OpenAI to Open Offices in Singapore, Paris & US Government considers Breakup of Google

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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

OpenAI announced plans to open new offices in several cities worldwide, including NYC, Seattle, Paris, Brussels, and Singapore, as part of its global expansion efforts.

The company is starting with Singapore, which will serve as a hub for the Asia Pacific region, with plans to open the office by the end of the year.

Judge Amit Mehta has identified Google as a monopolist, prompting Department of Justice attorneys to explore remedies to combat the company's illegal conduct and rejuvenate competition in the search engine industry. The proposed solutions span a range of enforcement strategies, from regulatory oversight ensuring fair practices to potential divestitures of key business divisions like Chrome, Android, or Google Play. Addressing Google's market dominance in search distribution is a priority, with the DOJ considering compulsory educational campaigns to encourage consumers to select search engines according to their preferences, counteracting Google's financial grip on default settings in devices.

Other Major News

• OpenAI's financial outlook indicates potential annual losses could reach $14 billion by 2026. (Scroll To Tech Updates)

• X changes creator payouts to depend on engagement, not ads (Scroll To Tech Updates)

• US charges 3 companies, 15 people with $25 Million cryptocurrency fraud (Scroll To Startups & People Updates)

• Google DeepMind researchers win Nobel Prize in chemistry (Scroll To Startups & People Updates)

• Venture Daily Digest Picks on Startups, Venture Capital, Funding & AI.

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

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🗞️ Startup Funding Updates

OpenGradient, a NYC-based decentralized AI infrastructure company, raised $8.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator (a16z CSX), SV Angel, Coinbase Ventures, SALT Fund, Symbolic Capital, Foresight Ventures, and angel investors, including Balaji Srinivasan (ex-Coinbase CTO), Illia Polosukhin(NEAR Founder), Sandeep Nailwal (Polygon Founder), and more.

Qantev, a Paris-based startup, provides AI-powered software to help health and life insurance providers manage claims more efficiently. Founded by Tarik Dadi and Hadrien de March, the company has raised a €30 million Series B round led by Blossom Capital, with participation from previous investors Elaia, Omnes, and Raise Ventures. This brings Qantev's total funding to €41.7 million, following earlier seed and Series A rounds.

MeWe, a Los Angeles, CA-based provider of a privacy-first social media network, raised initial $6M in Series B funding. The round was led by McCourt Global.

Cyrisma, a Rochester, NY-based risk management platform, raised $7m in Series A financing. The round was led by Blueprint Equity, with participation from SaaS Venture and Golden Ventures.

Vultron, a San Francisco, CA-based AI-powered proposal development solution for the public sector, raised $4.85m in seed funding. The round was led by Craft Ventures and Long Journey Ventures, with participation from South Park Commons, Conviction Embed, and angel investors including Gokul Rajaram, Josh Buckley, Lenny Rachitsky, and others.

LEVY Health, the platform to help women's health providers personalize reproductive care, has raised a $4.5 million seed round led by XYZ Venture Capital, with participation from Atlantic Labs and Possible Ventures.

Drawer AI, an Austin, TX-based AI-powered estimating system, closed a $5M Seed funding round. The round was led by Brick & Mortar Ventures with participation from Base 10 Partners.

Holobiome, a Boston, MA-based biotechnology company generating products that can improve health through multiple marketplaces, raised an undisclosed amount in Seed funding. The round was led by iSelect Fund, with participation from Corundum Systems Biology, Satori Neuro, SkyRiver Ventures, Pace Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, and Astanor.

Molg, a Sterling, VA-based robotic microfactory company, raised $5.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Closed Loop Partners’ Ventures Group, with participation from Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, ABB Robotics & Automation Ventures, Overture, Elemental Impact and Techstars.

Zap Energy, an Everett, WA-based provider of Century, a liquid-metal-cooled fusion test platform, raised $130M in Series D funding. The round was led by Soros Fund Management, with participation from new investors BAM Elevate, Emerson Collective, Leitmotif, Mizuho Financial Group, Plynth Energy and Xplor Ventures.

Surfin, a Singapore-based provider of a financial technology platform, raised US$12.5M in funding. The round was led by Insignia Ventures Partners.

Amprion, a San Diego, CA-based developer of diagnoses of neurodegenerative disorders, announced an initial $6M closed of a $15M in Series B funding. The round was led by Formation Venture Engineering (FVE) with participation by Eli Lilly and Company and its Series A investors.

ShiraTronics, a Minneapolis, MN-based clinical-stage medical device company, raised $66M in Series B funding. The round was led by Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from additional new investors Seroba., OSF Ventures, the Global BioAccess Fund and an undisclosed strategic investor.

clock.bio, a Cambridge, UK-based healthspan biotech company, raised $5.3M in Seed funding. The round was led by LocalGlobe, with participation from BlueYard Capital, Onsight Ventures, and Dr. Jonathan Milner, the Founder of Abcam.

Arda Therapeutics, a San Francisco, CA-based company which specializes in targeted cell depletion therapies for chronic diseases, raised $43M in Series A funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z Bio + Health), with participation from Two Sigma Ventures, RV Invest, Eli Lilly and Company, GV, Biovision Ventures, Valhalla Ventures, Indicator Ventures, Alumni Ventures, LifeLink Ventures, Mana Ventures, Gaingels and ExitFund.

Prime Security, a NYC-based company ensuring organizations have the tools to implement security at the design phase, raised $6M in Seed funding. The round was led by Foundation Capital with participation from Flybridge Capital Partners and prominent angel investors including Sam Gutmann, co-founder & CEO, Own Company, Adrian Kunzle, CTO, Own Company (ex. CTO JPM); Assaf Keren, CSO, Qualtrics (ex. CISO PayPal); Dimitri Sirota, co-founder & CEO, Bigid, Michael Callahan, Board Member, Datadog and Omer Schneider, co-founder & CEO of CyberX (acq. by Microsoft).

Basecamp Research, a London, UK-based AI company dedicated to solving challenges in the life sciences by exploring beyond known biology, raised $60M in Series B funding. The round was led by Singular, with additional investors including S32, redalpine, André Hoffmann, Vice-Chairman of Roche, Feike Sijbesma, Chair of Royal Philips and Former CEO of DSM, and Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever.

Alpha Fusion, an Osaka, Japan-based company bringing bringing “Targeted Alpha Therapy (TAT) using Astatine (At-211)” to cancer patients worldwide, raised ¥1.02 Billion in Series B funding. The round was led by SBI Investment Co., Ltd. and OSAKA University Venture Capital, with participation from new investors.

Airloom, a Laramie, WY-based renewable energy company specializing in wind power, raised $13.75M in Seed funding. The round was led by Lowercarbon Capital with participation from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, WYVC, Crosscut Ventures, WovenEarth Ventures, Adiuvans, and the Kutnick Family Office.

Apro Oracle, a Road Town, British Virgin Island-based provider of decentralized oracle services for the Bitcoin ecosystem, raised $3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Polychain Capital, Franklin Templeton, and ABCDE Capital with participation from CMS Holdings, Comma3 Ventures, UTXO Ventures, Oak Grove Ventures, Presto Labs, and others.

RedTrack, a Vilnius, Lithuania-based provider of an AI-driven analytics and automation platform for media buyers, raised $3.2M in Series A funding. The round was led by LeadVentures with participation from InstaVC, IronWolfCapital, and angel investor Balazs Gandera.

Truthset, a San Francisco, CA-based data validation-as-a-service offering company, raised $5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Data Point Capital with participation from other investors.

Unify, a San Francisco, CA-based go-to-market technology platform enabling companies and teams to drive more meaningful customer interactions, raised $19M in Series A and Seed financing. The Series A financing was led by existing investors Emergence Capital and Thrive Capital, with participation from OpenAI Startup Fund, Neo, Abstract, 20Sales, and Altcap.

Purespring Therapeutics, a London, UK-based gene therapy company focused on enhancing the treatment of kidney diseases, raised $105M in Series B funding. The round was led by Sofinnova Partners, in collaboration with a syndicate including Gilde Healthcare, Forbion, British Patient Capital and founding investor Syncona Limited.

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📰 Venture Capital Updates

Initialized Capital laid off 36% of its staff, including managing partner Jennifer Wolf and partner Jenny Fleiss, as part of a restructuring to streamline operations. Despite the cuts, the firm promoted three principals to partners. Initialized aims to return to a leaner, more agile approach amid shifting market conditions.

📑 Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Going Public

HR Path, a Paris, France-based global leader in HR consulting, acquired IN-RGY, a Montreal, Canada-based HR consulting firm specializing in HR digital transformation.

Cloudflare (NYSE: NET), a San Francisco, CA-based connectivity cloud company, acquired Kivera, a NYC-based provider of a cloud security, data protection, and compliance platform.

Layoffs & Bankruptcy

Kaspersky, the Russian cybersecurity firm, is closing its U.K. office and laying off fewer than 50 employees, following similar closures in the U.S. earlier this year. The company will shift its U.K. business to a partner-based model while continuing to face scrutiny over its alleged ties to the Russian government.

Startups & People

Federal prosecutors in Boston have charged three cryptocurrency companies (Gotbit, ZM Quant, CLS Global) and 15 individuals with widespread fraud and market manipulation, following an FBI investigation that involved creating a new digital token to uncover criminal activity. The charges have led to four arrests, five plea agreements, and the seizure of over $25 million in cryptocurrency. The defendants are accused of engaging in sham trades to artificially inflate trading volumes of various cryptocurrency tokens before selling them off, leaving innocent investors at a loss.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three scientists, including two Google DeepMind researchers, for breakthroughs in protein structures, celebrated as "chemical tools of life" by the Nobel Committee. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, honored for their AlphaFold2 AI model, achieved groundbreaking advancements by predicting nearly all identified human protein structures, which previously took years to discover. The third recipient, David Baker, was recognized for his pioneering computational protein design that led to the creation of novel proteins for use in medicine and technology over the past twenty years.

🤖 Latest In Tech

OpenAI's financial outlook indicates potential annual losses could reach $14 billion by 2026, nearly tripling from this year's expected figures. Cumulatively, losses from 2023 to 2028 are projected at $44 billion, with operational costs, particularly for model training, expected to hit $9.5 billion annually by 2026. Despite these challenges, revenue is anticipated to soar to $100 billion by 2029.

Star Health and Allied Insurance, a major Indian health insurer covering 170 million individuals, confirmed a "malicious cyberattack" that resulted in unauthorized data access. The announcement comes two weeks after hackers claimed to leak data of 31 million policyholders and 5.8 million insurance claims through Telegram chatbots.

X (formerly Twitter) is changing its creator payment policy to be based on engagement from Premium users rather than ad revenue, potentially encouraging more controversial or debate-sparking content. The move comes as X continues to lose advertisers and faces boycotts, with the company now suing a group over their ad boycott.

Attorneys general from 14 states have filed lawsuits against TikTok, accusing the platform of causing mental health issues in children and misleading the public regarding the safety of its social media service. The lawsuits claim TikTok uses addictive features to extend children's engagement, such as autoplay videos and temporary stories, which violate various state laws and the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by allegedly profiting from data of minors under 13. TikTok disputes these allegations, asserting its commitment to improving user safety, while simultaneously dealing with broader challenges such as the threat of a U.S. ban if it fails to separate from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

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• The Venture Capital Landscape is Changing (Link)

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• How the young VC quietly built Thrive Capital into the powerhouse leading $5 Billion OpenAI round. (Link)

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