Robinhood Acquired Global Crypto Exchange & Carta's Valuation Drop From $8.5 Billion to $2 Billion

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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, VC funds, and some cool tech – all in just 5 minutes ☕! Today’s major updates include -

• Greylock Led $36M financing round in cybersecurity startup, Seven AI.

• Robinhood, a Menlo Park, CA-based financial services company, acquires Bitstamp Ltd., a global cryptocurrency exchange for $200 Million in cash.

• HSBC estimates that Indian edtech giant Byju's, once valued at $22 billion, is now worth nothing due to governance issues and a funding crunch.

• Carta, a Silicon Valley startup, is working on a secondary sale that would value the company at $2 billion, a massive drop from its previous $8.5 billion valuation.

• Waystar, a provider of financial management software for healthcare providers, has raised $968 million in its initial public offering

• Featured Article : VC's Framework for Evaluating an AI Startup's Tech Stack.

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Startup Funding Updates

Seven AI, Boston-based startup which uses AI to help companies combat cyberattacks, emerged from stealth and has raised $36M led by Greylock at a ~$100M valuation. More Here

Fizz, a NYC-based provider of a credit-building debit card for students, raised $14.4M in Seed funding. The round was led by Kleiner Perkins. More Here

Luffy AI, a Cambridge, UK-based company which specializes in adaptive AI for industrial control, received an undisclosed investment from Momenta. More Here

Prolific Machines, based in Emeryville, California, has unveiled a bioreactor technology that uses light to efficiently grow cells for industries like cultivated meat and pharmaceuticals. The company raised $55 million in Series B funding led by Fonterra's Ki Tua Fund, with investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Mayfield, SOSV, and others. More Here

Eyebot, a Boston, MA-based developer of rapid point-of-sale eye prescription technologies, raised $6M in Seed funding. The round was led by AlleyCorp and Ubiquity Ventures with participation from Humba Ventures, Ravelin, Spacecadet and previous investors Baukunst and Village Global. More Here

Greptile, a San Francisco, California-based company that allows engineers to use natural language to index and search large codebases, raised $4.1m in seed funding. The round was led by Initialized Capital, with participation from angels including Rich Aberman (WePay) and JJ Fliegelman (WayUp), both former YC visiting partners. More Here

Fhenix, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup that aims to bring confidentiality to Ethereum, raised $15m in Series A funding. The round was led by Hack VC, with participation from Dao5, Amber Group, Primitive Ventures, GSR, Collider Ventures, and Stake Capital. More Here

Mindset Medical, a Phoenix, AZ-based software as a medical device company, raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding. The round was led by Grayhawk Capital and Questa Capital with participation from AZ Venture Development Corporation, Amgen Ventures and Nova Prime. More Here

Phonely, a San Francisco, CA-based AI-driven phone answering service startup, raised $500K in funding. Y Combinator made the investment. More Here

Indico Data, a Boston, MA-based provider of a solution for automating of critical intake workflows across the policy lifecycle, raised $19M in funding. The round was led by .406 ventures and joined by Guidewire and existing investors Sandbox Industries, Osage Venture Partners, and Jump Capital. More Here

Vurvey, a Cincinnati, OH-based provider of an AI platform empowered by people for brands, raised $2M in funding. The round was led by Tindall Capital. More Here

Doowii, a Denver, CO-based provider of AI-driven data analytics solutions for educators, raised $4.1M in funding. Backers included GSV Ventures, Better Ventures, Avesta Fund, Imagine Learning Ventures, Strada Education Foundation, Reach Capital, and Common Sense Growth Fund. More Here

Cube, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of universal semantic layer for every data app, raised $25M in funding. The round was led by Databricks Ventures which joined previous investors including Decibel, Bain Capital Ventures, Eniac Ventures, and 645 Ventures. More Here

SpyCloud, an Austin, TX-based cybersecurity firm whose solutions help organizations investigate and protect against cybercrime, received a $35m growth financing from CIBC Innovation Banking by Riverwood capital. More Here

Rising Team, a Menlo Park, CA-based team performance platform provider, closed an $8m Series A funding. The round was led by Zeal Capital Partners alongside previous investors including Peterson Ventures, Roble Ventures, Female Founders Fund, Burst Capital, and Supernode Ventures. More Here

Qargo, a London, UK- and Ghent, Belgium-based transport management solution for the logistics industry, raised €12m in Series A funding. The round was led by Balderton Capital. More Here

ITM, a Munich, Germany-based radiopharmaceutical biotech company, raised €188M in funding. The round was led by Temasek with participation from funds managed by BlackRock, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), ATHOS and Carbyne. More Here

Whizz, a NYC-based provider of a e-bike subscription platform for last-mile delivery drivers, raised $12M in Series A funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $20M, was led by LETA Capital, with participation from Flashpoint, and others. More Here

Human Native AI, a London, UK-based data marketplace providing AI developers with access to fully licensed data, raised £2.8M in Seed funding. The round was led by LocalGlobe and Mercuri. More Here

WealthOS, a London, UK-based cloud-native wealth management infrastructure platform provider, raised additional £2M in Seed funding. The round was led by Barclays Bank. More Here

Ittybit, a London, UK-based tools company enabling developers to add video, images, and audio to an app in minutes, raised £1.5M in funding. The round was led by Mercuri and Sure Valley Ventures, with participation from Oxford Capital, angel investors, and Baltic Ventures. More Here

Slip, a London, UK-based receipt tech startup, raised £ 2.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Adjuvo with participation from Haatch Ventures, Unbundled VC, the Side by Side Partnership, and a range of angels including Dan Elton, and Julian Burnett. More Here

OneScreen.ai, a Boston, MA-based provider of a platform matching ad placements with customer demographics and historical data, raised $4.7M in funding. Backers included Asymmetric Capital Partners, Techstars, and Impellent Ventures. More Here

Cartwheel, a NYC-based provider of a generative automation platform, raised $5.6M in Seed funding. The round was led by Accel, with participation from Khosla Ventures, Human Ventures, Heretic VC, MVP Ventures, Correlation Ventures, Pelion VC, and angel investors, including Drew Houston, Akshay Kothari, Amjad Masad, and Kyle Parrish. More Here

Torpago, based in Atlanta, provides commercial credit card and spend management software for community banks, allowing them to offer branded fintech features to their customers. The company raised $10 million in Series B funding co-led by Priority Tech Ventures and EJF Ventures, with participation from BankTech Ventures. More Here

Venture Capital Updates

Yukon Partners, a Minneapolis, Boston, and West Palm Beach based private equity firm, closed Yukon Capital Partners V, L.P., and its associated parallel funds with total commitments of $765.2m. Investors in Fund V include domestic and international pension funds, international banking conglomerates, insurance companies, endowments, foundations, consultants, and family offices. More Here

Aquiline Capital Partners LP, a NYC- and London, UK-based private investment firm dedicated to financial services and related technologies, raised more than $3.4 Billion of fund capital, following the final close of its fifth private equity fund, Aquiline Financial Services Fund V L.P., and the close of its continuation fund, Aquiline Financial Services Continuation Fund L.P. More Here

Featured Article

VC's Framework for Evaluating an AI Startup's Tech Stack.

Many founders want to understand the framework that VCs use to evaluate the AI startup tech stack. I am sharing a framework that a General Partner shared with me.

From inconsistent datasets to noisy inputs, what could go wrong?

Before jumping into the frameworks, let’s first assess the basic factors that come into play when assessing data quality. And, crucially, what could go wrong if the data’s not up to scratch?

Relevance

First, let’s consider the datasets’ relevance. Data must intricately align with the problem that an AI model is trying to solve. For instance, an AI model developed to predict housing prices necessitates data encompassing economic indicators, interest rates, real income, and demographic shifts.

Similarly, in the context of drug discovery, experimental data must exhibit the highest possible predictiveness for the effects on patients, requiring expert thought about the most relevant assays, cell lines, model organisms, and more.

Accuracy

Second, the data must be accurate. Even a small amount of inaccurate data can have a significant impact on the performance of an AI model. This is especially poignant in medical diagnoses, where a small error in the data could lead to a misdiagnosis and potentially affect lives.

Coverage

Third, coverage of data is also essential. If the data is missing important information, then the AI model will not be able to learn as effectively. For example, if an AI model is being used to translate a particular language, the data must include a variety of different dialects.

Read detailed article in our Venture Curator Newsletter….

Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Going Public

Robinhood, a Menlo Park, CA-based financial services company, acquires Bitstamp Ltd., a global cryptocurrency exchange for $200 Million in cash. More Here

Amazon has agreed to acquire key assets of the Indian video streaming service MX Player from Times Internet, valuing MX Player at less than $100 million. More Here

Tenable, a Columbia, MD-based exposure management company, acquired Eureka Security, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based provider of data security posture management (DSPM) for cloud environments for undisclosed amount. More Here

Sirion Labs, valued at around $1 billion, is acquiring Eigen Technologies, an AI startup that has raised over $80 million, for an undisclosed amount. More Here

Waystar, a provider of financial management software for healthcare providers, has raised $968 million in its initial public offering by pricing 45 million shares at $21.50 apiece, valuing the company at $3.69 billion. More Here

SoftBank Group Corp.-backed South Korean travel app Yanolja Co. is aiming for $400 million in a US initial public offering. More Here

Layoffs & Bankruptcy

Revel, a New York-based startup, is pivoting yet again by laying off its over 1,000 drivers and embracing a gig worker model like Uber and Lyft after a successful pilot. The move comes as Revel struggles to recruit drivers who desire more flexibility, despite originally being attracted by Revel's employment model. More Here

Startups & People

Carta, a Silicon Valley startup, is working on a secondary sale that would value the company at $2 billion, a massive drop from its previous $8.5 billion valuation. The company faced backlash earlier this year for misusing customer data and had to shut down its secondary trading business. While Carta's cap table business is still growing, its fund administration business is struggling, and it lost $65 million in 2023. More Here

HSBC estimates that Indian edtech giant Byju's, once valued at $22 billion, is now worth nothing due to governance issues and a funding crunch. Prosus, a major investor in Byju's, has slammed the startup for disregarding advice, and some investors are legally disputing a recent $200 million funding round. HSBC has also downgraded valuations of other Indian startups like Pharmeasy, Meesho, DeHaat, and ElasticRun. The bank applied a 50% discount to startups with older funding rounds to account for the recent correction in public edtech/SaaS multiples. More Here

Latest In Emerging Tech

New York Attorney General Letitia James sued two cryptocurrency companies, NovaTech Ltd and AWS Mining Pty Ltd, alleging they defrauded hundreds of thousands of victims, mainly from Haitian and other immigrant communities, out of over $1 billion by preying on their religious faith and operating as pyramid and Ponzi schemes. More Here

SpaceX's Starship rocket survived a fiery re-entry and achieved a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean after launching from Texas, marking a breakthrough in the company's development of a reusable rocket system for satellite launches and future moon missions.

Despite sustaining damage during the hypersonic descent, Starship completed its first full test flight around the globe on its fourth attempt. More Here

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