Anthropic Raised $4 Billion & Amazon’s plan to rival Nvidia

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☕ Good Tuesday Morning. Welcome to today's quick rundown in the Venture Daily Digest Newsletter.

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• Nvidia's new AI turns text into audio

• Anthropic Raised $4 Billion From Amazon.

• Amazon’s plan to rival Nvidia

• Humanoid robot achieves 400% speed boost at BMW plant

• NBA Player Launches Million Dollar Fund

Fresh from the analyst desk: Tom Tunguz shows why small AI startups are eating the big guys' lunch, Chris Neumann breaks down the VC ownership game, and Hunter Walk's got real talk about fund manager evolution. Bonus: Got that problem-solution puzzle? We've got a framework for that. Fresh VC and startup roles just landed!

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• Download Startup Fundraising Pitch Deck Templates. (Link)

Startup Funding Updates

Anthropic, a San Francisco-based AI research company and creator of Claude AI models, raised $4B in additional funding. The backer was Amazon, bringing Amazon's total investment in Anthropic to $8B while maintaining a minority stake. The investment includes an agreement for Anthropic to train its AI models primarily on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and collaborate with AWS' Annapurna Labs on developing future generations of Trainium accelerators.

PlayAI, a Palo Alto, CA-based provider of a voice AI platform, raised $21M in Seed funding. The round was led by Kindred Ventures and 500 Global with participation from Race Capital, Y Combinator, Soma Capital, Pioneer Fund, TRAC, and others.

Secretome Therapeutics, a Dallas, TX-based biotechnology company advancing therapies derived from neonatal cardiac progenitor cells (nCPCs), raised $20.4M in funding. Backers were not disclosed.

Boosted.ai, a NYC- and Toronto, Canada-based generative artificial intelligence company, raised $15M in funding. Backers included Fidelity Investments Canada ULC, Ten Coves Capital, Spark Capital, Portage Ventures, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and HarbourVest Partners.

MAGIC AI, a London, UK-based provider of an AI powered fitness mirror, MAGIC Mirror, raised $5M in funding. Backers included Baleen Capital, SFC Capital and Ventures along with Senior Executives and CEOs from Tiktok, Meta, Spotify, Citymapper, JustPark and Stripe.

Halcyon, an Austin, TX-based provider of a platform designed to defeat ransomware, raised $100M in Series C funding, at 1 Billion valuation. The round was led by Evolution Equity Partners with participation from Bain Capital Ventures (BCV), SYN Ventures, Harmony Group, Corner Capital Management, Dropbox Ventures, ServiceNow Ventures and existing investors.

Cofactor AI, a Chicago, IL-based AI-powered platform for hospitals, raised $4M in Seed funding. The round was led by Drive Capital.

Tempest, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a developer platform helping engineering teams ship better code faster, raised $3.2M in funding. The round was led by Abstract Ventures, with participation from Box Group and Background Capital, alongside strategic investments from Max Mullen (co-founder of Instacart), Jason Chan (former VP of InfoSec at Netflix), and Mike Abbott (former VP of Engineering at Apple).

emma, a Luxembourg-based provider of a cloud management platform for businesses to optimize and scale their cloud infrastructure, raised $17m in Series A funding. The round was led by Smartfin, with participation from RTP Global and existing investors.

BioSurfaces, an Ashland, MA-based provider of the Bio-Spun™ Cell Chamber (BSCC) device, received a $2.0m grant from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Adcendo, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based biotech company focused on the development of ADCs for the treatment of cancers with a high unmet medical need, raised $135M in Series B funding. The round was led by TCGX, with participation from new investors TPG Life Sciences Innovations, Orbimed Advisors, Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), and Logos Capital, as well as all existing investors, including RA Capital Management, Novo Holdings, Pontifax Venture Capital, Dawn Biopharma, a platform controlled by KKR, HealthCap, Gilde Healthcare and Ysios Capital.

Molyon, a Cambridge University spin-out developing next-generation lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery technology, raised $4.6M in seed funding. Backers included IQ Capital and Plural.

PostSig, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a contract performance management platform, raised $1.2M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Frontier Venture Capital with participation from SaaS Ventures and a group of angel investors, including Robert Jeanbart, former CEO of SIX Financial Information; David Ron, former CFO of Krux; and Chris Petrescu, CEO and Founder of CPCapital and former Head of Data Strategy at Exodus Point.

Trinity Guardion, a Cincinnati, OH-based company which specializes in hospital bed hygiene solutions, raised $6M in funding, including new funding of $3.5M in a Series B funding round. The round was led by Queen City Angels and other investors included Tamiami Angel Fund, Market Street Ventures, and RKCA.

Teleo, a Palo Alto, CA-based company building autonomous technology for heavy equipment, raised $16.2M in Series A funding. The round consisted of: a first extension, totaling $9.2M, led by UP.Partners, with participation from other investors, including new investor Trousdale Ventures and return investor F-Prime Capital, among others. a second extension, totaling $7M, also led by UP.Partners, with participation from new investor Triatomic Capital, as well as returning investors F-Prime Capital and Trucks Venture Capital, among others.

Volta, a Milan and Paris-based startup developing a B2B sales-focused vertical SaaS platform, raised €6M ($6.3M) in pre-seed funding. Backers included Emblem, Robin Capital, Founders Future, and scout investments from Sequoia and a16z, along with investment firms of the Berlusconi and Agnelli families.

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Venture Capital Updates

Build Your Legacy Ventures, a new venture capital firm focused on sports and entertainment investing, was launched by Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks NBA player who will serve as general partner. The firm joins a growing trend of athlete-led venture funds, following similar ventures by Serena Williams (Serena Ventures), Kevin Durant (35V), and Stephen Curry (Penny Jar Capital).

Latest In Tech

Amazon’s plan to rival Nvidia: Amazon's Trainium2 AI chip, developed in Austin, Texas, is set to be four times faster and have three times the memory of its predecessor by simplifying its design and reducing maintenance complexity. Amazon is investing $8 billion in AI company Anthropic, which will adopt Amazon's chips and AWS as its primary cloud platform, aiming to enhance cloud business growth. Despite the chip's potential, Amazon's Neuron SDK software lags behind Nvidia's mature ecosystem, requiring significant development time for users to transition.

Nvidia unveiled Fugatto, a new generative AI model capable of producing and altering a variety of music, voices, and sounds based on textual and audio prompts. Fugatto offers unmatched flexibility in the audio domain, enabling users to create unique sounds and finely-tuned audio experiences, incorporating diverse styles, emotions, and accents. Developed by a global team, the model boasts multi-accent and multilingual capabilities, and uses 2.5 billion parameters trained on advanced Nvidia systems, redefining audio generation technology.

Other News

The Figure 02 robot, developed by Figure AI and tested at a BMW plant, achieved a remarkable 400% increase in operational speed and a sevenfold enhancement in success rate. A video demonstrated Figure 02's ability to conduct up to 1,000 precise placements per day, marking a significant advancement in deploying humanoid robots for industrial tasks. Despite not yet being fully integrated at BMW's Spartanburg plant, plans for Figure 02's return in 2025 underscore its potential to revolutionize automotive manufacturing with increased efficiency.

In-Depth Insights

• Small But Mighty: AI Startups Thriving Tom Tunguz highlights how smaller AI startups are making big waves in the tech ecosystem, outpacing larger players in innovation and agility.

• Why Ownership Matters to VCs Chris Neumann explains the importance of ownership stakes in the venture capital world and how it influences decision-making.

• AI and Startup Trends for 2025 CB Insights provides a deep dive into trends shaping AI and startups in 2025, emphasizing growth areas and innovation.

• You're Not the Same Fund Manager You Used to Be Hunter Walk delves into how evolving market dynamics challenge fund managers to rethink strategies and adapt.

• Framework To Find Problem-Solution Fit. We have shared a simple framework that can help founders to find Problem-Solution fit.

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Today’s VC & Startup Job Opportunities

• Accelerator and Sales Director - Plug and play tech center | USA - Apply Here

• Operations Associate - Techstars | Japan - Apply Here

• Chief of Staff - Akkadian Venture | USA - Apply Here

• Growth Associate - B Capital Group | USA - Apply Here

• Ventures Analyst I Mobility - Plug and play tech center | Spain - Apply Here

• Portfolio Management Lead - Atlassian Venture | USA - Apply Here

• Internships - Dallas Venture Capital | India - Apply Here

• MBA Associate - Founder Collective | USA - Apply Here

• Internship/Stage - VC Analyst & Program Manager - Sopra Venture | France - Apply Here

• Chief of Staff - First Round Capital | USA - Apply Here

• Associate - 360 Once | India - Apply Here

RESOURCES

• Get access to our all-in-one VC interview preparation guide—check it out. For a limited time, we are offering a 30% discount. Don’t miss this. (Access Here)

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