Silicon Valley Funding News - Week of January 29, 2024. SmithRX Raised $60M Series C

Happy Monday!  I am still hiring. If your college-aged kids, nieces and nephews are looking at an internship this summer at a Silicon Valley VC, please invite them to apply at Race Capital. Read more here and ask her/him to apply here.

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

• 📚 How to Know a Person - I really enjoy listening this book by David Brooks recommended by my friend Lin. =)  Being a seed investor, it's all about learning and reading people. A great product does not make a great company. A great founder makes a great company. With social media, we have the illusion of social contact without truly building trust, care and affection. Read more
• 💰 Is there Conflict of Interest? Bret Taylor is raising $85M for his startup Sierra. Sam Altman is raising billions for his AI chips factories. 
• 📺 The Speech that Broke the Internet by Javier Milei, President of Argentina -  Watch his speech at WEF
• 📺 Meet Allen Lau, founder of Wattpad (acquired by Naver for $600M) - Allen is the co-founder of Toronto-based Wattpad, the global multi-platform entertainment company for original stories and leading social storytelling platform. ​After raising $120M from top VCs in Silicon Valley, New York, Canada, and Asia, in 2021 Wattpad was acquired by South Korean internet conglomerate Naver for $600 million.I am hosting Allen this coming Wednesday 5 pm PST.  Join us on Linkedin Live.
• 🔥 24584 Workers Have Been Laid Off - so far in January 2024 from 93 tech companies, the most since March 2023 when ~38,000 people were laid off including companies like Salesforce, Microsoft, SAP, eBay, Riot Games, Wayfair, etc. Read more
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  ​This week a total of 13 startups raised $288.7M in funding, 4 M&As: 

• $114.2M goes to 5 Enterprise startups
• $5.4M goes to 1 Crypto startup
• $64.6M goes to 2 Healthcare startups
• $40M goes to 2 BioTech startups
• $50M goes to 1 Environment startup
• $4M goes to 1 Marketplace startup
• $10.5M goes to 1 Food Tech startup