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EV Startup Fisker Filed For Bankruptcy & Apple Halts Work On Vision Pro

EV Startup Fisker Filed For Bankruptcy & Apple Halts Work On Vision Pro

Venture Daily Digest - 19/06/2024

Venture Daily Digest
June 19, 2024

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👋 Hey, Sahil here! Welcome to today's quick rundown in the Venture Daily Digest Newsletter. I've got the scoop on startup fundraising, VC funds, and some cool tech – all in just 5 minutes ☕! Today’s major updates include -

Silicon Valley investment behemoth Andreessen Horowitz has led a $130 million equity and debt investment to fuel behavioral healthcare company Talkiatry’s expansion.
Refactor Capital, a Burlingame-based venture capital firm led by solo general partner Zal Bilimoria, has raised a $50 million fourth fund.
Fisker Group Inc., the EV startup founded by Henrik Fisker, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Apple has paused development on the second-generation Vision Pro headset to concentrate on a more affordable version.
Featured Article : B2C Startup Idea Validation Framework.

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Startup Funding Updates

Kilimo, an Argentine startup, provides a risk management tool for farmers to optimize water usage. It recently raised a $7.5 million Series A round led by Emerald Technology Ventures, with participation from iThink VC, Kamay Ventures, Salkantay Ventures, and The Yield Lab Latam. More Here

Genspark, a Singapore-based startup, has developed an AI-powered search engine that generates custom summaries for queries. It recently raised $60 million in a seed round led by Lanchi Ventures, valuing the company at $260 million post-money. More Here

SewerAI, a Walnut Creek, CA-based global leader in AI and cloud-driven sewer condition assessment, closed a $15m Series B funding round. The round was led by Innovius Capital, with participation from Emerald VC, Epic Ventures, Suffolk Ventures, Bentley Systems, Burnt Island Ventures and individual investors including Zachary Bookman, founder and CEO of OpenGov, and the CEOs of several elite AI and computer vision companies. More Here

SurrealDB, a London, United Kingdom – based multi-model database, raised $20m in funding. The round, which brought total funding raised to date to $26m was led by FirstMark and Georgian with participation from Crew Capital and Alumni Ventures. More Here

Marigold Health, a Boston, MA-based tech-enabled peer recovery company, closed an $11m Series A funding. The round was led by Rock Health and Innospark Ventures with participation from the Commonwealth Care Alliance (CCA), Wavemaker360, Stand Together Ventures Lab, Epsilon Health Investors, Koa Labs, VNS Health Plan and KdT Ventures. More Here

Waabi, a Toronto, Canada-based company advancing generative AI for the physical world, raised $200m (USD) in Series B funding. The round was led by Uber and Khosla Ventures with participation from strategic investors NVIDIA, Volvo Group Venture Capital, Porsche Automobil Holding SE, Scania Invest and Ingka Investments, and additional financial investors HarbourVest Partners, G2 Venture Partners, BDC Capital’s Thrive Venture Fund, Export Development Canada, Radical Ventures, Incharge Capital, and others. More Here

Celcoin, a Sao Paulo, Brazil-based Banking as a Service (BaaS) financial technology company, received a US$125 million investment. The round was led by led by Summit Partners with existing investor Innova Capital also participating in the round. More Here

CesiumAstro Inc., an Austin, TX-based provider of space communications technology, closed a $65m Series B+ funding round. The round was led by Trousdale Ventures, with matching participation from Development Bank of Japan Inc., and Quanta Computer, Inc. as well as from Kleiner Perkins, Lavrock Ventures, L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX), InMotion Ventures (JLR’s investment arm), Matter Venture Partners, MESH Ventures, and Assembly Ventures. More Here

Clip, a Mexico City, Mexico- and Buenos Aires, Argentina-based digital payments and commerce enablement platform, raised US$100m in funding. Backers included investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley Tactical Value and one of the largest, most experienced West-Coast mutual fund managers. More Here

Nota AI, a Seoul, South Korea-based startup specializing in AI optimization and lightweighting technology, raised $19.9m in Series C funding round. The round, which brings the total investment raised since its founding to approximately $42.6 million (53.2 billion KRW), was led by STIC Ventures and LB Investment, with new investments from STIC Ventures, Korea Development Bank, and Mirae Asset Securities. More Here

Hark, a NYC-based provider of a Voice of Customer (VoC) platform, raised $3.5M in seed funding. The round was led by Oceans Ventures, with participation from Converge VC, Atman Capital, Alumni Ventures, BDMI Fund, Tenzing Capital and strategic angel investors. More Here

bitsensing, a South Korean provider of advanced radar solutions, closed its $25m Series B funding. The round was led by the Korea Development Bank, HL Mando Corporation, Industrial Bank of Korea, Aju Capital, Life Asset Management, and SCL Investment. More Here

Legato Security, a Salt Lake City, UT-based Managed Detection and Response (MDR) and Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP), received a capital investment to support its strategic growth. The round was led by Level Structured Capital (an affiliate of Level Equity) and SageLink Capital. More Here

Kapitus, a NYC-based provider of financing for small and medium sized businesses, closed a $45M investment-grade corporate note financing. The closing of this most recent financing increases the company’s total debt facilities to $585M. More Here

Zencity, a New York City and Tel Aviv, Israel-based based community engagement platform for local governments, raised $40m in Series C funding. The round, which brought the total raised by the company to $91m, was led by StepStone Group, with participation from existing investors TLV Partners. More Here

Talkiatry, a NYC-based provider of an in-network psychiatric care, raised $130M in Series C funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) with participation from Perceptive Advisors. Debt financing was provided by Banc of California. More Here

Ability Biologics, a Montreal, Canada-based cell targeting company, raised US $18M in Seed funding. The round was led by Amplitude Ventures with participation from FTQ, Investissement Québec, Charles River Laboratories, Theodorus and Alexandria Venture Investments. More Here

Ethris, a Munich, Germany-based biotechnology company advancing next-generation RNA therapeutics and vaccines, raised $5M in funding. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided the funding. More Here

Renzo, the Liquid Restaking Protocol, today announced $17M in funding. As of today, nearly $4B is already restaked with Renzo. The funding, which took place across two rounds, was first led by Galaxy Ventures and the second round led by the Nova Fund – BH Digital (based in Abu Dhabi). This follows $3.2m of funding previously via Maven11, Figment Capital and Binance Labs. More Here

Scoop Analytics, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a business analytics tool empowered by spreadsheets, raised $3.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Ridge Ventures, with participation from returning investors Engineering Capital and Industry Ventures More Here

Entro Security, a Boston, MA-based provider of Non-Human Identity (NHI) and secrets management platform, closed an $18m Series A funding. The round was led by Dell Technologies Capital with participation from seed investors Hyperwise Ventures and StageOne Ventures, as well as angel investors such as Rakesh Loonkar and Mickey Boodaei. More Here

Alyve Health, a Mumbai, India-based health tech platform, raised $5.5M in funding. The round was led by Axilor Ventures with participation from 1Crowd Fund, and Inhealth Ventures. The company also raised venture debt funding from Trifecta Capital as part of this round. More Here

Proofs, a San Francisco, CA-based company using AI agents to accelerate the proof-of-concept phase in software sales, raised $2.6M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Earlybird Digital East Fund, with participation from RTP Global, Step Function Ventures, Expeditions Fund and angel investors. More Here

Droppe, a Helsinki, Finland-based B2B distribution platform provider, raised €3.9M in funding. The round was led by OpenOcean. Miki Kuusi, Ilkka Paananen, Robert Gentz, Marianne Vikkula, and Lifeline Ventures, also participated. More Here

Nomad Health, a NYC-based digital marketplace for healthcare jobs, raised $22M in funding. The round was led by HealthQuest Capital. Other investors included Adams Street, Icon Ventures, Polaris Partners, .406 Ventures, and RRE Ventures. More Here

epresspack, a Paris, France-based provider of a SaaS solution for communication professionals, raised €7M in funding. Entrepreneur Invest made the investment. More Here

Finbourne Technology, a London, UK-based fintech company that provides investment management solutions and a cloud-native data management platform, raised £55M in Series B funding. The round was led by Highland Europe and AXA Venture Partners (AVP). More Here

CuspAI, a Cambridge, UK-based AI company building a platform for materials that enhance sustainability, raised $30M in Seed funding. The round was led by Hoxton Ventures, with participation from Basis Set Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, LocalGlobe, Northzone, Touring Capital, Giant Ventures, FJ Labs, Tiferes Ventures, Zero Prime Ventures, Mehdi Ghissassi, and Dorothy Chou. More Here

Venture Capital Updates

Refactor Capital, a Burlingame-based venture capital firm, is led by solo general partner Zal Bilimoria. The firm has raised a $50 million fourth fund to invest in biotech, climate, and hard tech startups. Refactor has invested in over 100 companies since its launch in 2016, including four unicorns. The new fund was raised in less than 90 days, with 90% from existing LPs like Knollwood Investment Advisory.

Kinderhook Industries, a NYC-based private investment firm, raised $2.74 Billion for its eight fund. Kinderhook’s investor base was comprised of domestic and international endowments, foundations, family offices, pensions, and other institutional capital bases. More Here

Featured Article

B2C Startup Idea Validation Framework.

Most ideas, especially in B2C, get validated in one of four ways:

This framework defines the differences between each path to validation.

Signal Aggregation

Founders should test an idea's viability through small experiments that provide evidence (signals) of potential success before building a full product. Common signals include landing page sign-ups, social media engagement, ad click-through rates, and customer interview feedback.

Strong Beta

Achieving strong early traction with a beta product is another popular validation approach for founders. Success metrics vary across industries, e.g., high user numbers and retention for consumer social apps, and healthy revenue for B2C marketplaces.

The process typically starts with a hypothesis for solving a problem. The founder builds a basic version to test the hypothesis. Beta products are often rudimentary, lacking polish, due to the emphasis on speed over perfection. This approach aligns with the lean methodology of launching quickly and iterating based on feedback.

True Fans

This approach is similar to the Strong Beta approach, as it involves launching a beta product. However, instead of focusing on significant traction metrics like revenue or user acquisition, the founder seeks to identify a small group of fanatic users who deeply love the product despite its limited features. The key is finding 20-50 users who would be disappointed if the product were to go away. These passionate fans, rather than large user numbers, serve as the validation signal.

Visionary

This approach is the least common among the founders interviewed, as it requires a clear vision and plan for the product from the outset. Typically, the founder has a close personal connection to the problem being solved and a strong understanding of what needs to be done to address it.

Read detailed article in our Venture Curator newsletter.

Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Going Public

Fengate, an alternative-asset manager, will hold over two-thirds of the equity in eStruxture Data Centers through a transaction totaling 1.8 billion Canadian dollars, or the equivalent of $1.3 billion, marking a big bet on increasing demand for storage capacity with the growing use of artificial intelligence. More Here

Online comics platform Webtoon Entertainment said on Monday it is targeting a valuation of up to $2.67 billion in its initial public offering in the United States. More Here

Layoffs & Bankruptcy

Fisker Group Inc., the EV startup founded by Henrik Fisker, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. This comes after months of problems with its Ocean SUV, including recalls, lemon law lawsuits, and production struggles.

Source: Techcrunch

The company delivered only a few thousand Ocean SUVs before facing financial troubles. Fisker had estimated assets of $500 million to $1 billion and liabilities between $100 million and $500 million. This marks the second time a vehicle company founded by Henrik Fisker has gone bankrupt, following the demise of Fisker Automotive in 2013.

Startups & People

BTG Pactual's forestry arm agreed to sell 8 million carbon offset credits to Microsoft in the largest-ever sale of such credits. The Brazilian investment bank's Timberland Investment Group did not disclose financial details of the transaction. Each carbon credit represents the reduction of one tonne of carbon dioxide emissions generated by BTG Pactual's forest restoration projects in Latin America. More Here

Latest In Emerging Tech

Apple halts work on Vision Pro

Apple has paused development on the second-generation Vision Pro headset to concentrate on a more affordable version, according to The Information.
The company reportedly began working on this cheaper Vision device, codenamed "N109," in 2022, aiming to sell it for a price similar to a high-end iPhone.
Even though Apple plans to use the high-end display components from the Vision Pro in the budget model, it still faces challenges in reducing costs without removing too many features.

Nvidia has become the world's most valuable company, dethroning Microsoft, as its high-end processors play a central role in the race to dominate artificial intelligence technology. Nvidia's market capitalization reached $3.335 trillion, surpassing Microsoft's $3.317 trillion, driven by a stunning surge in market value over the past year due to optimism about emerging AI technology. More Here

Appfigures' report indicates that Apple's "sherlocking" practice with iOS 18 may impact third-party apps that generated an estimated $393 million in revenue and 58 million downloads in the past year.

Source: Appfigure report

The report highlights trail apps, grammar helpers, math solvers, password managers, and emoji makers as categories affected. Despite dedicated user bases, Apple's built-in offerings could hinder the growth potential of these third-party apps. (Apple often takes popular features from third-party apps and builds them directly into iOS and macOS. This practice is called "sherlocking.")

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