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☕ Good Tuesday Morning. Welcome to today's quick rundown in the Venture Daily Digest Newsletter.

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• Jeff Bezos backs AI chipmaker at over $2.6 Billion Valuation.

• Intel CEO stepping down from board.

• Former NBA player Omri Casspi's Swish Ventures has raised $60 million

• Ads might be coming to ChatGPT — OpenAI’s monitization strategy

• An Apple ad tech employee has filed a lawsuit challenging the company's employee monitoring practices.

• Inflection AI CEO says it’s done trying to make next generation AI models

• New US chip sanctions on China

Fresh from the analyst desk: NFX just dropped some gold on why going vertical is the new black, Damien Kopp's got your AI investment playbook, and we've got fresh data on the unicorn fast track (spoiler: some hit it in under a year!). Plus, finally a startup valuation guide that doesn't make your head hurt. Fresh tech and VC gigs up for grabs!

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• What Makes a Good Product-Market Fit? (Read)

• Harvard Innovation Labs: The Path to PMF. Here's the 6-hour, 91-slide workshop for Harvard Innovation Labs on the path from $0-$1M and B2B product-market fit. (Read)

Startup Funding Updates

Tenstorrent, a Toronto-based AI hardware startup, has secured a massive $693 million Series D funding round led by Samsung Securities and AFW Partners, valuing the company at over $2.6 billion. The funding, which included investments from Hyundai and Jeff Bezos' Bezos Expeditions, will be used to expand their engineering team and build AI training servers

Freckle, a San Francisco, Calif.,-based data enrichment and research platform for non-technical users, came out of stealth with US$1.9M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Asymmetric Capital Partners, with participation from Brenteca Investments, Mintaka VC, CoVentures and Polaris Ventures, as well as execs from Carta, Klaviyo, Culture Amp, and others.

Public, a NYC-based multi-asset investing company, raised $135m in Series D-2 funding. The round included $105m in equity financing and $30m in debt. This round was led by Accel.

Upwind, a San Francisco, CA-based cloud security provider, raised $100m in Series A funding. The round was led by David Sacks’ Craft Ventures (SpaceX, Palantir, Uber) and was joined by new investors TCV (Airbnb, Netflix, GoFundMe, Spotify) and Alta Park Capital (Databricks, Nubank, and Toast), as well as all of Upwind’s existing investors including Greylock (Meta, Airbnb, Coinbase), Cyberstarts, Leaders Fund, Cerca and Sheva—founded by NBA Champion Omri Casspi.

Polar Beer Taps, a Vancouver, BC, Canada-based ice-cold beer company, raised $2.7M in funding. The round consisted of a $1.1M seed round involving ClimateDoor, angel investors, and its first institutional investor, WUTIF Capital, along with a recent strategic financing of $1.6M from IFR Holdings.

Ossio, a Woburn, MA-based medical device company, raised $27.6M in equity funding. The round was led by Questa Capital, with participation from existing investors MVM Partners, OCV, Ortho-Vision and Courage Capital.

Lumin Digital, a San Ramon, CA-based cloud-native digital banking provider, raised $160M in growth funding. The round was led by Light Street Capital, NewView Capital, and Partners Group.

Vooma, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an AI platform designed for freight brokers and carriers of all sizes, raised over $16M in Seed and Series A funding. The amount consisted of $13M in Series A funding led by Craft Ventures and $3.6M in seed round led by Index Ventures with participation from angel investors including founders and executives from companies such as Motive, Project44, Ryder and Uber Freight.

Teachy, a Rio de Janeiro, a Brazil-based AI-powered workspace company, raised $7M in Series A funding. The round was led by Goodwater Capital, with participation from Reach Capital, Endeavor, NXTP, and Roble Ventures.

AdvantageClub.ai, a San Francisco, CA-based company which specializes in employee engagement solutions, raised $4M in funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $11M, was led by Axilor Ventures, with participation from AFG Ventures, Prasanna Sarkar (ex-CTO of Rippling), Bytez Ventures, and existing investors.

usdx.money, a stablecoin infrastructure project, announced it has raised $45 million in the latest round of financing. The round puts the project’s valuation at $275 million. Investors for this round include NGC, BAI Capital, Generative Ventures, and UOB Venture Management, with a portion of the investments made in the form of warrants. Its pre-existing investors are Dragonfly Capital and Jeneration Capital.

9fin, a London, UK-baserd AI-powered analytics platform for debt capital markets, raised $50m in a Series B funding. The round was led by Highland Europe, with participation from existing investors Spark Capital, Redalpine, Seedcamp, 500 Startups and Ilavska Vuillermoz Capital.

Volter, a London, UK-based provider of a platform to enable real estate owners to monetise rooftop solar installations, raised €3M in funding. The round was led by Transition, with participation from Seedcamp, Neptunia, as well as angel investors Johannes Schildt and Eamon Jubbawy.

SRTD biotech, a Jülich, Germany-based company providing RNA-based therapeutics, raised an undisclosed amount in Seed funding. The round was led by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), alongside business angels.

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Venture Capital Updates

Former NBA player Omri Casspi's Swish Ventures has raised $60 million to invest in early-stage cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, and AI startups, planning $5-7 million investments in 10 companies. The fund follows his previous $36 million Sheva Capital fund from 2022 and is backed by Sequoia Capital and several successful founders. Casspi joins other athletes-turned-VCs like Serena Williams and Stephen Curry, focusing particularly on Israel's strong cybersecurity sector where over half of venture capital went to cybersecurity startups in early 2024.

Latest In Tech

OpenAI's CFO Sarah Friar hinted at potential advertising plans in a Financial Times interview, though she later clarified there are no active plans currently. The company, which has relied on subscriptions so far, is exploring new revenue streams amid high AI development and operational costs. This potential move appears to conflict with founder Sam Altman's recent statements at Harvard Business School, where he described advertising as a "last resort" and expressed discomfort with combining ads and AI.

Elon Musk has filed for an injunction against OpenAI, its co-founders, and Microsoft, alleging anticompetitive behavior and seeking to halt the company's transition to a for-profit model. The filing claims OpenAI is discouraging investors from backing rivals and misusing its Microsoft connections. OpenAI has dismissed these allegations as baseless, marking Musk's fourth attempt at similar complaints.

The United States is preparing to impose new export restrictions on semiconductor technology to China, affecting around 140 Chinese companies, including Naura Technology Group. The sanctions aim to curb China's advancements in artificial intelligence and military uses, potentially barring shipments of advanced memory chips and specific chipmaking tools. This action is part of a broader strategy by the Biden administration and follows previous measures from October 2022, as China seeks to increase domestic production to reduce foreign dependency.

Inflection AI was once a leading startup in AI model development but has shifted its focus as its new CEO announced they are no longer competing to create next-generation AI models. After a major change, including the former CEO moving to Microsoft and a shift to targeting enterprise customers, Inflection is now focusing on expanding its tools by acquiring smaller AI startups. Inflection aims to compete in the enterprise sector by offering AI solutions that can run on-premise, which may appeal to companies preferring data security over using cloud-based AI services.

Other News

An Apple ad tech employee has filed a lawsuit challenging the company's employee monitoring practices, claiming that Apple's restrictive policies on work devices force employees to use personal devices or link work devices to personal iCloud accounts. The lawsuit alleges that Apple requires employees to install software granting the company broad access to search device and iCloud contents, enabling off-duty monitoring, and claims these policies were used to harm the employee's career prospects. The case highlights broader workplace privacy concerns about employer access to personal devices used for work, with Apple denying the allegations to Semafor.

Pat Gelsinger has retired as Intel CEO effective December 1, stepping down from Intel's board, marking the end of his ambitious but challenging efforts to revamp the company. Interim leadership at Intel will include David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus as co-CEOs, with Holthaus also taking a new role as CEO of Intel Products, covering several of the company's crucial divisions. Despite Gelsinger's initiatives, Intel faced multiple setbacks, including a significant drop in revenue and a historic quarterly loss, prompting the board to continue efforts in restructuring and streamlining operations.

In-Depth Insights

• The Verticalization of Everything NFX explores how startups are increasingly dominating niche verticals, creating opportunities for hyper-focused innovation.

• The AI Risk-Reward Model An essential framework by Damien Kopp

  for evaluating AI investments, balancing potential risks with groundbreaking rewards.

• How Soon Do Startups Become Unicorns Most startups become unicorns between years 2-7 after their first funding round. There's a surprising number achieving it quickly: 78 companies in under a year and another 84 in their first full year.

• How to Value a Startup Traditional methods like DCF fall short for startups. Innovative approaches such as Real Options and the VC Method better capture growth potential and strategic flexibility.

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