Startup mortality rates, Apple's ambitions in India, and former OpenAI board member Helen Toner talks. . . but says little

Approximately 3,200 private venture-backed U.S. companies have gone out of business this year, according to data compiled for The New York Times by PitchBook, which says the data isn't comprehensive.

Former OpenAI board member and academic Helen Toner shares her side of the story about why Sam Altman was dismissed from OpenAI. (Don't get too excited; she offers zero specifics.)

Premium Plus subscribers on X can now play around with Grok, a rebellious chatbot developed by xAI, Elon Musk's AI company.

Early impressions of Google's Gemini LLM aren't great, and its best demo was more than a little misleading.

Are you asking the right questions of your fund administrator? More than just delivering a list of financial reports, the right fund administrator creates enterprise-building value at the intersection of your finance and investor relations teams, leveraging innovative technology to strengthen partnerships between you and your LPs. Juniper Square’s latest guide includes the four things you need to consider to ensure you find the right administrator from the start, as well as probing questions to ask during the vetting process. Download it here now.

Artbio, a two-year-old startup based in Cambridge, Ma., that is developing three radiopharmaceuticals, one of which is aimed at prostate cancer, raised a $90 million Series A round. Third Rock Ventures and an unnamed health care fund co-led the transaction, with F-Prime Capital and Omega Funds also taking part. BioPharma Dive has more here.

ContactMonkey, a Toronto-based platform that lets companies create, send and track internal comms from Outlook and more, announced that it raised $55 million in a Series A round led by Updata Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Klook Travel Technology, a nine-year-old Hong Kong startup that helps travelers book tours and activities, raised a $210 million Series E+ round. Bessemer Venture Partners was the deal lead, with additional participation from BPEA EQT, SMIC SG Holdings, and HongShan (the former Sequoia Capital China). The Business Times has more here.

Pontera, an 11-year-old New York company that helps financial advisors manage their clients' retirement savings, raised a $60 million round at a $550+ million valuation, according to CTech. Iconiq Growth (the investment firm for Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Reid Hoffman) led the transaction, with Blumberg Capital, Collaborative Fund, Hanaco Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and The Founders Kitchen also contributing. The company has raised a total of $160 million. CTech has more here.

Scalable Capital, a nine-year-old Munich startup that has launched a full-service brokerage, raised a $64.9 million Series E extension at a $1.4 billion valuation, flat to its 2021 round. Balderton Capital was the deal lead, with HV Capital also participating. The company has raised a total of $345+ million. TechCrunch has more here.

X-Energy, a 14-year-old company based in Rockville, Md., that is developing small modular nuclear reactors, raised an $80 million Series C extension. Ares Management and X-Energy founder Kam Ghaffarian were the co-leads. (Ares had previously tried to take X-Energy public via SPAC.) More here.

Babylon, a crypto startup that operates a marketplace offering Bitcoin as a staking asset, raised an $18 million round co-led by Polychain Capital and Hack VC, with Framework Ventures, Polygon Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, OKX Ventures, Finality Capital, Breyer Capital, and Symbolic Capital also stepping up. CoinDesk has more here.

Center, a five-year-old startup based in Bellevue, Wa., that makes expense management software, raised a $30 million Series C round. Top Tier Capital Partners was the deal lead, with Durable Capital Partners also investing. PYMNTS has more here.

Igloo, a seven-year-old Singapore startup that provides insurance products and services to businesses in Southeast Asia, raised a $36 million pre-Series B round led by Eurazeo, with previous investors Openspace and La Maison also contributing. The company has raised a total of $100 million. Reinsurance News has more here.

Liquid AI, a startup based in Brookline, Ma., that plans to provide on-premises and private AI infrastructure for customers powered by a new type of AI model called a liquid neural network, raised a $37.5 million seed round at a $303 million post-money valuation from OSS Capital, PagsGroup, Automattic, Samsung Next, Bold Capital Partners, and ISAI Cap Venture. TechCrunch has more here.

Sarvam AI, a one-year-old Bengaluru startup that is building large language models with support for Indian languages, raised a $41 million seed and Series A round. Lightspeed Venture Partners led both of these rounds, with Peak XV Partners and Khosla Ventures also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Sharpen, a four-year-old startup based in Concord, Ma., that provides parents with a platform they can use to assess their children's reading literacy, raised an $11 million round led by Learn Capital. More here.

Bujeti, a two-year-old Lagos startup that has built a corporate card and spend management platform for African SMBs, raised a $2 million seed round. Y Combinator was the lead investor, with Entrée Capital, Voltron Capital, Unpopular VC, and Kima Ventures also piling on. TechCrunch has more here.

Curvance, a startup that claims it is building a DeFi “everything app” for lending and borrowing, designed to help address fragmentation across chains and protocols, raised a $3.6 million seed round. Investors included Offchain Labs and Wormhole. The Block has more here.

Harriet, a London startup that helps companies organize their HR documents and acts as an assistant for employees who need help with HR matters, raised a $1.5 pre-seed round led by Concept Ventures and including Frontline Ventures, Portfolio Ventures, and Notion Capital. Tech.eu has more here.

Hyme Energy, a two-year-old Copenhagen startup whose technology could help industrial companies store power from green sources of energy, raised an $8.6 million round. Investors included previous backers Heartland, Nordic Makers, and North-East Venture. Sifted has more here.

Meatiply, a two-year-old Singapore startup that says it is using specialized muscle cell regeneration technology to create cultivated meat products, raised a $3.8 million seed round co-led by AgFunder and Wavemaker Partners, with Seeds Capital (a Singapore government-backed fund) also chipping in. Vegconomist has more here.

Pimento, a one-year-old Paris startup that turns creative briefs into visual mood boards using generative AI, raised a $3.2 million seed round. Partech and Cygni Capital co-led the deal. TechCrunch has more here.

Qortex, a three-year-old New York startup that assists businesses in searching, categorizing, correlating, and curating video content, raised a $10 million seed round led by GFT Ventures and including Silicon Road Ventures. More here.

Sona, a Los Angeles startup that offers musicians a platform enabling them to stream their music for free while also selling "digital twins" of their songs as NFTs, letting fans invest in their work and earn rewards, raised a $6.9 million round from Polychain Capital, Haun Ventures, and Rogue Capital also joining in. TechCrunch has more here.

Trackstar, a two-year-old New York startup whose API allows its customers to integrate with different warehouse management systems in order to enhance supply chain efficiency and data accessibility, raised a $2.6 million seed round led by TMV. More here.

This unexpected asset’s prices (handily) beat your favorite stocks. You’ve likely never considered investing in this market, but billionaires like Jay-Z and Ken Griffin have been clued into it for decades: paintings by artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. And now, for the first time, everyday investors are getting in on the action. Thanks to Masterworks, an award-winning platform for investing in blue-chip art. Prices for paintings by Basquiat grew at an annualized rate of 33% from 1984 to 2022 – outpacing the S&P 500. Strictly VC readers can skip the waitlist. 

*Investing involves risk and past performance is not indicative of future returns. See important Reg A disclosures and aggregate advisory performance masterworks.com/cd.

Canapi Ventures, a Washington, D.C., New York City, and Wilmington, N.C.-based venture capital firm, raised $750 million in capital commitments for its second fund. The firm says it specializes in financial infrastructure, lending and credit payments, real estate technology, cybersecurity, and other sectors. Axios has more here.

Congruent Ventures, a San Francisco, Calif.-based venture capital firm focused on climate tech, has closed its third fund with $275 million in capital commitments. TechCrunch has more here.

Zelda Ventures, a new seed-stage venture firm founded by Suzanne Fletcher, a Stanford StartX fund manager, has closed its debut fund with $33 million in capital commitments. TechCrunch has more here.

Elon Musk's six dumbest X-related decisions this year.

Initialized Capital has hired Rent the Runway co-founder Jennifer Fleiss as its newest partner.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is using reportedly using mackerel packets for currency these days; meanwhile, the crypto world is rebounding.

Music streaming service Tidal is laying off more than 10% of its staff, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The move comes as Tidal’s parent company, Jack Dorsey’s Block, recently told investors in a letter that it plans to cap the number of people at the company at 12,000

Apple is aiming to make a quarter of its iPhones in India.

CALPERS was responsible for 15% of the total capital raised by U.S. VC firms in the first six months of this year.

A new report by an MIT professor finds that there were more ransomware attacks reported in the first nine months of 2023 than in all of 2022.

Austin is losing its luster.

Anthropic’s latest tactic to stop racist AI is asking  ‘really really really really’ nicely.

What's your (p)doom?

'Gwyneth Goes Skiing," the musical.

A seventh grade Kansas City girl named Evelyn is social media's newest star. 

Scientists have used AI to uncover elements of whale vocalizations that may be similar to human speech.

Comfort food that feels like a hug.

Sotheby's is selling a single bottle of Old Rip Van Winkle 25-Year-Old bourbon. Bidding starts at $28,000.

A collector is auctioning off typewriters once owned by Ernest Hemingway, Maya Angelou, Tennessee Williams, John Lennon, Shirley Temple, and the Unabomber.

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