OpenAI Raised $15 Million For $175M Startup Fund & Yuga Labs, creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club Announced Layoff

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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 -

• OpenAI Startup Fund raises additional $15 million, totaling $175 million in capital under venture capital fund.

• Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook co-founder, accused Tesla of being "the next Enron" by misleading consumers about its self-driving software and vehicle ranges.

• OpenAI and Apple are in talks to potentially integrate OpenAI's features into iOS 18.

• Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs announced a restructuring initiative, including layoffs if hundreds of employees.

• Featured Article : Founder Market Fit : An Unsuccessful Video Game Turned Into a $26 Billion Startup.

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STARTUP FUNDING UPDATES

Givebutter, a Washington D.C.-based startup, offers a CRM platform for nonprofits that provides marketing resources, donor tracking, fundraising tools, and payment processing. The company, which started in a George Washington University dorm room in 2016, recently raised $50 million from Bessemer's Venture Partner's BVP Forge Fund and Ardent Venture Partners. More Here

FinQuery, a 13-year-old Atlanta company that helps companies manage significant financial contracts, including leases, software subscriptions, and other related agreements, raised a $25 million round. Periphas Capital was the deal lead, while Lavelle Capital also participated. More Here

HappySignals, a 10-year-old Helsinki company that enables organizations to gather feedback from employees about their IT experiences and enhance employee satisfaction, raised a $12.8 million round led by Mandatum Asset Management, with previous investors Nauta and Vendep Capital also taking part. CV Wallet, a London, UK-based verification platform for the hiring process, raised $500K in Angel funding. Backers were not disclosed. The round valued the business at over $13m. More Here

Neowrk, a São Paulo, Brazil-based provider of a workspace management platform, raised R$10M in funding. The round was led by Indicator Capital, with R$8M, complemented by current partners and Real Estate market investor Daniel Cherman. More Here

Goodcarbon, a three-year-old Berlin startup that operates a platform that connects companies seeking to meet their net-zero goals with project owners who provide carbon credits, raised a $5.7 million round led by Ocean 14 Capital and including Silverstrand Capital and previous investors Planet A Ventures, 468 Capital, and Greenfield Capital. More Here

Green Energy Park, a Sao Paulo, Brazil-based hydrogen production plant company, raised USD30M in an initial equity funding from undisclosed investors. More Here

Rio is an AI news anchor app created by Curio, a startup based in London. It curates news content from trusted sources like Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post into a daily briefing that users can read or listen to. The app has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Khosla Ventures and Chris Anderson, the head of TED. More Here

On Energy, a Miami, FL-based electric power asset owner and proven end-to-end integrator of battery energy storage systems, received a $25M working capital facility from Lombard Odier Investment Managers. More Here

WEE Marketplace, a Dubai, UAE-based product delivery marketplace, raised USD10M in Equity and Debt funding. The funding, which included equity and credit facilities, was provided by Sig Investment. More Here

Allegiance Mobile Health (AMH), a Corpus Christi, TX-based provider of medical transportation and 911 emergency services, received an undisclosed amount of financing from Brightwood Capital. More Here

Pure Lithium, a Boston, MA-based lithium metal battery technology company, extended an undisclosed Series A funding round. Backers included Ivanhoe Capital and WS Investment Company, the investment fund of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. More Here

Edia Learning, a US based provider of an AI platform that helps students succeed at math, closed $9.4M funding round. The round was led by Felicis. More Here

Radical, a Seattle startup that builds solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles that can operate in the stratosphere to perform tasks like remote sensing and connectivity, raised a $4.5 million seed round led by Scout Ventures, with Inflection Mercury Fund, and Y Combinator also anteing up. More Here

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VENTURE CAPITAL UPDATES

The OpenAI Startup Fund, a venture fund affiliated with OpenAI but operated separately, has raised an additional $15 million through a special purpose vehicle, bringing the total capital raised to $175 million. The fund, now under the management of Ian Hathaway, has invested in numerous AI-related startups across various sectors, including legal tech, healthcare, and robotics. More Here

A joint venture of giant asset manager BlackRock and Singapore's Temasek Holdings has amassed $1.4 billion to back young businesses whose products and services help reduce carbon emissions. The New York-based firm and Temasek said the venture wrapped up Decarbonization Partners Fund I above an initial $1 billion goal. More Here

Global Founders Capital, a prominent early-stage VC firm based in Berlin with strong ties to the German startup factory Rocket Internet, has undergone a strategic shift, transitioning from a traditional VC model to becoming the exclusive venture arm of Rocket Internet. With €300 million from Rocket Internet's balance sheet at its disposal, the firm has downsized to five partners and will concentrate solely on early-stage investments, citing the current challenging market conditions as the primary reason for not raising a new fund and opting for this pivotal move. More Here

FEATURED ARTICLE

Founder Market Fit : An Unsuccessful Video Game Turned Into a $26 Billion Startup.

In 8 months, it was worth $1B & became the fastest-growing B2B SaaS startup in history. A success story of Slack you might not believe -

After two repetitive failures, Cal Henderson & Stewart Butterfield went on to build the most popular instant messaging and productivity tool used by 77% of the Fortune 100.

Slack launched in 2014, and it blew up immediately. Gaining 8K+ users in 24 hours of launch and earning 12,000+ join requests in just 1 week. It raised $120M only 6 months later valuing the company at $2.7B.

The company kept growing 5-10% PER WEEK and by 2015, it was worth almost $3 Billion. Within two years, they had raised $840M with a company value of $5.1B CRAZY!

Microsoft considered making a bid to acquire Slack (The same year it acquired LinkedIn). Read More Here

STARTUP’S LATEST BUZZ

ACQUISITION & EXITS

Paystand, a Scotts Valley, CA-based company which specialises in blockchain-enabled B2B payments, acquired Teampay, a NYC-based provider of spend management software. More Here

Darktrace, a U.K. cybersecurity company known for AI-powered threat detection, is set to go private in a $5 billion deal by private equity firm Thoma Bravo. More Here

LAYOFFS & BANKRUPTCY

Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs announced a restructuring initiative, including layoffs, as the company aims to become "a smaller, more agile, and crypto-native team." The decision comes after Yuga Labs faced challenges, such as the decline in Bored Ape NFT prices and the delayed launch of its Otherside metaverse game. More Here

A major fashion retailer is closing its offices in New York and laying off all employees. Store closings are imminent in New York due to the company filing bankruptcy. More Here

The Gateway Pundit, a popular right-wing media site, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to multiple lawsuits involving false claims about the 2020 election. Despite facing legal challenges, the site remains defiant and continues to push conspiracy theories. More Here

STARTUPS & PEOPLE

Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook co-founder, accused Tesla of being "the next Enron" by misleading consumers about its self-driving software and vehicle ranges. Elon Musk insulted Moskovitz before apologizing but calling him a "pompous idiot." Tesla faces lawsuits and investigations over its Autopilot/FSD marketing and range statements, though no executives have been charged with crimes so far. Moskovitz has been a long-time skeptic of Musk, previously calling for his resignation from all executive roles. More Here

Goldman Sachs values Zomato's Blinkit at $13 billion, higher than its food delivery business. Blinkit's valuation surge driven by India's fast-growing quick commerce market potential. This will likely impact competitors Swiggy's Instamart and Zepto. More Here

ByteDance said that a report in The Information stating that the company was exploring the possibility of selling TikTok is "untrue." More Here

LATEST IN EMERGING TECH

In what a cynic might characterize as the digital equivalent of foxes guarding a henhouse, Sam Altman, Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, and Jensen Huang are joining a board to advise the U.S. on how to safely deploy AI within U.S. critical infrastructure. More Here

OpenAI & Apple have begun discussing terms of a possible agreement and how the OpenAI features would be integrated into Apple's iOS 18, the next iPhone operating system. More Here

OpenAI is facing new privacy complaints in the EU over ChatGPT's inability to correct misinformation about individuals, violating GDPR's right to rectification. Regulators are investigating potential GDPR violations, including transparency issues, raising risks of enforcement actions across multiple EU states. More Here

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

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