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Amazon to Invest $10.5 Billion for AI Infrastructure & Apple and Google to pay billions after EU court rulings

Amazon to Invest $10.5 Billion for AI Infrastructure & Apple and Google to pay billions after EU court rulings

Venture Daily Digest - 11/09/2024

Venture Daily Digest
September 11, 2024

☕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

The European Union's top court ruled that Apple must repay $14.35 billion in back taxes to Ireland, and upheld a $2.65 billion antitrust fine for Google, marking significant victories for EU regulatory efforts against US tech giants. Margrethe Vestager, known as the EU’s digital czar, has led efforts to regulate major tech companies, earning praise for challenging their tax arrangements and antitrust practices but also facing criticism for potentially stifling innovation. As Apple and Google invest heavily in artificial intelligence, they have been appealing the EU penalties for almost a decade, with the court's latest decisions affirming the European Commission's previous rulings on both cases.

Other Major News

Apple's upcoming iOS 18 will feature a Hearing Test app, pending FDA approval.. (Scroll To Tech Updates)
Huawei launches world's first triple-folding smartphone (Scroll To Tech Updates)
Sergey Brin, Google co-founder, has returned to work at Google daily, driven by excitement over AI progress.. (Scroll To Startups & People Updates)
a16z Partner’s View on the Future of Consumer Startups - Vertical Apps are the next thing… (Scroll To Featured Article)
VC & Startups Job Opportunities (Scroll To Today’s Opportunities)

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🗞️ Startup Funding Updates

Form3, a London, UK-based provider of a cloud-native account-to-account platform, raised $60M in Series C extension funding. Backers included British Patient Capital and Visa.

DRiP, a San Francisco, CA-based platform for creators to release and distribute NFT content, raised $8m in seed funding. The round was co-led by NFX, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, and Progression.

StackGen (FKA AppCD), a San Francisco, CA-based generative infrastructure from code company, raised $12.3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Thomvest Ventures, with participation from existing investors, FireBolt Ventures, WestWave Capital, and Secure Octane.

Versana, a NYC-based centralized, real-time digital syndicated loan market data platform provider, closed a $26m capital raise. Barclays was added as an investor to existing investors Bank of America, Citi, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.

Smartcat, a Boston, MA-based provider of an enterprise language AI platform, raised $43M in Series C funding. The round was led by Left Lane Capital.

Korio, a Doylestown, PA-based randomization and trial supply management (RTSM) technology company, raised an undisclosed amount in Series A Funding. The round was led by BIP Ventures, with participation from existing investors Excelerate Health Ventures, Boston Millennia Partners, and other strategic investors.

Mother Games, a NYC-based art and media company that creates transformative experiences, raised $5M in funding. The round was led by BoxGroup, Shine and Lerer Hippeau.

Qualifyze, a Frankfurt, Germany-based company which specializes in supply chain risk management in the Life Sciences industry, raised $54M in Series B funding. The round was led by Insight Partners, with participation from existing investors HV Capital, HarbourVest Partners, H14 and Cherry Ventures.

Track3D, a San Francisco, CA-based AI-first startup building a reality intelligence platform for the construction industry, raised $3.4M in Seed funding. The round was led by Endiya Partners, with participation from Shadow Ventures, Monta Vista Capital and others.

Quantum Source, a Ness Ziona, Israel-based company developing practical photonic quantum computers, raised $50M in Series A funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $77M, was led by Eclipse, with participation from Standard Investments, Level VC, Canon Equity, as well as existing investors Pitango First, Grove Ventures, 10D, and Dell Technologies Capital.

Glean, a Palo Alto, CA-based provider of a Work AI platform for enterprises, raised over $260M in Series E funding at a $4.6 billion valuation. The round was led by Altimeter and DST Global, with participation from new investors Craft Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and existing investors Coatue, General Catalyst, ICONIQ Growth, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Sequoia Capital.

Piace Technologies, a Dallas, TX-based clinical generative AI solution that supports inpatient care teams, raised $25M in Growth funding. Backers included Children’s Health, healthcare investment firm Concord Health Partners, and specialized health tech venture investor Rittenhouse Ventures.

Darkhive, a San Antonio, CA-based defense tech startup focused on open architecture Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) integrated with a secure software delivery system, raised $21M in Series A funding. The round was led by Ten Eleven Ventures with participation from Crosslink Capital, RTX Ventures, and Stellar Ventures.

Element Security, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based cybersecurity startup, raised $5M in funding. Backers included Q Fund VC, Eddy Shalev, Danny Yamin (former CEO of Microsoft Israel), and Kobi Rosengarten (former General Partner at JVP).

Discure Technologies, a Petach-Tikva, Israel-based developer of the Discure System, a bioelectronic implantable device for the treatment of degenerative disc disease (DDD), raised $16M in funding. The round consisted of $11M in a Series A financing round, following a SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) raise of $5M. The Series A round was led by Bold Capital Partners, Supernova Invest and Sanara Capital, with participation from other investors.

CorFlow Therapeutics, a Baar, Switzerland-based company advancing diagnostic and therapeutic solutions for restoring healthy microvascular blood flow, raised €44M in Seris B funding. The round was co-led by Broadview Ventures and Panakes Partners with participation from 415 Capital, Merieux Equity Partners, Laerdal Million Lives Fund, Wellington Partners, M&L Investments, Unorthodox Ventures, KOFA Healthcare and Monte Carlo Capital.

P0 Security, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a unified IGA and PAM platform for the cloud designed to secure all enterprise cloud identities, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by SYN Ventures with participation from Zscaler and existing investor Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Key Ward, a Berlin, Germany-based company which specializes in engineering data management and AI adoption, raised €1M in funding. The round was led by Wellstreet, with participation from Andy Fine, Edouard lété and Eric Saint Frison.

finally, a Miami, FL-based AI-powered, all-in-one finance and HR suite, raised $50M in Series B funding and $150M in Credit Facility. The Series B was led by PeakSpan Capital while the credit facility was provided by Encina.

Twenty7tec, a Bournemouth, UK-based B2B fintech provider, raised £16.5M in funding. The round was led by BGF.

Cerrion, a Zurich, Switzerland-based developer of video AI for industrial automation, raised $5M in funding. The round was led by Y Combinator and Justin Kan’s Goat Capital, with additional participation from session.vc, Soma Capital, 10x Founders, Rebel Fund and angel investors.

Elum Energy, a Paris, France-based provider of advanced energy management solutions for renewable energy systems, raised $13M in Series B funding. The round was led by Energize Capital, with participation from Alter Equity and Cota Capital.

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📰 Venture Capital Updates

Atomico, a major European VC firm, has raised $1.24 billion across two new funds: $485 million for early-stage and $754 million for growth-stage investments. This split approach allows Atomico to cater to different investor risk appetites and focus on both early and later-stage startups.

📌 Featured Article

a16z Partner’s View on the Future of Consumer Startups - Vertical Apps are the next thing…

From X..

It's been a long time since we built a broadly horizontal consumer app like YouTube, Instagram, Linkedin, or Snapchat. Andrew Chen shared - he is convinced it may not be possible anymore because we're in the final years of the mobile S-curve and 15+ years after the launch of the iPhone, there are major hurdles to apps to broad, billion-user horizontal apps.

Instead, the next generation might be "vertical apps" -- appealing to a vertical segment of the market, like Monopoly Go, Draft Kings, Canva, etc -- that are smaller audience products with higher "whale" monetization (sometimes even workflow/B2B)

First, why these broadly horizontal apps are hard:

Novelty Fatigue: Consumers have seen it all. The obvious permutations of social/communication/photo/video apps have been exhausted.
Retention Challenges: New apps compete against the most addictive products ever created. Without daily value, users quickly revert to TikTok or Instagram.
Ad-Support Dilemma: Building an ad-supported startup is a "two miracle" problem - scaling to millions of users, then building complex ad systems.
Growth Hurdles: Traditional growth channels are less effective. Mobile ads are costly, viral invites have low response rates, and web channels like SEO don't translate well to mobile.

So what's next? Vertical apps with beefier monetization, and different network characteristics seem a likely candidate.

Direct Monetization: Instead of ads, these apps allow big-spending users to enhance their experience. Free-to-play games and betting apps like Draft Kings exemplify "whale monetization."
AI-Driven Innovation: AI advancements are unveiling novel use cases, particularly in productivity. These "prosumer" tools often scale up based on usage or team/enterprise tiers.
Niche Network Effects: Networks can form around specific activities and interests, like dating apps or multiplayer games like Valorant.
Solo Utility Focus: Apps emphasizing single-user utility and game design mechanics (like Duolingo) can create stickiness without relying on extensive user interaction.

So overall - Tomorrow's apps might look more vertical. Higher spending, smaller audiences, focused on interactions that are useful and solo. Some may target productivity/utility use cases, particularly as AI creates novel interactions, at least until the next tech platform emerges.

[Check out our Venture Curator newsletter - to get insights on startups, AI and venture capital from leading founders & investors]

📑 Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Going Public

Confluent, a Mountain View, CA-based data streaming provider, acquired WarpStream, a Chicago, IL-based provider of an Apache Kafka®-compatible data streaming platform.

Layoffs & Bankruptcy

Italian app developer Bending Spoons plans to lay off 75% of WeTransfer's staff, following its acquisition of the file-sharing platform in July. The exact number of layoffs is yet to be determined, according to CEO Luca Ferrari.

Startups & People

Sergey Brin, Google co-founder, has returned to work at Google daily, driven by excitement over AI progress. In a recent interview, he confirmed his involvement and expressed optimism about AI's value to humanity. Brin also shared his belief that algorithmic improvements may be outpacing the need for increased computing power in AI development.

🤖 Latest In Tech

Apple's upcoming iOS 18 will feature a Hearing Test app, pending FDA approval. The app tests hearing and enables a hearing aid feature for mild to moderate hearing loss. Initially limited to AirPods Pro 2, it creates custom sound profiles for conversations and media. This development could pave the way for broader user-customizable sound profiles in future Apple audio products.

Amazon Web Services plans to invest £8 billion ($10.45 billion) in UK data centers over the next five years, expecting to contribute £14 billion to the UK's GDP and support over 14,000 jobs. This investment represents an acceleration of Amazon's UK presence, following £3 billion invested since 2022 in London and Manchester facilities. The project, welcomed by British finance minister Rachel Reeves, is part of AWS's broader European expansion and is driven by increasing demand for cloud services, particularly in artificial intelligence.

Huawei has launched the world’s first tri-fold phone, the Mate XT Ultimate Design, with prices starting at 19,999 yuan (about $2,809) for the 256GB model in China, which is more expensive than a 16-inch MacBook Pro. The Mate XT features an inverse dual-hinge design that allows the device to fold in a "Z" shape, expanding from a 6.4-inch display when collapsed to a 10.2-inch screen when fully unfolded. This innovative phone includes a 5,600mAh battery, supports 66W wired and 50W wireless charging, and has a triple rear camera system with a 50-megapixel main camera, alongside specific configurations up to 1TB storage available at higher prices.

💼 Today’s VC Job Opportunities

Intern Singapore - 500 Southeast Asia | Singapore - Apply Here
Events Manager - Playground | USA - Apply Here
Principal - Shopify Venture | USA - Apply Here
Pre-MBA Analyst - Heatlhquad | India - Apply Here
Program Associate, AI Health - Techstar | USA - Apply Here
Assistant Controller - 645 Venture | USA - Apply Here
Strategic Venture Capital Investor - Wind Venture | USA - Apply Here
Junior VC Analyst - 16 vc | India - Apply Here

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