Google's Gemini Facing Criticism & Rumors Around Gmail Shutdown

👋 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 highlights include...

• Google announces a pause on its Gemini chatbot's image generation tool.

• Nvidia pulled in a stunning $22.1 billion in quarterly revenue.

• Reddit’s plans to reserve an as-yet-undetermined number of shares for 75,000 of its most prolific redditors.

• Featured Article : Netflix Co-founder's 'The Canada Rule' For Building Successful Startups.

• Daily Digest Board: Get Your MVP In 15 Days & Community Updates.

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Startups Funding Updates

PermitFlow, a Milpitas, California-based company that simplifies the construction permitting process, raises $31m in Series A funding. The round was led by Kleiner Perkins with participation from Felicis, Altos Ventures, Initialized Capital, Y Combinator, and ConTech, workflow software, and AI angel investors. More Here

Locker, a social shopping platform, raised $2.5 million in a funding round led by Wonder Ventures at a $9 million valuation. More Here

Arevon Energy, Inc., a NYC- and Scottsdale, AZ-based renewable energy developer, owner, and operator, secured over $1 Billion in aggregate financing commitments, Wells Fargo provided a $431M tax equity commitment & Arevon obtained $654M of debt financing. More Here

Hellohive, a resume and recruitment platform, secures $3.4 million in a Series A round led by the Tisch Family. More Here

BuildStock, a NYC-based B2B marketplace and provider of a fintech platform for construction materials, raised $1.6M in Pre-Seed funding. The round saw participation from Precursor, MGV, XFactor, RefashionD and angels. More Here

Elve, a Davis, CA-based provider of millimeter wave amplifier technology, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round saw participation from a group of investors, including TomEnterprise Private AB, Green Sands Equity, Yu Galaxy, Cambium Capital, and Lockheed Martin Ventures. More Here

Helius, a Toronto, Canada-based vertically integrated developer platform that helps high-performance crypto applications build on Solana, raised $9.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Foundation Capital, with participation from Reciprocal Ventures, 6th Man Ventures, Chapter One, Propel, Balaji Srinivasan, Anatoly Yakovenko, Raj Gokal, and Kyle Samani, among other Solana ecosystem founders. More Here

Carewell, a Miami, FL-based online retailer focused on providing family caregivers with tools and resources, raised $24.7M in Series B funding. The round was led by principals of MBF Healthcare, with participation from existing investors Sageview Capital, Headline, Primetime Partners, Nextview, Florida Opportunity Fund, and Anchor. More Here

Crisp, a NYC-based collaborative commerce company, raised total of $50M in new capital through a $20M Series B extension round and up to $30M in debt financing. Existing investors including Blue Cloud Ventures, FirstMark Capital, Spring Capital and 3L participated in the equity round. More Here

dub, a NYC-based provider of a copy-trading platform, raised $17M in Seed funding. The round was led by Tusk Venture Partners with participation from a group of venture capital firms and individual investors. More Here

Pozitivf, a San Antonio, CA-based provider of a fertility clinic network, raised $20M in funding. The round was led by MonCap. More Here

Evergrowth, a Vilnius, Lithuania-based provider of an AI-powered B2B account-based sales platform, raised $2.2M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Impellent Ventures and Practica Capital. More Here

Napier AI, a London, UK-based company providing financial crime compliance software, raised £45M in funding. The round saw participation from Crestline Investors. More Here

Singularity, a Denver, CO-based provider of a compliant institutional DeFi access layer, raised $2.2M in funding. The round, which brought the total amount to US$4M, was led by Gumi Cryptos Capital. More Here

Ouinex, a Paris, France-based provider of a digital assets trading platform, raised over $4M in funding. The backers were not disclosed. More Here

BeCause, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based enterprise software company enabling global hospitality, travel, and tourism industries to manage their sustainability data, raised $600K in Seed extension funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $2.5M, saw participation from Curiosity VC. More Here

Uhnder, an Austin, TX-based provider of commercial digital radar chips and software, raised $50M in Series D funding. The round was led by ACME Capital with participation from Magna, Qualcomm Ventures, El Camino Capital, Monta Vista Capital, Sagitta Ventures, and HT Capital. More Here

Highway 9 Networks, a Santa Clara, CA-based provider of a mobile cloud for delivering cloud-native mobility and services for the AI-driven enterprise, raised $25M in funding. Backers included Mayfield, General Catalyst, Detroit Ventures and others. More Here

Fabric, a NYC-based developer of a care enablement system automating clinical and administrative work, raised $60M in Series A funding. The round was led by General Catalyst, with participation from Thrive Capital, GV (Google Ventures), Salesforce Ventures, Vast Ventures, Box Group, and Atento Capital. More Here

Clumio, a Santa Clara, CA-based company which specializes in data backup and recovery for public cloud, raised $75M in Series D funding. The round was led by Sutter Hill Ventures, with participation from existing investors Index Ventures and Altimeter Capital, and new investor NewView Capital. More Here

Simetrik, a Bogotà, Colombia-based B2B financial solutions platform, raised $55M in Series B funding. The round was led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Other investors joining this round included FinTech Collective. More Here

Conservation Labs, a Pittsburgh, PA-based provider of an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that decodes audio data into actionable insights in the built environment to reduce carbon emissions and energy and water usage, raised $7.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by RET Ventures’ Housing Impact Fund and included the participation of Sustain VC. More Here

Clairity Technology, a Los Angeles, CA-based company developing systems for carbon dioxide removal, raised $6.75M in Seed funding. The round was co-led by Lowercarbon Capital and Initialized Capital. More Here

Inco, a NYC-based developer of a confidentiality layer for Ethereum and other networks, raised $4.5M in funding. The round was led by 1kx. Other investors included Circle Ventures, Robot Ventures, Portal VC, Alliance DAO, Big Brain Holdings, Symbolic, GSR, Polygon Ventures, Daedalus, Matter Labs and Fenbushi. More Here

VectorShift, a NYC-based generative AI application development platform, raised $3M in Seed funding. Backers included 1984 Ventures, defy.vc, Formus Capital, Y Combinator, Soma Capital, 468 Ventures, and Pioneer Ventures, along with other investors in enterprise software, AI, and machine learning. More Here

Elektra Health, a NYC-based digital health platform that empowers women navigating the menopause journey via evidence-based education, medical care, and community, raised $3.3M in new financing. The round, which brings the total amount of equity finance raised to $7.6M, was led by UPMC Enterprises, with participation from Wavemaker 360, and existing investors Flare Capital Partners and Seven Seven Six Fund. More Here

Venture Capital Updates

Golden Ventures, a Canada-based venture capital firm, closed on over $100 million in capital commitments for its fifth fund targeting high-potential, seed-stage founders working across technologies, including AI, climate, blockchain and quantum. More Here

Overture VC, a new venture capital firm, has successfully raised a $60 million fund focused on climate tech despite the challenges of high interest rates and economic uncertainty. More Here

Featured Article

Netflix Co-founder's 'The Canada Rule' For Building Successful Startups

It’s possible to drown in opportunity. When you’re building a startup you think anything is possible, and it’s easy to fall victim to shiny object syndrome by chasing too many opportunities at once.

To avoid this, Netflix co-founders have a strategy that every founder can follow - that’s “The Canada Rule”. The Canada Rule Says -

“ For a company, instead of blindly chasing down every compelling opportunity, you need to have the discipline to stay focused on the one or two most important things.”

While it may seem like a straightforward strategy the most important thing- is how can someone identify the most important things for their startup. let’s understand this with the Netflix story… Read More Here

Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Exits

Timetoact Group More Here, a Cologne, Germany-based provider of IT services for medium-sized businesses, corporations and public institutions, is acquiring Trustbit, an Austrian consulting firm focused on digital transformation and the development of digital business models.

Tufin, a Boston, MA-based company which specializes in network and cloud security policy automation, acquired AKIPS, a Brisbane, Australia-based provider of network monitoring solutions for enterprises. More Here

Delinea, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of solutions that extend Privileged Access Management (PAM), is to acquire Fastpath, a Des Moines, IA-based company which specializes in Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) and identity access rights. More Here

BuzzFeed has sold Complex, an entertainment media brand it acquired for $300 million in 2021, to livestream shopping platform NTWRK for $108.6 million. More Here

Layoffs & Shutdown

Rivian is laying off 10% of its salaried workers in a bid to cut costs, putting even more pressure on its future, more affordable EV called the R2. More Here

Startups & People

On its Q4 earnings call today, Nvidia said it pulled in a stunning $22.1 billion in quarterly revenue as more and more companies use its chips for their AI models. The company -- which is selling alternative versions of its chips in China to comply with US export controls -- said it hopes to compete more aggressively in China later this year. More Here

Reddit plans to place a big chunk of its IPO shares in the hands of its users. According to the WSJ, the 19-year-old company plans to reserve an as-yet-undetermined number of shares for 75,000 of its most prolific redditors when it goes public next month at its IPO price. More Here

Latest In Emerging Tech

Reddit highlights the significance of its data licensing agreements with AI vendors, like OpenAI, in its IPO prospectus, revealing $203 million in contracts signed in January 2024. The platform emphasizes the value of its vast conversational data for training large language models, anticipating $66.4 million in revenue for 2024. More Here

Google announces a pause on its Gemini chatbot's image generation tool after criticism for generating historically inaccurate and revisionist images, such as black Vikings and female popes. Users condemned the tool as "absurdly woke," prompting Google to address the issues and release an improved version soon. More Here

Google is not shutting down Gmail, despite rumors fueled by the end of the basic HTML version. The move is a shift to the feature-rich Standard view, and Gmail remains essential with over 1.8 billion users. Google clarified its inactivity policy, deleting inactive accounts after two years, emphasizing the need for regular sign-ins. While changes are occurring, Gmail shutdown rumors are unfounded, and maintaining an active presence is crucial for uninterrupted service. More Here

Venture Daily Digest Picks

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

• What Matters Most For Startup Growth? From VP of Growth at Facebook. Read Here

• ​The First $100m ARR AI Security Company​ by​ Tomasz Tunguz. Read Here

• Protect your mental health as an entrepreneur is critical. And it’s hard. Read Here

• Airbnb and Y-Combinator Early Interaction. Read Here

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✍️Written By Sahil R - The Venture Crew