Apple Might Release a $2,000 Vision Headset In 2025 & ByteDance's TikTok Cuts Hundreds of Jobs in AI Shift

In partnership with

☕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

Internal TikTok documents reveal that users can become addicted to the platform after watching only 260 videos, with such engagement linked to negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, empathy, and increased anxiety. The documents are part of a lawsuit filed by 14 attorneys general alleging TikTok's algorithm falsely advertised its addictiveness, particularly endangering children with content related to beauty standards and harmful behaviors like eating disorders. Despite internal findings that features like screen time alerts had negligible impact on reducing use, TikTok continued to promote these measures, while failing to address concerns about moderation lapses exposing youth to harmful content.

Apple plans to release a $2,000 Vision headset in 2025, followed by a second-gen Vision Pro in 2026 and smart glasses in 2027. The cheaper Vision headset would use less expensive materials and lack the EyeSight feature. Apple's smart home strategy includes an affordable iPad-like screen and a $1,000 tabletop device with a robot arm.

Other Major News

• OpenAI launches new multi-agent framework 'Swarm' (Scroll To Tech Updates)

• Apple AI researchers question OpenAI's claims about o1's reasoning capabilities (Scroll To Tech Updates)

• SpaceX catches giant Starship booster in fifth flight test (Scroll To Tech Updates)

• ByteDance's TikTok cuts hundreds of jobs in AI shift (Scroll To Layoff Updates)

• Venture Daily Digest Picks on Startups, Venture Capital, Funding & AI.

• VC & Startups Job Opportunities (Scroll To Today’s Opportunities)

Need Your Help: Please Reply

🤝 A Message from Our Partner: 1440 Media

For Those Who Seek Unbiased News.

Be informed with 1440! Join 3.5 million readers who enjoy our daily, factual news updates. We compile insights from over 100 sources, offering a comprehensive look at politics, global events, business, and culture in just 5 minutes. Free from bias and political spin, get your news straight.

Join for free today!

Partner With Us

Want to get your brand in front of 62,000+ founders, investors, executives, and startup operators? For details on our sponsorships, fill up this quick form or reply to this email as “Advertise” and we’ll get in touch.

🗞️ Startup Funding Updates

Muybridge, a Fornebu, Norway-based deeptech startup, raised €8M in funding. The round was, led by Fairpoint Capital with participation from RunwayFBU, Idekapita, Vikingstad Invest, and angels.

Imprint, a NYC-based provider of co-branded credit cards, raised $75M in Series C funding. The round, which brought valuation to $600m, and total equity funding to $202M, was led by Khosla Ventures with participation from existing investors Thrive Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Ribbit Capital.

Dreamwell AI, a Toronto, Canada-based provider of an influencer marketing automation platform, raised $3.1M in funding. The round was led by Tim Draper (via Draper Associates).

4Partners, a Dubai, UAE-based provider of a dropshipping service, raised $3.6M in funding. Backers were not disclosed.

From Energy, Weirton, WV-based technology company developing and commercializing a new class of multi-day energy storage systems, raised $405M in Series F funding. The round was led by T. Rowe Price with participation from GE Vernova, along with existing investors TPG Rise Climate, Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), Capricorn’s Technology Impact Funds, Coatue, Energy Impact Partners (EIP), MIT’s The Engine Ventures, NGP, Temasek, GIC, Prelude Ventures, Claure Group, Gigascale Capital, Blindspot Ventures, and VamosVentures.

Perlego, a London, UK-based edtech company providing an online library of academic resources used by students worldwide, raised $20m in funding. The round, which brought total funding raised to date to $75m, was led by Terry Leahy, with participation from ITHAKA, MediaHuis, Raine, and KPN Ventures.

100, a NYC-based company improving screening process for property managers, raised $5.2M in Pre-Seed funding. Backers included MetaProp, Contest Point, Freestyle Capital, and RiverPark Ventures.

Liner, a Seoul, South Korea-based provider of an AI search engine for students and researchers, raised $29M in Series B funding. The round was led by Intervest and Atinum Investment, with participation from Samsung Venture Investment.

Anam.ai, a London, UK-based company building real-time AI personas for businesses, raised $2.3M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Concept Ventures with participation from Torch Capital and angel investors from Elevenlabs, Spotify, Sonantic and Speechly.ai.

Numeric, a San Francisco, CA- and NYC-based provider of an AI accounting automation platform, raised $28M in Series A funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $38M, was led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from new investors IVP and Socii Capital, and existing investors Founders Fund, 8VC, Long Journey, Access Industries, and Friends & Family Capital, and others.

The ApplyAI, a NYC-based career guidance platform, rebranded to Careerspan after a $1M pre-seed funding raised earlier this year. Backers were not disclosed.

🎨 We Write, Design And Model Your Pitch Deck Into Storytelling Book…

Pitch deck creation can feel like a daunting task, especially for first-time founders. From deciding what information to include to ensuring your visuals are on-point, there are a lot of moving pieces to juggle. 

And if you're not careful, it's easy to end up with a deck that fails to capture an investor's attention.

That's why Venture Daily Digest is opening up a limited number of exclusive slots to provide hands-on support in building a pitch deck that will leave a lasting impression. Our team of experts, designers, and investors will work closely with you to build your pitch deck.

📰 Venture Capital Updates

Mill Point Capital, a NYC-based private equity firm, announced the final close of Mill Point Capital Partners III, L.P., with approximately $1.7 billion of total capital commitments. Fund III received support from a diverse group of global investors, including prominent endowments, foundations, government and corporate pension plans, insurance companies, family offices and funds of funds.

📑 Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Going Public

Banked, a London, UK-based global Pay by Bank provider, acquired Waave, an Australian payment technology firm. The amount of the deal was not disclosed.

Layoffs & Bankruptcy

TikTok is laying off hundreds of employees globally, including less than 500 in Malaysia, as it shifts toward AI-driven content moderation. The move is part of a plan to improve moderation efficiency, with 80% of violative content now being removed by automated systems.

Startups & People

Binance's head of financial crime compliance, Tigran Gambaryan, was denied bail for a second time in Nigeria as his trial on money laundering charges began. The judge ruled that the prison could meet Gambaryan's medical needs, rejecting his request for release on health grounds.

🤖 Latest In Tech

SpaceX's fifth Starship test flight successfully returned the Super Heavy booster to its launch pad using giant mechanical arms, marking a novel engineering feat. The Starship second stage completed a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean near Australia after demonstrating improved heat shielding during reentry.

Matt Mullenweg announced WordPress is "forking" WP Engine's Advanced Custom Fields plugin into a new non-commercial plugin called Secure Custom Fields, citing security concerns and commercial upsells. The ACF team criticized this as an unprecedented, unilateral action taken without consent, violating community norms. This conflict stems from an ongoing dispute between WordPress and WP Engine, involving trademark issues and access to WordPress.org.

OpenAI has unveiled an open-source framework named "Swarm" on GitHub, described as an experimental platform designed for developing, orchestrating, and deploying multi-agent systems. Swarm is engineered to simplify agent coordination and execution, leveraging concepts like routines and handovers, which enable complex interactions and task handovers among agents. OpenAI highlights Swarm as an innovative yet exploratory tool for multi-agent system interfaces, suitable for scalable solution testing and offering developers fine control without extensive prerequisites, though it is not intended for production use.

BlackRock's assets under management reached a record $11.48 trillion in Q3 2024, driven by a U.S. stock market rally and strong inflows. The company is expanding its offerings in private markets, recently completing a $12.5 billion acquisition of Global Infrastructure Partners. BlackRock registered $160 billion in long-term net inflows, with ETFs capturing the majority at $97.41 billion, while fixed-income products saw $62.74 billion in inflows.

Apple researchers question the reasoning capabilities of OpenAI's latest model o1, suggesting it mimics patterns rather than using true logic despite its high performance on benchmarks. The team developed an evaluation tool called GSM-Symbolic, which revealed performance fluctuations in AI models, indicating that current benchmarks like GSM8K might not reliably test logical reasoning abilities. Apple's study highlights a broader debate with OpenAI over the extent of logical reasoning in AI, emphasizing the need for further research to develop models capable of genuine problem-solving beyond pattern recognition.

📌 Venture Daily Digest Picks

• How To Price Your Product - A Simple Framework. (Link)

• Bedrock’s Investment Strategy: Search For Narrative Violations. (Link)

• Circle’s Founder, Sid Yadav’s Views on Startup Valuation. (Link)

• How long does it take to achieve Product/Market Fit? (Link)

• What 7 Years in VC Taught Me: 93 Untold Truths. (Read)

• How I promote my startup if I had 0$ for marketing? (Read)

• How the young VC quietly built Thrive Capital into the powerhouse leading a $5 Billion OpenAI round. (Read)

💼 Today’s VC Job Opportunities

• Ventures Associate - Plug and play tech centre | Singapore - Apply Here

• Investment Manager, Techstars London - Apply Here

• Analyst - Direct and Co-investment - British Capital | UK - Apply Here

• Senior Director, Venture Capital and Impact Investing - Sorenson Capital | USA - Apply Here

• Investment Associate, Material Science & Sustainable Infrastructure - Playground Global | USA - Apply Here

RESOURCES

• Get access to All in one guide of venture capital interview preparation. It’s created by GP and contain all possible questions and how to answer them. 50% off for first 50 Aspiring VCs - Get Access Now…

• 2700+ US Angel Investors & VC Firms Contact Database (Email + LinkedIn Link) (Access Here)

• Early Stage Startup Financial Model Template For Fundraising (Access Here)

• Building Cap Table As A Founder: Template to Download (Access Here)

• 1000+ Euro Tech Angel Investors & VC Firms Database (Access Here)

• 400+ French Angel Investors & Venture Capital Firms Contact Database (Email + LinkedIn Link) (Access Here)

• 350+ Indian Angel Investors & Venture Capital Firms Contact Database (Email + LinkedIn Link) (Access Here)

Do you have any news to share about your Startup or VC fund?
Please email us.

We’ll be back in your inbox On Tomorrow.