Happy Monday!

Our "The Venture Mind" event last week was a blast ❤️!  Professor Ilya Strebulaev shared many fun VC stories including how Bessemer missed investing in Google, and how Sequoia found the founders of WhatsApp by walking the streets of Mountain View! This is my favorite quote: “Being a VC The goal is not to win each time, but rather not to miss the opportunity to win big at least once.” Check out our fun photos.

P.S. This week, my partner Chris McCann is hosting a fireside chat with Priyanka Vergadia, she leads developer relations at Google Cloud - they will chat about best practices for growing and scaling development communities. Join us in SF on June 13!

🗳️ Silicon Valley Investors Are Split between Biden & Trump - Political winds in Silicon Valley are shifting. Vinod Khosla, Reid Hoffman and Marissa Mayer show their support for President Biden vs David Sacks, Chamath Palihapitiya and Doug Leone who are endorsing former President Trump. Watch this update by CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa.

👑 Midas List 2024 - Forbes’ ranking of the world’s top venture capitalists is out! Click here to read more.

🌁 San Francisco Reborn - San Francisco has its troubles, yes. But there are clear and growing signs that San Francisco is coming back! No doom loop here, no matter what anyone says. Read more on Bloomberg.

🎥 Kling: the Chinese Sora has Launched. Developed by Kuaishiu, Kling’s demo videos are absolutely amazing! Unfortunately, this launch has no impact on their stock price at all. Currently valued at $226B HKD (~$29B USD) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

💰 Chinese Startup Stakes Sold to American Investors in Anticipation of Washington Restricting Foreign Ownership - There are no rules preventing Chinese investors from taking minority stakes in US companies, but in tech and banking, many parties are implementing tighter controls. Chinese ownership could hamper a company’s ability to sell to the US government. Read on FT.

👋 When Should a CEO Step Down - The CEO of CB Insights fired himself. A very thoughtful tweet by Anand Sanwal. The two questions he asked himself: #1: Am I excited about the type of work that lies ahead? #2: Do I have what the company needs?

📢 How to Pitch Your Fund to LPs - I am hosting this Webinar on Wed!

This week a total of 18 startups raised $354.1M in funding, 3 M&As:

• $184.6M goes to 9 Enterprise startups

• $3M goes to 1 FinTech startup

• $30M goes to 1 Recruiting startup

• $16M goes to 1 eCommerce startup

• $52M goes to 3 Healthcare startups

• $55M goes to 1 BioTech startup

• $10M goes to 1 Automobile startup

• $3.5M goes to 1 Construction startup

If you love this newsletter, forward it to someone who would also enjoy it and have them subscribe.

Edith
X, LinkedIn

Funding (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley)

Enterprise

• Pika (text-to-video platform) raised $80M Series B led by Spark Capital

• Twelve Labs (video understanding technology) raised $50M Series A led by New Enterprise Associates, NVentures

• Tobiko Data (data transformation platform) raised $17.3M Series A led by Theory Ventures

• Zingly (collaborative customer experience platform) raised $10M Seed

• Rising Team (team performance platform) raised $8M Series A led by Zeal Capital Partners

• Browserbase (headless browser platform) raised $6.5M Seed led by Kleiner Perkins

• AirMDR (managed detection and response) raised $5M Seed led by Foundation Capital

• Greptile (AI codebase search) raised $4.1M Seed led by Initialized Capital

• Bem (AI data interface) raised $3.7M Seed led by Uncork Capital

FinTech

• Prósperos (financial platform for Spanish-speaking consumers) raised $3M Seed from FEBE Ventures, BAT VC, Tekton Ventures, Courtyard Ventures

HR

• Ashby (recruiting platform) raised $30M Series C led by Lachy Groom

eCommerce

• Vantage Discovery (intelligent and semantic search for commerce) raised $16M Series A led by Lobby Capital

Healthcare

• Eko Health (AI-driven heart and lung disease detection) raised $41M Series D from ARTIS Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, NTTVC, and Questa Capital

• Raydiant Oximetry (medical devices for childbirth) raised $7.5M Series A led by Cross-Border Impact Ventures

• Spike Technologies (API for health data) raised $3.5M Seed led by Practica Capital, TheVentureCity

BioTech

• Prolific Machines (photomolecular biology platform) raised $55M Series B led by Ki Tua Fund

Automobile

• Viaduct (AI-powered vehicle health analytics) raised $10M Series B led by FM Capital

Construction

• Field Materials (construction procurement AI) raised $3.5M Seed led by DivcoWest, Flyer One Ventures, Navitas Capital, Zelda Ventures

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

• Databricks acquired Tabular (data management) for $1B

• Joby Aviation acquired Xwing Autonomy Division (autonomous aviation technology)

• Cloudera acquired Verta (operational AI platform)