SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son commits to invest $200 billion in the US & TikTok asks Supreme Court to block the US ban.

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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

Startup Funding Updates

Parafin, a San Francisco, CA-based embedded finance infrastructure company, raised $100M in Series C funding, at $750M valuation. The round was led by Notable Capital, with participation from Redpoint Ventures. Existing investors Ribbit Capital, Thrive Capital, and GIC also participated.

Prometheum, a NYC-based market infrastructure provider for digital asset securities, raised $20M in funding. Backers were not disclosed.

Akamis Bio, a Cambridge, MA-based clinical-stage oncology company, raised $60M in funding. The round was led by Sedgwick Yard.

Databriks, a San Francisco, CA-based data and AI company, is raising $10B in Series J funding, at $62B valuation. The company has completed $8.6 billion to date. The round was led by Thrive Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, DST Global, GIC, Insight Partners and WCM Investment Management. Other participants included existing investor Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and new investors ICONIQ Growth, MGX, Sands Capital and Wellington Management.

Nuon, a San Francisco, CA-based company which specializes in SaaS-like experiences directly in customers’ cloud account, raised $16.5M in funding. The round was led by M12 (James Wu), Uncork Capital (Andy McLoughlin), Redpoint Ventures (Pat Chase), Alumni Ventures (Meera Oak), Essence VC (Timothy Chen), Mantis VC (Alex Pall), Red Swan Ventures (Sandy Cass) and angel investors Quinn Slack (CEO of SourceGraph), Richie Artoul (co-founder of WarpStream, acquired by Confluent) and Michael Grinich (CEO of WorkOS).

Atlas Invest, a NYC-based bridge loan company, raised $11M in Funding. The round was led by The Garage with participation from State of Mind Ventures, Anfield, Guy Gamzu, and other previous investors.

Indapta Therapeutics, a Houston, TX and Seattle, WA-based clinical stage biotechnology company, raised $22.5M in funding. The round was led by RA Capital Management, LP, Leaps by Bayer, Vertex Ventures HC, Pontifax, and the Myeloma Investment Fund.

T-robotics, a San Francisco, CA- and Trondheim, Norway-based based developer of programming for any robot using natural language and skill models with no code required, raised $5.4M in Seed funding. The round was led by Emergent Ventures and Engine Ventures with participation from Berkeley Skydeck and Raisewell.

NeuroKaire, a Kearny, NJ-based biotechnology company specializing in precision medicine in psychiatry and neurology, raised $10M in funding. The round was led by GreyBird Ventures, with participation from Meron Capital, Jumpspeed Ventures.

Stand, a San Francisco, CA-based company improving insurance for climate-impacted properties, raised $30M in funding. Backers included Inspired Capital, Lowercarbon, Equal Ventures and Convective Capital.

BILT, a Grapevine, TX-based company which specializes in 3D intelligent instructions, raised $21M in Series b funding. The round was led by Silverton Partners with participation from Amex Ventures, Fifth Growth Fund, and Silicon Valley Bank.

Prequel, a NYC-based provider of a community-driven problem detection and management platform for cloud applications, raised $3.3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Work-Bench, with participation from Runtime Ventures, Operator Partners, Shay Banon (CTO, Elastic), Jon Oberheide (CTO, Duo Security), Monica Sarbu (CEO, Xata), and Andrew Morris (CTO, GreyNoise).

FastWave Medical, a Minneapolis, MN-based clinical-stage medical device company, raised $19M in funding. The round was led by Epic Venture Partners with participation from M&L Healthcare Investments and existing investors.

Acre Homes, a Durham, NC-based tech-enabled real estate company, raised over $10M in funding. The round was led by Anthemis with participation from Sovereign’s Capital, Home Technology Ventures, Studio VC, Front Porch Ventures, Unpopular Ventures, Duke Capital Partners, and former CEO of Invitation Homes Fred Tuomi.

Starboard, a Toronto, Canada-based AI-powered logistics solutions company, raised $5.5M in funding. The round was led by Eclipse, with participation from previous backers Garuda Ventures and Everywhere Ventures.

Twill, a NYC-based provider of a talent platform that connects companies with vetted tech professionals through peer recommendations, raised $1.4M in Pre-Seed Funding. The round was led by Bloomberg Beta. Additional investors included Vitalize VC, Correlation Ventures, Purpose Built Ventures, and executives from Netflix, Meta, and Snap.

Slip Robotics, an Atlanta, GA-based provider of automated truck-loading robots-as-a-service, raised $28M in Series B funding. The round was led by DCVC.

Anatomy Financial, a San Francisco, CA-based developer of the AI-powered lockbox to convert paper mail from healthcare practices of all sizes to an email-like experience for simplified billing workflows, raised $19M in Series A funding. The round was led by Canapi Ventures. Neil Underwood from Canapi and Nicole Quinn from Lightspeed Venture Partners will be joining the Anatomy board.

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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

Venture Capital Updates

Penny Jar Capital, an early-stage venture firm where NBA star Stephen Curry serves as a special adviser, has filed to raise both a Fund II and a Fund II Collective with undisclosed target amounts, following its initial Fund I which launched in 2021. The firm, founded by Curry's former business manager Bryant Barr and ex-SC360 investment partner Richard Scudellari, has made approximately 14-18 investments in companies like Upwind, Ducky, and Praxis Labs, joining the growing trend of athlete-involved venture capital firms alongside ventures from Kevin Durant, Serena Williams, and Giannis Antetokounmpo.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son agreed to double the company's planned U.S. investment from $100 billion to $200 billion during an impromptu exchange with President-elect Trump, who directly challenged Son to increase the commitment.

KEY STORIES IN TECH

Latest In Tech

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has announced plans to hire 2,000 new sales representatives to sell the company's AI tools, doubling previously announced hiring plans and coming ahead of the release of its second-generation AI agent software in February. The expansion reflects Benioff's ambitious vision for Salesforce's AI future, as he expects the company to have more than a billion AI agents running within the next year and has expressed unprecedented excitement about the potential of generative AI.

Donald Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Chew at Mar-a-Lago, marking their first meeting since Trump's electoral victory as TikTok seeks Supreme Court intervention over a federal ban. The legal dispute arises from a law requiring TikTok to be sold to a non-Chinese owner by January 19, or face a ban in the U.S., which TikTok argues violates the First Amendment. TikTok filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to temporarily block the ban, emphasizing national security concerns over its Chinese ownership, with a decision needed by January 6.

NVIDIA has launched the Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit, a palm-sized AI supercomputer that offers 68 TOPS performance and 70% better performance than its predecessor, with improved generative AI capabilities and bandwidth. The new kit is available for $249, half the price of the previous model, and comes with software updates that can also enhance the performance of the original Jetson Orin Nano.

LAST COFFEE SIP

Other News

The DOJ plans to call Perplexity's chief business officer as a witness in the Google antitrust case to discuss AI search and competition, while Google has separately subpoenaed Perplexity for documents to support its defense that it faces viable competition in the search market. Perplexity finds itself caught between both sides, having agreed to fulfill most of Google's document requests but still evaluating the scope of some demands, including those related to AI training licensing agreements.

Meta is enhancing its Ray-Ban smart glasses by integrating live AI that does not require a wake word, allowing for hands-free operation like asking questions or getting assistance while multitasking. The updated glasses will also feature live translation capabilities for several languages including French, Italian, and Spanish, providing either audio translation or text transcripts through the Meta View app. With the new Shazam integration, users can conveniently identify any song playing in their vicinity by simply asking the smart glasses, similar to using the Shazam app on a smartphone.

REPORT THAT YOU SHOULD LOOK

In-Depth Insights

• How to Build an Investor Data Room? A detailed guide on building investors data room. It suggest to divide data room into two stage, pre-term sheet & post term sheet.

• Are US Startup Employees Exercising Their Vested Options When They Leave? In recent report by Carta, it founds that most US startup employees don’t care about startup equity.

• Large Language Models Explained Simply Want to really understand how large language models work? Here’s a gentle primer.

• Lessons from Perplexity AI’s CEO Valuable advice for aspiring founders from Perplexity AI’s journey to product-market fit and beyond.

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