Musk's X.AI Building $9B AI Supercomputer In Memphis & NVIDIA Becomes $3.012 Trillion Value Company

Advertise || Build Your PitchDeck

👋 Hey, Sahil here! Welcome to today's quick rundown in the Venture Daily Digest Newsletter. I've got the scoop on startup fundraising, VC funds, and some cool tech – all in just 5 minutes ☕! Today’s major updates include -

• Oda, the Norway-based online grocery delivery startup backed by Softbank valued at $900 Million, has confirmed layoffs of 150 jobs.

• Nvidia's (NVDA.O) become the world's second most valuable company at $3.012 trillion, surpassing Apple Inc. (AAPL.O) at $3.003 trillion.

• Musk's AI startup X.AI Corp. plans to build a massive AI supercomputer in Memphis with estimated cost of $9 Billion.

• China's main national chip fund should wind up raising more than the $47.5 billion originally disclosed.

• Federal Trade Commission have reached a deal to investigate potential antitrust violations between Microsoft and Inflection AI Startup.

• Featured Article : “How I CEO” by Mercury’s CEO.

In Partnership With Portless …

The only thing that should be floating on the water this summer is you, not your inventory 🏖️

With Portless, you can ship orders directly from China in just 6 days, 3x your cash flow, and improve lead time by 10x.

Say goodbye to the lengthy 45-90 day wait for restocks. Now, you can replenish your best-selling items in just 3-5 days.

Ready to skip the ship and go Portless? Contact us today and receive 20% off your pick-and-pack fees during your first three months.

Partnership With Us

Want to get your brand in front of thousands founders, investors, executives, and startup operators? For details on our sponsorships, fill up this quick form and we’ll get in touch.

Startup Funding Updates

Sixfold, a NYC-based company empowering underwriters with a generative AI solution for end-to-end risk analysis, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from Scale Venture Partners and all previous investors including Bessemer Venture Partners and Crystal Venture Partners. More Here

Hoop, a NYC-based provider of an AI-powered task management platform, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from Origin Ventures, Divergent Capital, and Chingona Ventures. More Here

Liminal, a Denver, CO-based company which specialises in horizontal generative AI data security, raised additional $5M in funding. The round was led by Fin Capital, with participation from High Alpha, Matchstick Ventures, Craft Ventures Scout Fund, and others. More Here

Signapse, a Guildford, UK-based Generative AI Sign Language translation software company, closed a new seed funding round of £2M with £1.5M from investors and £500k from Innovate UK. The round was led by Soulmates Ventures and Deeptech Seed Fund, with participation from other investors, including the Royal Association for Deaf people, Empirical Ventures, CEAS Investments, and The FSE Group. More Here

Tobiko Data, a San Mateo, CA-based data infrastructure startup, raised $21.8M in funding. The amount consisted of $4.5M Seed funding round from Unusual Ventures and a $17.3M Series A led by Theory Ventures with participation from 20Sales, Fivetran CEO George Fraser, Census CEO Boris Jabes, and MotherDuck CEO Jordan Tigani. More Here

Taloflow, a Y Combinator alum based in San Francisco, has raised a $1.3 million seed round from investors including Wonder Ventures and First Check Ventures. More Here

SiTration, a Boston, MA-based materials recovery company, raised $11.8M in Seed funding. The round was led by 2150 with participation from BHP Ventures, Extantia, and Orion Industrial Ventures. Previous investors Azolla Ventures and MIT-affiliated E14 Fund also participated. More Here

Kanastra, a São Paulo, Brazil-based tech-driven back office for private credit funds and securitizations in Brazil, raised US$21M in Series A funding. The round was led by Kaszek. Other investors included Atlantico, Valor Capital, Quona Capital, QED Investors and Actyus. In addition, an undisclosed global financial institution is also joining the round. More Here

HyperSpectral, an Alexandria, VA-based AI-powered spectral intelligence company, raised $8.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by RRE Ventures and Kibo Ventures with participation from Correlation Ventures, and GC&H Investments. More Here

Advanced Medicine Partners, a Durham, NC-based developer of innovative advanced medicines, received an additional $32m in financing. The round was led by Deerfield Management, with additional support from ARCH Venture Partners and other investors. Upon completion of this latest financing round, the total direct investment in Advanced Medicine Partners since its separation from Jaguar Gene Therapy will reach $60m. More Here

Understory, a Madison, WI-based provider of an insurance platform protecting climate-vulnerable industries from severe weather risk, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by True Ventures and Prelude Ventures. More Here

M0, a Zug, Switzerland-based decentralized infrastructure layer for the issuance of cryptodollar assets, raised $35M in Series A funding. The round was led by Bain Capital Crypto. Other investors included Galaxy Ventures, Wintermute Ventures, GSR, Caladan and SCB 10X. More Here

Wevr, a Los Angeles, CA-based creative development and production studio, $3.5M in funding. The round was led by HTC Corp. and Epic Games. More Here

Dive Engineering Software, a Berlin, Germany based cloud-native and particle-based simulation software company, raised $10m in Series A funding. The round was led by the D. E. Shaw group, with participation from First Momentum Ventures, Segenia Capital, and Senovo Capital. More Here

Envisagenics, a NYC-based AI-driven revenue generating biotechnology company focused on discovery and development of novel RNA splicing therapeutics, raised a Series B fundraising round of undisclosed amount. Backers included existing investors Third Kind Venture Capital, Empire State Development and Red Cell Partners, and new strategic investor Bristol Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY). More Here

Testsigma, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an AI-powered, low-code test automation platform, raised $8.2M in funding. The round was led by MassMutual Ventures. Previous investors Accel, STRIVE and BoldCap also participated. More Here

Inventive, a San Francisco, CA-based startup building embedded AI for SaaS products, raised $6.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Wing VC, with participation from Tokyo Black and an angel investors group led by founders and former Google and Meta executives. More Here

XREX, a Taipei, Taiwan-based provider of a blockchain-enabled financial service, received a strategic investment of $18.75M from Tether. More Here

iCOMAT, a Bristol, UK-based company which specializes in advanced composite manufacturing, raised $22.5M in funding. The round was led by 8VC, and co-led by NATO Innovation Fund. Other investors included Solvay Ventures and existing investors Velocity Partners VC. More Here

restor3d, a Durham, NC-based company which specializes in 3D printed, personalized orthopedic implants, raised $70M in funding. The amount consisted of $55M Series A funding round led by private investors including Summers Value Partners and existing investors plus an additional $15M in debt financing led by Trinity Capital. More Here

Eko Health, a SanFrancisco, CA-based company which specializes in applying artificial intelligence for early detection of heart and lung diseases, raised $41M in Series D funding. Backers included ARTIS Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, NTTVC, and Questa Capital, as well as Double Point Ventures, EDBI, and LG Technology Ventures. More Here

Alinia, a Barcelona, Spain-based provider of an alignment platform for companies, raised $2.4M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Speedinvest and Precursor, with participation from KFund. More Here

Nium, a San Francisco, California- and Singapore- based global leader in real-time cross-border payments, raised US$50m in Series E funding round. The round was led by a sovereign wealth fund in Southeast Asia and values the company at US$1.4 billion post-money. The sovereign wealth fund joined BOND, NewView Capital, and Tribe Capital. More Here

Spare, a Toronto, Canada-based company developing a platform that empowers transit agencies, received $10M in Growth Capital. CIBC Innovation Banking provided the financing. More Here

Botsync, a Singapore-based developer of integrated automation solutions for APAC and beyond, raised US$5.2M in Series a funding. The round was led by Capital 2B and Betatron Venture Group, with participation from IvyCap Ventures, AppWorks, Iterative, Wong Fong, ZB Capital, Nalin Advani, and Ascend Angels. More Here

Twelve Labs, a San Francisco, CA-based video understanding company, raised $50M in Series A funding. The round was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and NVentures. Previous investors, including Index Ventures, Radical Ventures, WndrCo, and Korea Investment Partners also participated. More Here

LiveKit, a San Jose, CA-based provider of a platform for building and scaling voice applications, raised $22M in Series A funding. The round was led by Altimeter Capital with participation from Redpoint Ventures as well as angel investors including Jeff Dean, Elad Gil, Aravind Srinivas, Ahmad Masad and Guillermo Rauch. More Here

Vilya, a Seattle, WA-based biotechnology company creating a new class of medicines that precisely target disease biology, expanded its Series A funding to $71M. The round was led by ARCH Venture Partners with participation from NVentures, Menlo Ventures, Madrona, Lifeforce Capital, and Altitude Life Science Ventures. More Here

Blueberry Protocol, a Panama City, Panama-based decentralized prime brokerage terminal, raised $2.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by White Star Capital. Other investors included Varys Capital, SNZ Capital, Alchemix DAO, Aquanow, members of Dewhales, members of DCD, GateCap Ventures, Nayt Trading and MonkeVentures. More Here

Field Materials Spending Report Field Materials, a San Jose, CA-based provider of AI software to control and verify construction material and equipment spending, raised additional $3.5M. The round, which brought the total amount of the seed funding to $8.5M, was led by new investors DivcoWest Ventures, Navitas Capital, Zelda Ventures, and Flyer One Ventures alongside existing investors Blumberg Capital, s16vc, Zacua Ventures, and industry executives. More Here

Venture Capital Updates

Sound Growth Partners, a Seattle, WA-based private equity firm, closed its Fund I, at $275M in capital commitments. The fund reached its hard cap due to support from a diverse group of institutional investors and receipt of a Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) license from the Small Business Administration (SBA). More Here

Featured Article

“How I CEO” by Mercury’s CEO

Recently, Mercury's CEO Immad shared a tweet titled "How I CEO," which I found really interesting and suggest founders should follow. He shared:

“Treat your investors as partners not parents.

Something a lot of founders forget is that investors are in service to your company. Founders often treat investors like a boss. But thats a mistake.

The problem is that it’s human nature that if you’re treated like something, you end up becoming that thing to an extent. If someone comes to you and asks you to tell them what to do next and to basically make a decision for them, you might take on that role.

3 problems with this:

• your investors don't work at the company and don't know enough of the details. Their advice should only be taken as one of many data points

• creates bad power dynamics. Investors act as a boss rather than as a partner to help you make the startup successful

• creates toxic relationships. Founders end up seeking praise and validation and reporting rosy status updates rather than working on the real problems.

As an investor, I can confirm that being treated like a boss or parent isn’t really what most of us want. I personally dislike it when I see an investor update or have a conversation and it’s just all very positive. Makes me wonder what’s actually going on in the business.

You should setup the investor-founder relationship as a partnership.
Ex - for board meetings make them into authentic collaborative sessions, around the problems you’re tackling next, and picking your board’s brain about how to address those things.

To set the tone for a balanced founder-investor relationship early on, I think it’s really important to shift mode straight after closing an investment.

The process of fundraising is unique — you’re trying to create a sense of FOMO, you’re putting your best foot forward, and you’re essentially selling your company. But once you’ve closed a deal and the money is in the bank, it’s good to have a meeting with the investor and just have a very authentic interaction.

Grab lunch and pick your investor’s brain on your main challenges and what you’d love input on. Talk about higher-level ideas in a relaxed setting, and start building the foundation for a partnership. Do these meetings regularly — plan catchups between board meetings, either in person or over the phone, to ensure that you’re building a relationship that feels solid and less transactional.”

Previously we have shared this in our Venture Curator Newsletter….

Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Going Public

Chronus, a Seattle, WA-based provider of an employee-driven development platform offering mentorship and ERG management, acquired Imperative, a Seattle, WA-based employee engagement platform. More Here

Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms (RIOT.O), opens new tab said on Wednesday it has acquired ownership of 12% stake in rival Bitfarms Ltd. More Here

Layoffs & Bankruptcy

Oda, the Norway-based online grocery delivery startup backed by Softbank, has confirmed layoffs of 150 jobs as it scales back its expansion ambitions to focus solely on Norway and Sweden. The company, once valued at $900 million, is now aiming to become profitable in these two markets by next year. More Here

Startups & People

Google has launched a new "Google for Startups AI Academy: American Infrastructure" program to bring AI technology to the public sector. Over 12 weeks, startups will receive AI training, workshops, industry connections, and access to Google's AI tools to build solutions across areas like agriculture, energy, education, and more. The equity-free program aims to boost productivity and solve problems through AI applications that create more efficient and equitable public services. More Here

Nvidia's (NVDA.O) meteoric rise has propelled it to become the world's second most valuable company at $3.012 trillion, surpassing Apple Inc. (AAPL.O) at $3.003 trillion market capitalization. More Here

Google's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab chief privacy officer, Keith Enright, will leave the company this fall, after 13 years at the tech giant, a spokesperson for the Alphabet-owned company said on Tuesday. More Here

Latest In Emerging Tech

Elon Musk's AI startup X.AI Corp. plans to build a massive AI supercomputer housed in the former Electrolux facility in Memphis, which could be the largest economic investment in the city's history. The supercomputer, comprised of 100,000 Nvidia GPUs, will be used to train X.AI's Grok chatbot and is expected to be operational by fall 2025. With an anticipated cost of around $9 billion, the project is seen as positioning Memphis as an innovation hub despite relatively few direct jobs created. More Here

Meta Platforms (META.O) faced 11 complaints on Thursday over proposed changes that would allow it to use personal data to train its artificial intelligence models without consent, potentially breaching European Union privacy rules. The advocacy group NOYB (None of Your Business) urged national privacy watchdogs to take immediate action, citing Meta's privacy policy changes effective June 26 that would enable the use of personal posts, private images, or online tracking data for AI technology. NOYB has filed several complaints against Meta and other tech giants for alleged violations of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which can impose fines up to 4% of a company's global turnover. More Here

Mistral introduces new AI model customization options, including self-service SDK, managed fine-tuning services, and custom training services. Self-service SDK allows fine-tuning on local hardware, optimized for multi-GPU setups. Managed fine-tuning services available through Mistral's API for Mistral Small and 7B models. Custom training services for select customers to fine-tune any Mistral model using their data. More Here

The U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have reached a deal to investigate potential antitrust violations in the AI industry. The DOJ will investigate Nvidia, while the FTC will examine OpenAI and Microsoft's conduct. More Here

China's Big Chip Fund to Exceed $47.5 Billion Goal, Adviser Says. China's main national chip fund should wind up raising more than the $47.5 billion originally disclosed, a senior adviser to Beijing said, reflecting the government's resolve to close a technology gap with the US. More Here

How Can I Help You?

• Build Your Pitch Deck : We write, design and model your pitch deck into a storyteller book within 4-5 days.

• Get Your MVP In 15 Days: Have an Idea? Turn your idea into Reality. Move fast before your competitors.

• Break Into VC: Join Our VC Enthusiast slack Community to learn, network and craft path to venture capital.

How’s Today’s Coffee?

Do you have any news to share about your Startup or VC fund?
Please email us.

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

  Advertise || Build Your PitchDeck