Musk Raising $6 Billion For AI Startup From a16z & NVIDIA's Most Advance Chip Has Weak Demand

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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 -

• Elon Musk's AI startup, xAI, is seeking to raise $6 billion in a funding round at $18 Billion valuation.

• Alphabet, Meta, and OpenAI are pursuing Hollywood studios for million dollars content licensing deals for their AI video generation tech.

• Nvidia's most advanced AI chip for China, the H20, has seen weak demand and abundant supply, forcing it to be priced lower than Huawei's rival Ascend 910B chip.

• The FCC has proposed a $6 million fine for Steve Kramer, a political consultant who used voice-cloning technology to impersonate President Biden.

• Nvidia's shares surged over 9% on Thursday, adding around $218 billion in market value, the second-largest single-day market cap gain in Wall Street history.

• Featured Article : 10 Things you should considered that get VCs to write a check.

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STARTUP FUNDING UPDATES

StrokeDx, a Pasadena, CA-based stroke detection technology company, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by DigiTx Partners, with participation by Freeflow Ventures and other existing investors with extensive accomplishments across neuroradiology, stroke, and medical devices. David J. Kim, MD, Managing Director of DigiTx Partners, will be joining the board. More Here

Crowdaa, a French company based in Réunion, allows non-developers to easily create and release apps on mobile. It recently raised €1.2 million in a seed round led by Apicap, with participation from Tremplin Capital and Teampact Ventures. More Here

Traction Ag, an Auburn, IN-based company which specializes in farm accounting technology and developer of a cloud-based accounting software delivering solutions to farmers across the United States, raised $10M in Series A funding. The round was led by Cooperative Ventures and joined by Plymouth Growth and existing investors. More Here

Nory, a Dublin, Ireland- and London, UK-based restaurant technology company, raised $16M in Series A funding. The round was led by Accel with participation from Anamcara Capital, Cavalry Ventures, CircleRock Capital, Playfair, Samaipata Ventures, Triple Point, NDRC, Enterprise Ireland, etc. More Here

Lumos, a San Francisco, CA-based software company centralizing the management of apps and identities for IT and security teams, raised $35M in Series B financing. The round was led by Scale Venture Partners with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Harpoon Ventures, Neo and others. More Here

Userfront, a San Jose, CA-based auth and identity platform for SaaS companies, raised $5.3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Heavybit. More Here

Zest Protocol, a George Town, Cayman Island-based company providing a lending protocol built for Bitcoin, raised $3.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Tim Draper’s Draper Associates with participation from Binance Labs, Flow Traders, Trust Machines, Asymmetric, Bitcoin Frontier Fund, Gravity Fund, Primal Capital, Hyperithm, Miton Crypto, Tykhe Block Ventures, Elixir Capital and more. More Here

Orca AI, a London-based startup, has developed AI navigation technology for autonomous shipping, enabling vessels to steer themselves, resulting in fuel and time savings. The company has raised $23 million in fresh funding led by OCV Partners and MizMaa Ventures, taking its total funding to nearly $40 million. More Here

Averlon, a Redmond, Wa-based cloud security company, raised $8M in Seed funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $10.5M, was led by Voyager Capital with participation from Salesforce Ventures and Outpost Ventures, along with CISOs and industry leaders. More Here

Atropos Health, a Palo Alto, CA-based pioneer in translating real-world clinical data into high-quality personalized real-world evidence for care, raised $33m in Series B funding. The round was led by Valtruis, with participation from new strategic investors including Cencora Ventures, McKesson Ventures, and Merck GHI Fund, along with existing investors Breyer Capital, Emerson Collective, and Presidio Ventures. More Here

Ygion Biomedical, a Vienna, Austria-based company dedicated to developing individualized neoantigen-based cancer vaccines, raised €15M in Series A funding. Backers included an undisclosed Austrian private investor. More Here

Alphaledger, a Los Angeles, CA-based provider of blockchain infrastructure for fixed income assets, raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding. The round was led by EJF Ventures, the investment arm of EJF Capital, with participation from KDX and strategic investors. More Here

ZeroPoint Technologies, a Gothenburg, Sweden-based memory compression technology company, raised €5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Matterwave Ventures. Additionally, Industrifonden served as the local lead for this round. Other existing investors participating included Climentum Capital and Chalmers Ventures. More Here

Radar Therapeutics, a Berkeley, CA-based biotech company developing smart programmable medicines, raised $13.4M in Seed funding. The round was led by NfX Bio. Major investors Eli Lilly and Company, Biovision Ventures, and KdT Ventures also joined with participation from PearVC, BEVC and other investors. More Here

Finout, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based FinOps-for-enterprise company, raised $26M in Series B funding. The round was led by Red Dot Capital with participation from Maor Investments and existing investors Team8, Pitango, and Jibe Ventures. More Here

Grey Wolf Therapeutics, an Oxford, UK-based clinical-stage biotechnology company leveraging antigen modulation therapies, raised $50M in Series B extension funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $99M, was led by ICG’s Life Sciences team and included participation from existing investors Pfizer Ventures, Andera Partners, Canaan, Earlybird Venture Capital, Oxford Science Enterprises and British Patient Capital. More Here

Dora Factory, the leading decentralized governance infrastructure, announced the closing of another $10 million strategic raise. Nomad Capital, No Limit Holdings, Sky9 Capital, Singapore’s UOB-Signum Blockchain Fund, Interop Ventures, Cai Wensheng’s Longling Capital, and nine other renowned institutional investors joined the round. More Here

Praktika, a London, UK-based provider of a language learning app that uses personalised AI-powered avatars, raised $32.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Blossom Capital, after a previously unannounced $2.5M Seed round led by Creator Ventures and Blue Wire Capital. These rounds included participation from Carles Reina (ElevenLabs) and Patrice Evra (five-time Premier League champion). More Here

XSQUARE Technologies, a Singapore-based intelligent warehousing automation company, raised S$10.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Wavemaker Partners, with participation from SEEDS Capital and Goldbell Corporation. More Here

Fiberwood, a Järvenpää, Finland-based materials technology startup, raised €7.7M in Growth funding. Backers included Metsä Spring and Stephen Industries, together with public financiers. More Here

Beacon, a Toronto and Montreal, Canada-based provider of a new solution built to facilitate transitions for immigrants relocating to Canada, completed a CAD $5.25m seed funding. Backers included Jawl Residential Group, Wayne Pommen, Adrian Rocca, Jonathan McCain, as well as US institutional investors including MS Transverse Insurance Group. More Here

Cellugy, a Søborg, Denmark-based industrial biotechnology startup, raised €4.9M in seed funding. The round was led by ICIG Ventures and Unconventional Ventures, with new, U.S.-based investor Joyance Partners joining the round, along with existing investors PSV DeepTech, The Footprint Firm, and EIFO. More Here

DeepL, a Cologne, Germany-based language AI company, received a $300m investment at a $2 billion valuation. The round was led by Inde x Ventures, with participation from ICONIQ Growth, Teachers’ Venture Growth, and existing investors IVP, Atomico, and WiL. More Here

Remark, a startup based in San Francisco, provides an expert-assisted shopping platform that pairs shoppers with human and AI experts to help them make informed purchase decisions. The company recently raised $10.3 million in seed funding from investors including Spero Ventures, Stripe, Shine Capital, Neo, Sugar Capital, Visible Ventures, and angel investors like Dave Habiger, Jeff Barnett, and Varsha Rao. More Here

VENTURE CAPITAL UPDATES

Peterson Partners, a Salt Lake City, UT-based investment firm, announced that its private equity business, Peterson Private Equity, closed $265M in Fund X. The fund aims to make 12 operations, investing $10-25m in profitable and growth-oriented companies. More Here

FEATURED ARTICLE

10 Things you should considered that get VCs to write a check

1. The Right Fit

VCs "advertise" to founders via social media, podcasts, and newsletters. Pay attention — they want to fund the areas they're talking about. Save yourself time by reaching out to investors who are already excited about the space you're building in.

2. A Growing Market

Some markets are growing faster than others. A VC's job is to pick which ones will vs won’t. This is why AI is attracting so much capital right now. Founders should make it clear that they're early to a market that will be big.

3. A Unique Insight

VCs want to make asymmetric bets. They want to see a founder who’s zigging while others are zagging. Founders should communicate that they understand something that’s not well understood

4. The Right Timing

VCs use broad trends to judge whether users are ready for your product. Being early is just as bad as being late. Founders should make sure they’re going after trends that VCs are excited about.

5. Clear Message

VCs see a ton of pitches and decks. Communicate concisely to stand out. Founders should practice how they talk about their startup over and over.

6. A Scalable Way To Grow

Distribution > product. You can't "do things that don't scale" forever. Founders should relentlessly search for a growth channel that will work at scale. Tell VCs how you'll acquire customers for significantly less than their LTV.

7. Strong Moat

Will your users stick around for the long term? Why will they continue to choose you over similar products? Make it so good they won't want to. VCs especially love moats built around network effects. But right now, most founders afraid to talk about the MOAT.

8. Early Traction

VCs want to see that startups are solving a real problem. This can be through either usage metrics or testimonials - 40%+ of your users should be “very disappointed” if your product no longer existed

Founders should build something people actually want.

9. A Good Reputation

VCs will call your former co-workers to learn about you.

Positive references go a long way to helping close the deal. This signals a founder won't have trouble hiring and retaining good people Founders should be sure they have good relationships with others

10. Relevant Experience

Founder-market fit is more important than product-market fit in the early days. Experience means speed And speed is the number one advantage startups have. Founders should solve problems that they understand well…Read More Here

STARTUP’S LATEST BUZZ

ACQUISITION & EXITS

Bugcrowd, a crowdsourced cybersecurity platform, has acquired Informer, an attack surface management (ASM) specialist, for an undisclosed amount. More Here

VersiFi, a NYC-based digital asset trading and lending firm, has acquired Ather Digital, an Abu Dhabi, UAE-based spun out of Manifold Capital Partners, a systematic quantitative investment firm. More Here

Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has acquired Teamexpat, an embedded software specialist for complex high-tech products and systems, headquartered in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. More Here

LAYOFFS & BANKRUPTCY

STARTUPS & PEOPLE

Elon Musk's AI startup, xAI, is seeking to raise close to $6 billion in a funding round backed by prominent Silicon Valley investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Tribe Capital. The round would value the startup at $18 billion. More Here

The FCC has proposed a $6 million fine for Steve Kramer, a political consultant who used voice-cloning technology to impersonate President Biden in a series of illegal robocalls during a New Hampshire primary election. This case serves as a warning to would-be scammers misusing generative AI technology for illegal activities like voter suppression or consumer fraud. The FCC is taking action against Kramer and his collaborators, including the shady telecom company Lingo, for violating robocall rules and attempting to interfere with elections. More Here

Nvidia's shares surged over 9% on Thursday, adding around $218 billion in market value, the second-largest single-day market cap gain in Wall Street history. The semiconductor giant forecast revenue of $11 billion for the current quarter, driven by booming AI chip demand, reinforcing investor confidence and pushing its market cap to $2.55 trillion, closing in on Apple as the third most valuable U.S. company. Nvidia also announced a 10-for-1 stock split and raised its dividend by 150%, as demand for its AI chips continues to outpace supply. More Here

LATEST IN EMERGING TECH

Nvidia's most advanced AI chip for China, the H20, has seen weak demand and abundant supply, forcing it to be priced lower than Huawei's rival Ascend 910B chip. The pricing pressure highlights Nvidia's challenges in China amid U.S. sanctions and competition. Despite a strong revenue forecast, Nvidia's China business faces uncertainty as it navigates tensions and competes with domestic players like Huawei. More Here

A U.S. jury ruled that chipmaker Micron Technology owes computer-memory company Netlist $445 million in damages for infringing two of Netlist's patents related to high-performance computing memory module technology. The jury found Micron's infringement was willful, which could lead to tripled damages. More Here

Alphabet, Meta, and OpenAI are pursuing Hollywood studios for content licensing deals for their AI video generation tech. The tech giants have offered tens of millions of dollars, but studios fear losing control over their content. Some studios are open to limited licensing, while Disney and Netflix have declined outright. AI is already being used in film production for tasks like de-aging actors and visual effects. More Here

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HOW’S TODAY’S COFFEE ?

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

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