Spotify's CEO Launches Healthcare Startup & Tether's $200 Million Investment In Brain Implant Startup

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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 -

• Spotify's CEO Daniel Ek has co-founded a healthcare startup called Neko Health, which offers full-body scans for early disease detection at $230.

• Tether, the stablecoin company, has invested $200 million in Blackrock Neurotech, a U.S. brain implant firm, acquiring a majority stake.

• IBM acquiring HashiCorp Inc., a cloud based company at $6.4 billion.

• Ola, the Indian ride-hailing startup, has let go of its CEO Hemant Bakshi after just four months and is cutting around 180 additional jobs.

• Featured Article : Don't Include Your Startup Valuation Number On The Slide.

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STARTUP FUNDING UPDATES

Tether, the company behind the leading dollar-pegged stablecoin, has invested $200 million in Blackrock Neurotech, a U.S. brain implant company, taking a majority stake. The investment, which values Blackrock Neurotech at around $350 million, aims to fund the commercialization and roll-out of the company's brain-to-computer interface technology, including neural implants that can control computers and prosthetic arms without physical movement. More Here

Blaize, an AI computing startup based in El Dorado Hills, California, offers computing solutions for automotive, mobility, smart retail, security, industrial, and metro market sectors. It has raised $106 million in funding from existing investors like Mercedes-Benz, Temasek, Bess Ventures, Franklin Templeton, Denso, and new investors such as Rizvi Traverse, Ava Investors, and BurTech LP. More Here

Backflip, a Dallas, TX-based provider of a real estate and financial technology platform for real estate entrepreneurs, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by FirstMark Capital. Previous investors Vertical Venture Partners, LiveOak Venture Partners, Revel Partners, ECMC, the real estate company Crow Holdings, and angels Greg Waldorf, Rob Barber, Gregg Freishtat, CEOs and former Board Members at Zillow, Attom Data, and GreenSky also participated. More Here

Klineo, a Paris, France-based digital health startup, raised €2m in funding. The round was by BPI France with participation from business angels. More Here

Higala, a Manila, Philippines-based startup providing an inclusive instant payment system (IIPS), raised an undisclosed amount in Seed funding. Backers were Talino Venture Studios, and Chemonics International. More Here

Nebu-Flow, a Glasgow, Scotland, UK-based provider of a nebulizer platform, raised additional $5.9M in funding. The round was led by SCVC, and was supported by Scottish Enterprise, Foresight WAE Technology, SIS Ventures, Ascension, and Conduit EIS Impact Fund. More Here

Thintronics, a Berkeley, CA-based electronic materials startup, raised $23M in Series A funding. The round was led by Maverick Capital and Translink Capital. More Here

Blaize, an El Dorado Hills, CA-based AI computing developer providing edge computing solutions, raised $106M in funding. The round was led by Bess Ventures, Franklin Templeton, DENSO, Mercedes Benz, and Temasek and new investors Rizvi Traverse, Ava Investors and BurTech LP LLC. More Here

Adaptilens, a Boston, MA-based pre-clinical biotech company, raised $17.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Funds (PXV Funds), with additional investments from Pillar VC, 380 Cap, and Accanto Partners. More Here

BioIntelligence Technologies, a Sherbrooke, QC, Canada-based company that has developed an AI powered solution to eliminate losses in products and to reduce the consumption of water and energy and the emission of CO2 in industrial bioprocesses using fermentation, raised $5M in funding. The round was led by Amplify Capital and joined by Investissement Québec, Real Ventures, Anges Québec and AQC Capital, and by Innospark Ventures. More Here

Shinkei Systems, an El Segundo, CA-based commercial fish processing technology company, raised $6M in Seed funding. The round was led by Cantos, with additional participation by 8VC, Impatient Ventures, Susa/Humba Ventures, Carya Venture Partners, Ravelin Capital, Red & Blue Ventures, Undeterred Capital, and others joining existing investors. More Here

Indigitall, a Madrid, Spain-based company that provides a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution to personalize digital communications between brands and their customers, raised €6M in Series A funding. The round was led by Data Point Capital, GoHub Ventures and Adara Ventures. More Here

4P-Pharma, a Lille, France-based clinical-stage biotechnology company, raised $15M in Second funding from undisclosed investors. More Here

Locate Bio, a Nottingham, UK-based orthobiologics company, raised £9.2M in funding. The round was led by Mercia Ventures and BGF. More Here

Turnkey, a NYC-based provider of wallet infrastructure for crypto developers, raised a $15M Series A funding. The round was led by Lightspeed Faction and Galaxy Ventures, with participation from Sequoia, Coinbase Ventures, Alchemy, Figment Capital, and Mirana Ventures. More Here

Yoneda Labs, a San Francisco, CA-based AI powered drug discovery startup, raised $4M in Seed funding. Backers included Khosla Ventures, 500 Emerging Europe, 468 Capital, Fellows Fund, and Y Combinator. More Here

Log10, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a platform to build LLM-powered applications, raised $7.2M in Seed funding. The round was led by TQ Ventures and Quiet Capital with participation from Essence Venture Capital. More Here

Hinkal, a San Francisco, CA-based multi-chain privacy layer for confidential decentralized finance (DeFi) transactions, raised $1.4M in funding. The round was led by SALT Fund, with participation from Draper Associates, SNZ and Peer VC. More Here

Amae Health, a San Francisco, CA-based company which specializes in delivering patient-centered care for people with severe mental illness, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by Quiet Capital with participation from Healthier Capital, Baszucki Group, Index Ventures Managing Partner Mike Volpi, and all of original seed investors – Bling Capital, 8VC, Virtue and Able Partners. More Here

Variantyx, a Framingham, MA-based company which specialises in molecular diagnostics, raised $36M in funding. Backers included Peregrine Ventures, Pitango HealthTech, New Era Capital Partners and Bosch Ventures. The round brought the total amount invested in Variantyx to over $125M. More Here

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VENTURE CAPITAL UPDATES

Techstars, a prominent startup accelerator, experienced significant upheaval under the leadership of CEO Mäelle Gavet.

Her "Techstars 2.0" strategy aimed to centralize the organization's structure and decision-making under her command, driven by financial pressures that resulted in a $7.2 million loss in operations last year. This led to the closure of numerous accelerator programs, layoffs, and an exodus of senior executives. Tensions arose between Gavet and managing directors, exemplified by the firing of the Stockholm program head after he expressed support for the struggling Silicon Valley Bank. Cost-cutting measures and a perceived toxic work culture contributed to high employee turnover and legal threats from former employees. Despite these challenges, Techstars raised a new $50 million fund, but uncertainty remains about its future direction as the organization attempts to recover from an tumultuous period. More Here

Isomer Capital, a nine-year-old fund of funds focused exclusively on early stage European VCs, has completed a first close of a new €100 million secondary fund aimed at buying up LP and GP interests in VC firms as well as shares from founders, employees, and angel investors. More Here

FEATURED ARTICLE

Don't Include Your Startup Valuation Number On The Slide.

One common mistake that founders make is including the company's valuation on a slide deck.

If you put “raising $5 million at a $20 million valuation” on the slide before you have a lead investor, you’re making a mistake.

You may have an opinion for what valuation you are hoping for, of course, but that will come out as part of the negotiation later on. The amount of money you need is fixed-ish; what you are willing to give up to raise those funds is not.

In the best-case scenario, you find two or three lead investors who end up in a bidding war for the privilege of investing in you. The levers they have available aren’t just the valuation of the company, of course — there are plenty of other clauses that are up for negotiation in a funding process.

The one exception to this is if you already have a lead investor and you’re just looking to close out the round. In that case, your “ask” slide can include the name of the lead investor and the terms agreed upon.

“Raising $5 million at a $20 million valuation, and Investor X has committed $3 million of the round” can work.

Having said that, if you’re that far into your funding round, there’s probably enough inertia to close out the round; it’s unlikely to be necessary to update this slide once you have a signed term sheet in hand.

So if you are raising the first funding round for your startup - don't include your valuation number before you have a lead investor. Read More Here

(Previously we have shared this writeup in our Venture Curator Newsletter)

STARTUP’S LATEST BUZZ

ACQUISITION & EXITS

IBM (NYSE: IBM) will acquire HashiCorp Inc. (NASDAQ: HCP), a San Francisco, CA-based multi-cloud infrastructure automation company, for $35 per share in cash, representing an enterprise value of $6.4 billion. More Here

Deloitte acquired substantially all of the assets of Gryphon Scientific, LLC, a Takoma Park, MD-based leader in biosafety, biosecurity, and all-hazards preparedness and response, with experience in using artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance security and safety. More Here

Thoma Bravo is to acquire Darktrace, a Cambridge, UK-based global leader in cybersecurity artificial intelligence listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange. More Here

LAYOFFS & BANKRUPTCY

Fisker Inc., an EV startup, is laying off more employees to conserve cash and explore potential sale or capital infusion options. More Here

Ola, the Indian ride-hailing startup, has let go of its CEO Hemant Bakshi after just four months and is cutting around 180 additional jobs. The move, aimed at "improving profitability," comes as the company undergoes a "restructuring exercise" to prepare for its "next phase of growth" and a planned IPO later this year. Ola recently ceased operations in the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand as part of its cost-cutting efforts. More Here

Getir, a Turkish "instant delivery" startup once valued at $12 billion, announced it will shut down operations in the U.S., U.K., and Europe to focus solely on its home market of Turkey. The move will impact at least 6,000 jobs across the closing markets and follows a series of cost-cutting measures amid the struggling quick commerce industry. More Here

STARTUPS & PEOPLE

Spotify's CEO Daniel Ek has co-founded a healthcare startup called Neko Health, which offers full-body scans for early disease detection at $230. The scans use AI and various sensors to map the body and identify potential health issues. Neko Health aims to make preventive healthcare more accessible and affordable. More Here

LATEST IN EMERGING TECH

OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, has inked a "strategic partnership and licensing agreement" with the Financial Times that allows OpenAI to use the publisher's content for training AI models and displaying excerpts in ChatGPT responses. More Here

Microsoft's significant investment of $1.7 billion over the next four years in Indonesia is aimed at expanding its cloud services and artificial intelligence offerings in the country. More Here

YouTube reviewer Marques Brownlee deems the rabbit R1 "barely reviewable" and wonders how many more products that are halfway developed will roll out at full price. "These AI-based products are at, like, the apex of this horrible trend, where the thing that you get at the beginning is borderline non-functional." More Here

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

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