a16z Backed Fintech Startup Filed For Bankruptcy & Massive 61K Bitcoin Seizure in UK Investigation

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👋 Hey, Sahil here! Welcome to today's quick rundown in the Venture Daily Digest Newsletter. I've got the scoop on startup fundraising, fresh VC funds, and some cool tech – all in just 5 minutes ☕! Today’s major updates include -

• Google invested nearly $350 million in the Walmart-owned Indian e-commerce giant - Flipkart.

• Synapse, a a16z backed banking technology startup that raised over $50 million has gone bankrupt, affecting 10 million end customers.

• British authorities seized over 61,000 bitcoin worth around £3 billion from a woman named - wen jian, marking one of the largest cryptocurrency seizures by law enforcement globally.

• Kabosu, the Japanese Shiba Inu dog whose iconic meme became the face of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency, has passed away at the age of 18.

• Google's new AI-powered search results, called AI Overviews, have faced criticism for providing inaccurate & humorous responses.

• Featured Article : All-in-One Market Sizing Guide for Founders.

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STARTUP FUNDING UPDATES

Zypp Electric, Indian EV-as-a-service platform, operates in major Indian cities like Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Hyderabad, caters to e-commerce companies and gig workers by providing electric two-wheelers, delivery management software, and data analytics. startup, It has secured $15 million in fresh investment from Japanese conglomerate ENEOS as part of its ongoing Series C round, projected to raise between $35-40 million. More Here

CBiGroup, a NYC-based global financial services company for businesses, raised $15M in Series A funding The round was led by Alpol Capital Family Office. More Here

Plume Network, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a modular EVM Layer-2 built to bring any real-world asset (RWA) on-chain, raised $10M in Seed funding. The round was led by Haun Ventures with participation from Galaxy Ventures, Superscrypt, A Capital, SV Angel, Portal Ventures, Reciprocal Ventures, and others. More Here

Crowdaa, founded by Vigile Hoareau and Jimmy Thomas in France, enables non-developers to easily create and release mobile apps. The company recently secured a €1.2 million seed round led by Apicap, with participation from Tremplin Capital and Teampact Ventures. More Here

Google is investing nearly $350 million in Flipkart, the Walmart-owned Indian e-commerce giant, as part of a nearly $1 billion funding round. In addition to the financial investment, Google will provide its cloud offerings to Flipkart. Valued at $36 billion post this round. More Here

ThinkLabs AI, a NYC-based startup focused on developing technology to help enhance grid planning through a combination of intelligent automation and AI, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was co-led by Powerhouse Ventures and Active Impact Investments, with participation from Blackhorn Ventures, Amplify Capital, Mercuria Energy, and a national US energy company. More Here

Vive Crop Protection, a Toronto, Canada-based company which specializes in evolving crop inputs through its precision chemistry™ platform, raised an undisclosed amount in Series C extension funding. More Here

Orca Fraud, a Cape Town, South Africa-based startup that works with banks and fintechs in emerging markets to fight various types of fraud, raised $550K in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Norrsken22 with participation from First Circle Capital, Musha Ventures, Kara Ventures and others. More Here

Resilience, a Paris, France-based remote patient care solution company focused on cancer patients, raised $25M in funding. The round was led by Picus Capital, and Red River West. Cathay Innovation, Singular, and Seaya Ventures, also participated. More Here

5thScape, a company developing products for the virtual reality ecosystem, raised $6M in Seed funding from undisclosed investors. More Here

OncoveryCare, a Boston, MA-based company providing a whole-person care to cancer survivors, raised $4.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by .406 Ventures alongside the McKay Institute for Oncology Transformation at Tennessee Oncology. More Here

TadHealth, a Newport Beach, CA-based provider of a mental health platform, raised $1.6M in funding. The round was led by Halcyon Venture Partners, with participation from USC Viterbi School of Engineering Venture Fund, Halcyon Angels, and RevFund. More Here

StrokeDx, a Pasadena, CA-based stroke detection technology company, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by DigiTx Partners, with participation by Freeflow Ventures and other existing investors. More Here

VENTURE CAPITAL UPDATES

Harlem Capital, based in the U.S., is raising a $150 million fund to back diverse founders. The firm, founded in 2015, has $174 million in assets and previously raised $134 million in 2021. Notable investments include Propense.ai, Poolit, and Gander. More Here

FEATURED ARTICLE

All-in-One Market Sizing Guide for Founders

While explaining market size slide, many founders claims “Our global TAM is $X B, but we are going to start in a certain part where our SAM is $Y B. And we project that our SOM is $Z B” However, a survey by Peer VC found that investors generally dislike this approach when explaining market size.

Instead of of this, investors prefer to see the founder's methodology for calculating market size numbers. However, most founders make the mistake of not explaining their methodology clearly.

To address this, we have covered all the details related to market sizing in a document, which includes:

• Why does market size matter? - Founders & Investors Perspective

• How to estimate your market size? - Top-down and Bottom-up Approaches to estimate market size with an example.

• What is the exact definition of market size?

• When should market size be estimated?

We have shared in detailed writeup here, check it out.

STARTUP’S LATEST BUZZ

ACQUISITION & GOING PUBLIC

AuditBoard, a Los Angeles, CA-based provider of a connected risk platform for audit, risk, compliance and ESG management, is to be acquired by Hg, an investor in compliance, risk and accounting software, in a transaction valued at over $3 Billion. More Here

Health-care payments software firm Waystar Holding Corp. is moving ahead with a planned $950 Million initial public offering that’s expected to launch as soon as Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter. More Here

LAYOFFS & BANKRUPTCY

Synapse, a banking technology startup that raised over $50 million including $33 million from Andreessen Horowitz, has gone bankrupt, causing major problems for the fintech industry and impacting funding prospects.Based on Synapse’s filings, as many as 100 fintechs and 10 million end customers could have been impacted by the company’s collapse. More Here

Foursquare, the location-based company that merged with Factual in 2020, has laid off 105 employees, representing around 25% of its workforce, in a move to "streamline" operations and improve financial sustainability. More Here

STARTUPS & PEOPLE

Proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis has urged Tesla shareholders to reject a $56 billion pay package for CEO Elon Musk, citing concerns over its excessive size, dilutive effect, and Musk's involvement in numerous time-consuming projects like Twitter. The firm also criticized Tesla's proposed move to Texas from Delaware, calling it an uncertain benefit with additional risks for shareholders. While Tesla defends the pay package as justified by hitting ambitious targets, Glass Lewis recommends voting against the reelection of board member Kimbal Musk, Elon's brother. More Here

Kabosu, the Japanese Shiba Inu dog whose iconic meme became the face of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency, has passed away at the age of 18. Her owner announced Kabosu's peaceful death in a blog post, marking the end of an era for the meme that gained global recognition and popularity after being embraced by Elon Musk. More Here

A woman named Wen Jian was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for money laundering, after being accused of converting bitcoin into cash and property to conceal the proceeds of a £5 billion ($6.4 billion) fraud that allegedly scammed nearly 130,000 Chinese investors. British authorities seized over 61,000 bitcoin worth around £3 billion during the investigation, making it one of the largest cryptocurrency seizures by law enforcement worldwide. More Here

LATEST IN EMERGING TECH

Garry Tan, the president and CEO of Y Combinator, has expressed support for regulating artificial intelligence while also voicing concerns about overly strict regulations. Tan told an audience in Washington D.C. that he believes "regulation is likely necessary" for AI and is "overall supportive" of efforts like the NIST AI risk mitigation framework and Biden's executive order on AI.

However, he finds some proposed bills in California and San Francisco to be "very concerning," suggesting a need for a balanced approach. Tan said Y Combinator avoids funding startups it deems harmful to society based on their mission or product. Despite reservations about regulation, he sees AI creating lucrative opportunities in the "idea maze" for startups. With Y Combinator's recent batches including numerous AI companies, Tan wants to prevent a monopolistic situation where just a few AI models dominate, favoring a future with "incredible consumer choice" across AI offerings. More Here

Google's new AI-powered search results, called AI Overviews, have faced criticism for providing inaccurate, humorous, and bizarre responses to some queries.

While Google acknowledges these issues and is working to improve the system, there are concerns that AI-generated summaries could undermine the incentive for creating high-quality web content, potentially threatening the open web that search engines rely on. More Here

AI startups continue to attract massive investments and stratospheric valuations, with DeepL raising $300 million at a $2 billion valuation, Scale AI raising $1 billion at a $13.8 billion valuation backed by tech giants like Meta and Amazon, and French startup H securing a $220 million seed round. However, these corporate investments from Big Tech companies raise concerns about potential antitrust issues and a "quasi-merger" strategy to gain influence over emerging AI technologies without outright acquisitions, drawing scrutiny from regulators in the EU and UK. More Here

U.S. pharmaceutical giant Cencora has disclosed a major data breach exposing sensitive medical data of potentially millions of patients. The breach, which occurred in February but was just recently revealed, affected patients whose data was shared with Cencora through partnerships with several major drug makers. While Cencora has notified around 500,000 individuals so far, the full extent of the breach remains unclear as the company serves over 18 million patients. More Here

China has set up a new state-backed investment fund with registered capital of 344 billion yuan ($47.5 billion) to boost the country's semiconductor industry. More Here

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That’s It For Today! Will Meet You Tomorrow. Happy Monday!☕

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