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Heard today at Upfront Summit in West Hollywood, in an interview with honcho Brian Singerman of Founders Fund, who was asked about what is the "most broke thing about venture right now?"
Said Singerman, "I think that it's just a lot of the returns from this wave are going to go to incumbents -- more than they have in the past. And that's a challenge. Everybody sitting here knows that. Like, you're going to have so many of these returns going to Microsoft, Google, Amazon, whatever. So, yeah, there's going to be startups and companies that are worth a huge amount. But I think you are competing versus incumbents in a way that we never really have before, because the incumbents were less competent then, whereas modern Microsoft, modern Google? All these [outfits] are extremely competent."
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Stripe and its investors are valuing the company at $65 billion in order to buy over $1 billion of current and former Stripe employees’ shares. It's significantly below the $95 billion valuation it secured in 2021, but it's still a pretty steep price. The WSJ has more here.
Coinbase says it has solved a problem that was leading users to see a zero balance in their accounts, a situation apparently triggered by the strain placed on the company's
systems by Bitcoin's skyrocketing price.
The Walt Disney Company has formed a joint venture with India’s biggest conglomerate, Reliance Industries, in an $8.5 billion deal that will create the largest media powerhouse in the world’s most populous nation.
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Glean, a five-year-old Palo Alto startup that aims to enhance workplace productivity by using AI to provide a unified search experience across all company apps, raised a $200 million Series D round at a $2.2 billion valuation. The deal was co-led by earlier investors Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with additional participation from Sequoia Capital, Coatue, ICONIQ Growth, IVP, and Capital One Ventures. The company has raised a total of approximately $360 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Ideogram, a two-year-old Toronto startup that is developing generative AI technology to create images, focusing on generating visuals from textual descriptions or enhancing existing images, raised an $80 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Index Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Pear VC, and SV Angel also joining in. Bloomberg has more here.
Mainstay Medical, a 16-year-old Dublin company that develops medical devices for treating chronic back pain, raised a $125 million round. Gilde Healthcare and Viking Global Investors were the co-leads, with previous investors Ally Bridge Group, Sofinnova Partners, Fountain Healthcare Partners, and Perceptive Advisors also participating. The Business Post has more here.
Unseenlabs, a nine-year-old startup based in Rennes, France, that uses satellites to track ships at sea, aiming to improve security and environmental monitoring for clients in maritime industries, raised a $92.2 million Series C round co-led by Supernova Invest, ISALT, and UNEXO, with previous investors 360 Capital, OMNES, Bpifrance, Breizh Up, and S2G Ventures also taking part. Payload has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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Aktiia, a six-year-old Swiss startup that offers a wristband that uses photonics technology to continuously monitor blood pressure, raised a $30 million round led by Redalpine, with Khosla Ventures, Molten, Translink Capital, Verve, and 415 Capital also contributing. Optics.org has more here.
Coverdash, a two-year-old New York startup that offers an online platform for small businesses to quickly find and buy insurance policies tailored to their specific needs, raised a $13.5 million Series A round led by Nyca Partners, with previous investors Bling Capital, AXIS Digital Ventures, Tokio Marine Future Fund, Expansion VC, and Cameron Ventures also chipping in. TechCrunch has more here.
Ether.fi, a two-year-old startup based in the Cayman Islands that has developed a liquid restaking protocol that allows users to stake their cryptocurrency assets to support the operation and security of a blockchain network in exchange for rewards, raised a $23 million round. Bullish Capital and CoinFund were the co-leads, with OKX Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Consensys, and Amber also pitching in. CoinDesk has more here.
HALO, a five-year-old Irish startup that leases body camera technology to sectors like private security and law enforcement, offering a subscription service for recording, live streaming, and managing video and audio data, raised a $20 million Series A round. Volition Capital was the sole investor. The Business Post has more here.
NLX, a six-year-old New York startup that enables companies to create, manage, deploy, and analyze chat, voice, and multimodal conversational applications, raised a $12 million Series A round. Cercano led the transaction. PYMNTS has more here.
Parspec, a three-year-old startup based in San Mateo, Ca., that has built a platform to streamline the process of finding and buying construction materials, raised a $11.5 million seed round led by Innovation Endeavors, with Building Ventures, Heartland Ventures, and Hometeam Ventures also investing. More here.
Pelage Pharmaceuticals, a Los Angeles startup that is developing medications aimed at individuals suffering from hair loss, raised a $16.75 million Series A round led by GV, with Main Street Advisors, Visionary Ventures, and YK BioVentures also investing. Pharmaceutical Technology has more here.
Photoroom, a four-year-old Paris startup that makes an AI photo editing app for businesses and consumers, raised a $43 million at a $500 million valuation. Balderton Capital was the deal lead, while Aglaé and previous investor Y Combinator also contributed. The company has raised a total of $64 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Redi Health, a three-year-old startup based in Columbus, Oh., that aims to help healthcare professionals streamline various aspects of patient care, such as appointment scheduling, raised a $14 million Series B round led by Blue Heron Capital, with North Coast Ventures as well as previous investors Refinery Ventures, MCP, Rev1 Ventures, and M25 also piling on. MobiHealthNews has more here.
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BuildBear Labs, a two-year-old Singapore startup that provides a cloud-based platform that enables developers to create and test decentralized applications in a private and scalable environment, raised a $1.9 million round co-led by Superscrypt, Tribe Capital, and 1kx, with Iterative, and Plug-N-Play also joining in. Asia Business Outlook has more here.
Initia, a one-year-old Singapore startup whose platform aims to simplify the creation and management of blockchain projects, raised a $7.5 million seed round co-led by Delphi Ventures and HackVC, with Nascent, Figment Capital, Big Brain, and A.Capital also anteing up. TechCrunch has more here.
KLIQ, a two-year-old London startup whose platform enables creators to launch their own-branded apps, raised a $1.5 million pre-seed round led by Serena Ventures. EU-Startups has more here.
Shader, an AR creation tool that uses AI to generate custom effects -- it was founded by a former Snap design lead responsible for designing Snapchat’s AR camera and more -- has raised $580,000 in seed funding from Betaworks, Greycroft, Differential Ventures, Mozilla Ventures and On Deck. TechCrunch has more here.
Slice, an Israeli startup that helps companies issue and manage equity for their international employees, raised a $7 million seed round led by TLV Partners, with R-Squared Ventures, Jibe Ventures, Wilson Sonsini, and Fenwick & West also stepping up. CTech has more here.
Validation Cloud, a seven-year-old startup based in Zug, Switzerland, that says it is selling web3 infrastructure, raised a $5.8 million round led by Cadenza Ventures and including Blockchain Founders Fund, Bloccelerate, Blockwall, Side Door Ventures, Metamatic, GS Futures, and AP Capital. U.Today has more here.
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Pittsburgh-based Black Tech Nation Ventures has closed an inaugural $50 million fund to back Black founders of pre-seed and seed stage companies in areas like fintech, health tech, climate tech, edtech, and AI and machine learning. The firm, which counts Alphabet, Bank of America, and Mark Cuban as investors, will write checks in the $250,000 to $1 million range.
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Ecommerce aggregator Thrasio, which raised more than $3 billion in equity and debt over its six year history, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Who could see this one coming other than everyone. TechCrunch has more here.
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Salesforce cofounder and CEO Marc Benioff told an NPR reporter investigating how much property he owned in Hawaii that he knew the exact area where she was was staying. Asked how he knew this, he replied, "It's my job. You have a job and I have a job."
Lawyers for FTX cofounder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried are asking the court to reduce his prison sentence from 100 years to five or six years because of his autism.
The Winklevii have agreed to return $1 billion to customers and pay a $37 million fine in order to settle a complaint filed by the New York Department of Financial Services related to Gemini Earn.
Veteran tech executive Frank Slootman stepped down as CEO of the software concern Snowflake today, and Wall Street hates it.
The SEC is reportedly scrutinizing internal communications by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as part of an investigation into whether the company’s investors were misled. According to the WSJ, the agency sent a subpoena to OpenAI in December, following the OpenAI board’s decision in November to fire Altman as CEO and oust him from the board
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Sony is cutting 8% of its total PlayStation headcount, a figure that amounts to some 900 employees.
In other videogame news, EA has plans to lay off 670 employees or 5% of its total workforce.
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Crunchbase is reporting that funding for Black founders in 2023 totaled $705 million, the first time since 2016 that it failed to cross the $1 billion mark.
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The Pentagon is using targeted ads to find its targets.
What's really happening at tech accelerator Techstars, according to a TechCrunch review of leaked documents.
The Apple Car that never was: a timeline.
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