Perplexity AI Raising $250 Millions & Fisker's 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 -

• Perplexity, the San Francisco-based AI search engine startup, is raising at least $250 million more at a valuation between $2.5 billion and $3 billion.

• Fisker, an electric vehicle startup, is on the brink of bankruptcy due to financial troubles layoffs more employees.

• The Senate passed a bill tied to foreign aid, requiring TikTok's sale within a year if not complied.

• Featured Article : The Venture Capitalist's Death Trap: Follow-on Investments.

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STARTUP FUNDING UPDATES

Perplexity, the San Francisco-based AI search engine startup, is a hot commodity right now as it raises at least $250 million more at a valuation between $2.5 billion and $3 billion. This latest mega-round comes just months after the company raised nearly $74 million at a $540 million valuation in January and another $63 million at a $1 billion valuation in early March. More Here

Parloa, Berlin based a conversational AI startup aims to provides a platform that leverages AI to automate customer service communications, including voice calls, emails, and instant messaging. It has raised $66 million in a Series B funding round led by Altimeter Capital, a prominent U.S. venture capital firm. The round also saw participation from investors like EQT Ventures, Newion, Senovo, Mosaic Ventures, and La Familia Growth. More Here

Campus, based in Sacramento, is an online alternative to traditional community colleges that hires top university professors and provides affordable education with laptops and tutors. It recently raised $23 million in a Series A extension round led by Founders Fund, with 8VC participating, in addition to $29 million previously raised from investors like Sam Altman and Discord founder Jason Citron. More Here

neurocare, a Munich, Germany-based personalized mental health care company, raised EUR 16M in funding. TVM Capital Healthcare made the investment. More Here

PeppercornAI, a Greater Cardiff Area, Wales, UK-based insurtech company that uses conversational AI, raised £3.25M in funding. Backers included Wealth Club, EHE Capital and Angels Invest Wales. More Here

Texture, based in San Francisco, is building a data collection and sharing platform for renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and batteries. It recently raised a $7.5 million seed round from investors including Abstract Ventures, Day One Ventures, Equal Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, and angel investors like Kiran Bhatraju. More Here

Bioform Technologies, a Canadian materials science startup, raised US$5M in funding. Suzano Ventures made the investment. More Here

MARKT-PILOT, an Esslingen, Germany-based market-oriented spare parts pricing company, raised $43M in Series A funding. The round was led by Insight Partners with participation from existing investor Capnamic. More Here

Easel is a new startup founded by former Snap employees that allows users to create personalized AI-generated stickers of themselves and friends for iMessage conversations. It has raised $2.65 million in funding from investors like Unusual Ventures, f7 Ventures, and Corazon Capital. More Here

Culminate Foods, a Berlin, and Hannover, Germany-based cellular agriculture company, raised €2.3M in funding. The round was led by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF). Life Science ValleyWachstumsfonds, b.value AG, Kale United, and Big Idea Ventures also participated. More Here

Summer Health, a NYC-based digital health company offering 24/7 pediatric support to parents, raised $11.65M in Series A Funding. The round was co-led by new investor 7wire Ventures and returning investor Lux Capital. More Here

401GO, a Sandy, UT-based retirement plan provider for employers, raised $12M in Series A funding. The round was led by Next Frontier Capital. Additional investors included Rally Ventures, Impression Ventures, and Stout Street Capital. More Here

Prime intellect, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an open and decentralized AI platform and protocol enabling access to computing and intelligence, raised $5.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Distributed Global and CoinFund. More Here

Prophet Security, a Palo Alto, Ca-based company that works for security operations by automating the triage, investigation and response process for alerts, raised $11M in Seed funding. The round was led by Bain Capital Ventures (BCV) with participation from several security leaders and angel investors. More Here

Bump, a Los Angeles, CA-based provider of a wealthtech and financing platform for creators, raised $3M in Seed funding. Backers included Impact X Capital, Capitalize VC, Serac Ventures, Tristan Walker’s Heirloom Ventures, Plug and Play, Symphonic Capital, Gaingels, Mana Ventures and existing investors Snap Inc, H/L Ventures, Connetic Ventures and Sixty8 Capital. More Here

Outpost, an Austin, TX-based provider of a network of managed semi-truck parking facilities, raised $12.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by GreenPoint Partners with support from Speedwagon Capital Partners. More Here

Casa Shares, a Rexburg, ID-based provider of a SEC qualified real estate investing platform, raised $1.5M in Pre-Seed funding, at a $10M valuation. The round was led by a group of private investors. More Here

Sustain Exchange, LLC, a NYC-based startup focused on creating positive change in transactions while aligning with the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), closed a $2m seed funding round. Jeff Hallstead led the round. More Here

CN Bio, a Cambridge, UK-based provider of single- and multi-organ microphysiological systems, raised $21M in first close of its Series B funding. The funding has been secured from several new investors including $10 million from Bayland Capital, and $5.5m from founding shareholder CN Innovations Holdings Ltd. More Here

HighByte, a Portland, ME-based industrial software company, raised $12M in Series A funding. The round was led by Standard Investments, with participation from existing HighByte investors, including Exposition Ventures, Maine Venture Fund, and others. Ben Sampson, Managing Director of Standard Investments, will join the HighByte Board of Directors. More Here

Chunguza Travel, a Kampala, Uganda-based provider of a self-service online travel reservation platform, raised $200K in Seed funding from undisclosed investors. More Here

Aquabattery, an Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands-based climate tech startup developing a saltwater long duration energy storage (LDES) solution, raised €6M in Seed funding. The round was led by EIT InnoEnergy and supported by InnovationQuarter, Invest-NL, Init Power, and a group of business angels. More Here

The Sterling Group, a Houston, TX-based operationally focused, industrial middle market private equity firm, raised its $3.5 Billion for its sixth private equity fund. LPs include returning and new investors from United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Fund VI will primarily target corporate carve-outs and family businesses in the industrial sector. More Here

Zefir, a Paris, France-based proptech startup, raised €11m in funding. Backers included Zigg Capital, Sequoia Capital, Heartcore, Stride and Third Kind. More Here

Brise Pharmaceuticals Co., LTD., a Shanghai, China-based company specializing in innovative treatments for acute and chronic pain, recently completed Pre-A and Pre-A+ financing with a total of approximately $20m. This Pre-A round was led by Shunxi Fund, followed by Cnfuel Capital, Vinner Therapeutics and existing investors such as Qiming Venture Partners and BioTrack Capital. The Pre-A+ round was exclusively invested by Sherpa Healthcare Partners. More Here

Red Arrow Therapeutics Inc., a Boston, MA-based developer of pH-sensing nanomedicine drug delivery technologies, closed a $4.5M Seed Extension round led by Beyond Next Ventures Inc., The University of Tokyo, Edge Capital Partners Co., Ltd., Keio Innovation Initiative, Inc. OSAKA & University Venture Capital Co., Ltd. More Here

Nominal, a Los Angeles, CA-based company specializing in creating end-to-end data analysis solutions for industrial engineering teams, raised $7.5M in Seed and $20M in Series A funding rounds. The Seed round was led by Lux Capital with participation from Founders Fund and the Series A was led by General Catalyst. More Here

Givebutter, an Austin, TX-based provider go a nonprofit fundraising and CRM platform, raised $50M in funding. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners’ BVP Forge, with participation from existing investor Ardent Venture Partners. More Here

FlexAI, a Paris-based startup, has raised a hefty €28.5 million ($30 million) in seed funding to provide an on-demand cloud service that aims to simplify compute infrastructure for developers building and training AI applications. The funding round was led by Alpha Intelligence Capital (AIC), Elaia Partners, and Heartcore Capital, with participation from First Capital, Motier Ventures, Partech, and InstaDeep CEO Karim Beguir. More Here

VENTURE CAPITAL UPDATES

Crosslink Capital, Inc., a Menlo Park, Ca-based early-stage venture capital investing firm, closed its tenth flagship venture capital fund, Crosslink Ventures X, at $350M. The firm is dedicated to investing in early-stage founders from inception, which includes pre-seed and seed, through Series A, and supporting them at every stage of their growth. More Here

Strattam Capital, an Austin, TX-based private equity firm, closed its third flagship fund, Strattam Capital Investment Fund III, at $308M. The firm has maintained its strategy of investing in independent, founder-led technology companies with equity investments ranging from $20M to $60M. More Here

Madica, an investment program launched by US-based investor Flourish Ventures, plans to ramp up its funding efforts in Africa's pre-seed startup ecosystem. The program provides $200,000 in upfront investment along with tailored support and mentorship to selected startups, with a focus on backing underrepresented and underfunded founders across diverse sectors and markets in Africa. More Here

FEATURED ARTICLE

The Venture Capitalist's Death Trap: Follow-on Investments

“Contrary to what one might think, the biggest problem for VCs isn’t making an investment in a company that fails.

All VCs invest in lots of companies that don’t work out. It’s a known risk and the main one everyone thinks about. But this is not typically where VCs really get into trouble. The much bigger trap is around follow-on investment decisions.

Here’s why:

Typically, a VC fund will invest in something like 20 – 40 companies in a fund. Some investors do a lot more, few do much less. Also, most funds reserve some capital for follow-one. Most VCs invest at least 2X as much money for follow-ons as they do for initial investment dollars.

Some investors reserve much more. So, this means that a typical investor might be putting 1-2% of the fund at risk in any one investment after the first check. Here’s the math: Read More Here

STARTUP’S LATEST BUZZ

ACQUISITION & EXITS

Fundid, a startup offering business finance resources and a credit card, shut down due to rising interest rates making its lending model unviable. Founder Stefanie Sample has now launched Pailor Capital to help women acquire existing profitable businesses instead of pursuing the venture capital path. More Here

Thunes, a Singapore-based global cross-border payments company, acquired Tilia LLC, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a payments platform. More Here

Betterment, a NYC-based independent digital investment advisor in the United States, announced that it has reached an agreement with Goldman Sachs to acquire Marcus Invest’s digital investing accounts. More Here

Planoly, an Austin, TX-based social media management platform for creators and small businesses, acquired Snipfeed, a provider of a monetization tool for social media. More Here

LAYOFFS & BANKRUPTCY

Fisker, an electric vehicle startup, is on the brink of bankruptcy due to financial troubles, production issues with its Fisker Ocean SUV, and ongoing federal investigations. The company is planning more layoffs and downsizing its operations as it scrambles to raise funds to stay afloat and avoid seeking bankruptcy protection within the next 30 days. More Here

STARTUPS & PEOPLE

The Senate passed a bill tied to foreign aid, requiring TikTok's sale within a year if not complied. President Biden intends to sign it. TikTok plans legal action, arguing it's unfair. Despite concerns, Biden's past TikTok use contrasts Trump's stance. More Here

The New York Times explores what it is about Silicon Valley that made Sun cofounder and early Google investor Andy Bechtolsheim engage in insider trading despite being worth billions. And he recently settled charges that he engaged in insider trading for a profit of $415,726. More Here

Former Meta executive Jason Taylor is joining Microsoft's AI supercomputing team as corporate vice president and deputy CTO to help build systems that will advance AI capabilities. More Here

Jeff Yass's Susquehanna International Group, a major investor in ByteDance, faces risks as Congress considers banning TikTok due to national security concerns. Yass, a top Republican donor, has seen his fortune tied to geopolitical tensions between the US and China. His investments in Chinese startups, including ByteDance, could suffer repercussions amid growing scrutiny. Despite Yass's political influence, the fate of TikTok remains uncertain, potentially impacting his wealth significantly. More Here

LATEST IN EMERGING TECH

Marc Tessier-Lavigne, the former president of Stanford University who resigned last year after questions arose about his scientific research, has a new job as CEO of a drug development startup and it just launched with $1 billion in capital commitments from Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, among others. More Here

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

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