General Catalyst's $1 Billion Continuation Fund & NFX and Initialized Capital laid off Employees

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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

General Catalyst is planning an $800M-$1B continuation fund, likely including stakes in Stripe, Gusto, and Circle, with Jefferies as its secondary investment advisor. Limited partners can either sell their shares or roll into the new fund. Continuation funds have gained popularity among VCs due to slow IPOs and M&A activity.

OpenAI's web crawlers are facing fewer blocks from major news websites compared to earlier, despite a widespread data-protection rush where publishers attempted to prevent their content from becoming AI training data without consent. The trend of blocking OpenAI's GPTBot saw a decline after the company made a series of licensing agreements with publishers, leading some outlets to revise their robots.txt files and permit GPTBot access. Despite robots.txt not being legally binding, it remains a widely observed standard for web crawler behavior, and OpenAI recognizes the importance of not being blocked to safeguard its future goals and ambitions.

Other Major News

• Andrew Ng's fund makes first India investment with AI healthcare firm Jivi (Scroll To Startup Fundraising Updates)

• Meta, challenging OpenAI, announces new AI model that can generate video with sound (Scroll To Tech Updates)

• Jensen Huang is now worth more than Intel — personal net worth currently valued at $109B vs. Intel's $96B market cap. (Scroll To Startups & People Updates)

• Should founders use memos instead of pitch decks for fundraising? (Scroll To Featured Article)

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

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🗞️ Startup Funding Updates

The AI Fund, led by Andrew Ng, has made its first investment in India by backing Jivi, an AI healthcare startup based in Gurugram that offers diagnostic and treatment suggestions.

Resolve AI, a San Francisco, CA-based AI production engineering startup, raised $35m in seed funding. The round was led by Greylock, with participation from Unusual Ventures and angel investors Paul Daugherty, Jeff Dean, Thomas Dohmke, Matt Garman, Eric Glyman, Reid Hoffman, Colin Jones, Akshay Kothari, Christos Kozyrakis, Jeff Lawson, Fei Fei Li, Amjad Masad & Michele Catasta, Srinivas Narayanan, Andy Price and Sridhar Ramaswamy.

VESSL AI, a South Korean startup with offices in San Mateo, USA, offers an MLOps platform that optimizes GPU expenses using hybrid infrastructure for companies developing custom large language models and vertical AI agents. The company recently raised $12 million in a Series A funding round, bringing its total funding to $16.8 million, with investors including A Ventures, Ubiquoss Investment, Mirae Asset Securities, Sirius Investment, SJ Investment Partners, Wooshin Venture Investment, and Shinhan Venture Investment.

Generare, a Paris, France-based biotechnology company using novel cloning technique for new medicines and molecules hiding in microbes, raised €5M in Seed funding. Backers included Teampact.ventures, Galion.Exe and EU-backed VIVES Partners.

Judo Bio, a Cambridge, MA-based biotechnology company developing oligonucleotide medicines delivered to the kidney, raised $100M in Seed and Series A financing Atlas Venture founded and incubated Judo Bio with The Column Group joining the seed financing. The Series A was recently closed and co-led by Atlas Venture, TCG and Droia Ventures, with participation from Digitalis Ventures, Euclidean Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, YK Bioventures, and other undisclosed funds.

Univa Health, a London, UK-based eating disorder care startup, raised £1m in pre-seed funding. The round was led by YZR Capital, with participation from Calm/Storm Ventures.

Pluvion (fka Grimm Water Solutions), a Freiburg, Germay-based watertech company, raised €1M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by D11Z with participation from BW Seed Fund, managed by MBG Mittelständische Beteiligungsgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg, and kopa Ventures.

Sort A Brick, a Vilnius, Lithuania-based provider of LEGO brick sorting service, raised €1.15m in funding. Backers included Firstpick, as well some angels.

Lightdash, a London, UK-based provider of an open-source business intelligence (BI) platform, raised $11M in Series A Funding. The round was led by Accel, with participation from Operator Partners, Shopify Ventures and existing investor Y Combinator as well as angels including Michael Grinch (Founder and CEO, WorkOS) and Shuo Wang (Co-founder and CRO, Deel).

Moncyte Health, a Helsinki, Finland-based company developing proprietary technology to optimize treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease, raised €1M in Seed funding. The round was led by Inventure, Almaral, and Athensmed and included funding from University of Helsinki Funds, European investors, and a grant from Business Finland.

Building Radar, a Munich, Germany-based provider of a software platform that automates workflow in construction industry sales, raised $7.2M in funding. The round was led by Socii Capital.

Fortius Metals, a Lafayette, CO-based metal 3D printing company, raised $2M in additional funding. The round, which brought the total amount of the Seed+ to $5M, followed previous investments of $3M and included the addition of new strategic investor Finindus, who joined after receiving clearance from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

InterVene, a Redwood City, CA-based clinical-stage medical device company, raised $13M in Series A funding. The round was led by Treo Ventures and existing investor RiverVest Venture Partners.

XDLINX Space Labs, a Hyderabad, India-based space technology startup, raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Lucky Investments with participation from E2MC, Mana Ventures, and an undisclosed family office.

Layer, a company that allows developers to build new layers on top of Ethereum, raised $6M in funding. The round was led by 1kx, with participation from Fabric Ventures, Arrington Capital, Stake Capital Group, and IOBC. Notable angels include Sreeram Kannan of EigenLayer, Rok Kopp and Mike Silagadze of Ether.fi, and Paul Taylor, formerly of BlackRock.

Sonair, an Oslo, Norway-based deep tech startup, raised $1.6M in funding. The round was led by Skyfall Ventures with participation from RunwayFBU.

Eleanor Health, a Waltham, MA-based outpatient addiction treatment provider, raised $30M in Series D funding. The round was led by General Catalyst, with participation from existing and new investors including Town Hall Ventures, Echo Health Ventures, Northpond Ventures, Rethink Impact and Emerson Collective.

Fynk, a Vienna, Austria-based legal tech startup, raised $3.5m in funding. The round was by 3VC and 10x Founders.

Formality, a Paris, France-based contract management startup, raised $8.9m in funding. The round was led by Partech and Serena with participation from BPI, the Bank of Public Investment.

Amlyze, a Vilnius, Lithuania-based provider of tools for financial institutions to detect and prevent financial crime, raised $2.7m in seed funding. The round was led by Practica Capital with participation from Firstpick, Coinvest Capital, NGL, and Advanzia Bank.

Lovable, a Stockholm, Sweden-based company creating autonomous software engineers, raised $7.5M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Hummingbird and byFounders, as well as angel investors Mattias Miksche and Bjarke Klinge Staun, Shopify’s Siavash Ghorbani, Voi’s Fredrik Hjelm, and Creandum co-founder Stefan Lindeberg.

📰 Venture Capital Updates

NFX laid off four employees, including its Chief Product Officer, to shift resources from software to its investing team, citing AI as a key driver of efficiency. The firm plans to increase its investment team by 20% and hire in San Francisco and Israel. NFX remains focused on early-stage investments and recently promoted two team members.

Initialized Capital laid off 36% of its staff, including managing partner Jennifer Wolf and partner Jenny Fleiss, as part of a restructuring to streamline operations. Despite the cuts, the firm promoted three principals to partners. Initialized aims to return to a leaner, more agile approach amid shifting market conditions.

Shore Capital Partners, a Chicago, IL-based private equity firm focused on lower-middle market investments, announced the closing of its inaugural Healthcare Advantage Fund, second Business Services Partners Fund, and first Shore Search Partners Fund. The three funds together represent over $1.9 Billion in commitments, bringing the firm’s assets under management to $9.1 Billion.

📌 Featured Article

Should founders use memos instead of pitch decks for fundraising?

I strongly suggest that founders use memos more (and not always decks). Here's why:

Many investors actually prefer reading memos from founders. They give a deeper look into your ideas and plans.

But when should you use a memo, and when should you stick with a pitch deck?

1. First, one is not better than the other

• If you need to explain a key concept (i.e. your product), use a deck.

• If you need to explain more than 1 key concept (a complicated market & your product), use a memo. The complexity of a concept determines the format.

2. Memos force you to think: When you explain your thinking in writing, it forces you to narrate your logic step by step. You can get away with holes in thinking in a deck—with a memo, it’s impossible. Even if you don’t send the memo, writing it is valuable by itself.

3. Memos do the hard work for investors: By creating a memo, you simplify much of the work for them. All investors need to write internal deal memos to invest in your company. Creating a memo for them simplifies A LOT of that work.

4. Investment memos are dynamic: You can include links, videos, graphs, photos, and screenshots using tools like Dropbox. Always allow investors to explore further IF they are interested. Let investors "choose their adventure”.

5. Pitch decks still have value: Use a pitch deck in partner meetings—they’re great in 1-to-many settings. Send the memo ahead of time. Use pitch decks to drive the conversation.

6. Your memo will live on (WAY beyond the fundraising process) : Decks generally need a voice-over, memos do not. This makes memos super valuable resources for recruiting, onboarding new hires, educating the team, etc.

7. Memos and decks serve different purposes: Both are valuable. But I’m more and more convinced — writing a memo is insanely powerful. Especially with complex/early markets that are hard to understand.

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📑 Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Going Public

Actylis, a NYC-based provider of life sciences and advanced technology specialty ingredients, announced the strategic acquisition of Pharm-Rx, a Saddle Brook, NJ-based value-added supplier of specialty ingredients for the vitamin, mineral, and supplement (“VMS”) and pharmaceutical industries.

TransPerfect, a NYC-based provider of language and AI solutions for global business, acquired Paybooks Technologies, a Bangalore, India-based provider of HR, payroll, and compliance solutions.

Layoffs & Bankruptcy

Drata, a security compliance automation platform, has laid off 9% of its workforce (40 people) despite reporting strong growth metrics earlier.

Startups & People

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, has a net worth of $109.2 billion, surpassing Intel's current market value of $96.39 billion, which saw a significant drop following revelations about its financial issues in August. Nvidia's growth, driven by an AI boom and its dominance as a GPU accelerator manufacturer, helped its market cap soar, placing it among the top valued companies worldwide, though its stock has corrected by 10% since its peak. Huang's significant stake in Nvidia, with holdings valued over $100 billion, and his strategic share sales have propelled him to the 11th position on Forbes' real-time billionaires list, close to entering the top 10.

🤖 Latest In Tech

Meta has unveiled a new AI model called Movie Gen, capable of generating realistic video and audio clips based on user prompts, potentially rivaling tools from OpenAI and ElevenLabs. The model can create videos up to 16 seconds long with synchronized background music and sound effects, demonstrating its ability to alter existing footage. While Meta plans to collaborate with the entertainment industry, it is unlikely to release Movie Gen for open developer use due to associated risks.

Amazon has closed three more Go stores in New York due to lease-related economic reasons, leaving 17 stores across the U.S. Despite the closures, the company remains committed to its Just Walk Out technology, now focusing more on third-party merchants. Amazon continues to license the technology while maintaining some smaller Go format stores.

Uber is launching an AI assistant powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 to help drivers transition to electric vehicles, set to debut in the U.S. in early 2025. The company has pledged $800M to support EV adoption, with 180,000 Uber drivers already moving to EVs across North America and Europe. Uber is also introducing a mentorship program for EV drivers and sustainability grants for top food delivery merchants.

FTX has received court approval for its bankruptcy plan, allowing it to repay customers using up to $16.5 billion in recovered assets, prioritizing those with $50,000 or less in accounts. The plan includes settlements with government agencies and creditors, aiming for a 98% repayment rate within 60 days after its effective date.

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