Happy Monday!

Congrats to Databricks (a Race Capital portfolio company) for nearing a $9.5 billion fundraising deal that could become one of the largest venture capital funding rounds in history, as many investors have shown a strong appetite to own a piece of this company, which reminds me of Alfred’s discussion with Matei Zaharia (Co-founder of Databricks & CTO) earlier this year.

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

🍟 Wow, Willow is Google’s Quantum Chip — Google Quantum AI team announced Willow, their latest quantum chip - a major step toward building a useful, large-scale quantum computer. Willow achieved two major milestones:

• Willow can reduce errors exponentially as quantum processors scale up using more qubits. This cracks a key challenge in quantum error correction that the field has pursued for almost 30 years.

• Willow can perform a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s most powerful supercomputers 10 septillion years! That is 10^25 or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years — a number that vastly exceeds the age of the universe.

Watch Google AI Director of Hardware, Julian Kelly’s talk:

🏎️ Ford CEO loves Xiaomi EV — Ford CEO Jim Farley is facing backlash after publicly sharing he’s been driving the Chinese brand Xiaomi EV. The comment, made during an appearance on the “Fully Charged” podcast, comes as the Ford Motor Company has emphasized its commitment to American manufacturing. At the same time, he doesn't want to give up the Xiaomi Speed Ultra 7 he's been driving for past 6 months. Read more on Business Insider.

💰 Trump's Billionaires Set to Take Government by Storm - President-elect Trump has assembled an administration of unprecedented, mind-boggling wealth — smashing his own first-term record by billions of dollars. Read more on Axios.

👑 Who is Andrew N. Ferguson - The New Nominee for the Chairmanship of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

• Ferguson was sworn in April 2, 2024 as a Commissioner of the FTC.

• Former solicitor general of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

• Former chief counsel to U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

• In June 2024, he dissented when the Commission issued a final rule banning non-compete clauses in most employment contracts.

• In September 2024, Ferguson dissented when the Commission conditioned approval of the $53 billion acquisition of Hess Corporation by Chevron.

• Watch this podcast with The Federalist Society to learn more about his background.

💰 Janet Yellen’s Exit Interview with Bloomberg - Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says the US is looking for creative ways to curb Russia’s oil revenue. Yellen also discusses the $20B support for Ukraine, US-China relations, her prediction on how tariffs would impact the US economy, currencies and US fiscal policy.

Last week a total of 24 startups raised $782M in funding, 1 M&As:

• $215.2M goes to 10 Enterprise startups

• $13M goes to 1 FinTech startup

• $15M goes to 1 Web3/Crypto startup

• $128M goes to 3 Healthcare startups

• $15M goes to 1 BioTech startup

• $78M goes to 1 E-Learning startup

• $73M goes to 1 Telecommunications startup

• $54M goes to 1 Environmental startup

• $8M goes to 1 Energy Storage startup

• $5.4M goes to 1 Media & Entertainment startup

• $155M goes to 1 Hardware startup

• $22.5M goes to 1 Material Science startup

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Edith
X, LinkedIn

Funding (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley)

Enterprise

• Databricks (AI data cloud platform) raised $9.5B led by Thrive, a16z, Insight and GIC

• Evinced (AI-driven digital accessibility) raised $55M Series C led by Insight Partners

• WaveForms AI (AI voice technology) raised $40M Seed led by Andreessen Horowitz

• Lambda Test (software testing platform) raised $38M Series D led by Avataar Venture Partners

• NeuBird (GenAI empowered ITOps) raised $22.5M Seed led by M12

• Vapi (AI voice agents) raised $20M Series A led by Bessemer Venture Partners

• Aampe (agentic infrastructure) raised $18M Series A led by Theory Ventures

• Gentrace (generative AI app testing platform) raised $8M Series A led by Matrix Partners

• Mainframe (generative productivity software) raised $5.5M Seed led by Stellation Capital

• EzDubs (real-time speech translation) raised $4.2M Seed

• Wald AI (context-aware data protection platform) raised $4M Seed

FinTech

• Truewind (AI-powered bookkeeping and finance software) raised $13M Series A led by Rho Capital Partners, Thomson Reuters Ventures

Web 3/Crypto

• Exhabits AI (GPU tokenization platform) raised $15M Seed led by Hack VC

Healthcare

• Capstan Medical (robotic-enabled heart valve implants) raised $110M Series C led by Eclipse Ventures

• Vantis Vascular (innovative solutions for vascular interventions) raised $10M Series B

• MiSalud (bilingual telehealth platform) raised $8M Series A led by Samsung NEXT

BioTech

• Alessa Therapeutics (drug delivery for early interception of cancer) raised $15M Seed led by Mission BioCapital

Edtech

• Speak (AI language learning app) raised $78M Series C led by Accel

Telecommuncations

• Gigs (telecom-as-a-service platform) raised $73M Series B led by Ribbit Capital

Environmental

• Terradot (carbon removal) raised $54M Series A led by John Doerr

Energy Storage

• Enzinc (advanced zinc battery developer) raised $8M Series A led by TO Ventures

Media and Entertainment

• Friend (AI companion chatbots) raised $5.4M Seed led by Pace Capital

Hardware

• Ayar Labs (optical interconnect solutions for AI workloads) raised $155M Series D led by Advent Global Opportunities, Light Street Capital

Material Science

• Albert Invent (science R&D platform) raised $22.5M Series A led by Coatue

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

• General Inception acquired Enable Medicine (drug discovery)