Pixar Layoff 8000 Employees & Fearless Fund In Legal Battle Again

🗞️ TODAY’S MAJOR UPDATES

• Edward Blum, is using the 1981 section to target the Fearless Fund, a venture capital fund supporting women of color-owned businesses.

• Pixar planning to layoff as Disney looking to cut cost $7.6 Billions.

• Hashkey, Hong Kong-based crypto exchange has now hit so-called “unicorn” status after raising nearly $100 million

• Featured Article : How Startups Like Reddit Raised Funding With Just an Idea, Without Writing A Line Of Code?

• What Do You Think: Effective method to evaluate financial performance of early stage startup?

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💰 MASSIVE FUNDING UPDATES

Hashkey, Hong Kong-based crypto exchange has now hit so-called “unicorn” status after raising nearly $100 million in a Series A funding round at a pre-money valuation of over $1.2 billion from leading web 3.0 investors. More Here

Carmoola, a London, UK-based fintech company which specializes in direct-to-consumer car finance, raised $15.5M in Equity funding. The round, which brought the total amount to £146M, was led by QED Investors, VentureFriends, InMotion Ventures, AlleyCorp, and u.ventures. More Here

Detected, a London, UK- and NYC-based business onboarding tech company, raised $2.5M in funding. The round saw participation from Thomson Reuters Ventures, Love Ventures, existing investors and angels. More Here

Zeotap, a Berlin, Germany-based enterprise customer data solutions provider, received an investment from Jens Schulte-Bockum, former CEO of Vodafone Germany. More Here

Fullcast, a Redmond, WA-based RevOps software platform, raised $34M in Seed funding. The round was led by Epic Ventures, with participation from Companyon Ventures in Boston, Firsthand Alliance in New York City, and True Blue Partners and Sepio Capital in the Bay Area. More Here

Grip Invest, a Delhi, India-based provider of a D2C, investor-first, SEBI regulated, digital investment platform, raised $10m in Series B funding. Backers included Stride Ventures, LC Nueva, Multiply Ventures and existing investors like Venture Highway, Anicut Capital and AdvantEdge. More Here

Spot Technologies, an El Salvador-based artificial intelligence startup, raised $2 million in funding. An investor group including Femsa Ventures, Bridge Latam, Daedalus, Kuiper and Casque participated in the round. More Here

Renzo, a new DeFi Liquid Restaking Protocol, that is live on EigenLayer's Mainnet, allowing users to restake their ETH and bypass Eigenlayer Liquid Staking Tokens (LST) caps has raised undisclosed amount from OKX Ventures. More Here

💰 VENTURE CAPITAL UPDATES

Opponents of workplace diversity programs are leveraging Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to challenge equity policies and funding for minority-owned businesses. The American Alliance for Equal Rights, led by conservative activist Edward Blum, is using the 1981 section to target the Fearless Fund, a venture capital fund supporting women of color-owned businesses. This legal strategy, seen as a coordinated effort, aims to challenge affirmative action in the workplace, with potential impacts on diversity programs and criteria for fellowship programs at companies. More Here

𝕏 FEATURED: TODAY’S FEATURED ARTICLE

How Startups Like Reddit Raised Funding With Just an Idea, Without Writing A Line Of Code?

If you are raising funding, you should know the ropes and how to speak the investor's language. Investors always think about startup ideas in three parts -

• Problem: It’s the setting for a particular company that allows it to be able to grow quickly.

• Solution: The experiment that the founder is running within those conditions for it to grow quickly….

• Insight: Why the thing that founders trying to experiment is going to end up successful?….Read More Here

💡 SARTUP’S LATEST BUZZ

Acquisition

Mytraffic, a London, UK-based provider of location intelligence and traffic analytics solutions, acquired Geoblink, a Madrid, Spain-based provider of a geospatial intelligence platform. More Here

Clever Real Estate, a St. Louis, MO-based real estate education and technology company, acquired Gravy Technologies, a St. Charles, MO-based startup that has built loyalty rewards platform for first-time home buyers. More Here

Layoffs & Shutdown

Pixar is gearing up for a round of 2024 layoffs, and planning to layoff 8000 employees to cut the cost of parent's company, Disney by $7.5Billion. More Here

Gearbox owned Lost Boys Interactive have reportedly been hit by "sizable" layoffs claimed over 900 jobs. More Here

Apple has reportedly told 121 employees in San Diego to relocate to Austin or face being laid off. More Here

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) reportedly laid off 100 contractors last week and implemented a hiring freeze as it braces for the new federal budget in 2024. More Here

People

Zeal Capital Partners has a new leader. The Washington, D.C.-based venture capital firm recently announced that Stefanie Thomas has been appointed as its Managing Director. She comes with more than a decade of venture deal-making and leadership experience. More Here

🤖 LATEST IN EMERGING TECH

Microsoft introduces Copilot Pro at $20/month for consumer AI-powered content generation in Microsoft 365 apps. Enterprise Copilot now available without a user minimum. Free Copilot GPTs, mobile app, and language expansions aim to enhance AI features and revenue growth. More Here

Elon Musk's Tesla Optimus humanoid robot is showcased folding a t-shirt, but Musk clarifies it's not autonomous yet. He admits the current demonstration involves scripted and pre-programmed actions, emphasizing that true autonomy is the end goal. Musk's three to five-year prediction for full autonomy is deemed optimistic given the current limitations and challenges in robotics. More Here

📰 TODAY’S MUST READ ON: STARTUP, TECH & VC

• TAM - that's Totally A Made Up Number. Why? Read More (Startups)

• 'Find The Problem And Users You Can Fight For The Next 10 Years.' YC Partner. Read More (Startups)

• What Every Early-Stage Founder Should Know About Valuations? Read More (Startups & Venture Capital)

• 8 Signs Your Startup Is a Zombie and 3 Things to Do About It Read More (Startups)

🤔 WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Yesterday’s Poll:

70% readers think that “Long term strategic guidance” could be most crucial factors for founder when choosing investors. I totally agree with this.

📬 Newsletter That You Might Be Interested

• Transacted: Get the latest trends and transactions with the Street’s most informative M&A update.

• Early Bird Stock Market News: Get daily stock market news updates direct to your inbox.

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

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✍️Written By Sahil R | Venture Crew Team