a16z backed Fintech Shut Down After Raising $172 Million & Trump Returns to X

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☕Hey there, Welcome to today's quick rundown in the Venture Daily Digest Newsletter. We've got the scoop on startup fundraising, VC funds, and some cool tech – all in just 5 minutes!

Top News

a16z backed Tally, a fintech helping consumers manage credit card debt, shut down after nine years. The company raised $172 million in funding and was last valued at $855 million. In April, Tally announced a shift from consumer app to B2B model with a planned July launch. Despite exploring all options, Tally was unable to secure necessary funding to continue operations.

Other Major News

• AI search is gaining momentum - Perplexity answers 250 million questions a month. (Scroll To Tech Updates)

• Balderton Capital, London based firm has raised $1.3 billion across two funds. (Scroll To VC Updates)

• The U.S. SEC sued cryptocurrency company NovaTech for fraudulently raised over $650 million from more than 200,000 investors. (Scroll To Startups Updates)

• How to Ask VCs for Money? - A Framework From VC Partner. (Scroll To Featured Article)

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🗞️ Startup Funding Updates

Cosine, a London, UK- and San Francisco, CA-based human-like, autonomous AI software developer, raised $2.5M in funding. The round was led by Uphonest and SOMA Capital, with participation from Lakestar, Focal, and others. More Here

Site 20/20, a Dartmouth, Noca Scotia, Canada-based traffic control and road safety technology company, received a strategic investment from New Mountain Capital and Energy Impact Partners. More Here

Conduit, a cross-border payments platform provider, raised a $6M seed extension round. The investment was made by Helios Digital Ventures, the VC arm of Helios Investment Partners. More Here

Amulet, a Madison, WI-based provider of portable sensor technology to identify allergens and environmental contaminants in food, raised $6M in Series A in funding. The round was led by HealthX Ventures with participation from Incite Ventures, AllerFund, Mendota Venture Capital, Great Oaks Venture Capital, and individuals like Pinterest executive, and Daydream founder Julie Bornstein and founder and investor Diede van Lamoen. More Here

UptimeAI, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of AI-based plant monitoring software for industrial businesses, raised $14M in Series A funding. The round was led by WestBridge Capital with participation from Emergent Ventures and Aditya Birla Ventures. More Here

Kano Therapeutics, a Cambridge, MA-based biotechnology company advancing single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) as a flexible biomolecule for gene insertions, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $7.1M, was led by The Engine Ventures and VSquared Ventures with participation from Taihill Venture and Metaplanet. More Here

Halda Therapeutics, a New Haven, CT-based biotechnology company developing a novel class of cancer therapies called RIPTACTM (Regulated Induced Proximity TArgeting Chimeras) therapeutics, raised $126M in Series B extension funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $202M to date, saw participation from Deep Track Capital, Frazier Life Sciences, RA Capital Management, Vida Ventures, Boxer Capital and Taiho Ventures, as well as existing investors Canaan Partners, Access Biotechnology, Elm Street Ventures, and Connecticut Innovations. More Here

Hyperbots, a Dover, DE-based AI powered fintech startup, raised $2m in seed funding. The round was led by Kalaari Capital with participation from Sunicon Ventures, and Athera Venture Partners. More Here

Bandana, a New York-based startup that empower workers and give them the tools and resources they need to take control of their work and their lives, confirmed they raised $8.5m in funding. The round was led by General Catalyst, with participation from existing investors Craft Ventures and Triple Impact Capital. More Here

Revoize, a Gdańsk, Poland based generative AI for audio quality company, raised €458K in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by AIP Seed, and Marcin Żukowski. More Here

Fair, a USA-based vehicle breakdown protection startup, raised $1.44M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Blue Collective, Antler, and Redbud. More Here

Gaussion, a London, UK-based provider of a novel solution that enhances battery performance, raised $12M in Series A funding. The round was led by Autotech Ventures with participation from BGF and UCL Technology Fund. More Here

Baibys, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based AI powered fertility startup, reportedly raised $4.5m in Series A funding. The round was led by Firstime Ventures, with participation from ROHTO. More Here

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📰 Venture Capital Updates

Balderton Capital, London based firm has raised $1.3 billion across two funds, with $615 million for early-stage investments and $685 million for growth-stage companies. Previously they have backed startups like Revolut and Wayve. The VC firm focuses on European tech companies, particularly those leveraging AI for specific solutions. More Here

📌 Featured Article

How to Ask VCs for Money? - A Framework From VC Partner

When an investor asks you why you need to raise money, the worst thing you can reply with is that it’s to extend your runway.

Investors care about growth and having a clear set of milestones you think you can hit. They see a lot of opportunities, and the most exciting ones are fires that are already growing that they can throw gasoline on top of.

This is similar to how your customer doesn’t care about your product, they care about the benefit or transformation your product provides for them.

Show them an opportunity that’s growing quickly but could grow faster with some help, rather than one that needs more money to survive a little longer in the hopes of striking gold.

We haves shared in detailed writeup in our Venture Curator newsletter, Check out here…

📑 Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Going Public

Fulcrum IT Partners, a Toronto, Canada-based international IT solutions provider, acquired Fortress SRM, an OH-based company providing cybersecurity solutions and a division of MCPC.

Layoffs & Bankruptcy

Score, a credit-focused dating app, shut down after 6 months with 18,000 users and 8,000 matches. It revealed interesting data on credit score disparities between genders and generations. Parent company Neon Money Club plans to focus on other financial wellness projects.

Startups & People

Elon Musk and Donald Trump's X Spaces event crashed due to an alleged DDOS attack. The conversation, marking Trump's return to X, started 42 minutes late after users received error messages. Musk claimed the crash demonstrated opposition to hearing Trump, echoing previous technical issues during political events on the platform.

Rafal Brzoska, a Polish billionaire, plans to sue Meta over fake ads using his image on Facebook and Instagram. Despite notifying Meta in July, the issue persists, prompting Brzoska to consider legal action in various jurisdictions. Meta claims to remove false ads when notified and works with authorities to combat scammers.

The U.S. SEC sued cryptocurrency company NovaTech and its co-founders, Cynthia and Eddy Petion, alleging they fraudulently raised over $650 million from more than 200,000 investors, including many Haitian-Americans. The SEC claims the Petions ran a pyramid scheme, using new funds to repay earlier investors while siphoning millions for themselves, leading to NovaTech's collapse in May 2023.

🤖 Latest In Emerging Tech

Prediction marketplace Polymarket has partnered with AI search engine Perplexity to display news summaries of events and allow users to ask questions. The collaboration includes Polymarket creating content for Perplexity's Discover page and Perplexity using Polymarket data for visual representations.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced it is assessing whether Synopsys' $35 billion acquisition of Ansys could impact competition in Britain. The deal has raised concerns about regulatory challenges in the consolidated business software sector. The CMA may either advance to a phase 1 probe or clear the deal based on its findings.

Perplexity's AI search engine experienced substantial growth, answering 250 million queries last month, signaling a rising demand for AI-driven search technologies. In contrast, 500 million queries were processed throughout 2023, Shevelenko told the Financial Times Despite this growth, Perplexity remains significantly behind Google, which dominates the market with over 90 percent share and processes around 8.5 billion queries daily. The rise of AI in search, exemplified by Perplexity and other players, suggests a potential shift in user behavior and challenges to the traditional search engine business models.

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