Happy Monday!

I am co-hosting Tech for America: What’s Ahead for Government Tech on September 12th in San Francisco with Hanwha Life featuring speakers from Google, Microsoft, Intel and MLtwist:

• Bruce Andrews - Chief Government Affairs Officer at Intel Corporation

• Thomas Osborne, MD - Chief Medical Officer | Microsoft Federal Civilian

• David Smith - Founder and CEO at MLtwist

• Carolyn McGourty Supple - Head of Public Affairs and Customer Engagement, Google Public Sector

Register here to join us!

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

💰 $260 Billion in ARR is breathtaking at Microsoft’s scale - Just about everything in Cloud, SaaS and AI is firing on all cylinders at Microsoft:

• Azure and Cloud up +30%

• Dynamics (its CRM) up +19%

• LinkedIn up +10%, and accelerating

• GitHub has 2X in past 24 months to $2B ARR

Read more on Saastr

🇨🇳 Six “Little Artificial-Intelligence Dragons” of China - Chips or not, the Chinese AI industry is pushing ahead. Since 2023, 40% of Alibaba’s investments in China and 30% of Tencent’s have targeted AI startups. The 6 AI Dragons are:

1. Minimax AI

2. Moonshot AI

3. Zhipu AI 智谱

4. Baichuan AI 百川智能

5. Lightyear AI 阶跃星辰

6. Lingyi Wanwu 零一万物

Read more on WSJ

💰 Enterprise Sales Tips for Founders - I really like this Enterprise Sales video by Pete Koomen, founder of Optimizely. As a founder, if you are not capable of selling your product yourself, you’re not going to be able to hire somebody to sell it for you.  Great tips on generate inbound demand and writing cold emails.

🔪 ‘Kill Switch’ for $100M Millionaires - Harris’ campaign said it agrees with a series of items in President Biden's last budget proposal which applies to individuals with at least $100 million in wealth who do not pay at least a 25% tax rate on their income (inclusive of unrealized capital gains). Payments can be spread out over subsequent years. Within that $100 million club, you'd only pay taxes on unrealized capital gains if at least 80% of your wealth is in tradeable assets (i.e., not shares of private startups or real estate). Read on Axios to learn more

🍔 The Adoption of ChatGPT - Journalists, developers, and marketers are the highest users of ChatGPT compared to other roles.
Read research by University of Chicago.

This week a total of 14 startups raised $393M in funding, 0 M&As:

• $81M goes to 3 Enterprise startups

• $23.5M goes to 2 FinTech startups

• $120.5M goes to 3 Blockchain startups

• $65M goes to 3 Healthcare startups

• $85M goes to 1 Construction startup

• $6M goes to 1 Clean Energy startup

• $12M goes to 1 Space Travel 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

• Opkey (AI-based ERP testing platform) raised $47M Series B led by PeakSpan Capital

• Eppo (A/B experimentation platform) raised $28M Series B led by Innovation Endeavors

• Kubiya (conversational AI for DevOps teams) raised $6M Seed led by Heavybit

FinTech

• Lettuce Financial (automated accounting and tax solution for solopreneurs) raised $15M Series A led by Zeev Ventures

• Skyfire Systems (AI payment processing) raised $8.5M Seed from Ripple Labs

Blockchain

• Story (blockchain technology to protect intellectual property) raised $80M Series B

• Fabric Cryptography (verifiable processing unit chip for cryptography) raised $33M Series A led by 1kx, Blockchain Capital

• Sorella Labs (on-chain liquidity markets) raised $7.5M Seed led by Paradigm

Healthcare

• XII Medical (obstructive sleep apnea therapies) raised $45M Series B led by Omega Funds

• Solace (patient healthcare advocate platform) raised $14M Series A led by Inspired Capital Partners

• Piramidal (AI brainwave analysis ) raised $6M Seed led by Y Combinator

Construction

• Fortera (low-carbon cement technology) raised $85M Series C led by Khosla Ventures and Temasek

Clean Energy

• Enteligent (smart solar power charging) raised $6M Seed led by Taronga Ventures

Space Travel

• Starpath Robotics (lunar resource extraction) raised $12M Seed led by 8VC, Fusion Fund

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

• N/A