OpenAI appoints veteran AI professor Zico Kolter to board & FTX to Pay $12.7 Billion To Customers

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☕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

Meta has closed its game development studio, Ready at Dawn, known for creating the Echo VR series, effective immediately. This closure comes nearly 18 months after Meta acquired Ready at Dawn, aligning with its plan to cut Reality Labs' budget by 20 percent by 2026. Ready at Dawn, which developed games like Daxter, The Order: 1886, and multiple Echo VR titles, was shut down amid Meta's broader cost-cutting moves, including significant layoffs.

A U.S. court has ordered bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX to pay $12.7 billion in relief to its customers, as announced by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The order implements a settlement between the CFTC and FTX, with the exchange committing to repay customers whose deposits were locked during its 2022 collapse.

Other Major News

• Payoneer has acquired another payroll startup at $81 million including $60 million cash. (Scroll To Acquisition Updates)

• OpenAI Appoints Veteran AI Professor to Board (Scroll To Tech Updates)

• Amazon’s $4 Billion Investment in Anthropic Comes Under Scrutiny (Scroll To Tech Updates)

• Writing a Cold Email That Gets VC Funding - Advice from Leading VCs. (Scroll To Featured Article)

• Under the “Break Into VC” initiative we have launched our all-in-one VC Interview guide (how to answer) for aspiring venture capitalists. All of these questions and answers are curated from VC partners… For the first 50 aspiring venture capitalists, we are offering a 50% discount. Check out here…

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🗞️ Startup Funding Updates

Bardeen, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of AI agents capable of automating repetitive knowledge work using a natural language interface, raised $3M in funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $22M, saw participation from Dropbox Ventures and HubSpot Ventures. More Here

Cents, a NYC-based provider of an all-in-one business management platform for laundry businesses, raised $40M in Series B funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $77M, was led by Camber Creek with participation from previous investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Tiger Global. Additional strategic investors included Tech Pioneer Fund, RXR (RADV), Derive Ventures, Alumni Ventures, as well as executives at SaaS companies like Toast, Jobber, Squarespace, and Stripe. More Here

CloudPay, a Raleigh, NC-based independent provider of global payroll and payment solutions, raised $120M in funding. The round was led by Blue Owl Capital with the participation of existing shareholders Rho Capital Partners, The Olayan Group and Hollyport Capital. More Here

IDRx, a Plymouth, MA-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, raised $120M in Series B funding. The round was led by RA Capital Management, Commodore Capital, and Blackstone Multi-Asset Investing with additional new investors, including Rock Springs Capital and a U.S.-based healthcare-focused fund. More Here

375ai, a Palo Alto, CA-based decentralized edge data intelligence network, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by 6th Man Ventures, Factor, Arca, EV3, Primal Capital, and Auros. More Here

Rewest, a Tampa, FL-based provider of an automation platform for managed service providers, raised $45M in funding. The round, which brought the total raised to $104m, was led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from existing investors Meritech Capital and OpenView. More Here

CarbonQuest, a Spokane, WA-based distributed carbon capture technology provider, raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding. Riverbend Energy Group made the investment. More Here

Walnut Insurance, a Toronto, Canada-based innovator in the insurance distribution industry, raised $4.6M in funding. The round was led by NAventures, National Bank of Canada’s corporate venture capital arm, with participation from TELUS Global Ventures, Diagram Ventures, Portage, and Highline Beta. More Here

AmorSui, a NYC-based modern personal protective equipment (PPE) brand dedicated to protecting people and the planet, raised $3.5M in Seed funding. Investors included Gold House Ventures, The MBA Fund, and The Rev Up Fund to name a few. More Here

Flyr, a San Francisco, CA-based technology company for the travel industry, raised $295M in funding. The $225m Series D round was led by WestCap and included investments from Avianca, BlackRock, Streamlined Ventures, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). More Here

InventWood, a Frederick, MD-based company transforming wood into superwood building products, raised $8M in funding. Backers included Grantham Foundation, Builders Vision, Echelon, John Rockwell, and existing investor. More Here

Cocoon, a London, UK-based climate technology company, raised $5.4M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Wireframe Ventures, Celsius Industries (fka UNTITLED), Gigascale Capital and SOSV. More Here

Chariot, a NYC-based payments company dedicated to Donor Advised Fund (DAF) giving, raised $11M in funding. The round was led by Maveron with participation from Spark Capital, SV Angel, Y Combinator, and angel investors Adam Grant, Angela Duckworth, Michael Massaro and Daffy founder Adam Nash. More Here

Feeling Great, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of newly launched app called the Feeling Great app, raised $8M in Seed funding. The round was led by Learn Capital and TitleTownTech, with additional participation from Lux Ventures, WaveMaker Three-Sixty Health, Pacific Health Ventures, and Treble Capital. More Here

Plonts, an Oakland, CA-based plant-based foods company, raised $12M in Seed funding. The round was led by Lowercarbon Capital, with participation from Litani Ventures, Accelr8, Pillar, Ponderosa Ventures, and a number of angel investors. More Here

Syso Technologies, a Boston, MA-based market operator of renewable energy and battery storage assets, raised $14.5M in Series B funding. The round was led by Kimmeridge with participation from existing investor Lacuna Sustainable Investments. More Here

OW Smell Made Digital, a London, UK-based providing digital platforms for creating and delivering scents, raised $2.2M in Pre-Series A funding. The round consisted of £1.5M Parkwalk Advisors, and a £0.7M grant from Innovate UK. More Here

VSParticle, a Delft, The Netherlands-based supplier of nanoparticle synthesis and deposition tools, raised €6.5M in Series A2 extension funding. The round was led by NordicNinja and previous investor Plural. More Here

Prana Thoracic, a Houston, TX-based medtech startup which specializes in lung cancer intervention, raised $3M in Series A extension. The round, which brought the total funding to $9M, was led by cultivate(MD), GenHenn Capital, and Houston Angel Network, with participation from prior lead investor New World Angels. Existing funders included Johnson & Johnson Development Corp, Texas Medical Center Venture Fund, and the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT). More Here

EtherealX, a Bengaluru, India-baseed space technology startup, raised $5m in funding. The round was led by YourNest with participation from BIG Global Investments JSC, Blue Hill Capital, Campus Fund, and Golden Sparrow Ventures. More Here

Level AI, a Mountain View, CA-based innovator in LLM-native customer experience intelligence and the service automation space, raised $39.4M in Series C funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $73.1M, was led by Adams Street Partners, with additional investment from Cross Creek, Brightloop, many CX leaders, and participation from existing investors including Battery Ventures and Eniac Ventures. More Here

Terrantic, a Seattle, WA-based data platform for the food supply chain, raised $3.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Supply Change Capital with participation from York IE and Vitalize VC as well as existing investors Array Ventures. More Here

Eden, a Mexico City, Mexico-based company committed to democratizing health through technology, raised $10M in funding. The round was led by Sierra Ventures. Other investors included Kaszek, Alt Capital, Y-Combinator, and Khosla Ventures. More Here

Seven Starling, a Washington, DC-based virtual provider of women’s behavioral health services, raised $10.9M in Series A funding. The round was led by RH Capital with participation from Pear VC, Expa, Magnify Ventures, Emerson Collective, and Inflect Health, and new investors including Zeal Capital Partners, Ulu Ventures, Fiore Ventures, the March of Dimes, Rogue Venture Partners, Graham & Walker, and Wisdom Ventures. More Here

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📰 Venture Capital Updates

Flint Capital, a Boston-based venture firm, has closed its third fund at $160 million, quadrupling the size of its initial 2013 fund. The capital will be evenly split between early and late-stage investments, focusing on IT, cybersecurity, fintech, and digital health startups.

📌 Featured Article

Writing a Cold Email That Gets VC Funding - Advice from Leading VCs

Recently, Brett Adcock, the founder of Figure Robot, shared a tweet in which he listed several reasons why he believes cold emails work better than referrals.

1. Outbound cold email scales several orders of magnitude better than referrals - you can find 99.9% of anybody’s email.

   Raising capital is a shots-on-goal game; you want to maximize top-of-funnel pitches. Optimizing your fundraising for referrals will put you at a local maximum.

2. It’s a challenge finding somebody who will stick their neck out to refer you. People rarely want to use their political capital referring you to a highly important person in their network, therefore at best you’re left with lousy double opt-in email.

Although I completely agree with these points, many founders struggle with writing cold emails to investors. Some founders even question whether investors open cold emails. Here's what investors said:

• Keith Rabois prefers a deck, and he reads most of them.

• Aileen Lee or her partners read every email pitch that comes into Cowboy Ventures.

• David Sacks of Craft prefers a short email pitch that summarizes the opportunity.

• Satya Patel of Homebrew reads everything sent to him

Jason (Founder of SaaStrfund) said - “I do get behind on email, but I love an amazing cold email and have funded maybe ~50% of my investments from them. I like an email pitch that is so amazing that I’d fund it just based on the email alone. “

Here’s the email from two startups to which Jason gave million-dollar funding…

We haves shared in detailed writeup in our Venture Curator newsletter, Check out here…

📑 Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Going Public

New York-based fintech Payoneer has acquired Singapore's HR and payroll startup Skuad for up to $81 million, including $61 million in cash. More Here

SoundHound AI (Nasdaq: SOUN), a Santa Clara, CA-based voice artificial intelligence company, acquired Amelia, a NYC-based enterprise AI software company. More Here

ZipRecruiter (NYSE:ZIP), a Santa Monica, CA-based online employment marketplace, acquired Breakroom, a UK-based employer review platform focused on frontline industries such as retail and hospitality. More Here

Layoffs & Bankruptcy

Techstars, a startup accelerator, is laying off 17% of its workforce and ending its $80 million J.P. Morgan-backed AdvancingCities program. More Here

Startups & People

OpenAI has appointed Zico Kolter, a Carnegie Mellon professor focused on AI safety, to its board of directors. Kolter will join the company's Safety and Security Committee, which makes recommendations on safety and security decisions for OpenAI projects.

🤖 Latest In Emerging Tech

The Financial Times reports that Meta and Google ran a hidden campaign targeting 13 to 17-year-olds with Instagram ads on YouTube, despite Google's own rules against advertising to children. Google allegedly used a loophole by directing ads to users in the “unknown” demographic, which often included younger audiences, to extend ad reach and bypass their policies. The illicit campaign, executed in Canada and tested in the US, aimed to boost revenue as Google's ad earnings declined and Meta's young users shifted to platforms like TikTok, but has since been canceled following an investigation.

Apple revised its DMA compliance plan, adding new fees and loosening some restrictions. Spotify and Epic Games criticized the changes, calling them unacceptable and malicious compliance. The European Commission is still investigating Apple's fee structure and compliance with the DMA.

Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter) has agreed to suspend using Europeans' posts for training its Grok AI chatbot following pressure from Ireland's Data Protection Commission. The DPC had initiated court proceedings against X over data processing without consent and welcomed the company's decision to halt the practice.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched a formal antitrust investigation into Amazon's $4 billion investment in AI startup Anthropic. This follows similar probes into Big Tech's AI investments, including Google's ties with Anthropic and Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI. The CMA is concerned about potential "quasi-mergers" in the AI sector that could harm competition, and will have 40 working days to decide whether to approve the Amazon-Anthropic deal or conduct a more in-depth investigation.

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