Ramp's $150 Million Funding Round & Tesla Seeks Shareholder Approval for $56B Pay Package For Musk.

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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 -

• Ramp, a spend management startup, has raised $150 million at a post-money valuation of $7.65 billion led by new investor Khosla Ventures.

• Tesla is asking its shareholders to approve a jaw-dropping $56 billion pay package for its CEO, Elon Musk.

• Popular YouTuber Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) faced backlash after his scathing review of Humane AI's $699 Ai Pin product.

• Boston Dynamics has announced the "All New Atlas," an electric version of its humanoid robot.

• Featured Article : A Simple Startup Pitch Framework: The Rules of a Good Pitch.

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STARTUP FUNDING UPDATES

Ramp, a spend management startup, has raised an additional $150 million at a post-money valuation of $7.65 billion. The raise was led by new investor Khosla Ventures and existing backer Founders Fund, and the company plans to use the funds for innovation and acquisitions. More Here

Merlin Chain, a Singapore-based company providing a Bitcoin Layer 2 solution, raised an undisclosed amount in funding. The round was led by Spartan Group and Hailstone Labs with participation from Amber Group, Presto Labs, and IOBC Ventures. More Here

Dark, Paris-based startup is developing Interceptor, a mobile platform to address space debris and conflicts in orbit. Dark has raised $11 million, including a $6 million extension with participation from new U.S. investor Long Journey Ventures. More Here

Diagon, a startup founded by a former Tesla supply chain manager, is developing a platform to help manufacturers procure specialized equipment needed for emerging industries like electric vehicle and battery production. It has raised $5.1 million in seed funding led by The Westly Group, with participation from other investors including Valia Ventures, Techstars, Foster Ventures, Foxe Capital, Anthemis and ReFashiond Ventures. More Here

YieldNest, a Singapore-based company providing a liquid restaking protocol, raised $5.2M in funding. Backers included Faculty Group, Backed VC, Michael Egorov, Loi Luu, Proof Capital, LVT Capital, Contango, Mozaik Capital, Kahuna, Rana Capital, Insignius Capital, CKC, and angel investors. More Here

Breaking, a Boston, MA- and Dallas, TX-based plastic degradation and synthetic biology company, raised $10.5M in Seed funding. More Here

Wagestream, a London, UK-based provider of a financial benefits platform, raised further £17.5M in funding. Backers included British Patient Capital, Lombard Odier Investment Managers, and existing investor Northzone. More Here

Veesual, a Paris, France-based provider of a virtual try-on platform for the fashion industry, raised $7.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by AVP (AXA Venture Partners) and Techstars. More Here

Theolytics, an Oxford, UK-based biotechnology company developing oncolytic viral therapies, raised £19M in funding. Backers included Sound Bioventures, which joined M Ventures, Taiho Ventures, Epidarex Capital, Oxford Science Enterprises and the University of Oxford. More Here

Found Energy, a Boston, MA-based cleantech startup building industrial decarbonization solutions, raised $12M in Seed funding. Backers included KOMPAS VC, Munich Re Ventures, Good Growth Capital, the Autodesk Foundation, J-Impact, GiTV, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), and Glenfield Partners LTD. More Here

HealthSage, an Amsterdam, the Netherlands-based company which specializes in healthcare delivery and patient pathways with generative AI, raised €3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Peak, with co-investments from Healthy Capital, Rubio Impact Ventures and serial health tech entrepreneurs Jaap Maljers and Jeroen Tas. More Here

Vorlon, a Palo Alto, CA-based provider of a platform for comprehensive third-party API security, raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $15.7M, was led by Accel, with aprticipation from Shield Capital, Slavik Markovich, Rishi Bhargav. More Here

Ilant Health, a NYC-based provider of obesity management and cardiometabolic health solutions, raised additional $3M in funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $5.5M, saw participation from LifeX Ventures, Celtic House Asia Partners, and Cornucopian Capital, as well as existing investors. More Here

NeuBird, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a cloud-based generative operations platform for enterprises, raised $22M in Seed funding. The round was led by Mayfield. More Here

Rivet Work, a Detroit, MI-based provider of an electrical construction workforce management platform, raised $6M in funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $14M, was led by Brick & Mortar Ventures with participation from existing investors defy.vc, Augment Ventures, Detroit Venture Partners, Michigan Rise and angel investors. More Here

AI Squared, a Washington, DC-based company that helps organizations deliver data and AI insights into business applications, raised $13.8M in Series A funding. The round was led by Ansa Capital with participation from existing investors NEA and Ridgeline. More Here

Silo Team, a Stockholm, Sweden-based provider of a platform for tech teams, raised $1.16M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Pitchdrive and Fuel Ventures. More Here

Toku, a Santiago, Chile-based provider of a recurring payments platform, raised $9.3M in funding. The round, which brought the total amount to nearly $20M, was led by Gradient Ventures, with participation from existing investors F-Prime Capital, Clocktower, Y Combinator, Wollef and Funders Club. More Here

Iceye, a Helsinki, Finland-based company which specializes in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite operations for Earth Observation, persistent monitoring, and natural catastrophe solutions, raised $93M in Growth funding. The round, which brought the total amount raised to $438M, was led by Solidium Oy, with participation from Move Capital Fund I, Blackwells Capital, Christo Georgiev, and existing investors. More Here

Miggo Security, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based cybersecurity startup providing an application detection and response (ADR) platform, raised $7.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by YL Ventures with the participation of CCL (Cyber Club London), cybersecurity leaders from Elastic and Everon and former CISOs of Google, Zscaler and Nike. More Here

FYLD, a London, UK-based provider of an AI-powered field work execution platform, raised £12M in funding. The round was led by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. More Here

Verify, an Amsterdam, the Netherlands-based AI startup developing AI algorithms for images and videos, raised €1M in funding. Backers included Niels Bouwman and Chris Hall. Google has also invested in Verify and included the company in its Google for Startups Cloud Program. More Here

Asher Bio, a San Francisco, CA-based biotechnology company developing precisely-targeted immunotherapies for cancer, autoimmune, and infectious diseases, raised $55M in Series C funding led by RA capital management. More Here

Jago, a Jakarta, Indonesia-based mobile café company, raised US$6M in Series A funding. The round was led by Intudo Ventures and BEENEXT Accelerate, with participation from ORZON Ventures and D Global Ventures. More Here

Renterra, a Chicago, IL-based provider of a modern software platform for the equipment rental industry, raised $3M in funding. The round was led by Bienville Capital, with participation from Iron Prairie Ventures, Alaris Capital, and others. More Here

VENTURE CAPITAL UPDATES

Magnesium Capital, a London, UK-based energy transition buyout firm, closed its inaugural fund, at €135M. The final close occurred less than a year after the Fund’s first close with Magnesium attracting blue-clip institutional investors from the US, Europe and the UK. More Here

SpringTide Ventures, a six-year-old healthtech VC firm that focused on investments in health-focused software, hardware, and tech-enabled services, has raised a second fund in the amount of $65 million. More Here

FEATURED ARTICLE

A Simple Startup Pitch Framework: The Rules of a Good Pitch.

Have you ever heard an investor say that they can get a feel for how likely they are to invest in a startup within the first few minutes of a pitch, or sometimes even the first minute?

What do they mean by that? And what should you, do as a founder?

It’s unavoidably subjective to a degree, as each investor may look for different things from founders, but this framework from Jean de La Rochebrochard can help you:

Your pitch is about getting the investor from a state of uncertainty to a state of conviction. In the chart above, the “Pitch” column is how you want to speak and deliver information, while the “Emotion” column is what you want the investor to feel (look for body language for signals of this!).

Some important callouts:

• The credibility stage is the easiest because it’s largely factual. You either have a relevant and credible background to go after this market or you don’t.

• The impression and conviction stages are more subjective — you need to assess on the fly what each particular investor values most from founders.

• It’s easier to recover from mistakes in the conviction stage because you’ve already built up some capital from the last two stages of the pitch.

• The impression stage is very hard to recover from — so be to the point about yourself, what you’re building, and where you’re at very concisely.

STARTUP’S LATEST BUZZ

ACQUISITION & EXITS

Armis, a San Francisco, CA-based asset intelligence cybersecurity company, acquired Silk Security, a Santa Clara, CA-based platform for cyber risk prioritization and remediation, for a total of $150M. More Here

Commvault (NASDAQ: CVLT), a Tinton Falls, NJ-based provider of cyber resilience and data protection solutions for the hybrid cloud, acquired Appranix, a cloud cyber resilience company. More Here

LAYOFFS & BANKRUPTCY

UBS Group is planning another round of job cuts after its takeover of Credit Suisse that is expected to affect over a hundred positions across the group's global investment bank. More Here

Take-Two Interactive, the owner of Rockstar Games, is laying off around 600 employees, or 5% of its workforce, as part of cost-cutting measures. The company has also canceled several unannounced projects, resulting in a $140 million loss, and expects to save $165 million per year through these changes. More Here

STARTUPS & PEOPLE

Tesla is asking its shareholders to approve a jaw-dropping $56 billion pay package for its CEO, Elon Musk, only days after Tesla fired 10% of its employees. More Here

Popular YouTuber Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) faced backlash after his scathing review of Humane AI's $699 Ai Pin product, with some accusing him of wielding too much influence and potentially "bankrupting" the well-funded startup. Critics argued MKBHD's large subscriber base gave him an "unethical" amount of power, while others defended his honest assessment of the product's shortcomings. The incident sparked a broader discussion about the responsibility of influential tech media figures, with some viewing the critique through the lens of racial bias against a successful Black reviewer. More Here

TikTok is launching "TikTok Notes," its new Instagram competitor, in select markets including Canada and Australia. The app allows users to share photo and text content, providing a dedicated space for this type of content within the TikTok ecosystem. More Here

AirChat, a new social media platform founded by Naval Ravikant and Brian Norgard, allows users to post voice messages instead of text. While the app's speech-to-text transcription is impressive, the platform faces concerns around its approach to content moderation. The founders have stated they want to take a "hands-off" approach, only moderating for "tone" rather than content. This raises worries that the platform could become a breeding ground for harmful or illegal content, similar to issues faced by Clubhouse in the past. More Here

LATEST IN EMERGING TECH

Boston Dynamics has announced the "All New Atlas," an electric version of its humanoid robot. The new Atlas features a sleeker, more cartoonish design and improved mobility, with the ability to perform complex movements and manipulate heavy objects. The company plans to begin pilot testing the robot at Hyundai facilities next year, with full production a few years down the road. More Here

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

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