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A Humane Layoff & US SEC Approved Bitcoin ETF Applications
Venture Daily Digest - 11/01/2024
Venture Daily Digest
January 11, 2024
🗞️ TODAY’S MAJOR UPDATES
Humane, Much-hyped hardware startup announced it’s laying off 10 employees — 4% of its workforce.
OpenAI has launched the GPT Store, a platform for custom chatbot apps.
U.S. SEC has approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETF applications, including those from BlackRock, Grayscale, and Fidelity.
Featured Article : What Does It Take To “Do Things That Don’t Scale” For Your Startup?
What Do You Think: If You Want To Build A Startup In 2024, Which Sector Would You Prefer To Focus?
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đź’° MASSIVE FUNDING UPDATES
ClarisHealth, a Brentwood, Tenn.-based provider of enterprise payment integrity technology for health plans, secured an undisclosed strategic growth investment from Pamlico Capital. More Here
Shimmer, Y Combinator alum startup which offers a coaching platform for adults, has raised $2.2 million in a seed funding round led by Worklife Venture. More Here
Acousia Therapeutics GmbH, a Tubingen, Germany-based clinical-stage biotech company developing drug candidates against acute and chronic forms of hearing loss, received an undisclosed investment from Esperante Ventures. More Here
Resynergi, a Rohnert Park, CA-based leader in plastic recycling technology, raised $6.4M in series B funding. The round was co-led by Transitions First (T1ST), and Lummus Technology. Following the investment, Leon de Bruyn, President and CEO of Lummus Technology, and Marianne Abib-Pech, Managing Partner, T1ST and former Global CFO of Shell Aviation, are joining the company’s board of directors. More Here
Meistrari, A Brazil based startup offers solutions for companies building products based on other large language models. It has raised $4 million seed round co-led by Monashees and Audacious Ventures and were joined by a group of angel investors, including Oleg Rogynskyy of People AI, Paul St. John, former CRO of GitHub, and Hugh Strange, former CPO of Nubank. More Here
VoicePing, a Tokyio, Japan-based real-time AI voice translation solution for global corporate communication, raised $2.09m in seed funding. Rozetta, Inc., Japan’s AI translation leader, made the investment. More Here
Karma Wallet, a Raeligh, NC-based fintech startup, raised $2M+ in funding. Backers included socially conscious investors, including the Tweener Fund. More Here
Peerlogic, a Scottsdale, AZ-based AI-driven dental practice technology company, raised $5.65M in funding. The round was led by AZ-VC, with participation from In Revenue Capital, Cervin Ventures, Singularity Capital, and Revere Partners. More Here
Bevvy, a Port Charlotte, Scotland, UK-based technology-led whisky discovery platform, raised $1.5M in Seed funding. The round saw participation from Scotland-based angel investors, existing shareholders and a Denver (US) based family office. More Here
NineDot Energy, a NYC-based developer of community-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS), raised $225M in Equity financing. The round saw participation from Manulife Investment Management, as well as Carlyle. More Here
Ask-AI, a Tel-Aviv, Israel-and Toronto, Canada-based provider of an AI answers and insights solution for enterprises, raised $11M in Series A funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $20M, was led by Leaders Fund with participation from seed investors Vertex Ventures, State of Mind Ventures, GTMFund and others. More Here
120Water, a Zionsville, IN-based provider of a cloud-based water management and testing system, received a $43M Growth investment. The transaction was led by Edison Partners, with participation from Allos Ventures. More Here
Myrobalan Therapeutics, a Medford, MA-based biotechnology company developing novel oral neurorestorative therapies, raised $24M in Series A funding. The round was led by Co-win Ventures, with participation from new and existing investors including Guan Zi Equity Investment (Li Shui) Partnership (Limited Partnership), 3E Bioventures Capital, and AB Magnitude Ventures Group. More Here
Rainbow, a San Francisco, CA-based digitally-enabled managing general underwriter building tailored small business insurance products, raised $12M in funding. Backers included Caffeinated Capital, Altai Ventures, Zigg Capital, 8VC, Buckley Ventures, Habitat Partners, and Arch Capital Group Ltd. More Here
Sunrise AI, NYC-based AI-powered fintech company, raised an undisclosed amount in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Andrew Ng’s AI Fund. More Here
SQIM, formerly known as MOGU SRL, an Inarzo, Italy-based biotech and biomaterials company, raised €11M in funding. The round was led by CDP Venture Capital, and ECBF VC, with participation from Kering Ventures and existing shareholder Progress Tech Transfer. More Here
Vantage Data Centers, Denver, CO-based provider of data center campuses, received $6.4 Billion in Equity Investment from DigitalBridge Group (NYSE: DBRG) and Silver Lake. More Here
Full Venue, a Lisbon, Portugal-based AI company for the sports and events industry, raised €2M in Seed funding. The round was led by GED Ventures, with the participation of two business angels, José Pinto and Pedro Aguiar, Tiago Monteiro (former F1 driver), Bernardo Novo (CEO SC Fitness), and Fernando Reani (MD Under Armour AUS&NZ). More Here
Eesee, a Dubai, United Arab Emirates-based one-stop liquidity solution and gamified marketplace for sellers, closed a $2.85m funding round. The raise included a $1.1m seed round and a $1.75m private round, with participation from SevenX Ventures, Maven Capital, MetaBros, Contango Digital Assets, BasementDAO, and more. More Here
Anecdotes, a Palo Alto, CA-based enterprise GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance) technology company, raised $25M in Series B funding. The round was led by Glilot Capital Partners, with participation from existing investors Red Dot Capital Partners, Vintage Investment Partners, and Shasta Ventures, with participation from Vertex and DTCP. More Here
SynMax, a Houston, TX-based data intelligence company, raised $13M in funding. The round was led by Bill Perkins, with participation from Alex Moore, co-founder of Palantir. More Here
đź’° VENTURE CAPITAL UPDATES
Seedstars Africa Ventures has received a $30 million capital commitment from EIB Global, an arm of the European Investment Bank, which becomes the first major institutional investment for its first pan-African venture capital fund. More Here
Menlo Ventures is raising $500 million for a special purpose vehicle to lead a massive round in the OpenAI competitor Anthropic. VCJ spied the regulatory filing, which lists partners Shawn Carolan, Venky Ganesan and Matt Murphy; The Information reported last month that Menlo is leading a $750 million round in Anthropic that could value the company at upwards of $18 billion. More Here
Indian Gruhas and Collective Artists Network have launched the Gruhas Collective Consumer Fund (GCCF), a $2.3M venture capital fund aimed at supporting consumer-focused startups in India. The fund, backed by Gruhas co-founder Nikhil Kamath, plans to invest in sectors such as wellness, beverages, fashion, lifestyle, hospitality, and mothercare. GCCF emphasizes mentorship and operational support to foster efficient growth and brand-building for its portfolio companies. More Here
𝕏 FEATURED: TODAY’S FEATURED ARTICLE
What Does It Take To “Do Things That Don’t Scale” For Your Startup?
In reality, building a better mousetrap is usually not enough. It’s not enough to be very good. To get something from 0 to 1 typically requires something remarkable It takes solving a problem others haven’t solved.
Startups take off because the founders make them take off by doing well what was never done before. Usually, it takes some sort of push to get them going….Read More Here
💡 SARTUP’S LATEST BUZZ
Acquisition
Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has agreed to acquire Work & Co, a New York based digital product company that blends design, technology, and innovation to help companies create breakthrough products and experiences. More Here
Marlabs, a Piscataway, NJ-based digital solutions company, acquired Onebridge, an Indianapolis, IN-based data consulting firm. More Here
Tier and Dott, two leading micromobility European companies in the space, have announced that they plan to merge. More Here
Layoffs & Exits
Humane, Much-hyped hardware startup announced it’s laying off 10 employees — 4% of its workforce — before it has shipped a single one of its funky new ambient computing devices. The company’s chief technology officer (CTO) is also “transitioning” into an advisor role after five years at the company. More Here
🤖 LATEST IN EMERGING TECH
The U.S. SEC has approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETF applications, including those from BlackRock, Grayscale, and Fidelity, potentially opening doors for institutional investors. ETFs provide indirect ownership of Bitcoin, boosting legitimacy and adoption, with fees ranging from 0.2% to 1.5%. The move is seen as a pivotal step in tapping into significant capital on the sidelines, marking a milestone for the crypto industry's integration into mainstream financial products. More Here
OpenAI has launched the GPT Store, a platform for custom chatbot apps powered by models like GPT-4 and DALL-E 3. Available to premium ChatGPT subscribers, it features GPTs developed by partners and the community, spanning categories like lifestyle, programming, and education. Initially free, OpenAI plans to introduce a "GPT builder revenue program" in Q1, allowing developers to earn income based on user engagement. More Here
Elon Musk's X, outlining its 2024 vision, quietly removed the ability for Twitter Blue subscribers to set NFTs as profile pictures. The feature, launched in January 2022, allowed users to showcase Ethereum-based NFTs as hexagon-shaped avatars, but X has removed all references to it from its support page. This move follows a trend, with other social networks like Instagram and Facebook also winding down their NFT experiments. More Here
📰 TODAY’S MUST READ ON: STARTUP, TECH & VC
🤔 WHAT DO YOU THINK?
If You Want To Build A Startup In 2024, Which Sector Would You Prefer To Focus? |
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That’s It For Today! Will Meet You Tomorrow!
Happy Thursday! 🥂
✍️Written By Sahil R | Venture Crew Team
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