a16z in talks to buy TikTok USA & ChatGPT hits 20 million paying subscribers.

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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup funding updates

LTV.ai, an Austin, TX-based provider of an AI personalized & conversational email / SMS marketing platform, raised $5.2m in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Bling Capital, Protagonist, and Justin Yoshimura, with participation from OVO Fund.

LightSource, a San Francisco, CA-based procurement intelligence startup, raised $33m in funding. The round was co-led by Bain Capital Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Notable Systems, a Denver, CO-based provider of a revenue cycle automation platform for medical equipment providers, raised $12m in Series B funding. The round was co-led by Harbert Growth Partners and Grotech Ventures.

Ponte Labor, a Miami-based hiring platform for Hispanic immigrants, raised a $3M seed round at a $15M valuation. The round was led by Harlem Capital with participation from Better Tomorrow Ventures, The 81 Collection, and Wischoff Ventures.

orthobrain, a Cleveland, OH-based provider of an orthodontic growth system that empowers dentists and dental service organizations to integrate orthodontics into their practices, raised $7.5M in new funding. The round was led by CareCapital, with participation from JobsOhio and JumpStart Ventures.

Fiberdom, a Vantaa, Finland-based wood fiber material company, raised €3.5M in funding. The round saw participation from Heino Group together with two new investors Nordic Foodtech VC, and Holdix Oy, alongside a €0.6M grant from Business Finland.

Tomorro, a Paris, France-based AI-powered contract management platform provider, raised €25m in funding. The round was led by XAnge and Acton Capital.

Airvet, a Los Angeles, CA-based pet telehealth company, raised $11M in Series B-2 funding. The round was led by HighlandX with participation from HIPstr, the early-stage investment arm of HighPost Capital, founded by David Moross and Mark Bezos.

Atomic, a Salt Lake City, UT-based bank account primacy and enabling financial connectivity company, raised $10M in funding. Backers included Capital One Ventures, Citi Ventures, and F.N.B. Corporation (NYSE:FNB).

Venteur, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a personalized health technology platform, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by Informed Ventures and American Family Ventures with strategic investment from Morgan Health, Catalyst by Wellstar, and Ingeborg Investments. Current investors Plug and Play, Techstars, Revelry Venture Partners, and Houghton Street Ventures also participated.

AttoTude, a Menlo Park, CA-based THz interconnect technology company for AI and hyperscale data center applications, raised $50M in Series B funding. The round was led by Mayfield, with participation from existing investors Sutter Hill Ventures, Canaan Partners, and Wing Venture Capital.

EVident Battery, a Watford, MA-based company which develops sustainable and advanced battery technology, raised $3.2M in Seed funding. The round was led by Ibex Investors with participation from Nationwide Ventures, Automotive Ventures, Avesta Fund and angels investors. Jeff Peters, Partner and Head of Mobility VC at Ibex Investors, is joining the Board of Directors.

AIRNA, a Cambridge, MA-based biotech company advancing RNA editing therapeutics, raised $155M in Series B funding. The round was led by Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners and Forbion Growth, with participation from RTW Investments, Nextech Invest, ARCH Venture Partners, Forbion Ventures, ND Capital, and other new and existing investors.

Sturdy, a Portland, OR-based provider of an AI-powered customer intelligence platform, raised $6M in Seed funding. The round was led by Voyager Capital with participation from Fortson VC as well as existing investor, Grotech Ventures. Voyager Capital’s General Partner Diane Fraiman joined Sturdy’s board.

voize, a Berlin, Germany-based AI startup developing speech recognition to accelerate digital documentation processes, particularly in healthcare, raised $9M in Seed funding. The round was led by HV Capital, with participation from existing investors Y Combinator, redalpine, and HPI Ventures.

ControlTheory, an Austin, TX-based provider of an observability control platform, raised $5M in seed funding. The round was led by from Silverton Partners.

Zepz, the London, UK-based payments group behind WorldRemit and Sendwave, received $165m in Growth financing. The $110m revolving credit facility was led by HSBC Innovation Banking while HSBC Private Credit was the sole underwriter of the $55m term facility.

ReliaQuest, a Tampa, FL-based AI-powered security operations company, raised over $500M in funding, at $3.4 Billion valuation. The round, which valued US-based ReliaQuest at USD 3.4 billion, was led by EQT, KKR and FTV Capital, with participation from Ten Eleven Ventures and Finback Investment Partners.

Chef Robotics, a San Francisco, CA-based company developing an AI-enabled robotic systems for meal assembly, raised $43M in Series A funding that included $20.6M in equity and $22.5M in equipment financing debt. The equity was led by Avataar Ventures and included investments from Construct Capital, Bloomberg Beta, Promus Ventures, MFV Partners, Interwoven Ventures, HCVC, MaC Venture Capital, Red and Blue Ventures, Tau Partners, Alumni Ventures, Siddhi Capital, and BOLD Capital Partners.

Marvel Fusion, a Munich, Germany-based fusion energy company, extended its Series B funding round by €50M. The round, which brought the total amount to $113M, included EQT Ventures, Siemens Energy Ventures, and the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund.

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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital updates

Construct Capital, a Washington, D.C.-based early-stage VC firm focused on manufacturing, transportation, and defense tech, raised a $300M third fund. Founded by Dayna Grayson and Rachel Holt, the firm has backed startups like Hadrian and Veho.

Andreessen Horowitz is reportedly in talks to invest in TikTok as part of a bid led by Oracle and other U.S. investors to acquire the app’s U.S. operations from ByteDance, ahead of a potential April 5 ban. The VC firm has a strong social media track record, including early bets on Facebook, Instagram, and a $400M investment in Elon Musk’s Twitter deal.

KEY STORIES IN TECH

📜 Latest in tech

New report alleges OpenAI trained GPT-4o on paywalled O’Reilly books:

• A new paper from the AI Disclosures Project alleges that OpenAI’s GPT-4o shows strong recognition of paywalled O’Reilly Media books, despite O’Reilly having no licensing agreement with OpenAI.

• Researchers used a “membership inference attack” to test if GPT-4o had prior exposure to over 13,000 excerpts from 34 O’Reilly books — with results suggesting it likely had training access to non-public content.

• While not definitive proof, the findings add fuel to concerns about OpenAI’s data sourcing, as the company continues to face legal scrutiny over copyright use in model training.

SpaceX launches the first crewed spaceflight to explore Earth's polar regions:

• SpaceX successfully launched the Fram2 private crewed mission on March 31, marking the first human spaceflight dedicated to exploring Earth's polar regions from an altitude of 430 km.

• The mission crew will observe unusual light emissions like auroras and STEVEs while conducting 22 experiments to better understand human health in space for future long-duration missions.

• The four-person crew includes cryptocurrency investor Chun Wang who funded the trip, filmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen as vehicle commander, robotics researcher Rabea Rogge as pilot, and polar adventurer Eric Philips as medical officer.

ChatGPT Hits 20M Paying Subscribers, Generating $415M+ Monthly:

• ChatGPT has reached 20 million paying subscribers, up 4.5 million since the end of 2024, according to The Information.

• OpenAI is now earning at least $415 million/month, not including enterprise deals or the new $200/month Pro tier.

• This growth puts OpenAI on track to hit its $12.7 billion revenue goal for 2025.

TikTok Shuts Down Instagram Rival ‘TikTok Notes’:

• TikTok is shutting down its photo-sharing app, TikTok Notes, on May 8, after limited testing in Canada, Australia, and Vietnam.

• Users are being directed to ByteDance’s Lemon8, a more popular lifestyle app with 12.5M+ monthly active users as of Dec 2024. TikTok says Lemon8 offers a similar but more feature-rich experience.

• The move appears strategic: ByteDance has increasingly positioned Lemon8 as both a TikTok Notes replacement and a TikTok backup amid ongoing U.S. ban threats.

OpenAI Faces Product Delays Amid Image Tool Surge:

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on X that the massive popularity of ChatGPT’s new image-generation tool is causing delays, bugs, and slowness across products due to capacity issues.

• In one hour Monday, ChatGPT reportedly added 1 million new users. The service now has 500M weekly users and 20M paying subscribers, up from 300M and 15.5M at the end of 2024.

• To cope, OpenAI is delaying image features for free users and temporarily disabling video generation for new Sora users. Altman said the team is working around the clock to stabilize things.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕Other news

Meta’s head of AI research plans to leave the company:

• Joelle Pineau, VP of AI Research at Meta and overseer of FAIR (Facebook AI Research), announced she’s leaving the company in May after over two years in the role.

• Her departure comes as Meta doubles down on AI, planning to spend $65 billion on AI infrastructure in 2025.

• Meta is currently searching for her replacement; Pineau says she’ll take some time off before beginning a “new adventure.”

HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES

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