Stripe's Valuation Rebounds To $65 Billion & Apple's $1 Billion Investment For AI

👋 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 highlights include...

• Stripe's valuation rebounds to $65 billion as payments giant buys back employee shares.

• Apple CEO Tim Cook announced at the annual shareholders meeting plans to invest $1 Billion in GenAI.

• Techstars faced financial challenges, resulting in layoffs and the shutdown of its accelerator programs.

• OpenAI moved to dismiss a lawsuit from the New York Times, alleging the media outlet paid someone to hack OpenAI’s products in support of the lawsuit.

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Startups Funding Updates

Intenseye, a six-year-old New York startup that focuses on preventing accidents and ensuring safety in the workplace through automated alerts and monitoring, raised a $64 million Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with previous investors Insight Partners, Point Nine, and Air Street Capital also contributing. The company has raised a total of $90+ million. More Here

Redi Health, a Columbus, OH-based digital health startup, raised $14M in Series B funding. The round was led by Blue Heron Capital with participation from inside investors Refinery Ventures, Mutual Capital Partners, Rev1 Ventures, and M25. More Here

Shader, an AR creation tool that uses AI to generate custom effects has raised $580,000 from Betaworks, Greycroft, Differential Ventures, Mozilla Ventures and On Deck. More Here

tvScientific, a Pasadena, CA-based performance advertising platform for connected TV (CTV), raised $9.4m in convertible note funding. Backers included S4S Ventures, BDMI, and Progress Ventures, which joined NBCU/Comcast, Norwest Capital Partners, Aperiam Ventures and Hearst Ventures. More Here

Yendou, a Berlin, Germany-based provider of a clinical operations automation platform, raised $1.3m in pre-seed funding. The round was led by us at b2venture, with support from Heartfelt, Infinite Fund. More Here

Slice, a Wilmington, DE- and Tel Aviv, Israel-based provider of a global equity platform utilizing AI for continuous compliance, raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by TLV Partners, with participation from R-Squared Ventures, Jibe Ventures, Wilson Sonsini, Fenwick & West and angel investors. More Here

Lionize, a NYC-based provider of a AI-driven influencer search tool and influencer marketing platform, raised $2M in funding. The round was led by Cultivation Capital. More Here

AiDash, a San Jose, CA-based enterprise SaaS company making infrastructure industries climate sustainable with satellites and AI, received an investment from Duke Investments. More Here

BlueBean, a Boston, MA-based provider of a procure to pay solution, raised $1.3M in funding. The round was led by Tola Capital. More Here

Range Energy, a Mountain View, CA-based hardware company bringing trailers to the commercial trucking market, raised $23.5M in new funding. The round was led by Trousdale Ventures, with participation from UP Partners, R7, and Yamaha Motor Ventures. More Here

The Backpack ecosystem of companies, creators of the Backpack wallet, the Mad Lads NFT collection, and Backpack Exchange, today announced the first joint closing of their $17 million strategic Series A round at a $120 million combined valuation. The round was led by Placeholder VC. More Here

Coverdash, NYC-based SMB focused-insurtech company, raised $13,5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Nyca Partners, which joined existing investors including Bling Capital, AXIS Digital Ventures, Tokio Marine Future Fund, Expansion VC, Cameron Ventures and others. More Here

Fair Math, a Dover, DE-based provider of an automated Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) challenge platform, raised $1.4M in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Cryptos Capital, Inception Capital and Polymorphic Capital. More Here

ContributionDAO, a Singapore-based provider of an institutional-grade staking platform, raised $2.8M in Seed funding. The round was led by KASIKORN X Venture Capital (KXVC), and other blockchain projects and angels. More Here

Looq AI, a San Diego, CA-based survey technology platform company dedicated to advancing critical infrastructure digitization and analysis, raised $2.6M in a seed funding. The round was led by BootstrapLabs, with participation from Longley Capital and Spatial Capital. More Here

Logan Energy, an Edinburgh, Scotland, UK-based company providing integrated engineering solutions incorporating hydrogen technologies, received £5M investment from Lanxing New Energy. More Here

Flexnode, a Bethesda, MD-based data infrastructure startup, raised $9m in seed funding. The round was led by Zacua Ventures, alongside Yes VC, Arup, SHoP Architects, and JE Dunn. More Here

Unseenlabs, a Rennes, France-based company which specializes in maritime surveillance through detection and geolocation of radio frequency signals from space, raised €85M in funding. Backers included Supernova Invest, ISALT via its Strategic Transition Fund, and UNEXO. More Here

PulseSight Therapeutics, a Paris, France-based ophthalmology biotech company, raised an undisclosed amount in Seed funding. The round was led by Pureos Bioventures and ND Capital, with participation from Korea Investment Partners. More Here

Roshal Health, a Houston, TX-based company providing hospital grade, on-site, and on-demand ultrasound and echocardiogram services to ERs, micro-hospitals, rural hospitals, and hospital offsite facilities, raised $10M in funding. The structured equity financing was led by Catalio Capital Management, with participation from Green Street Impact Partners. More Here

Tracksuit, a NYC-based brand tracker for growth brands, raised $13.5M in funding. The round was led by Altos Ventures and Footwork. More Here

HuLoop Automation, an Auburn, CA-based AI-powered intelligent automation company, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Moneta Ventures, with participation from Rebellion Ventures, Growth Factory, Vibranium VC, Nurture Ventures, Insta VC and others. More Here

NayaOne, a London, UK-based financial services company providing a sandbox platform, raised $4.7M in funding. The round was led by EJF Capital, with participation from Valley Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Valley Bank, and Carthona Capital. More Here

Exodigo, a three-year-old Tel Aviv startup that uses ground-penetrating radar and other sensors to create detailed underground maps for construction companies, utility companies, and city planners, raised a $105 million Series A round co-led by Greenfield Partners and Zeev Ventures, with additional participation from previous investors SquarePeg, 10D VC, JIBE, and National Grid Partners. More Here

Matter Neuroscience, a startup whose app is designed to help people remember and reflect on positive life experiences as well as collect data that can be used for its clinical studies, raised a $26 million. Investors included Polaris Partners, Arch Venture Partners, Exor Ventures, and Collaborative Fund. More Here

Chiral, a one-year-old Zürich startup that uses robotic machines to integrate nanomaterials into devices and place nanometer-sized materials onto chips, raised a $3.8 million pre-seed round co-led by Founderful and HCVC, with ETH Zurich and Venture Kick also partaking. More Here

Enkrypt AI, a one-year-old Boston startup that is developing a "control layer" for the safe use of generative AI, raised a $2.4 million seed round led by Boldcap and including Berkeley SkyDeck, Kubera VC, Arka VC, Veredas Partners, and Builders Fund.

Venture Capital Updates

Techstars faced financial challenges in 2023, missing revenue goals and experiencing higher expenses. Despite a $15 million revenue shortfall and a deeper than expected loss of $7.2 million, it ended the year with a better cash balance of $48.7 million. The company is restructuring, with layoffs and program closures to reduce costs by over $8 million, reflecting a shift in strategy amidst industry-wide economic changes. More Here

The Financial Times has launched a new venture arm to invest expressly in high-growth media and tech companies, executives told Axios, and FT Ventures' first investment is in Charter, a future-of-work media startup. It already owns a minority stake in Business of Fashion. More Here

Black tech nation venture, The Pittsburgh-based venture firm has finished raising its first $50 million for its debut fund to back pre-seed and seed-stage software startups led by founders that are Black, women or members of the LGBTQ+ community, among other underrepresented groups. More Here

Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Exits

Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has agreed to acquire GemSeek, a Sofia, Bulgaria-based customer experience analytics provider. More Here

Exelab, a Milan, Italy-based System Integrator Enterprise of HubSpot, acquired The Client Group, a Milan, Italy-based Data Management, Business Process Optimization and AI powered company. More Here

The London-based event tech startup Hopin — which shot to a $5.65 billion valuation in 2021 just a year after launching (and whose VCs allowed the company's founding CEO to take roughly £100 million off the table at the same time and still retain control of the company) — has entered liquidation. More Here

Startups & People

Bluesky, a decentralized social network, appoints former Twitter leader Aaron Rodericks as head of Trust and Safety, signaling a commitment to robust moderation. Rodericks, previously targeted by right-wing campaigns on Twitter, brings expertise in addressing online threats. With a focus on user-controlled moderation, Bluesky aims to enhance safety for its growing user base of over 5 million. More Here

Latest In Emerging Tech

OpenAI today moved to dismiss a lawsuit from the New York Times, alleging the media outlet paid someone to hack OpenAI’s products to support the lawsuit. OpenAI said in its filing that it doesn't have actual knowledge of the specific acts of alleged infringements of which the Times has said OpenAI is guilty. It also said the Times made “tens of thousands of attempts” to generate responses from ChatGPT that exactly match Times content. A Times lawyer tells the WSJ the “hacking” is just the company using OpenAI’s tools to look for evidence of stealing and reproducing copyright material. More Here

Stripe has sealed a $65 billion valuation in a deal offering liquidity to employees, up 30% from its previous valuation of $50 billion. This move, involving over $1 billion in shares, suggests a delay in its anticipated IPO until next year. Investors like Sequoia Capital and Goldman Sachs are involved, reflecting the company's commitment to providing liquidity regularly, not necessarily annually. More Here

Apple CEO Tim Cook announced at the annual shareholders meeting plans to accelerate investment in GenAI, redirecting resources from the shelved EV project. Reports suggest upgrades to Siri, Spotlight, and Apple Music with GenAI, alongside open-source initiatives and a rumored $1 billion annual investment, including a significantly upgraded Neural Engine in the upcoming iPhone 16 models. More Here

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✍️Written By Sahil R - The Venture Crew