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OpenAI’s operator tool launching soon & X and Bluesky introduce vertical video feeds.

Venture Daily Digest - 21/01/2025

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Venture Daily Digest
January 21, 2025

A man once ate an entire aeroplane. Your eyes aren’t deceiving you, you read that correctly. Michel Lotito, known as "Monsieur Mangetout," literally consumed a Cessna 150 over two years by grinding it down and eating it bit by bit. Bon appetit I guess?

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📬 What’s in store:

  • Daily Picks: Sam Altman’s fundraising tips, 350+ Indian investors, AI email agent idea, Musk’s 5-step hack, pitch deck guide, financial model template, and top AI + marketing resources.

  • OpenAI’s operator tool launching soon with autonomous PC control.

  • DeepSeek claims its ‘reasoning’ model beats OpenAI’s o1 on certain benchmarks.

  • X and Bluesky introduce vertical video feeds.

  • OpenAI CEO Altman tells followers to "chill and cut expectations 100x" amid AGI hype.

  • President trump repeals Biden’s AI executive order on first day in office.

  • VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.

⏱️ Read Time: 5 minutes

DAILY PICKS

🗞️ What else is brewing

FUNDING RADAR

🌟 RestauRent is Revolutionizing Private Events

Private event bookings just got a major upgrade - RestauRent, the platform streamlining the process of finding and booking event spaces, has raised $3.4M in pre-seed funding to power its coast-to-coast expansion. With over 1,100 venues listed and $10M+ private events processed, they’re simplifying everything from family gatherings to corporate parties.

Founded by Nick Cianfaglione and supported by a stellar team, RestauRent addresses a massive market need: over 400M private events annually in the U.S. Their intuitive platform connects venues with event planners, offering search filters for location, capacity, and amenities.

📈 Backed by investors like Rogue Ventures, PS27 Ventures, and Collide Capital, RestauRent is poised to lead in a booming market projected to hit $14.1B by 2028.

Want to see how they’re transforming private event planning?

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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup funding updates

Instabase, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an applied artificial intelligence (AI) solution for unstructured data, raised $100M in Series D funding. The round was led by QIA, with participation from existing investors Greylock Partners, NEA, Andreessen Horowitz, and Index Ventures.

Fundment, a London, UK-based provider of a tech platform for financial advisers, raised £45M in funding. The round was led by Highland Europe, with participation from ETFS Capital.

Leap, a NYC-based provider of a platform for physical retail, raised $20M in funding. Backers included Tribeca Venture Partners and DNX Ventures.

Karmen, a Paris-based provider of instant financing solutions for SMEs, raised €9M in equity-and-debt financing. The round was led by Seventure Partners, with participation from Financière Arbevel and Bpifrance. This funding will enhance its AI-driven risk assessment tools and support its embedded financing strategy, which aims to represent 75% of new clients by 2025.

alteva, a Cologne, Germany-based battery startup, raised €1.7M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by HTGF with participation from UnternehmerTUM Funding for Innovators, NRW.BANK and angel investors.

Audavis, a Munich, Germany-based provider of a scalable cloud application to access data from ERP and accounting systems, raised over €1.1M in Seed funding. The round was led by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) with participation from Martin Ostermayer, and private investors from the BayStartUP investor network.

IntusCare, a Providence, RI-based provider of predictive analytics solutions for geriatric care, raised $11.5M in follow-on financing. The round, which brought the total amount to over $27M, was led by Deerfield Management, with participation from Citi Impact Fund, Jumpstart Nova, and other existing investors.

Umoja Biopharma, a Seattle, WA-based clinical-stage company which specializes in vivo cell therapies, raised $100M Series C financing. The round was led by Double Point Ventures and DCVC Bio, with participation from new and existing investors including ARK Invest, Cormorant Asset Management, MPM Capital, Qiming Venture Partners USA, RTW Investments, Alexandria Venture Investments, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, CaaS Capital, Emerson Collective Investments managed by Yosemite, K2 HealthVentures, Myeloma Investment Fund, University of Minnesota Endowment, and other prominent life science investors.

Ecoplanet, a Munich, Germany-based energy orchestration layer for businesses, raised €16M in Series A funding. The round was led by EQT Ventures, with support from HV Capital.

NEWSLETTER WORTH TO CHECK

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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital updates

Here are the types of AI companies enterprise VCs want to back in 2025: VCs predict enterprise-focused AI startups will dominate in 2025, with interest in application-specific solutions, agentic automation, and GenAI for reducing business friction. Mark Rostick (Intel Capital) and Mike Hayes (Insight Partners) emphasize the need for tangible impact and reimagined workflows. Reliability, resilience, and AI infrastructure, including pricing frameworks for AI agents, also remain hot investment areas, as noted by Jason Mendel (Battery Ventures) and Janelle Teng (Bessemer Venture Partners).

KEY STORIES IN TECH

📜 Latest in tech

OpenAI’s operator tool launching soon with autonomous PC control:

  • OpenAI’s rumored Operator tool, capable of autonomously handling tasks like coding and booking travel, may launch this month, according to leaked code and website references.

  • Leaked benchmarks show Operator performing well on web navigation tasks but struggling with basic tasks like launching virtual machines, with success rates as low as 10%.

  • Rivals like Anthropic and Google are also entering the AI agent space, raising concerns about safety, as OpenAI faces scrutiny for balancing rapid development with security testing.

DeepSeek claims its ‘reasoning’ model beats OpenAI’s o1 on certain benchmarks:

  • Chinese AI lab DeepSeek released DeepSeek-R1, an open-source reasoning model with 671 billion parameters, claiming it rivals OpenAI’s o1 on key benchmarks like AIME and MATH-500.

  • R1 offers distilled versions for smaller devices and is accessible via DeepSeek’s API at costs 90%-95% lower than OpenAI’s rates, but it’s subject to Chinese regulations restricting politically sensitive topics.

  • The launch comes as U.S.-China AI competition intensifies, with the U.S. proposing tighter export restrictions and OpenAI highlighting the rapid advances of Chinese AI labs as a growing concern.

X and Bluesky introduce vertical video feeds:

  • Bluesky and X have introduced new features that allow users to discover and watch vertical videos more easily, responding to TikTok's uncertain future in the US market.

  • Bluesky launched customizable video feeds that enable users to swipe through videos and create feeds based on specific hashtags, providing a personalized video-watching experience.

  • X has rolled out a "Video Tab" in the US, allowing users to explore a personalized feed of recommended videos across various categories like sports, entertainment, and news.

OpenAI CEO Altman tells followers to "chill and cut expectations 100x" amid AGI hype:

  • OpenAI CEO Sam Altman dismissed rumors of imminent AGI deployment, urging people to temper expectations, saying, "We have some very cool stuff, but cut your expectations 100x!"

  • OpenAI reasoning expert Noam Brown echoed Altman’s caution, highlighting ongoing research challenges and emphasizing that superintelligence remains far from reality.

  • Brown's recent work focuses on scaling AI "thinking time" rather than training size, as seen in OpenAI's o1 model, which applies advanced reasoning concepts to improve AI capabilities.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕Other news

President trump repeals Biden’s AI executive order on first day in office:

  • President Trump revoked Biden’s 2023 AI executive order, which aimed to mitigate risks like bias and safety flaws in AI systems.

  • The order required AI developers to share safety test results with the government, a move critics argued threatened trade secrets and innovation.

  • Trump promised to replace it with policies supporting free speech and innovation in AI, though specifics of his approach remain unclear.

HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES

💼 Today’s VC & startup job opportunities

  • AI Engineer - Learnn | USA - Apply Here

  • Product Designer - Typeface AI | USA - Apply Here

  • Investor Relations Analyst - Velocity Venture | Singapore - Apply Here

  • Investment Principal - Quantum Light | UK - Apply Here

  • Associate - Omerse Venture | USA - Apply Here

  • Artificial Intelligence Engineer Intern - Baz AI | USA - Apply Here

  • Investment Associate - Elevation Capital | USA - Apply Here

  • Marketing Intern - Connecticut Innovation | USA - Apply Here

  • Managing Director - Generator | USA - Apply Here

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CURATED RESOURCES

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