Kleiner Perkins' Raises $2 Billion VC Fund & Perplexity AI Scraping Websites Without Permission Says Wired Investigation

☕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

Kleiner Perkins, a 52-year-old venture capital firm, has successfully raised over $2 billion in new capital across two funds, slightly surpassing its previous $1.8 billion fundraise in 2022.

Perplexity Is a Bullshit Machine: Perplexity AI, a billion-dollar startup, offers an AI-powered search engine that combines traditional search with chatbot capabilities. However, investigations by WIRED suggest it may be scraping websites without permission and sometimes providing inaccurate information. The company's methods of accessing and summarizing content are unclear, raising questions about its claims of reliability and real-time web access. Despite these issues, Perplexity has attracted significant investment and aims to revolutionize how people find answers online.

Italy is demanding Google pay 1 billion euros ($1.07 billion) in unpaid taxes and penalties for the years 2018 to 2022, based on the company's digital infrastructure in the country. This follows a previous settlement in 2017 where Google paid 306 million euros due to its personnel presence in Italy.

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Startup Funding Updates

Fluently, founded by Stan Beliaev and Yurii Rebryk, is an AI-powered English coaching app that provides feedback on spoken English by analyzing users' real-life calls or practice sessions with AI coaches. Based in Y Combinator's winter 2024 batch, the startup has raised a $2 million seed round with participation from Pioneer Fund, SID Venture Partners, and individual angels. More Here

Waypoint Bio, a NYC-based biotechnology company providing novel cell therapies for solid tumors, raised $14.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Hummingbird Ventures with participation from other investors, including Recode Ventures and pre-seed lead Fifty Years. More Here

Feather, a Berlin, Germany-based insurance service for expats across Europe, raised €6M in funding. The round, which brought total raised to €10M, was led by Keen Venture Partners with Plural and leaders from Allianz, AXA and Bastian Kunkel, an insurance influencer. More Here

EvolutionaryScale, a NYC-based artificial intelligence powered biology startup, raised $142m in seed funding. The round was led by Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross and Lux Capital, with participation from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and NVentures, the venture capital arm of NVIDIA, as well as angel investors. More Here

Divergent Technologies, a Torrance, CA-based company that designs and builds vehicle structures, received a $47m term loan from Bridge Bank. More Here

Stafl Systems, a San Francisco, CA-based lithium-ion battery technology company, received an investment from WindSail. More Here

Rohlik Group, a Prague, Czech Republic-based food retail technology and online grocery company, raised $170M in growth capital. The round was led by European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), alongside existing investors Sofina, Index Ventures, Quadrille, and TCF Capital and complemented by growth capital funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB) under its Scale-Up Initiative. More Here

MagicSchool AI, a Denver, CO-based technology platform for K-12 educators and students, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by Bain Capital Ventures. Additional investors included Adobe Ventures and Common Sense Media, as well as angel investors like Replit founder Amjad Masad, Clever co-founders Tyler Bosmeny and Rafael Garcia, and OutSchool co-founder Amir Nathoo. More Here

Promptly Technology Inc., a Miami, FL-based company which specialises in streamlining patient engagement, secured strategic minority investments led by Telegraph Hill Partners. More Here

Feon Energy, a Woburn, MA-based battery electrolyte startup spun out of Stanford University, raised $6.1M in Seed funding. The round was led by Fine Structure Ventures, with participation from Eight Roads, Foothill Ventures, MassVentures, EPS Ventures, and Valkyrie Fund. More Here

Synthpop, a NYC-based provider of an AI-driven platform for healthcare workflows, raised $5.6M in Seed funding. The round was led by Peterson Ventures, with participation from defy.vc, Zelda Ventures, Think+ Ventures, and OVO Fund. More Here

Prescribe FIT, a Columbus, OH-based provider of remote patient monitoring (RPM) technology and lifestyle health coaching solutions, raised $4.8M in Series A funding. Backers included Jim Grote, Tamarind Hill, Jobs Ohio Growth Capital, Dr. Keith Berend, Dr. David Dickerson, Tom DiMarco, Tom Feeney, Mike Kaufmann, Dr. Adolph Lombardi, Jr., Dr. Mark Malinowski, and Matt Scantland. More Here

XProtocol, a George Town, Cayman Islands-based provider of a modular entertainment-powered chain leveraging Base’s Superchain technology, raised USD800K. This latest round, which brought the total amount to USD5.2M, saw participation from Cogitent Ventures and Zephyrus Capital. More Here

Artyc, founded by Hannah Sieber and based in Stanford, California, develops battery-powered cooling solutions for shipping temperature-sensitive items, with its first product being the Medstow Micro for medical specimen transport. The startup has quietly raised $14 million from undisclosed investors. More Here

Venture Capital Updates

Identity.vc, launched in 2023 by Til Klein and Jochen Beutgen, is a Berlin-based venture firm investing in early-stage companies with LGBTQ+ founders or executives. The firm is raising €50 million for its debut fund, having closed €15 million so far, and writes checks from €250,000 to €1.5 million. More Here

Matrix Partners is rebranding its India and China affiliates, with Matrix Partners India becoming Z47 and Matrix Partners China renaming to MPC, while the U.S. firm retains its name. The change, effective July 1, aims to clarify the local approach and organizational independence of each team, which have operated with separate decision-making and back offices since inception. This rebranding follows a trend among venture firms to distance their international franchises, similar to Sequoia's split of its India, Southeast Asia, and China units last year amid geopolitical tensions. More Here

Featured Article

How To Determine If You Have The Product-Market Fit? -From a16z, Sequoia Capital’s Partners…

People often say funnily, "Product-market Fit is like porn...when you see it, you just know."

In qualitative terms ...

“When the customers aren’t quite getting much value out of the product/service, word of mouth isn’t spreading, usage isn’t growing that fast (spikes in the months where you advertise), press reviews are kind of “blah”, the sales cycle takes too long, and most of the deals never close” - Marc Andreessen.

Most startups that have raised ($5-$10 Mn) Series A funding, assume they’ve got a product-market fit, just because they’ve raised funding. They're wrong, why do you think 70% of startups that raised Series A still fail, because the no.1 reason was lack of PMF!

You have it ...

On a high level, you've found product market fit when you can repeatably acquire customers for a lower cost (CAC) than what they are worth (LTV) to you Elizabeth Yin (Hustle Fund)

“You can always feel when Product/Market Fit is happening. The customers are buying the product just as fast as you can make it - or usage is growing just as fast as you can add more servers. Money from customers is piling up in your company's account.

You’re hiring sales and customer support staff as fast as you can. Reporters are calling because they’ve heard about your hot new thing and they want to talk to you about it.” - Marc Andreessen

When product-market fit occurs something magical happens, all of a sudden your customers become your salespeople i.e. they sell for you - Josh Porter.

What metrics to track and analyze, whether you've achieved the Product/Market Fit?

Read detailed article in our Venture Curator newsletter.

Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Going Public

GrowthCurve, a NYC-based control-oriented private equity firm focused on building businesses by utilizing data, analytics and machine learning, acquired Duetto, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of revenue management software for the hospitality industry. More Here

PepTalkHer, an executive coaching platform and app dedicated to fostering professional growth and equitable pay, acquired like-minded coaching platform Mettacool. More Here

Fintech company Chime acquired Salt Labs, an enterprise technology company focused on helping hourly workers own the long-term value of their work. More Here

Layoffs & Bankruptcy

Startups & People

Adept, an AI startup developing agents for software tasks, backed by Nvidia, Atlassian, Workday and Greylock, has agreed to license its technology to Amazon. The deal involves Adept's co-founders and portions of its team joining Amazon, while Adept refocuses on "solutions that enable agentic AI" under new CEO Zach Brock. More Here

Microsoft founder Bill Gates is not worried about the rising electricity consumption caused by AI applications. Speaking at an event in London, Gates said that AI will ultimately help reduce energy consumption and accelerate the transition to sustainable energy sources. According to Gates, data centers would only cause an additional 6 percent of electricity consumption in the worst case, but more likely just 2 to 2.5 percent. "The question is, will AI accelerate a more than 6 percent reduction? And the answer is: certainly," he said. Gates also believes that the increasing demand for electricity will lead to new investments in green energy, as technology companies are willing to pay more for green electricity "to say that they're using green energy."

Latest In Emerging Tech

Apple is reportedly working to bring its AI features, known as Apple Intelligence, to the Vision Pro headset, although this won't be available in 2024. The company is also adjusting its in-store demo process for the Vision Pro, allowing potential buyers to view personal media and improving comfort with a new headband.

The EU is considering an antitrust investigation into Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI, focusing on potential exclusivity clauses. EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager announced plans to seek additional third-party views on the matter. The EU is also scrutinizing Google's AI deal with Samsung, reflecting broader concerns about Big Tech's influence in the emerging AI sector. More Here

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