Apple and Nvidia could be OpenAI’s next big investors & SEC takes aim at NFT marketplace OpenSea

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☕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

Nvidia and Apple are reportedly in talks to join OpenAI’s next fundraising round, potentially valuing the AI firm at $100 billion. Thrive Capital may lead the round, with Microsoft also likely to participate. OpenAI, despite its $3.4 billion revenue, is projected to lose $5 billion this year due to AI expansion efforts.

OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, received an SEC Wells notice, signaling a potential lawsuit over unregistered securities. CEO Devin Finzer disputes this claim and pledges $5 million USD for legal fees to fight for the industry. The crypto sector argues tokens aren't traditional securities, despite being tradable value-storing assets.

Other Major News

• GitHub Copilot competitor Codeium raises $150M at a $1.25B valuation. (Scroll To Funding Updates)

• OpenAI reports 200 million weekly ChatGPT users, double from November, with 92%. (Scroll To Tech Updates)

• a16z Partner’s Framework to Evaluate Quality of Startups’ User Growth. (Scroll To Featured Article)

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

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🗞️ Startup Funding Updates

Codeium, a Mountain View-based AI startup competing with GitHub Copilot, raised $150 million in a Series C round led by General Catalyst, valuing the company at $1.25 billion. Existing investors Kleiner Perkins and Greenoaks also participated, bringing Codeium's total funding to $ 243 million as it scales its AI-powered coding assistant platform. More Here

Magic, a San Francisco-based AI startup that develops models to automate software development tasks, has raised $320 million in a round led by ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, with contributions from CapitalG, Atlassian, Sequoia, and others. The funding brings Magic's total raised to $465 million as it continues to innovate in AI-driven coding tools. More Here

Quai, an Austin, TX-based provider of a Layer-1 crypto network for the global and compute economies, raised $5M in strategic funding. Backers included Cogitent Ventures, MH Ventures, TPC Ventures, Giga Chad Ventures, and DexCheck Ventures. Additionally, Quai previously secured $10M from Polychain Capital and Alumni Ventures, bringing its total funding to $15M. More Here

Noetik, a San Francisco, CA-based AI-native biotech company leveraging self-supervised machine learning and high-throughput spatial data to develop next-generation cancer therapeutics, closed a $40m Series A financing round. The round was led by Polaris Partners and managing partner Amy Schulman. More Here

Codeium, a Mountain View, CA-based provider of an AI-powered code acceleration platform, raised $150M in Series C funding, at $1.25 Billion valuation. The round was led by General Catalyst, with participation from existing investors Kleiner Perkins and Greenoaks. More Here

Uniqkey, a Herlev, Hovedstaden, Denmark-based a provider of a password and access management solution, raised €5.35m in funding. Backers included BackingMinds, in combination with industry veterans such as Jesper Zerlang (ex-CEO of Logpoint), Lars Ankjer, Otto Krabbe, Rolf Bladt and several angels and key employees. More Here

Powder Beauty, a Ras al Khaimah, UAE-based provider of an e-commerce platform for conscious beauty and wellness products, raised an undisclosed amount in Pre-Series A funding. The round was led by Sophia Collective and NKEHL, Nithin and Nikhil Kamath with participation from several regional angel investors, including Maha Taibah. More Here

Global Spatial Technology Solutions (GSTS), a Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada-based company which specializes in in maritime solutions, raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding. The round was led by Fonds de solidarité FTQ, along with Export Development Corporation (EDC). More Here

Turntable Labs, the Miami, FL-based company behind the new social music platform Hangout, raised $8.2M in Seed funding. The round was led by Founders Fund, Elizabeth Street Ventures, 468 Capital, and f7 Ventures, with participation from angel investor Michael Guimarin. More Here

Vybe, an AI-generated photos social media app provider, raised $4.75M in seed funding. The round was led by Stellation Capital with participation from Scribble Ventures, Coalition Operators, Neo, and Blueprint FTC, as well as Peter Boyce II, Kelvin Beachum, Ali Partovi, and Kevin Weil. More Here

Miris, a Culver City, CA-based company bringing spatial computing into the streaming era, raised $26M in Seed funding. The round was led by IAG Capital Partners. More Here

Melodi Health, a Minneapolis, MN-based medical device company, raised $10.75M in Series A funding. Backers included HM Venture Partners, Engage Venture Partners, Southeast Minnesota Capital Fund, and Three Bridges Private Capital. More Here

VRGL, a Dallas, TX-based provider of a client acquisition and investment proposal management solution, raised an undisclosed amount of funding. The round was led by FINTOP Capital and MissionOG, with participation from Northwestern Mutual, Flyover Capital, Fin Capital, and other insiders and friends of the firm. More Here

Levitate, a Raleigh, NC-based provider of a SaaS ‘Happiness Platform’ for relationship-based businesses, raised $15M in Series D funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $55M, was led by Harbert Growth Partners, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures and Bull City Venture Partners. More Here

Piramidal, a San Fransisco, CA-based AI powered neurotech startup, raised $6m in seed funding. The round was was led by Y Combinator, with participation from Adverb Ventures, Lionheart Ventures, as well as unnamed angel investors. More Here

Evolve, an Atlanta, GA-based prefabrication workflow tech company, raised over $6M in Growth funding. The backers were not disclosed. More Here

Moveo.AI, a NYC-based enterprise conversational AI startup, raised $2.6m in seed funding. The round was led by Eleven Ventures with participation from Uni.Fund and Charge.vc. More Here

Inventive AI, a Mountain View, CA-based provider of an AI-driven tool for streamlining and optimizing RFP (Request for Proposal) and sales questionnaire workflows, raised $4M in funding. The round was led by Sierra Ventures with participation from YCombinator, SOMA Capital, and General Catalyst. More Here

Tiimo, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based provider of a neurodivergent planning and learning app, raised $1.6M in funding. The round was led by Crowberry Capital and People Ventures, with participation from Inner Foundations, Goodwater Capital and Divergent Investments. More Here

Swiss-Mile, a Zurich, Switzerland-based developer of AI-powered industrial robots, raised $22m in seed funding. The round was led by Jeff Bezos through Bezos Expeditions and HongShan, with participation from the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund and Armada Investment, and existing investor Linear Capital. More Here

OpusClip, a Redwood City, CA-based AI-powered video repurposing startup, raised $30m in funding. The round was led by Millennium New Horizons, with participation from Samsung Next, GTMfund, and DCM Ventures. More Here

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📰 Venture Capital Updates

The Securities and Exchange Commission has raised the threshold for "qualifying venture funds" from $10 million to $12 million. This adjustment allows these funds to raise capital from up to 250 accredited investors while remaining exempt from SEC registration as an investment company, a privilege otherwise limited to funds with 100 or fewer investors. The change, part of a routine inflation adjustment reviewed every five years, comes at a crucial time for emerging funds, which have been particularly affected by the VC bear market since 2022. More Here

📌 Featured Article

a16z Partner’s Framework to Evaluate Quality of Startups’ User Growth

Oftentimes you’ll find a new startup that presents their growth curve, which might look something like this – up and to the right! This is great. Time to invest, right?

The problem is, you don’t know where it’s going to go.

In the long run, this curve might go in a direction you may not want it to go – perhaps it’ll plateau. Perhaps it’ll even collapse. Or you may find that it’s going to continue going up and even hockey-sticking.

How do you predict the future? Is it working and will it sustain? Will it even accelerate?

Andrew Chen shared a framework to tackle this called - the Growth Accounting Framework.

The Growth Accounting Framework looks something like this – within each time period (say a week, or a month) – you’ll add some users, reactivate some folks who had previously churned, and some go inactive. You add this up and it’s the “Net MAU” for a product – the difference between each time period.

If your positive terms (New+Reactivated) are smaller than your negative terms (the number who become Inactive) then you stop growing, and the whole thing goes negative. Let’s look at each term:

New user acquisition typically follows a linear or S-curve pattern…. read here

We haves shared in detailed writeup in our Venture Curator newsletter, Check out here…

📑 Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Going Public

Carbon6, a Toronto, Canada-based provider of a software platform for Amazon businesses, acquired Junglytics, a Washington, DC-based AI-powered business intelligence product designed to enhance data-driven decision-making for sellers.

GrubMarket, a San Francisco, CA-based food tech eCommerce company, acquired FreshGoGo, a Plainview, New York-based provider of an Asian grocery and specialty food eCommerce platform in North America.

Layoffs & Bankruptcy

Startups & People

Polestar, the EV startup spun out of Volvo, has seen CEO Thomas Ingenlath resign just weeks after sharing his vision for the company. Michael Lohscheller, former CEO of Opel, VinFast, and Nikola, will take over as Polestar faces a challenging period with layoffs, slowing sales, and the pursuit of a $1 billion loan to keep its electric vehicle plans on track.

Lea Kissner is LinkedIn's new Chief Information Security Officer, following their role as CISO at Lacework and previously at Twitter. Kissner succeeds Geoff Belknap, who stepped down in June. Belknap praised Kissner, stating LinkedIn is in "great hands."

🤖 Latest In Tech

Many of the largest websites, such as Facebook, Instagram, and The New York Times, have opted out of Apple's AI training by using the Applebot-Extended tag to exclude their content. Apple allows publishers to easily opt out of content scraping for Apple Intelligence training through a publicly-accessible robots.txt file, ensuring their data is not used for AI purposes. Apple's use of Applebot for AI training is designed to be ethical, with mechanisms to filter out personal data and a system for web publishers to prevent their data from being utilized.

OpenAI reports 200 million weekly ChatGPT users, double from November, with 92% of Fortune 500 companies using its products. Competitor AI chatbots have emerged, but OpenAI's user base grows; Meta's AI assistant claims 400 million monthly users. OpenAI and Anthropic agree to pre-launch government evaluations of major AI models.

💼 Today’s VC Job Opportunities

• 2025 Venture Capital Summer Analyst - Stepstone group | USA - Apply Here

• Operations Associate - Tokyo - Techstar | Japan - Apply Here

• Climate Tech Analyst Intern | Australia - Apply Here

• Investment and Operations Associate - Ponderosa Venture | USA - Apply Here

• Investment Manager (AI Sector) - Samsung Venture | USA - Apply Here

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