Former Twitter CEO Sued Musk For $128 Million & EU Fined Apple $2 Billion

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

• Anthropic launched Claude 3, its latest GenAI tech, claiming superior performance to OpenAI's GPT-4.

• The European Union has fined Apple €1.84 billion for violating antitrust rules related to its music streaming services.

• Four former top Twitter executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, have sued Elon Musk for over $128 million.

• Avista Healthcare Partners closed $1.5 Billion Fund To Invest In healthcare companies.

• Featured Article : Understanding Liquidation Preference With An Example!

• Daily Digest Board: As a founder or investor, do you support the requirement for tech firms to obtain government approval before releasing new AI models?

FROM OUR PARTNER

Is startup stress overwhelming you?

Discover mindfulness tools for focus and resilience at the Founder Institute's upcoming live webinar…

A webinar on founder well being with Alex Raymond and Jonathan Greechan.

PARTNERSHIP WITH US

Promote your startup to our community of 23,000+ entrepreneurs and investors? Fill out the form, our team will reach out to you….

STARTUP FUNDING UPDATES

Powerful Medical, an Aalst, Belgium-based medical device manufacturer, raised €7.5m in funding. The round consisted of a grant of €2.5m and a follow-on investment of €5m from the European Innovation Council (EIC). More Here

Esper, Australian remote sensing startup wants to capture hyperspectral imagery from space has closed the $1 million in funding from investors including Stellar Ventures, Day One Ventures and Dolby Family Ventures, as well as secured grants from Alexis Ohanian’s 776 Foundation and the Australian Federal Government. More Here

Shape Memory Medical Inc., a Santa Clara, Calif.-based developer of custom shape memory polymers for endovascular markets, completed a $38m Series C financing. The round was led by Earlybird Venture Capital. More Here

Topsort aims to helps e-commerce create ads without being ‘creepy’ has raised $20 million of Series A capital with a valuation boost to $150 million post-money. Upload Ventures led the round with support from existing investors, including Quiet Capital and Pear Ventures. The company has now raised $28.6 million in total. More Here

Taiko, Blockchain platform addressing Ethereum's decentralization challenges, secures $15 million in a Series A funding round, reaching unicorn status with a $37 million total funding led by Lightspeed Faction, Hashed, Generative Ventures and Token Bay Capital. More Here

Topsort, a San Francisco, CA-based artificial intelligence and machine learning-based clean advertising technology company, raised $20m in Series A funding. The round, which valued the company at $150m, was led by Upload Ventures and returning seed round investors Quiet Capital and Pear Ventures. More Here

Toolify Robotics, a Ulm, Germany-based robotics startup, raised €1.6m in seed funding. Backers included High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF). More Here

Synctera, a San Francisco, CA-based leader in embedded banking and finance, raised an $18.6m Series A-1 extension to its 2021 Series A funding. Lightspeed and Fin Capital co-led the round alongside participation from other previous investors NAventures and Diagram. More Here

MoeGo, a Los Angeles, CA-based provider of a payments and scheduling platform for pet groomers, raised $24m in Series A funding. The round was led by Base10 Partners, with participation from Digitalis Ventures, Conductive Ventures, and Uphonest Capital. More Here

Healthee, a NYC-based healthcare tech company, closed a $32m Series A funding round. The round was co-led by Fin Capital, Glilot Capital Partners, and Group11, with strategic partner TriNet (NYSE: TNET) also participating. Christian Ostberg, General Partner at Fin Capital, who will be joining Healthee’s Board of Directors. More Here

Mews, an Amsterdam, The Netherlands-based hospitality cloud provider, is raising $110m in funding. The round is led by existing investor Kinnevik, alongside Revaia, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Notion Capital and new investor LGVP. More Here

Naturanic, a São Paulo, a Brazil-based company offering snacks made with natural and organic ingredients from the Brazilian biodiversity, raised $2M in Series A funding. The round was led by Moriah Asset. More Here

Gridcog, a London, UK-based clean energy software company, raised £3.3M in funding. The round was led by AlbionVC. More Here

Phagenesis, a Manchester, UK-based company which has developed a neurostimulation system to treat swallowing dysfunction, has closed a $42M Series D financing. The round was led by EQT Life Sciences and Sectoral Asset Management. More Here

Baseten, a San Francisco, CA based AI infrastructure company, raised $40M in Series B funding. The round was led by IVP and Spark Capital, with participation from existing investors Greylock, South Park Commons, Lachy Groom, and Base Case. More Here

Kismet, a Melbourne, Australia-based healthcare startup, raised USD8.2M in Seed funding. The round, which brought the total amount to USD 10.8M, was led by Prosus Ventures and Airtree Ventures. More Here

Sniffers Pet Care, an Elland, UK-based pet treat supplier, raised £850K in Series A funding. Traditum Private Equity made the investment. More Here

Yurtle, a London, UK-based insurtech company helping workplaces combat caregiver burnout, raised £1.37M in Seed funding. The round was led by Insurtech Gateway and Mustard Seed Maze. More Here

BBT.live, Tel Aviv, Israel-based provider of secured connectivity services for service providers, expanded its Seed funding to $9.5M. The round was led by Tzvi Neta. More Here

Cardiotrack, a Bengaluru, India-based provider of data-centric healthcare screening technology and services, raised US$2M in Pre-Series A funding. The round was led by Girish Narasimhan. More Here

Zeno Health, a Mumbai, India-based omnichannel platform for generic medicines, closed its USD25m Series C funding. The round was led by STIC Investments with participation from existing investor Lightbox. More Here

Argá Medtech, a Lausanne, Switzerland-based company providing a cardiac ablation system for treating cardiac arrhythmias, raised €54M in Series B funding. The round was led by existing investors Advent Life Sciences and Earlybird Health, as well as new investor Gilde Healthcare and an undisclosed investor. More Here

Axiom Cloud, a San Jose, CA-based refrigeration management software for grocery and cold storage, raised $5M in funding. The round was led by Toshiba Tec and Windsail Capital Group. More Here

Wagely, Indonesia based fintech startups aims to help workers in Southeast Asian countries to get advances on their salaries without resorting to higher-interest loans has raised $23 million from Capria Ventures. More Here

LOOKING TO BREAK INTO VC

Join Our VC Crafter Community, to lean, network and craft path to venture capital.

As a community member, you will get access to daily VC job updates, VC learning resources, daily discussion sessions, 1:1 call access, worked as scout for various VC firms, CV/Interview preparation guide and more. Don’t miss this opportunity….

→ Join Our Slack Community Now

VENTURE CAPITAL UPDATES

Avista Healthcare Partners, a NYC-based private equity firm, announced the final closing of Avista Healthcare Partners VI, at $1.5 Billion, focused on investments across high-growth middle-market product and technology healthcare companies in North America and Europe. More Here

Commerce Ventures, a San Francisco, CA-based venture capital firm focused on innovations across retail and financial services, closed its fifth fund, at over $150m. The firm leverages a proprietary ecosystem of strategic investors which include nine of the largest US banks, two of the country’s largest retailers, three leading global insurers, and several of the world’s leading payment platforms. More Here

FEATURED ARTICLE

Understanding Liquidation Preference With An Example

One of the most important clause that you will find in term sheet is "Liquidation Preference" which is important for both founders & investors So What's the "Liquidation Preference"?

It is the priority that investors have in receiving proceeds from the sale or liquidation of a company In layman's terms, it means that the investors with a liquidation preference have the first right to get their money back before any proceeds are distributed to other shareholders during liquidation events.

For Example…. Read More Here

STARTUP’S LATEST BUZZ

ACQUISITION & EXITS

Groq, a Mountain View, CA-based generative AI solutions company, acquired Definitive Intelligence, a Los Altos, CA-based company that utilizes data and empowers organizations with actionable insights powered by AI. More Here

Exyte, a Stuttgart, Germany-based company providing design, engineering, and delivery tech facilities, acquired CollabraTech Solutions, a Phoenix, AZ-based company providing delivery systems and contract manufacturing services. More Here

LAYOFFS & SHUTDOWN

Universal Music Group has confirmed that it will be laying off an unspecified but significant number of employees in the coming weeks. The company’s recorded-music division is said to be receiving the brunt of the layoffs. More Here

Craft and sewing retailer Joann, with around 850 stores nationwide, is reportedly considering filing for bankruptcy amid financial challenges. The revelation follows a recent 90% off closing-down sale at a Joann store in Ohio. The company has been seeking ways to address its debt and is exploring a potential bankruptcy filing. More Here

STARTUPS & PEOPLE

Venture capitalist Sam Blond is leaving Founders Fund after just 18 months, expressing a preference for operating over full-time investing. Blond, former Chief Revenue Officer at Brex, joined Founders Fund in September 2022. His departure follows Keith Rabois' surprising exit in January, marking rare senior partner moves within VC firms, with Founders Fund known for its founder-focused approach and limited partner involvement in operations. More Here

Critical event management software company Everbridge is going private in a $1.8 billion all-cash deal with private equity firm Thoma Bravo, surpassing the original announcement. The company, which went public in 2016, specializes in providing governments and enterprises with tools for emergency response, risk intelligence, and mass notifications during critical events. Everbridge's market cap had dropped by over two-thirds from its all-time high in September 2021. More Here

Four former top Twitter executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, have sued Elon Musk for over $128 million in combined unpaid severance, Mere minutes after Musk took control of Twitter, the former executives say they were fired and that Musk falsely accused them of misconduct and forced them out of Twitter after they sued the billionaire for attempting to renege on his offer to purchase the company. More Here

LATEST IN EMERGING TECH

Anthropic, an AI startup backed by Google and significant venture capital, unveils Claude 3, its latest GenAI tech, claiming superior performance to OpenAI's GPT-4. Claude 3 is Anthropic's first multimodal model, analyzing both text and images, with improved capabilities in following instructions, structured output, and multilingual conversations. More Here

Elon Musk's "X" app introduces audio and video calling by default, potentially leaking users' IP addresses. The feature is embedded in the Messages section, and calls are peer-to-peer, exposing IP addresses, though users can enable "Enhanced call privacy" to mask IPs. The lack of clarity on encryption and default settings suggests privacy risks, prompting recommendations to consider disabling the calling feature. More Here

The European Union has fined Apple €1.84 billion for violating antitrust rules related to its music streaming services on iOS. The penalty is due to Apple's anti-steering provisions, restricting music apps from informing users about cheaper options outside the App Store. The EU's decision emphasizes consumer harm and lack of choice, while Apple plans to appeal, arguing that the ruling fails to show credible evidence of harm and ignores market competitiveness. More Here

India's Ministry of Electronics and IT issued an advisory requiring significant tech firms to seek government permission before launching new AI models. The advisory, not legally binding but signaling future regulation, emphasizes non-bias, electoral process integrity, and labeling AI model fallibility. Industry executives express surprise and concern, citing potential hindrance to global competitiveness. More Here

VENTURE DAILY DIGEST PICKS

• Impatience With Actions, Patience With Results By Naval Ravikant. Read Here

• Marc Andreessen's Guide to Finding Product-Market Fit! Read Here

• In 2015, Notion Nearly Died, So What Worked For Them? Read Here

• Hidden Trap Of Convertible Note and Liquidation Preference Multiples. Read Here

• When the VCs say “No”... By Marc Andreessen. Read Here

DAILY DIGEST BOARD

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

HOW CAN I HELP YOU?

• Get Your MVP In 15 Days: Have an Idea? Turn your idea into Reality. Move fast before your competitors…. Want to build SaaS platform, mobile or web app - we are here to help you. Build Your MVP

• Pitch Deck Design: We write, design and model your pitch deck into storyteller book within 4-5 days. Get Your Storyteller Book

That’s It For Today! Will Meet You Tomorrow!
Happy Tuesday! 🥂

  Advertise || Investor Database || Break Into VC

✍️Written By Sahil R - The Venture Crew