a16z backed Post News Startup Shutdown & Founder Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison

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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 -

• Post News, a Twitter alternative startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz, is shutting down.

• Manish Lachwani, founder of app testing startup Headspin, sentenced to 18 months for inflating revenue by 400%.

• OpenAI refutes Musk's claims of abandoning principles, calls lawsuit an attempt to boost his AI firm.

• Ayush Gupta, an operating leader at Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital), is leaving the firm to launch his own fund focused on secondary transactions.

• Tesla is recalling all of the 3,878 Cybertrucks that it has shipped due to a sticky accelerator pedal.

• Featured Article : Pitch deck has one purpose - to drive enough interest to schedule a meeting. That’s it.

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STARTUP FUNDING UPDATES

Midas, a fintech startup based in Turkey, provides a platform for retail investors to invest in U.S. and Turkish equities, raised $45 million in a funding round led by Portage of Canada, with participation from International Finance Corporation, Spark Capital, Earlybird Digital East Fund, and Revo Capital. More Here

Langdock, a Berlin, Germany-based provider of a platform empowering companies to leverage large language models (LLMs) while staying in control of their data, raised $3M in Seed funding. The round was led by General Catalyst alongside La Famiglia, with participation from Y Combinator, Rolf Schrömgens (Trivago), Hanno Renner (Personio), Johannes Reck (GetYourGuide), and Erik Muttersbach (Forto), along with over 25 other angel investors. More Here

Skyports, a London, UK-based leader in owning and operating vertiport infrastructure and flying electric drones, raised £88.6M in Series C funding led by ACS. More Here

Rippling, a San Francisco-based business software startup that provides an integrated platform for managing payroll, benefits, and other HR functions, is in talks to raise around $500 million in new funding at a valuation range of $13 billion to $14 billion. More Here

Homium, a Los Angeles, CA-based home equity mortgage lender and provider of a securitization platform, raised $10M in Series A funding. The round was led by Sorenson Impact Group and Blizzard, the Avalanche Ecosystem Fund. More Here

Orbex, a Forres, Scotland, UK-based spaceflight company, raised £16.7M in extended Series C. Backers included Scottish National Investment Bank, Octopus Ventures, BGF, Heartcore, the Export & Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO) and a number of corporate and angel investors. More Here

HealthKey, a London, UK-based healthtech startup, closed a £1.13M Seed funding round. The round was led by Aviva Ventures, with support from Ascension, Oxford Capital, and Cur8 Capital. More Here

FilmChain, a London, UK-based provider of a platform to manage payments for films & TV stakeholders, raised £2.8m in funding. The round, which also converted previous notes, was led by the Holt IntersXion fund, with participation from Roca X, DeBa Ventures, TechAngels Romania, and HearstLab. More Here

Tangent Technology, a London, UK-based recruitment technology startup, raised £884k (approx. $1.1m) in pre-seed funding. Backers included Zinc VC, Google Black Founders Fund, the Syndicate Room, and angels Leonard Picardo (Deliveroo), Catherine Lenson (prior to her move to Phoenix Court Group) and Andrew Robb (FarFetch) as well as Scouts from Atomico and Ada Ventures. More Here

Lemon, a Manchester, UK-based provider of a subscription management platform for small businesses, raised £500k in pre-seed funding. Backers included SFC Capital, Pitchdrive and angel investors. More Here

VulnCheck, a Lexington, MA-based exploit intelligence company, closed its seed funding round at a total of $7.95m, with $4.75m in new funding. Backers included Sorenson Capital. More Here

Softloans, a Vilnius, Lithuania-based fintech startup, raised €1M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Firstpick, with contributions from business angels. More Here

Anvilogic, a Palo Alto, CA-based provider of a multi-data platform SIEM, raised $45M in Series C funding. The round was led by Evolution Equity Partners, with participation from existing investors Foundation Capital, Cervin Ventures, Myriad Ventures, Point72 Ventures, Outpost Ventures, Stepstone Group, and G Squared. More Here

Xfactor.io, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a comprehensive AI-powered revenue platform, raised $16M in Series A funding. The round was led by Accel and Xfactor.io CEO and Founder Mike Carpenter, with participation from Lightspeed and others. More Here

Condoit, a Birmingham, AL-based provider of a platform for digitizing the electrical industry, raised $4.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by The Westly Group with participation from Fontinalis Partners, Navitas Capital, C2 Ventures, Studio Management, and Overline with a strategic investment by Southwire. More Here

Cape, an Arlington, VA-based privacy-first mobile carrier, raised $61M in funding. The round was led by A* and Andreessen Horowitz. XYZ Ventures, ex/ante, Costanoa Ventures, Point72 Ventures, Forward Deployed VC, and Karman Ventures also participated. More Here

Centrifuge, an onchain finance startup, raised $15m in Series A funding. The round was co-led by ParaFi Capital and Greenfield, with participation from Gnosis, IOSG Ventures, Modular Capital, Circle Ventures, Edessa Capital, ProtoCap, Re7 Capital, Scytale Digital, Skynet Trading, TRGC, Arrington Capital, Bloccelerate, Borderless Capital, Wintermute Ventures, Stake Capital, and The Spartan Group. More Here

UniUni, a Richmond, BC, Canada-based company which specializes in e-commerce last-mile logistics, raised US$50M in Series C funding. The round was led by DCM. More Here

Avive Solutions, a San Francisco, CA-based developer of a connected automated external defibrillator (AED) – the Avive Connect AEDⓇ, raised $56.5M in Growth Equity funding. The round was led by Questa Capital, Laerdal Million Lives Fund (LMLF), and Catalyst Health Ventures, and welcomed several new investors including RC Capital and Eckuity Capital. More Here

Pathios Therapeutics, an Oxford, UK-based biotech company focused on the development of therapies for cancer, raised $25M in first closed of Series B funding. Backers included Bristol Myers Squibb, and existing investors including Canaan and Brandon Capital. More Here

Hatch, a NYC-based provider of AI-powered donor engagement solutions for nonprofits, raised $3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Differential Ventures with participation from Character, Howard Morgan, and angel investors. More Here

VENTURE CAPITAL UPDATES

Jennifer Li has been promoted to general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, becoming one of the 27 GPs at the firm and the fourth GP on the $1.25 billion Infrastructure fund led by Martin Casado. She has been instrumental in investments like Fivetran, dbt, Mux, MotherDuck, and ElevenLabs during her six-year tenure at the firm. More Here

Ayush Gupta, an operating leader at Peak XV Partners (formerly sequoia capital), is leaving the firm to start his own fund focused on secondary transactions. Peak XV and Gupta are parting ways on cordial terms, with the firm intending to work closely with Gupta's new fund for facilitating transactions involving its portfolio startups. More Here

FEATURED ARTICLE

Pitch deck has one purpose - to drive enough interest to schedule a meeting. That’s it.

It should not (and will not) convince someone to invest in the company.

And you should be able to accomplish this goal in 6-12 slides, max. If your pitch deck is 14+ pages, you are likely providing too much information. Too much information can be risky because it gives investors more opportunities to find red flags. And most founders make these mistakes.

So omit unnecessary details so that investors can focus on the following details that matter most:

• The problem you're solving - the existing customer pain. It's a challenge to get people to invest in problems that aren't clear to the customer. Make the pain your customer has really obvious. If you can, make it emotional to have them feel the pain themselves. 1-2 slides.

• The product/service you'll build to seize the opportunity — it’s highly unlikely that you'll have a unique solution if there's a large market opportunity. 3-4 slides.

• Why your approach to the problem is different from existing solutions and the status quo — you have to assume that doing nothing is a reasonable option for your customer. 1-2 slides.

• Proof of product-market fit. You may not have it yet. If not, speak to the status of your efforts to establish it. It’s much better if you have proven it already. 1-2 slides.

• How you'll reach the people who have the problem you've outlined. This is your marketing plan. 1-2 slides.

• How your customer will purchase your solution, Your sales plan. 1 slide.

• The team you've put together that makes your company better than any other in the market. 1 slide.

• How much money you need to raise and what milestones you'll achieve with it. Show the viewer that you've done your homework on your real capital needs. Ask for the money, don't be soft about it.

“We're looking for $n and we’d appreciate if you'd consider investing in us.” 1 slide.

That's it. If you’re having trouble ruthlessly editing your own work, try presenting your deck to someone who knows nothing about your industry. Like a parent, grandparent, or sibling.

As you explain your business to someone who doesn’t understand your industry, you’ll quickly realize what is (and what is NOT) a powerful addition to the deck. Read More Here

STARTUP’S LATEST BUZZ

ACQUISITION & EXITS

Webflow, a web design and hosting platform that’s raised over $330 million at a $4 billion valuation, acquired Intellimize, a startup leveraging AI to personalize websites for unique visitors. More Here

LAYOFFS & BANKRUPTCY

Post News, a startup that positioned itself as an alternative to Twitter, is calling it quits. The company had raised an undisclosed sum from Andreessen Horowitz and NYU professor Scott Galloway and counted journalist Kara Swisher as an advisor. More Here

STARTUPS & PEOPLE

Manish Lachwani, the founder of Headspin, a nine-year-old startup based in Sunnyvale, CA, that tests and monitors apps, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for inflating his company's revenue by 400%. The company, which raised a total of $117 million from investors like GV and Iconiq Capital, was valued as high as $1.1 billion before it all came crashing down. More Here

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the U.S., with a nine-month window for the sale and potential presidential extension. The bill, which is part of a larger package, received bipartisan support and is expected to be taken up by the Senate and signed by President Biden, though TikTok plans to challenge it in court. More Here

Apple has removed WhatsApp, Threads, Signal, and Telegram from its App Store in China following a government order citing national security concerns. Meta confirmed the removal of its apps, while Signal stated it was already blocked in China. More Here

Getir, the grocery delivery app once valued at nearly $12bn, is reportedly on the verge of exiting the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands, putting thousands of jobs at risk. The company may seek a sale of its assets or face insolvency procedures. More Here

LATEST IN EMERGING TECH

Tesla is recalling all of the 3,878 Cybertrucks that it has shipped due to a sticky accelerator pedal. More Here

OpenAI says Elon Musk’s claim that the company has abandoned its altruistic principles to pursue profits is nothing more than “revisionist history” in its bid to get Musk's lawsuit dismissed. OpenAI also calls the suit an obvious effort to boost Musk's competing artificial intelligence company. More Here

Tesla is slashing prices by around $2,000 in key markets like China and Germany, following recent price cuts in the U.S. and a reported drop in global vehicle deliveries. Elon Musk cited the need to align production with demand as the reason for these frequent price adjustments. Tesla plans to lay off over 10% of its workforce, bracing for its first annual drop in deliveries. More Here

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

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