Silicon Valley Funding News - Week of December 25, 2023. Harvey Raised $80M Series B

Happy holidays everyone and here come our 52nd and final newsletter for 2023!  

Here are a few great things to read/watch this week:

• 💰 Top 20 Funding Rounds of 2023 - 2023 might be the worst year for VC funding in a decade, except if you are running AI companies in Silicon Valley,  EV companies in China or battery technologies anywhere in the world. San Francisco definitely made a huge comeback in 2023. Here are the the top 20 funding rounds globally, according to my research on Crunchbase:
  1. OpenAI (AI in SF) raised $10B venture round in Jan 2023
  2. Stripe (Fintech in SF)raised $6.5B Series I in March 2023
  3. Anthropic (AI in SF)raised $4B venture round in September 2023
  4. Anthropic (AI in SF) raised $2B venture round in October 2023
  5. Avaada (Green Energy in New Delhi) raised $1.2B venture round in June 2023
  6. Inflection AI (AI in Palo Alto) raised $1.3B in venture round June 2023
  7. JUUL (e-cigarette in SF) raised $1.26B venture round in Nov 2023
  8. Northvolt (Battery maker in Stockholm) raised $1.2B venture round in Aug 2023
  9. Metropolis (Mobility in LA) raised $1B venture round in Oct 2023
  10. Redwood Materials (Battery Supply Chain Carson City) raised $1B venture round in Aug 2023
  11. Stack AV (EV in Pittsburgh) raised $1B venture round in Sep 2023
  12. Resolution Life (Insurance in London) raised $1B venture round in Jan 2023
  13. Hozon (EV in Shanghai) raised $986M venture round in Aug 2023
  14. ROX Motor (EV in Shanghai) raised $986M venture round in Sep 2023
  15. Verkor (Battery in Grenoble) raised €850M Series C in Sep 2023
  16. Lazada Group (eCommerce in Singapore) raised $845M Venture Round in July 2023
  17. 42dot (Mobility AI in Seoul) raised $800M Venture Round in Apr 2023
  18. Zeekr (EV in Beijing) raised $750M Venture Round in Feb 2023
  19. Databricks (Data in SF) raised $684M Series I in Sep 2023
  20. Lazada Group (eCommerce in Singapore) raised $634M Venture Round in December 2023
• 💰 Just a few Tech IPOs of 2023 - Several highly anticipated tech IPOs (Stripe, Reddit, Chime, Shein, etc) did not make it this year.  Here are a few brave ones that did go public this year: 
  • ARM is now valued at $74B
  • Klaviyo is now valued at $7.4B
  • Nextracker is now valued at $7.14B
  • Instacart is now valued at $6.6B
• 🔮 2024 Predictions: State of Venture Capital and Startups - Alfred and I are hosting this fireside chat on January 3, 2024 at 5 pm. Join us!
• 📺 Tim Cook Interview with Dua Lipa - I found it quite interesting to learn about Tim's upbringing and daily routine. He wakes up at 4:00 in the morning and does one hour of customer and employee emails and works out for one hour before heading into the office. He definitely gave me some inspiration for my new years resolutions. Watch here.
• 📝 Bill Gates on 2024 - I always enjoy reading his annual letter. Here is to the the road ahead reaches a turning point in 2024. Read more 

This week a total of 11 startups raised $242.5M in funding, 2 M&As:

• $86.1M goes to 3 Enterprise startups
• $9.5M goes to 1 FinTech startup
• $10M goes to 1 Wellness startup
• $23M goes to 1 Veterinary startup
• $1.9M goes to 1 Entertainment startup
• $87M goes to 2 BioTech startups
• $22.5M goes to 1 AgTech startup
• $2.5M goes to 1 Climate Tech startup