Spofity's $250 Million Deal With Joe Rogan & Sam Altman's Brother Launched VC Fund

👋 Hey, Sahil here! Welcome to today’s Venture Daily Digest Newsletter. Every day I share updates on startup funding, new VC funds launched and tech to read in 5 mins! Today we have major updates on -

• Elon Musk has retained his position as Corporate America's most overrated.

• Sam Altman’s Brother Launch $150M Alt VC Fund.

• CEO Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder today filed to sell about $8.5 billion worth of Amazon shares

• Featured Article : How Do VCs Make High-Quality Investment Decisions?

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💰 MASSIVE FUNDING UPDATES

Cohere Health, a Boston, MA-based company which specialises in clinical intelligence and prior authorization automation, raised $50M in Equity funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $106M, was led by Deerfield Management, with participation from Define Ventures, Flare Capital Partners, Longitude Capital, and Polaris Partners. More Here

P0, a Bengaluru South, Karnataka, India-based startup fixing code & API security using a ground-up LLM-first approach, raised $6.5m in seed funding. The round was led by Lightspeed India. More Here

SushiDog, a London, UK-based quick service restaurant chain that offers customers a menu of Sushi rolls, bowls and salads, raised £800K from Middleton Enterprises. More Here

Interlune, US based startup focused on harvesting resources from the moon has raised $15.5 million in new funding and aims to close another $2 million led by ex-Blue Origin leaders. More Here

Meteomatics, a St. Gallen, Switzerland-based weather intelligence company, received an undisclosed investment from Lockheed Martin Ventures. More Here

Podcastle, a podcasting platform that has boosted its product with various generative AI-driven features, has raised $13.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Mosaic Ventures. More Here

HireAra, a London, UK-based recruitment tech startup, raised £450K in funding. The round was joined by the founders of UK recruitment tech companies such as Mercury, SourceWhale, One Up Sales, and Candidate.ID and HireAra customers. More Here

Cube Exchange, a one-year-old Chicago startup that is building a cryptocurrency trading platform for novices and professional traders that offers off-chain matching with on-chain settlement, raised a $12 million Series A round led by 6th Man Ventures, with GSR Markets, ParaFi Digital, Susquehanna Private Equity Investments, and Everstake Capital also contributing. More Here

Myavana, an Atlanta, GA-based beauty-tech company, received an investment from Ulta Beauty’s Prisma Ventures and BrainTrust Fund. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. More Here

LightBeam, a four-year-old Palo Alto startup whose goal is to automate the process of securing sensitive information and maintaining compliance with data protection regulations, raised a $17.8 million Series A round led by Vertex Ventures US, with additional participation from Dropbox Ventures and previous investors 8VC and Village Global. More Here

Space Perspective, a Cape Canaveral, FL-based arbon-neutral spaceflight experience company, received an undisclosed investment from The 100 Fundadores and IFG Capital. More Here

Brixton, an Oceanside, CA-based omnichannel global lifestyle brand, received $15M in credit facility. The facility was provided by Schottenstein affiliate Second Avenue Capital Partners. More Here

Gamma., a Los Angeles, CA-based provider of an artist-first multimedia platform offering creative and business services across all artistic and commercial formats, received an undisclosed amount of funding from Alpha Wave Global. More Here

Twin Labs, a Paris, France-based developer of an automation tool to handle repetitive tasks, raised $3m in pre-seed funding. Backers included Motier Ventures, Betaworks, Factorial, Clement Delangue & other angel investors. More Here

Protix, a Polish developer of sustainable protein, received an up to €37m loan from The European Investment Bank. More Here

Plex, a Los Angeles, California-based media streaming company, reportedly raised $40m in funding. Backers included Intercap and Kleiner Perkins. More Here

Watershed, a San Francisco, CA-based enterprise sustainability platform provider, raised $100m in Series C funding at a $1.8b valuation. The round was led by Greenoaks with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Elad Gil, Emerson Collective, and Galvanize Climate Solutions. More Here

💰 VENTURE CAPITAL UPDATES

Alt Capital, which is run by OpenAI cofounder and CEO Sam Altman’s younger brother, Jack, has raised a third fund of $150 million, which is roughly double the size of Alt's last fund. The firm looks to invest in seed-stage enterprise software, including (natch) artificial intelligence startups. Altman recently transitioned from CEO to Executive Chairman at Lattice, the HR startup that he co-founded.

Silicon Valley's Niremia Collective debuts a $22.5 million fund, addressing gender disparity in venture capital. Founders Okumoto and Bradford focus on well-being tech startups, making 12 investments, including Feno and Tripp, to contribute to the $8.5 trillion global wellness market. More Here

ARCH Venture Partners, one of the top investors in the biotech ecosystem, is raising $3 billion for a new fund. The Chicago-based firm filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week for what would be its 13th namesake fund. Arch estimated it would raise around $3 billion — roughly the same amount it raised during its more recent fundraising in 2022. More Here

𝕏 FEATURED: TODAY’S FEATURED ARTICLE

How Do VCs Make High-Quality Investment Decisions?

What an investor wants from a startup, a successful exit. They seek a return equal to multiple of their initial investment or aim at a specific IRR.

How do they make sure of that?
How do they evaluate startups?

They use “Venture Capital Method”!

This Method assumes, startup will undertake an IPO at some point in the future.... Read More Here

💡 SARTUP’S LATEST BUZZ

Acquisition & Exits

Databricks, a San Francisco, CA-based data and AI company, acquired Einblick, a Boston, MA-based AI-native collaboration platform that helps users solve data problems with just one sentence. More Here

Layoffs & Shutdown

PhoneSpector and Highste, The creators of phone surveillance apps have seemingly shut down after settling accusations of promoting illegal spyware. Developed by a consortium led by Patrick Hinchy, the apps faced legal action in February 2023 for covertly monitoring individuals in New York state. Following the $410,000 settlement, both apps' websites are offline, and associated numbers disconnected. More Here

Polygon Labs, the team focused on building the layer-2 blockchain Polygon, has laid off 60 employees, or about 19% of its staff. More Here

Startups & People

Spotify renewed its deal with podcaster Joe Rogan for a reported $250 million. Rogan's show, previously exclusive to Spotify, will now be available on other platforms, aligning with Spotify's shift away from exclusivity. Despite past backlash, "The Joe Rogan Experience" remains highly popular, ranking as the most-listened-to podcast globally since 2020, contributing to Spotify's podcast consumption growth of 232% and 80% ad revenue growth from 2021 to 2023. More Here

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder today filed to sell about $8.5 billion worth of Amazon shares in the next 12 months, potentially cashing in on a stock surge that’s put him within reach of becoming the world's richest person. More Here

Elon Musk has retained his position as Corporate America's most overrated CEO, according to a Fortune survey of CEOs. Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger was second. More Here

Going Public

Astera Labs, a seven-year-old startup based in Santa Clara, CA, that manufactures chips aimed at reducing bottlenecks in data centers, is targeting a May IPO. According to Crunchbase, the company has raised over $200 million from investors such as Sutter Hill Ventures and Intel,. More Here

🤖 LATEST IN EMERGING TECH

Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, hinted at the upcoming reveal of their advancements in generative AI later this year during an earnings call. With a focus on privacy, Apple aims to differentiate itself by potentially offering GenAI tools that process data locally on devices, avoiding third-party cloud uploads. The company's annual WWDC event in June is anticipated for significant announcements. More Here

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

• ​Y-Combinator Strategy To Build A Successful Minimal Viable Product (MVP). Read Here

• The most common fundraising mistakes: " Trying to make everything look perfect and hiding risk." Marc Andreessen. Read Here

• ​Standard Issue AI by Tomasz Tunguz. Read Here

• Meta’s Powerful AI Language Model Has Leaked Online - What Happens Now? Read Here

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

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✍️Written By Sahil R | Venture Crew Team