Hello from San Francisco 🌉

I am super busy (and excited) getting ready for our Race Capital Summit on April 19. People frequently tell me one of the things they love about the Summit is the people. We feel so honored that to have so many amazing venture firms in our industry including ​Sequoia Capital, ​Greylock Partners, ​Khosla Ventures, ​Qualcomm Ventures, ​Goldman Sachs and many more join us! The photo above is from our last Summit. =)

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

• 🚗 Top 10 Most Funded AI Companies as of April 2024 - To prepare for this Friday’s summit, I did this quick study based on Crunchbase data:

• 💪 The State of AAPI in Venture Capital - Despite representing nearly 20% of the VC work force, AAPI-owned VC funds represent 3.3% of all VC funds. AAPIs experience notable exclusion from DEI initiatives: 19% of the top 100 LPs explicitly exclude AAPIs from DEI efforts. This landmark study conducted by DECODE, UC Berkeley, and AAAIM highlight a critical gap in the VC community, uncovering a disconnect between the success stories of AAPI investors and systemic barriers for diverse communities. Learn more

• 🌉 Generative AI Brings San Francisco Back from the Dead - According to data from Carta, the San Francisco Bay Area is #1 in terms of total invested capital into AI companies in 2023 with $3.6 billion invested.

• 🌉 The Race To Regulate AI - CNBC did a great recap of what has been done so far in terms of AI regulation. I am surprised to learn that 15 AI bills were already passed into law by U.S. Senate. Watch more.

• 📢 Techcrunch Early Stage and Hello Beantown - I am speaking at Techcrunch Early Stage on April 25 in Boston and also hosting the Startup Pitch 101 Workshop on April 24. Join me there!

This week a total of 13 startups raised $298.1M in funding, 3 M&As:

• $43.6M goes to 6 Enterprise startups

• $30M goes to 1 Fintech startup

• $80M goes to 1 Web3/Crypto startup

• $100M goes to 1 Robotics startup

• $5.3M goes to 1 Restaurant startup

• $8.2M goes to 1 Sports startup

• $3M goes to 1 Entertainment startup

• $28M goes to 1 Environment startup

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Edith
X, LinkedIn

Funding (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley)

Enterprise

• StrikeReady (AI security operations platform) raised $12M Series A led by 33N Ventures

• Simbian (autonomous security platform) raised $10M Seed from Cota Capital, Icon Ventures, Firebolt and Rain Capital

• Mode (generative AI assistant for IoT) raised $8.8M Series B from SBI, True Ventures, JR East Startup and Daiichi Jitsugyo

• Sapien (data labeling for AI) raised $5M Seed from Primitive Ventures, Animoca, Artichoke Capital, and Yield Guild Games

• Writ (data dashboards with AI) raised $3.8M Seed led by Gradient Ventures

• GoodGist (corporate skills development and knowledge management) raised $1M Seed from FortyTwo.VC, Cedar Ridge Ventures, DX Partners

Fintech

• Anrok (sales tax platform for software) raised $30M Series B led by Khosla Ventures

Web3/Crypto

• Auradine (blockchain and AI infrastructure solutions) raised $80M Series B from StepStone Group, Top Tier Capital Partners, MVP Ventures, and Maverick Capital

Robotics

• Collaborative Robotics (collaborative robots) raised $100M Series B led by General Catalyst

Restaurant

• Juicer (restaurant revenue management and pricing) raised $5.3M Seed led by York IE

Sports

• Quintar (spatial XR platform) raised $8.2M Series A led by SeventySix Capital & Cowles Company

Entertainment

• JARS AI (interactive shows) raised $3M Seed led by Gradient Ventures

Environment

• Windfall Bio (methane capture transformation solution) raised $28M Series A led by Prelude Ventures

IPO & M&A (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley)  

• Automattic acquired Beeper (messaging app) for $125M

• Postman acquired Orbit (API collaboration platform)

• Zscaler acquired Airgap Networks (cloud security)

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