Microsoft to Pay $242 Million Fine For Cortana Patent & Apple to Integrate OpenAI ChatGPT into iOS

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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 -

• Apple is reportedly close to reaching an agreement with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT features into its upcoming iOS 18 operating system for iPhones.

• A US jury ordered Microsoft to pay $242 million to IPA Technologies for infringing a patent related to voice recognition technology used in Cortana.

• Microsoft announced plans to launch its own mobile game store in July, initially on the web to bypass platform fees charged by Apple and Google.

• Elon Musk announced that Tesla will spend over $500 million this year to expand its Supercharger network, despite firing the entire charging team last week amid broader layoffs.

• Featured Article : A Simple Framework for Pitching the 'Use of Funds' Slide to Investors.

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STARTUP FUNDING UPDATES

Meesho, a Bengaluru-based social commerce platform, which operates an e-commerce platform focused on value-conscious Indian consumers, offering unbranded and affordable goods. It has secured $275 million in a new funding round, which is a part of a larger round expected to cross $500 million. The startup is valued at around $3.9 billion in this round. Meesho Its investors include Meta, Fidelity, Peak XV, Prosus Ventures, B Capital, SoftBank, WestBridge Capital, and Norwest Venture Partners. More Here

Three Ships Beauty, a Toronto, Canada-based natural skincare brand, raised USD$2.5M in funding. The round was led by BDC Capital’s new Thrive Venture Fund with participation from strategic angel investors. More Here

Layup Parts, a hard tech startup based in the United States, aims to transform composites manufacturing by providing a faster and more cost-effective solution for producing composite parts. It has raised $9 million in a funding round led by Founders Fund, with participation from Lux Capital and Haystack. More Here

Attovia Therapeutics, a Fremont, CA-based developer of a pipeline of biotherapeutics with an initial focus on immune-mediated diseases, raised $105m in Series B financing. The round, which brought the total amount to $165m, was led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives, with participation from new investors Cormorant Asset Management, Nextech Ventures, Redmile Group, EcoR1 Capital, Marshall Wace, Logos Capital and existing investors Frazier Life Sciences, venBio, and Illumina Ventures. More Here

Glacis, a NYC-based developer of a Firewall and Router Protocol for simplifying cross-chain operations, secured $2m in seed funding. Backers included Arrington Capital and Paper Ventures. More Here

Hexis, a London, UK-based developer of AI-driven fuelling plans for athletes, raised £1.6M in Pre-Seed funding. Backers included APEX, and Sport Republic. More Here

Multitude Insights, a Cambridge, MA-based provider of an AI-powered solution enabling collaboration and fast case resolution for law enforcement agencies and first responders, received an undisclosed investment from NEC X, the Silicon Valley-based innovation accelerator and venture studio backed by global IT leader NEC. More Here

You. Smart. Thing., a Birmingham, UK-based provider of a travel demand management platfom, raised £1.2M in funding. Backers included West Midlands Co-Investment Fund (WMCO) alongside business angels Giles Fearnley, Will Phillipson, Jeremy Acklam, and Ecotricity. More Here

Offleash’d, a Los Angeles, Ca-based developer of a social community-building mobile app connecting pet parents through its patented AI-powered matchmaking process, raised $700K in Seed funding. The round was led by Bill and Juliana Wong, Florexis “Flex” and Cecille Velasco, Chris and Shelly Webber, Garold and Julia Harford. More Here

Wild Forest, a Limassol, Cyprus-based web3 free-to-play real-time strategy game, received an undisclosed investment from OKX Ventures. More Here

Arch Network, a Bitcoin-native application and smart contract platform, received an undisclosed seed investment from OKX Ventures. More Here

Dendra Systems, an Oxford, UK-based company which specializes in technology-driven ecological restoration, raised $15.7M in Series B funding. The round was led by Zouk Capital, with participation from new investor Aramco Ventures and existing investor Airbus Ventures. Additional contributions came from existing investor Understorey Capital and new investors including Helium-3 Ventures. More Here

Electricity Maps, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based climatetech company, raised €5M in funding. The round was led by Transition and Revent. More Here

Sikich, a Chicago, IL-based technology-enabled professional services company, received a minority growth investment of $250M from Bain Capital. More Here

Chip City Cookies, a NYC-based provider of a gourmet cookie chain, raised $7.5M in Series B funding. Enlightened Hospitality Investments made the investment. More Here

VENTURE CAPITAL UPDATES

Silver Lake, the global technology investor, closed Silver Lake Partners VII, at $20.5 billion in capital commitments. Investors in Silver Lake Partners VII include public and corporate pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, endowments, foundations, funds of funds, family offices, technology industry leaders and individual investors across the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and EMEA. More Here

FEATURED ARTICLE

A Simple Framework for Pitching the 'Use of Funds' Slide to Investors.

You’re running a startup and you’re going to raise money to accomplish something. Makes sense. What doesn’t make any sense at all is how many founders seem to be shy about sharing the details of the plan.

A lot of the due diligence process is going to be focused on figuring out whether you are a competent, believable founder and showing that you have a detailed plan and vision for what’s going to happen over the next stretch of time.

Put differently:

If Investors are going to invest $2 million into your startup, they want to know what that money buys them, in terms of progress for your company.

Ideally, your company has an operating plan as part of the pitch deck, which goes into detail about what is going to happen between this and the next funding round.

On the “ask” slide, however, you have the opportunity to summarize in three or four bullet points what you’re going to do with the money. Typically, you’re going to want to include product, traction, market validation and key hire milestones.

• Product — What product milestones do you need to hit in order to raise the next tranche of money? In particular, this includes beta or full product launches, major feature sets in the product pipeline or integrations with partners.

• Traction — What business metrics do you need to achieve in order to raise more money? How many units do you have to sell, how many subscribers do you need, how many customers do you want? Other metrics may also be helpful here — your net promoter score (NPS), monthly active users, etc.

• Market validation — What can you do to prove that there’s a real market out there willing to pay for the product or service you are peddling?

• Key hires — In order to reach the above goals, you probably need to hire. How many people do you need to hire? When?

Each of these goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based. Poor goals are vague: “Improve marketing,” or “Get more customers” or “Add features to our product.”

Examples of great SMART goals:

• “By May 2025, we need 2,000 paying customers on our recurring subscription model.”

• “In the next six months, we need to reduce our customer acquisition cost by 20%.”

• “Our B2B sales need to improve, so by July we are aiming to hire an experienced VP of sales who can help shape our sales processes.”

Be. Specific.

(Check out the original writeup here)

STARTUP’S LATEST BUZZ

ACQUISITION & EXITS

Black Mountain Software, a Polson, MT-based provider of accounting and billing software for local government organizations, acquired Fiscalsoft, a Kentucky based market leader in accounting and payroll software solutions for local governments. More Here

AI Squared, a Washington, DC-based technology provider for integrating information into web-based business applications, acquired Multiwoven, a Mountain View, CA and Bangaolore, India-based open-source reverse ETL (rETL) company. More Here

LAYOFFS & BANKRUPTCY

STARTUPS & PEOPLE

Elon Musk announced that Tesla will spend over $500 million this year to expand its Supercharger network, despite firing the entire charging team last week amid broader layoffs. This move contradicts Musk's earlier statements about slowing down Supercharger deployment and raises concerns about potential disruptions in the expansion plans after dismantling the dedicated team. More Here

Apple is reportedly close to reaching an agreement with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT features into its upcoming iOS 18 operating system for iPhones. The company is also in ongoing talks with Google about licensing its Gemini chatbot. These moves are part of Apple's broader push to bring AI capabilities to its devices, with major announcements expected at its annual developer conference next month. More Here

LATEST IN EMERGING TECH

Microsoft announced plans to launch its own mobile game store in July, initially on the web to bypass platform fees charged by Apple and Google. The store will feature first-party titles like Candy Crush and Minecraft at launch, with plans to open it up to other publishers later. This move aims to provide an alternative to the dominant app stores in the mobile gaming market. More Here

Microsoft pledged €4 billion to develop data centers and AI/cloud infrastructure in France, its largest-ever investment in the country. Amazon committed over €1.2 billion for enhancing its cloud services, logistics, and generative AI capabilities in France, creating over 3,000 new jobs. More Here

Arm, in which SoftBank has a 90% stake, will set up an AI chip unit to build a prototype by spring 2025, according to Nikkei Asia. SoftBank is in discussion with contract manufacturers including Taiwan's TSMC to produce the AI chips, the report added. Mass production is slated to begin in the fall of 2025. More Here

A US jury ordered Microsoft to pay $242 million to IPA Technologies for infringing a patent related to voice recognition technology used in Cortana. Microsoft plans to appeal the verdict, stating their firm belief of non-infringement. IPA, a subsidiary of Wi-LAN, previously sued Google and Amazon over similar patents.

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

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