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The first signs of significant progress emerged as Russia and Ukraine held three hours of peace talks in Istanbul today, but Russia appeared determined to capture more territory in eastern Ukraine, and officials predicted that weeks of further negotiation were needed. The New York Times has more here.
Sky Mavis, making of the "Axis Infinity" blockchain game, reported today that the network that underpins the game was hacked six days ago and that thieves stole 173,600 in Ethereum cryptocurrency (worth $594.6 million) and $25.5 million in U.S. dollars, stealing a total of $620 million. If Sky Mavis can’t recover the funds, it will prove a "huge hit to its overall treasury and a black eye for blockchain-based security, as the whole point of putting the game on the blockchain — in this case a Layer 2 network dubbed the Ronin Network — is to enable better security," notes VentureBeat. Meanwhile, one widespread reaction is: they didn't notice for six days?
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| Is YC Becoming a Kind of Fight Club? |
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Since inception, Y Combinator has invested in thousands of startups, and more recently, even hundreds within a single batch. Given the accelerator’s growth, competitive tensions feel nearly inevitable.
Still, one has to wonder if there is a fundamental shift afoot. Whereas YC always backed companies that might at some point overlap, the outfit appeared to casting its net far and wide, bringing in different startups at different stages from different geographies – companies that used each other’s products and formed tight bonds through YC’s active alumni network.
Now, however, YC seems to be actively leaning into startups that are roughly the same age, operating in the same countries, and targeting exactly the same opportunity with nearly identical business models. Indeed, while similar types of companies within a class had grown inescapable as YC’s class sizes have ballooned, a kind of sameness is more apparent than ever with its latest batch of 400 startups. In fact, it's beginning to look like the plan here is to back as many nascent rival teams as possible – then let them duke it out.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Y Combinator sees things differently. At least, asked about the many startups that would seem to compete from the outset, a spokeswoman for YC writes in an email: “These companies are not in the same groups and do not interact. Also, it is common for startups to pivot during the batch.”
In the meantime, we’ve rounded up some of the startups that seem to us to overlap – a lot – within its Winter 2022 batch:
More here.
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Celona, a three-year-old, Cupertino, Ca.-based 5G LAN deployment startup, has raised $60 million in Series C funding led by DigitalBridge Ventures. The company has now raised $100 million altogether. ZDNet has more here.
ConcertAI, a four-year-old, Cambridge, Ma.-based outfit that uses software and data to help speed clinical research into different types of cancers, has raised $150 million in Series C funding from Sixth Street Partners. MobiHealth News has more here.
Cyera, a 10-month-old, San Mateo, Ca.- and Tel Aviv, Israel-based cloud data security company, has raised $60 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital. Other participants in the round included Accel, Cyberstarts, and René Bonvanie, a former Palo Alto Networks executive. Calcalist has more here.
HackerRank, a 12-year-old, Mountain View, Ca.-based startup that helps developers practice their coding and interview skills, and recruiters to assess them, has raised $60 million in Series D funding. Susquehanna Growth Equity led the round, joined by JMI, Khosla Ventures and strategic backers Randstad Innovation Fund and Recruit Holdings. The outfit has now raised $115 million altogether. TechCrunch has more here.
Poplar Homes, a seven-year-old, Cupertino, Ca.-based property management company for single-family rental investors, has raised $53 million in Series B funding led by LL Funds. The Real Deal has more here.
Stylitics, an 11-year-old, New York-based retail tech outfit with a visual merchandise platform for personalized styling, outfitting and bundling suggestions geared to motivate shoppers to buy more, has raised $80 million in Series C funding from PSG, the private equity firm. The company had previously raised $21 million. WWD has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings |
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AmplifyMD, a 3.5-year-old, Bay Area-based telemedicine platform that connects medical institutions with specialist doctors, has raised $23 million in Series A funding. F-Prime Capital led the round, joined by Forerunner Ventures and Greylock. Axios has more here.
Ampverse, a three-year-old Singapore-based e-sports entertainment startup, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Falcon Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
ArK Kapital, a year-old, Stockholm-based lender to startups (it calls itself a "precision financing" outfit), raised €15 million in seed funding led by Local Globe, with participation from Creandum. The company also secured €150 million in debt funding to hand out. Tech.eu has more here.
BoostUp, a nearly four-year-old, Santa Clara, Ca.-based maker of revenue intelligence and operations (RO&I) software, has raised $28.5 million in Series B funding. NGP Capital led the round, joined by earlier backers Canaan, Emergent, and BGV, among others. More here.
CredPal, a four-year-old, Lagos, Nigeria-based buy-now-pay-later startup, has raised $15 million in debt and equity funding from Greenhouse Capital, Uncovered Fund, LongCommerce and First Circle Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
Cloaked, a 1.5-year-old, Boston-based startup that allows users to generate unique email addresses and phone numbers when creating online accounts in order to protect their privacy, has raised $25 million in Series A funding co-led by Lux Capital and Human Capital. TechCrunch has more here.
David Energy, a five-year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based retail electricity supplier, has raised $20 million in Series A funding co-led by USV and Keyframe Capital. Axios has more here.
Kaiyo, a 7.5-year-old, New York-based marketplace that connects buyers and sellers of second-hand furniture in numerous U.S. cities, has raised $36 million in Series C funding led by Edison Partners. Business Insider has more here.
Kooply, a 1.5-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based mobile games development platform, has raised $18 million in seed funding. TPY Capital and M12 co-led the round, joined by Playtika, Aleph Venture Partners, Entrée Capital, Gilot Capital Partners and Samsung Next. TechCrunch has more here.
LambdaTest, a nearly five-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that provides software testing, cloud infrastructure, automation platform, and software testing services, has raised $45 million in funding led by Premji Invest. Earlier backers Sequoia Capital India, Telstra Ventures, Blume Ventures and Leo Capital also joined the round, which brings the company's total funding to $70 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Pinecone Systems, a three-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based search infrastructure company, has raised $28 million in Series A funding. Menlo Ventures led the round, joined by Tiger Global and Wing Venture Capital. More here.
Sourceful, a nearly two-year-old, U.K.-based supply chain transparency startup, has raised $20 million in Series A funding roughly six months after announcing a $12.2 million seed round led by Index Ventures. Index is the lead again, with Coatue and Eka Ventures also joining this new round. TechCrunch has more here.
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Brain.space, a four-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based brain-mapping data company, has raised $8.5 million in seed funding led by Mangrove Capital Partners. TechCrunch has more here.
Citylitics, a 1.5-year-old, Toronto-based provider of planned infrastructure investment intelligence, has raised $5 million in Series A funding. Dallas VC and Cerium Technology Ventures co-led, joined by Klister and GCI. More here.
Equi, a two-year-old, San Francisco-based investing platform startup that likens itself to a family office for non-billionaires, has raised $10 million in seed funding from Foundation Capital, Hustle Fund, Montage Ventures, F7 Ventures, Gaingels and Calm Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.
Klar, a two-year-old, Munich-based business intelligence startup for SME e-commerce brands, has raised €2.3 million in seed funding led by Cherry Ventures. EU Startups has more here.
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Affinity, the relationship intelligence platform for dealmakers, launched a report analyzing investment trends that point toward future unicorn status. Affinity used their proprietary data to analyze over 925 unicorns from the last five years. Learn how top venture capital firms use relationship intelligence to spot more unicorns. Read the report.
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The Federal Trade Commission says it's taking action against Intuit, maker of TurboTax tax filing software, by issuing an administrative complaint against the company for deceiving consumers with bogus advertisements pitching “free” tax filing that millions of consumers could not use. More here.
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OnlyFans, the creator platform best known for adult content, has reached out to multiple SPACs about a merger, says Axios. More here.
The wireless technology developer and internet service Starry has completed its deal to go public. TechCrunch talks with the company about it here.
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Y Combinator's newest Demo Day is happening today and tomorrow. TechCrunch looks at (and provides some quick analysis about) all the international fintech startups to present this time around, along with the startups based in India and based in Africa.
When it comes to smart phone market share, you might be surprised who comes in third place in the U.S. market. (Oh, fine, it's Motorola!)
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Venture capital funds have gone from telling portfolio companies “run, run, run” to “stop, stop, stop,” Sequoia Capital's Doug Leone said in a new interview with Bloomberg. With “prices sticking downwards,” there are “fewer investors and fewer founders as typical in a down-market cycle,” he added. More here.
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Gopuff, the instant-delivery company valued at $15 billion last fall, is preparing to lay off hundreds of employees, or around 3% of its global workforce, according to The Information, which says the cuts are part of an effort to reduce annual head count costs by at least $40 million as investors increasingly favor companies with lower cash burn
A new Paris-based social media app, BeReal, is trending at colleges as a "casual Instagram," where users are given a brief window, once a day, to post candid, unglamorous photos. The startup has already raised money from a handful of U.S.-based venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz, Accel Partners and DST Global, which led a $36.6 million Series A round that closed last June. Bloomberg has more here.
Watch out: Hackers are now impersonating police to "subpoena" users' data.
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Gopher driver cover.
Chopin vodka. It's for a good cause.
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