OpenAI Gets $4 Billion Credit Line After $6.6 Billion Round & NVIDIA Launches Open AI Rival

☕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

In early October 2024, Nvidia surprised the AI community by unveiling NVLM 1.0, a series of advanced multimodal language models with capabilities matching those of the GPT-4o model from ChatGPT. Instead of releasing a direct competitor to consumer-facing AI applications like ChatGPT or Claude, Nvidia is opting to allow others to create their own AI solutions by making the model weights of NVLM publicly accessible. Nvidia, previously renowned for supplying essential chips for AI processes, is now demonstrating its prowess in generative AI through its innovative approach to sharing AI technology development resources.

OpenAI has secured a $4 billion revolving credit line, boosting its total liquidity to $10 billion, a day after closing a $6.6 billion funding round that valued the company at nearly $157 billion. The additional funds will help OpenAI purchase costly computing capacity, including Nvidia chips, as it competes with tech giants like Google.

Other Major News

• OpenAI asks investors to avoid five AI startups including Sutskever's SSI. (Scroll To Tech Updates)

• Australian court upholds order for Musk's X to pay $418,000 fine over anti-child abuse probe. (Scroll To Tech Updates)

• Tim Brooks, a co-lead on OpenAI's Sora video generator, has left to join Google DeepMind. (Scroll To Startups & People Updates)

• NASA is working on a plan to replace its space station, but time is running out (Scroll To Tech Updates)

• North Star Metrics: Identify Bad & Good Metrics. (Scroll To Featured Article)

• VC & Startups Job Opportunities (Scroll To Today’s Opportunities)

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🗞️ Startup Funding Updates

ElevenLabs, an AI audio tool startup, is reportedly in talks for a new funding round that could value the company at up to $3 billion. The company, which specializes in AI-generated voices for audiobooks and video dubbing, has seen its annualized recurring revenue grow from $25 million to around $80 million in recent months.

Crescendo, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an augmented-AI customer experience (CX) platform, raised $50M in funding. The company was valued at $500M post this investment.

Rezilient Heath, a St. Louis, Missouri-based tech-enabled healthcare company, closed a $10M Series A funding round. The round was led by Govo Venture Partners with participation from Bridge Ventures, Acorn Pacific Ventures, The Council, Jim McKelvey (Co-Founder of Block, formerly Square), Mark and Robyn Jones (Founders of Goosehead Insurance), Jeremy Friese (Founder of Verata Health), and David Karandish (Founder of Answers.com).

Yung Sidekick, a Miami, FL-based mental health startup, raised $825K in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Altair Capital and Ultra.VC, with participation from other VCs and angel investors.

Kapa.ai, a startup that works with developers to turn their knowledge base into reliable AI assistants that answer technical questions instantly, raised $3.2m in seed funding. The round was led by Initialized with participation from Y Combinator and a roster of angel investors including Douwe Kiela (Founder of ContextualAI, Stanford Professor, Author of original RAG paper), Amjad Masad (Founder of Replit), Solomon Hykes (Founder of Docker), and more.

Enara Bio, an Oxford, UK-based biotechnology company developing cancer immunotherapies, raised $32.5M in Series B funding. The round was led by Pfizer Ventures and M Ventures with participation from all existing investors including RA Capital, Samsara BioCapital and SV Health Investors.

AirOps, a startup based in the U.S., has developed an all-in-one platform for managing and generating content at scale using large language models. The company has raised a $15.5 million Series A funding round, bringing its total funding to at least $22.5 million. The latest round was led by Unusual Ventures, with participation from Wing VC, Founder Collective, Xfund, and Alt Capital.

Submer, a Barcelona, Spain-based provider of data center cooling solutions, raised $55.5m in Series C funding, at a $500m valuation. The round was led by M&G Investments with participation from Mundi Ventures, Planet First Partners and Norrsken VC.

3Laws Robotics, a Pasadena, CA-based company which specializes in dynamic safety solutions for autonomous systems, raised $4.1M in Seed funding. The round was led by TenOneTen, with participation from the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund.

Paren Inc., a San Francisco, CA-based software platform powering electric mobility with unified data insights, raised $3M in its first round of financing. The round was led by Base10 Partners, with participation from Founders Network Fund and Luc Vincent (founder, Google Street View and Lyft 5).

Avarra, a San Mateo, CA-based enterprise avatar and AI-simulation company, raised $8M in Seed funding. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from GTM Fund, Firsthand Alliance, John W. Thompson and others.

Mstack Chemicals, a Houston, TX-based provider of a cross-border speciality chemical manufacturing platform, raised $40M in Series A funding. The round was led by Lightspeed and Alpha Wave and included a debt facility from HSBC Innovation Banking and angel investors.

Empathy Health Technologies, a Bentonville, AR-based provider of an app that supports individuals on their recovery journey, raised approximately $2.8M in Seed funding. Backers included HealthX Ventures, Nina Capital, Ikigai Growth Partners, 46 Ventures, The Venture Center, High Street Equity Partners, and Suncoast Ventures, along with angel investors.

Integrated Biosciences, a Redwood City, CA-based synthetic biotechnology company developing therapeutics for age-related diseases, raised $17M in Seed funding. The round was led by Sutter Hill Ventures with participation from Root Ventures, Civilization Ventures, Illumina Ventures Labs, Lifespan Vision Ventures, Overlap Holdings, SH Fund (Sabrina Hahn), Conscience VC, Mission BioCapital, Reinforced Ventures, Polymath Capital, Michael Stoppelman, and Vijay Pandurangan.

Flora Fertility, a Calgary, Canada-based insurtech company providing a fertility insurance solution, raised $1.5M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Highline Beta fund & venture studio, and Cartography Capital, Everywhere Ventures, and a group of angel investors.

Kubus, a Cirencester, UK-based technology value-added-reseller (VAR), raised £9M in funding. The round was led by BGF.

BMLL Technologies, a London, UK-based independent provider of harmonised historical Level 3, 2 and 1 data and analytics across global equity, ETFs and futures markets, raised $21M in funding. The round was led by Optiver with participation from existing investors FactSet, Nasdaq Ventures and IQ Capital’s Growth Fund, CTC Venture Capital.

Ameba, a London, UK-based AI-driven platform helping companies manage and unlock growth from their complex supply chains, raised €6.4m in seed funding. The round was led by Hedosophia with participation from Visionaries Club, and Anamcara.

Powin, a Portland, OR-based company which specializes in battery energy storage solutions, raised $200M in Debt Capital from KKR.

Truely, a Singapore-based Travel eSIM provider, raised US$3.5M in funding. The round was led by 1982 Ventures with participation from Beenext, and Kopital Ventures.

Koho, a Toronto, Canada-based fintech company, raised C$190M in Equity and Debt funding. The round consisted of C$40M in equity and C$150M in debt, led by returning investor, PROPELR Growth, joined by new investor Rockefeller Capital and included existing investors Drive Capital, TTV, and BDC. The credit extension is in partnership with new and existing partners.

Resolution Therapeutics, an Edinburgh, Scotland, and London, UK-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, raised £63.5M in Series B funding. The round was led by Syncona Ltd.

MarqVision, a Los Angeles, CA-based company which specializes in online brand protection, raised additional $16M in funding. The round was led by Altos Ventures, Y Combinator, and Quantum Light, bringing the total Series A raise to $36M.

📰 Venture Capital Updates

DCVC, a Palo Alto and San Francisco, CA-based deep tech venture capital firm, closed its first dedicated climate fund and its newest DCVC Bio fund, raising over $700m in funding. This brings total funding closed over the last two-and-a-half years to over $1.6 billion.

Kurma Partners, a Paris, France and Munich, Germany-based international specialist investment firm focused on improving human health, raised EUR 140m, completing the first closing of Biofund IV. Biofund IV received support from cornerstone investors Eurazeo, returning investor Bpifrance and industry investor CSL, along with other undisclosed participating limited partners.

📌 Featured Article

North Star Metrics: Identify Bad & Good Metrics.

The North Star Metric (NSM) is widely attributed to startup founder, advisor and investor Sean Ellis. It’s a single metric which can align the entire company around an overarching mission whilst simultaneously reflecting the value being delivered to customers.

Look at the mission statements of two of the world’s best-known companies, Google and LinkedIn:

“Google – “Google’s mission is to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”

LinkedIn – “Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”

"The goal of the North Star Metric is to quantify this mission and express it in a way that can be measured and tracked. It is often used as a guiding light for the entire company to rally around – a sort of special key performance indicator (KPI).

Founders often make mistakes in choosing the right North Star metrics for their startups. What is a good North Star Metric?

“Which metric, if it were to increase today will accelerate business flywheel? - Lenny Rachitsky”

Here are some best practices for deciding on a good North Star metric:

1. Is it measurable?

2. It is simple, memorable and easily understood?

3. Is it a leading (not lagging) indicator of success?

4. Does it help your customers reach their end goal?

5. Does it apply to all customers and does it add value to all customers?

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📑 Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Going Public

Bubbles, a NYC-based provider of a no-code platform for application development, acquired Flusk, an Amsterdam, the Netherlands-based provider of a security and application monitoring tool.

Quoroom, a startup founded by Ukrainians Ulyana Shtybel and Denys Goncharenko, has acquired Investory.io, expanding its platform for startups to raise equity and debt. The acquisition adds 30 funds and angel groups, with over 1,000 companies using Quoroom for cap table management.

Layoffs & Bankruptcy

Drata, a security compliance automation platform, has laid off 9% of its workforce (40 people) despite reporting strong growth metrics earlier.

Startups & People

Tim Brooks, a co-lead on OpenAI's Sora video generator, has left to join Google DeepMind, where he'll work on "world simulators" and video generation technologies. His departure comes amid reported technical setbacks for Sora, which is yet to be released, and as OpenAI faces competition from rivals like Luma and Runway in securing partnerships with major production houses

🤖 Latest In Tech

NASA is planning to replace the International Space Station by finalizing a strategy for operations in low-Earth orbit after 2030, with contracts to be awarded to private companies for developing smaller space stations. Several companies like Blue Origin and Axiom Space have been involved in preliminary work on commercial space stations, yet face significant challenges such as financial difficulties and meeting NASA's complex requirements, with no guaranteed success. Despite uncertainties and potential gaps in having a continuous presence in low-Earth orbit post-2030, NASA must decide whether it should remain committed to supporting private space stations to continue human activity in space beyond the International Space Station's operational life.

An Australian court upheld a A$610,500 ($418,000) fine against Elon Musk's X for failing to cooperate with the eSafety Commissioner's request for information on anti-child-abuse practices. X had argued it wasn't liable due to corporate restructuring, but the court rejected this claim, preventing a potential precedent for foreign companies to avoid regulatory obligations in Australia.

After raising $6.6 Billion OpenAI asking investors not to fund five competitors, including Anthropic, xAI, and Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence. The request, though not legally binding, highlights OpenAI's strategy to maintain a competitive edge in the race to build large language models.

Fei-Fei Li, the "godmother of AI" and creator of ImageNet, admits she doesn't know what AGI means, despite its prominence in AI discussions. As leader of Stanford's Human-Centered AI Institute and founder of World Labs, Li is focused on developing "spatial intelligence" and "large world models" that go beyond current language-based AI. Recently invited by California Governor Newsom to help craft AI guardrails, she advocates for an evidence-based approach that doesn't penalize technologists. Li emphasizes the need for diversity in AI development, believing it will lead to better technology. Her startup, World Labs, aims to close the gap between "seeing and doing" in AI, bringing us closer to computers that can truly understand and interact with the 3D world.

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