Hello from San Francisco!

I am super excited to relaunch my newsletter on Substack this week!  This relaunch isn't just about a fresh look or new content; it's about reigniting our shared passion for technology, entrepreneurship, startups and venture capital, diving deeper into discussions, and exploring what the different world’s events mean for us as founders and investors.

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

• 🖕Why The F We're Still Doing This - One of my favorite talks at the Upfront Summit was this talk with Howard Morgan, founder of Renaissance Technologies, First Round and B Capital, Alan Patricof, founder of Greycroft and Primetime Partners and Ray Lane, founder of GreatPoint Ventures and previously Managing Partner with Kleiner Perkins. This is a truly an inspiring talk for a baby VC like me. Enjoy!

• ✉️ Why an Email Company Makes Sense for Intuit - I enjoy reading this Verge interview with the new Mailchimp CEO, Rania Succar. The part that caught my eye was the number of customers that Intuit ($179B market cap) small business serves. 10 million small business customers across QuickBooks and Mailchimp vs 170 million Americans who have built communities and businesses on TikTok vs 205,000 Hubspot ($33.9B marekt cap) customers.  There is for sure a lot more room to grow for companies that are going after the SMB market. 

• 🛒 Google Wants to Get Intro the the CRM Game - Alphabet wants to go after the CRM + SMB market and may make an offer for HubSpot. Hubspot generated $2.2 billion of revenue in 2023 with 2000 employees. Reuters broke the story and I enjoyed listening to the All-In podcast analysis on this.

• 🚗 Xiaomi EV Launch in Guangzhou - I went to Guangzhou with my mother for the first time since 2019 last week and ran into the launch event of SU7 - Xiaomi’s very first EV. Hundreds of people are lining up outside of the Xiaomi store to see the beautiful car. Imagine putting a car inside an Apple Store… Check out my video by clicking here and read well titled article by the FT 👉 The Steve Jobs of China turns car salesman in Xiaomi’s EV evolution.

• 💪 Let’s Meet in Boston @ Techcrunch Early Stage - I am excited to speak at Techcrunch Early Stage on April 25 in Boston. Join me there!

This week a total of 12 startups raised $320.8M in funding, 2 M&As:

• $106M goes to 5 Enterprise startups

• $85M goes to 2 HR startups

• $3.8M goes to 1 Food Delivery startup

• $70M goes to 1 Hardware startup

• $30M goes to 2 Environment startups

• $26M goes to 1 AgTech startup

If you love this newsletter, ask your best friends to sign up.

Edith

Funding (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley)

Enterprise

• Coalesce Automation (data transformation solution) raised $50M Series B led by Emergence Capital, Industry Ventures

• Lumana (video security platform) raised $24M seed from Norwest and S Capital

• Permiso Security (threat detection in cloud-based environments) raised $18.5M Series A led by Altimeter Capital

• Higgsfield (personalized AI video creation) raised $8M Seed led by Menlo Ventures

• SiftHub (AI sales response platform) raised $5.5M Seed led by Blume Ventures, Matrix Partners India

HR

• Homebase (HR and team management app) raised $60M Series D led by L Catterton

• Modal (upskilling platform for data professionals) raised $25M Series A led by Left Lane Capital

Food Delivery

• Delivery Collective (merchant-first delivery infrastructure) raised $3.8M Seed led by Bling Capital, Defy.vc

Hardware

• SiMA.ai (multimodal GenAI chip) raised $70M Series C led by Maverick Capital

Environment

• BurnBot (vegetation management and fuel treatment solutions) raised $20M Series A led by ReGen Ventures

• NobleAI (science-based AI solutions for chemicals and materials products) raised $10M Series A led by Sway Ventures

AgTech

• Seso (workforce management platform for agriculture) raised $26M Series B led by BOND

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

• IXL Learning acquired Dictionary.com

• Yahoo acquired Artifact (AI-driven news platform)