterprise, SAP, and Burda Principal Investments. CNBC has more here.

Kloudfuse, a three-year-old startup based in Cupertino, Ca., that allows customers to analyze metrics, events, logs, traces, and anomalies across different software apps and machines, raised a $17 million Series A round led by Newlands, with Blumberg Capital, Aspenwood Ventures, High Sage, and Exponent also participating. The company has raised a total of $23 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Stellaromics, a one-year-old Boston startup whose 3D mapping tool can capture gene expression patterns within intact tissue, raised a $25 million Series A round. Plaisance Capital Management was the deal lead. More here.

TapNation, a four-year-old Paris startup that enables game testing and player behavior and gameplay analysis, raised a $16.1 million round. Investors included Re-Sources Capital and Paluel-Marmont Capital. Tech.eu has more here.

Zelig, a Los Angeles startup that says it is using a combination of AI, machine learning, and computer vision to help consumers visualize how clothes will look on different body types, raised a $15 million Series A round at a $100 million valuation. The deal was led by Hilco Global, with Bezikian Zareh also taking part. TechCrunch has more here.

Coperniq, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that makes workflow management software for solar and energy contractors, has quietly raised $4 million in seed funding led by Initialized Capital, with participation from Y Combinator (whose current president, Garry Tan, cofounded Initialized). TechCrunch has more here.

Dreamfarm, an Italian startup that is aiming to create a vegan mozzarella, raised a $5.4 million pre-seed round. Investors included angels Giampaolo Cagnin and Francesco Mutti. TechCrunch has more here.

Ensol, a 10-year-old Paris company that provides solar panels and storage devices to homeowners and businesses, raised a $3.2 million round. Otium Capital was the deal lead. EU-Startups has more here.

Flitter, a two-year-old Paris startup that offers usage-based car insurance policies to French drivers, raised a $3.8 million seed round led by Helvetia Venture Fund. EU-Startups has more here.

01.AI, a Chinese startup founded this year by unicorn whisperer Kai-Fu Lee that aims to be the Chinese version of OpenAI, raised an undisclosed amount at a $1 billion valuation from an investor group that included Sinovation Ventures and Alibaba Cloud. TechCrunch has more here.

Harmonic AI is the startup discovery tool trusted by VCs and sales teams like Accel, YC, Brex and hundreds more. With Harmonic, you can: (1) Discover new startups in any sector, geography, or stage including stealth. (2) Track companies’ performance with insights on fundraising, hiring, web traffic, and more. (3) Monitor people in your network for the next generation of founders. Create your first search today.

Elad Gil, a serial entrepreneur and solo GP, has secured over $1 billion for his third, and largest, fund to date, which, wow. Per SEC filings first flagged by Pitchbook, the fund, Cosmic — Aleph 3, has received commitments of nearly $1.1 billion from 54 investors after initially targeting $820 million, which makes it 77% larger than its predecessor, which closed on $620 million in 2021. We last talked with Gil back in May.

Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd is stepping down and will be replaced by Slack CEO Lidiane Jones, who has only spent 11 months in the Slack chief executive chair. Slack is preparing to name Jones's replacement next week, says TechCrunch.

Vlad Loktev, who spent more than 10 years with Airbnb as a product manager and VP, has joined Index Partners as a partner. He's based in San Francisco.

Former Braintree founder and CEO Bryan Johnson may have made a name for himself in the anti-aging game by swapping blood with his son and spending over $2 million per year on personal therapies and procedures, but he is currently only in sixth place in something called the Rejuvenation Olympics, which he himself started.

Binny Bansal, the entrepreneur who co-founded Flipkart and became a billionaire when it sold to Walmart for $16 billion, is starting a new AI-as-a-service outsourcing startup.

Elon Musk says his AI company, xAI, has built an AI model called Grok that "is designed to answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak, so please don’t use it if you hate humor!”

Block CEO Jack Dorsey is warning employees that cuts are on the way.

According to a report from Societe Generale, this year, the top ten stocks in the S&P 500 are responsible for 89% of the index's gains, the highest concentration in fifteen years. 

With Block's stock price has fallen 80% since its 2021 peak, CEO Jack Dorsey is pledging to take a much more hands-on role in righting the company. 

With the deterioration of X, Facebook, and Instagram, where is a first-generation social media user supposed to go? 

According to a recent survey, 80% of college students are not swiping right or left.

NYC subway rat detector.

A panoply of exclusive clubs, laundry specialists, on-demand helicopter rides, and restaurant reservation auction services in New York are creating a virtual city within a city for the wealthy.

A recent court ruling could radically change the compensation structure for real estate agents.

Physics for toddlers. 

A sticky notes printer. 

Nike baby shoes.

A $1 million all-crocodile bag designed by Pharrell for Louis Vuitton is available for sale on an invitation-only basis.

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