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Reddit finally filed to go public today and revealed that it paid its CEO, Steve Huffman, $193 million last year. More on the IPO in "People" and "Data" below.
Intuitive Machines today landed an unmanned spacecraft on the moon in an historic first for a private company.
In yet another harsh turn of events for the digital media world, Vice Media is ceasing publication of Vice.com and firing hundreds of employees.
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EigenLayer, a three-year-old Seattle startup that aims to help Ethereum stakeholders to utilize their staked ETH to support additional protocols beyond Ethereum, potentially earning fees and rewards, raised a $100 million round. Andreessen Horowitz was the deal lead. GeekWire has more here.
Fabric, a nine-year-old New York startup that integrates various healthcare services, aiming to make them more efficient and accessible to patients while reducing the workload on healthcare professionals, raised a $60 million Series A round led by General Catalyst and including Thrive Capital, GV, Salesforce Ventures, Vast Ventures, Box Group, and Atento Capital. PYMNTS has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Blackbird Health, a nine-year-old Pittsburgh startup that offers virtual in-person mental health care services for children, teens, and young adults suffering from anxiety, depression, ADHD, or autism, raised a $17 million Series A round led by Define Ventures, with Frist Cressey Ventures and GreyMatter also stepping up. Forbes has more here.
Dub, a three-year-old New York startup whose platform allows individuals to copy the investment strategies of other investors with one tap, raised a $17 million round. The deal lead was Tusk Ventures, with angels like Robinhood's first COO Nathan Rodland and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi also contributing. More here.
DustPhotonics, a seven-year-old Israeli startup that sells high-speed optical interconnect products for data centers and AI applications, raised a $24 million Series B extension. Investors included Sienna Venture Capital, Greenfield Partners, Atreides Management, and Exor Ventures. CTech has more here.
Empowerly, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that offers college admissions counseling and application consultation services, raised a $15 million round. Conductive Ventures was the deal lead. TechCrunch has more here.
Highway 9 Networks, a startup whose platform is designed to improve mobile connectivity and services for AI-driven businesses, raised a $25 million round from Mayfield, General Catalyst, and Detroit Ventures. More here.
Power, a three-year-old San Francisco startup whose platform helps patients find clinical trials for various medical conditions, raised an $11.9 million Series A round co-led by Kin, Contrary, and Footwork. HIT Consultant has more here.
Synadia Communications, a seven-year-old startup based in San Mateo, Ca., that specializes in connecting applications and data across different environments like the cloud, on-premise systems, and edge devices, raised a $25 million Series B round. Forgepoint Capital was the deal lead, with Singtel Innov8, LDVP, and 5G Open Innovation Lab also taking part. The company has raised a total of $51 million. More here.
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Buildstock, a two-year-old New York startup that is creating a marketplace that connects buyers and suppliers in the high-rise construction industry in order to facilitate the purchase and sale of construction materials, raised a $1.6 million pre-seed round. Precursor, MGV, XFactor, and RefashionD invested in the deal. More here.
Conservation Labs, an eight-year-old Pittsburgh startup that has developed a smart water monitor that uses sound to detect water usage and leaks in plumbing systems, raised a $7.5 million Series A round led by RET Ventures, with Sustain VC also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $9.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Elektra Health, a five-year-old New York startup that offers menopause care, including telemedicine consultations, evidence-based education, personalized support, and a community for sharing experiences, raised a $3.3 million seed extension led by UPMC Enterprises, with Wavemaker 360 as well as previous investors Flare Capital Partners and Seven Seven Six Fund also pitching in. Built in NYC has more here.
Evergrowth, a 10-year-old Lithuanian company that uses AI to enhance B2B sales strategies, raised a $2.2 million startup led by Impellent Ventures and Practica Capital. More here.
Inco, a New York startup whose technology allows for the processing of encrypted data without the need to decrypt it, aiming to enhance security and privacy in blockchain applications, raised a $4.5 million seed round led by 1kx, with additional participation from Circle Ventures, Robot Ventures, Portal VC, Alliance DAO, Big Brain Holdings, Symbolic, GSR, Polygon Ventures, Daedalus, Matter Labs, and Fenbushi. More here.
Nodeshift, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that offers a decentralized cloud computing service, presenting what it believes to be a cost-effective alternative for GPU-powered virtual machines, storage, and compute deployments, raised a $3.2 million round led by Inovo.vc, with Notion Capital, 10X Founders, and Kestrel0x1 also anteing up. TechCrunch has more here.
VectorShift, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that claims it can enable users without deep technical knowledge to build AI-powered search engines, assistants, and chatbots, raised a $3 million seed round. Investors included 1984 Ventures, defy.vc, Formus Capital, Y Combinator, Soma Capital, 468 Ventures, and Pioneer Ventures. More here.
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Billionaires wanted it, but 62,630 everyday investors got it first. When incredibly valuable assets come up for sale, it's typically the wealthiest people that end up with an amazing investment. But Masterworks is taking on the billionaires at their own game, buying and securitizing prized blue-chip artworks for its investors. Across its sold works, investors have realized annualized net returns of +13.9%, +14.6%, and +17.8% and more from these opportunities. Offerings can sell out in minutes, but you can skip the waitlist here.
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Golden Ventures, a Canadian VC firm, raised a fifth fund in the amount of $100 million. The firm targets seed-stage startups in areas like AI, climate, blockchain, and quantum. TechCrunch has more here.
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Local networking site Nextdoor has been struggling since it hauled itself onto the public market via a SPAC in 2021. Now, the vultures are circling, reports The Information, as the ad-driven site debates whether to replace current CEO Sarah Friar with original CEO Nirav Tolia or to potentially sell itself to a buyer.
Beleaguered electric trucking company Nikola has sold the Badger electric pickup truck assets it was once supposed to build with General Motors. The buyer? A friend of disgraced founder Trevor Milton.
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The seemingly ubiquitous Sam Altman is the third largest shareholder in Reddit, with an 8.7% stake, Reddit revealed when it released its IPO prospectus today. It's not yet clear what that stake will be worth. Fortune estimates it could be valued at $435 million if Reddit gets the $5 billion valuation its advisers are reportedly targeting.
Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Tumblr owner Automattic, is supposed to be on sabbatical. Instead, he’s arguing with Tumblr users over an individual content moderation decision that has sparked accusations of transphobia -- accusations that Mullenweg says are misplaced. “Tumblr has a number of LGBT+ including trans people on staff," he writes on his own blog, "and they see things from the inside fully, and they’re not protesting this case.”
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Reddit’s prospects as a public company have a lot to do with its relationships with AI vendors such as OpenAI, observes TechCrunch. In its IPO prospectus filed today, Reddit repeatedly emphasized how much it thinks it stands to gain from data licensing agreements with the companies training AI models on its over 1 billion posts and more than 16 billion comments. “In January 2024, we entered into certain data licensing arrangements with an aggregate contract value of $203.0 million and terms ranging from two to three years,” the prospectus reads. “We expect a minimum of $66.4 million of revenue to be recognized during the year ending December 31, 2024 and the remaining thereafter.” More here.
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Google's Gemini chatbot will no longer be able to create human images until the company figures out why Gemini placed people of color in German military uniforms.
The tech hiring process has never been so arduous.
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SoHo House is over, according to The New York Post. “I have a friend who is an analyst at a bank, and he still likes it,” one source told a Post reporter. “But he’s a finance guy, so he doesn’t really know what’s cool.”
The real life diet of Jesse Ferguson, who found out the hard way that Pilates isn't as easy as it looks.
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