Google Investing $2 Billion In Malaysia For AI & PwC To be Largest Customer Of OpenAI's Enterprise Product

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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, fresh VC funds, and some cool tech – all in just 5 minutes ☕! Today’s major updates include -

• Maven AGI, a Boston, MA-based AI customer support startup, raised $20M in Series A funding from Microsoft Venture.

• Donald Trump is considering appointing Elon Musk as a policy adviser if he wins the 2024 presidential election.

• BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has become the world's largest fund for Bitcoin, amassing nearly $20 billion in total assets.

• Mistral, the French AI startup valued at $6 billion, has released Codestral, its first generative AI model for coding trained on over 80 programming languages.

• Google will invest $2 billion in Malaysia to develop its first data center and Google Cloud region in the country.

• OpenAI has signed a major enterprise deal with PwC, making the consulting giant OpenAI's largest customer with 100,000 users.

• Featured Article : Spotify’s DIBB Framework Features for Better Decision-Making.

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STARTUP FUNDING UPDATES

Maven AGI, a Boston, MA-based AI customer support startup, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by M13 and participation from Lux Capital, E14 Fund (part of MIT), and executives from OpenAI, Google, HubSpot, and Stripe. More Here

Slingshot, based in New York, is a platform that helps creatives manage operational requirements, including financial tools and a corporate card. The company recently raised a $2.2 million pre-seed round from investors such as Dorm Room Fund, 1916 Enterprises, Key Partners Group, and angel investor Vincent Francoeur. More Here

Authentic, a NYC-based insurtech startup making it easier for SaaS platforms and franchisors to offer affordable captive insurance policies to their SMB customers, raised $11M in Series A funding. The round was led by FirstMark Capital with participation from Slow Ventures, Altai Ventures, MGV, Upper90, and Commerce Ventures. More Here

Old Well Labs (OWL), a Charlotte, NC-based provider of a software platform for finding and monitoring investment managers and allocators, raised an undisclosed amount in Series a funding. The round was led by Nellore Capital. Other investors included Ted Seides, Mike and Tom Elnick, Shubham Goel, Brian Bares, and fund managers and endowment CIOs. More Here

SmartPM Technologies, Inc., an Austin, TX-based provider of automated project controls software for construction, raised $5.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Building Ventures, with participation from GS Futures and existing investors The Nemetschek Group. More Here

Matter Bio, a NYC-based biotech company dedicated to preserving genome integrity and extending healthy human lifespan, raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Lifespan Vision Ventures, with participation from quadraScope Ventures and others, and includes grant support from NIH, NCI, and NIEHS. More Here

Solutions by Text, a Dallas, TX-based provider of a platform for compliance-first messaging and payments, raised $110M in new growth financing. Edison Partners co-led the transaction with StepStone Group. Stifel Venture Bank, a division of Stifel Bank, provided a lending facility. More Here

Light Frame, a Providence, RI-based private banking and wealth management technology company, raised $1.7M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by ATX Venture Partners and New Stack Ventures with participation from Rogue Venture Partners, Half Court Ventures, Underdog Labs, and Studio Alpha. More Here

ZeroMark, a NYC-based defense technology startup, raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Ground Up Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. More Here

Scrypt, a Zurich, Switzerland-based provider of crypto asset financial services, raised $5M in strategic funding. The round was led by Braza Bank, with additional participation from Funfair Ventures, Cabrit Capital, and Atlantic Labs. More Here

TraceAir, a Seattle, WA-based provider of site intelligence software for homebuilders and land developers, raised $25M in Series B funding. The round was led by PeakSpan Capital, with participation from Flashpoint Venture Capital, among other existing investors. More Here

Relay, a Toronto, Canada-based provider of a business banking platform, raised US$32.2M in Series B funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $51.6M was led by Bain Capital Ventures. Other investors included BTV, Garage, and Tapestry, with new participation from Industry Ventures. More Here

Landytech, a London, UK-based provider of an investment management platform for asset owners, managers and advisors, raised £5M in financing. CIBC Innovation Banking provided the financing. More Here

Gameto, a NYC-based biotechnology company dedicated to advancing treatment options in women’s health, raised $33M in Series B funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $73M, was led by Two Sigma Ventures and RA Capital with participation from existing investors, including Insight Partners, Future Ventures, and BOLD Capital Partners. More Here

EverFence, a Newport Beach, CA- and West Palm Beach, FL-based provider of a digital platform connecting homeowners and contractors, raised $7M in Series A funding. Backers included HIPstr. More Here

LambdaVision, a CT-based biotech company developing a protein-based artificial retina technology, closed its first Seed funding. The round was led by Aurelia Foundry Fund, a fund spun out of MIT. Other investors included Boryung, a publicly listed Korean pharmaceutical company, and E2MC Ventures. More Here

Posterity Health, a Denver, CO-based center for male reproductive health, raised $6M in funding. The round was led by FCA Venture Partners and supported by Distributed Ventures and WVV. More Here

Product Fruits, a Prague, Czech Republic-based provider of a AI-driven digital adoption platform (DAP), raised additional $1.6M in equity funding. The round, which brought the funding total amount to $3.5M, included participation from Reflex Capital Lighthouse Ventures, LVRG, and Venture to Future Fund. More Here

Novel, an Overland Park, KS-based provider of a capital intelligence platform, raised $15M in Pre-Series A funding. Backers included MatterScale, Gaingels, as well as previous investors. More Here

LAfricaMobile, a Dakar, Senegal-based provider of a cloud communication and mobile marketing platform, raised €4.3M in Series A funding. The round was led by Janngo Capital, with participation from French soccer players Aurélien Tchouaméni and Jules Koundé, founders of Expensya Karim Jouni and Jihed Othmani, and the investment funds SouthBridge Investments and Ciwara Capital. More Here

Aperture Finance, a Mountain View, CA-based provider of a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding, at $250M valuation. The round, which brought the total amount to $12M, was led by Skyland Ventures, Blockchain Founders Fund, and Krypital Group, with participation from notable investors like Alchemy, SNZ, Stratified Capital, Tide, Cipholio, ViaBTC, CatcherVC, and Double Peak. More Here

Iris.ai, an Oslo, Norway-based provider of an AI engine for scientific text understanding, raised €7.64M in funding. The round was led by Silverline Capital whose contribution is being matched by the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator Fund, the flagship startup grant from the EIC. More Here

Adcendo, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based biotech company focused on the development of breakthrough antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for the treatment of cancers, raised additional €16M in additional Series A extension funding. The round, which extended the total amount of Series A to €98M, was led by Dawn Biopharma with participation from existing investors Novo Holdings, Ysios Capital, RA Capital Management, HealthCap, Gilde Healthcare and Pontifax Venture Capital. More Here

Wavelogix, a West Lafayette, IN-based provider of a proprietary IoT sensing and data analytics platform, received $3M in funding. Rhapsody Venture Partners made the investment. More Here

GaiaNet, a San Francisco, CA-based company advancing an AI infrastructure project that aims to decentralize current AI agent software, raised $10M in Seed funding. Backers included Generative Ventures’s Lex Sokolin, Republic Capital’s Brian Johnson, 7RIDGE’s Shawn Ng, Kishore Bhatia, EVM Capital, Mirana Ventures, Mantle EcoFund and ByteTrade Lab. More Here

VENTURE CAPITAL UPDATES

Clean Energy Ventures raised a $305 million second fund, exceeding their $200 million target, to invest in early-stage climate tech startups. 30-40% of the fund is reserved for follow-on investments in "pre-growth" companies to help bridge the commercialization gap. The fund received commitments from institutional investors like Builder's Vision and industry LPs looking to bring climate technologies to their countries. More Here

FEATURED ARTICLE

Spotify’s DIBB Framework Features for Better Decision-Making

Spotify created the DIBB Framework to help align its entire organization around a consistent decision-making process. It helps founders derive insights from their data and identify the right calculated risks to take.

There are four parts to it:

• Data → Gather and analyze accurate data that are relevant to the problem you’re solving

• Insight → Look for patterns, trends, and insights in the data to inform decision-making

• Belief → Create a hypothesis based on your insights and gain conviction

• Bet → Test your beliefs with action and define expected outcomes

What I like about this is that it feels very similar to what founders naturally do: collect data points/trends, identify an opportunity, gain a conviction, and then take a shot at it.

Not all of your bets will work out, but that’s ok — you shouldn’t expect them all to. The important thing is that each bet is focused on driving your startup’s North Star goals.

We have shared in detailed writeup here, check it out.

STARTUP’S LATEST BUZZ

ACQUISITION & GOING PUBLIC

TransDigm Group Incorporated (NYSE: TDG), a Cleveland, OH-based designer, producer and supplier of highly engineered aircraft components for use on nearly all commercial and military aircraft in service, acquired Raptor Labs Holdco, a manufacturer of complex test and measurement solutions, for approximately $655M in cash, including certain tax benefits. More Here

LAYOFFS & BANKRUPTCY

Fisker announced another round of layoffs during an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, with CEO Henrik Fisker stating that he was not directly involved in the decision, which was made by the recently appointed chief restructuring officer. The latest staff cuts come as Fisker faces financial struggles and has repeatedly warned about the possibility of going out of business within the year if it cannot find a buyer or additional funding.

STARTUPS & PEOPLE

Donald Trump is considering appointing Elon Musk as a policy adviser if he wins the 2024 presidential election. Musk and Trump have discussed ways for Musk to influence economic and border security policies. Musk has informed Trump about his efforts to convince business leaders not to support President Biden's re-election. More Here

CalPERS plans to oppose Elon Musk's $56 billion pay package at Tesla, stating the compensation is not commensurate with the company's performance. Musk responded by saying CalPERS is "breaking their word" since all contractual milestones were met for the pay package. While proxy advisor Glass Lewis recommended rejecting the pay plan, Egan-Jones supported it, calling it critical for maintaining Musk's leadership and motivation. More Here

N26, a German fintech startup, has been under a growth cap imposed by BaFin due to anti-money laundering concerns, but the regulator has announced lifting the restriction from June 1, 2024. The company was fined €9.2 million for past shortcomings but has invested heavily in compliance, diversified its product offerings, and expects to reach monthly profitability in the second half of 2024. More Here

BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has become the world's largest fund for Bitcoin, amassing nearly $20 billion in total assets since its U.S. listing in January. This has surpassed Grayscale Bitcoin Trust's $19.65 billion in assets, according to a Bloomberg News report.

LATEST IN EMERGING TECH

Mistral, the French AI startup valued at $6 billion, has released Codestral, its first generative AI model for coding trained on over 80 programming languages. While described as "open," Codestral's license prohibits commercial use of the model or its outputs, likely due to copyrighted training data. With 22 billion parameters, Codestral requires powerful hardware and delivers incremental performance gains, fueling debates around the reliability of code-generating AI assistants as developers increasingly adopt such tools. More Here

OpenAI signed content and product partnerships with The Atlantic and Vox Media. These deals give OpenAI access to news archives to train its AI models like ChatGPT. More Here

The European Union has unveiled the structure of its new AI Office, comprising five units focused on regulation, AI safety, excellence in AI research, AI for social good, and AI innovation policy. The AI Office will play a dual role of regulating AI risks and fostering AI uptake and innovation in Europe, enforcing the upcoming AI Act. With over 140 staff planned, the AI Office aims to shape the European AI ecosystem and exert global influence on AI governance. More Here

OpenAI has signed a major enterprise deal with PwC, making the consulting giant OpenAI's largest customer with 100,000 users and its first partner to resell ChatGPT's enterprise offerings. The deal signals OpenAI's push to monetize its generative AI products for businesses and PwC's belief that AI assistants will drive new consulting opportunities around digital transformation. With enterprise pricing undisclosed, OpenAI aims to build an ecosystem beyond direct sales through partners like PwC. More Here

Google will invest $2 billion in Malaysia to develop its first data center and Google Cloud region in the country, advancing Malaysia's digital ambitions and providing AI capabilities and advanced technologies. This investment is part of a wave of expansion by global tech firms into Southeast Asia, a region with a young and tech-savvy population of 670 million. Other tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, and Apple have also announced significant investments in the region recently. More Here

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That’s It For Today! Will Meet You Tomorrow. Happy Thursday!☕

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