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- VC Daily Digest - 03/10/2023
VC Daily Digest - 03/10/2023
Visa Launched $100M VC Fund & VCs Tell Startups to Pump Brakes on IPO Plans
Venture Daily Digest
October 03, 2023
📢 Major News
Visa Launched $100M VC Fund
VCs Tell Startups to Pump Brakes on IPO Plans
Africa’s VC Funding Down
Featured Article: Understand all about SAFE
📢 Venture Capital Highlights
Visa launches $100 million venture fund for generative AI startups: Payments processor Visa on Monday launched a $100 million venture fund for generative artificial intelligence (AI) startups, joining a list of investors who have flocked to the sector this year. Several high-profile names such as Microsoft and Alphabet's Google have backed the AI space, a buzzword in technology circles this year, after chatbot ChatGPT's popularity. More Here
Sequoia Capital to Focus on AI Companies Utilizing Foundation Models: Venture capital firm Sequoia Capital is focusing its investment strategy toward artificial intelligence (AI) applications following the success of its investment in OpenAI. Roelof Botha, partner at Sequoia Capital, said that while Sequoia Capital has been a long-time investor in OpenAI, the firm is not actively seeking investments in companies involved in the development of AI technology. More Here
VCs Tell Startups to Pump Brakes on IPO Plans: Venture capitalists (VCs) are reportedly telling startups to put plans to go public on hold. As the Financial Times (FT) reported, that sentiment has become popular following the underwhelming initial public offerings (IPOs) of two high-profile companies. “In our portfolio we would advise: unless you really need to, hold back,” Mike Volpi, a general partner at VC firm Index Ventures, told the FT. “The market has been rough in the past few weeks. … Unless you need to go out, I’d wait until the second half of next year.” More Here
Fearless Fund barred from awarding grant to Black women founders: The American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER), led by Edward Blum, who was behind the efforts to overturn affirmative action, sued Fearless Fund in August, alleging that its Strivers Grant program discriminates against non-Black women. Judge Robert Luck and Andrew Brasher, both appointed by President Donald Trump, agreed with the AAER, calling the grant “racially exclusionary” and said it likely violated Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which barred racial discrimination in contracts. More Here
Alpaca VC unveils two new investment vehicles, including its real estate roots: Alpaca VC closed on $78 million in commitments for its third fund and launched the new Alpaca Real Estate platform. Founded in 2013 by Ryan Freedman, Alpaca initially invested in real estate-focused startups. The multi-stage venture capital firm uses a research-driven approach and invests at the intersection of the physical and digital worlds. It has continued to invest in proptech and construction tech, however, back in 2020, it began expanding outside the industry. More Here
Africa’s private equity, venture capital flows down 3% to $6.3bn in 2022: The private capital in Africa stood at $6.3bn last year, remaining close to the all-time high set in 2021. The continent however posted a 35% plunge in total fundraising to $2.1bn as global risks like tightening by big economies, high interest rates and inflationary pressure dampened investor confidence. This was the lowest figure in nine years. “Despite the challenging fundraising environment, private investment in Africa remained robust. More Here
JPMorgan Wants More VC and Startup Banking Clients: J.P. Morgan Chase reportedly wants to expand its startup and venture capital (VC) customer base. CEO Jamie Dimon said the country’s largest bank is courting these customers, a move that comes in the wake of a series of high-profile bank failures earlier this year. “We have unbelievable products and services to bring to them,” said Dimon, whose comments were reported by Bloomberg News. “But we have to deliver it to them in a way they actually like it and they want it.” More Here
📢 Massive Fundings Updates
Queer social app Lex gets a new CEO and $5.6M to grow: Lex, the app inspired by vintage lesbian personals, just raised $5.6 million in seed funding and elevated co-founder Jennifer Lewis from COO to CEO. As a result, founding CEO Kel Rakowski steps into a new role — chief creative officer, while former Hinge product boss Michelle Parsons joins as chief product officer. More Here
Booz Allen Hamilton invests $50M in AI security startup HiddenLayer: Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the largest U.S. defense contractors, said it invested in HiddenLayer, a smaller company specializing in digital defenses of artificial intelligence and sensitive networks. The commitment to HiddenLayer, which in September announced a $50 million funding round, is the latest made by Booz Allen in the AI arena. More Here
DeepMind Vet Raises $14 Million For AI Startups: A veteran of Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) unit has reportedly launched his own fund to back startups in that space. Vishal Maini, a one-time researcher for Google’s DeepMind, has founded Mythos Ventures and thus far raised at least $14 million for AI startups. The report noted he is among dozens of Google alumni who have the money, expertise and motivation to help shape AI, either through investing, entrepreneurship or a combination of the two. More Here
Humata AI summarizes and answers questions about your PDFs: The platform, Humata AI, launched in February, with former Labelbox founder Dan Rasmuson joining as CTO. And it quickly gained traction — processing tens of millions of pages of files, growing to a user base of millions and securing $3.5 million in funding from investors, including Google’s Gradient Ventures, ARK invest and M13. More Here
Unitary AI picks up $15M for its multimodal approach to video content moderation: Unitary is announcing $15 million in funding to capitalise on momentum it’s been seeing in the market. The Series A — led by top European VC Creandum, with participation also from Paladin Capital Group and Plural — comes as Unitary’s business is growing. The number of videos it is classifying has jumped this year to 6 million/day from 2 million (covering billions of images) and the platform is now adding on more languages beyond English. More Here
M’sian fintech startup bags $5M funding to continue financing women micro-entrepreneurs: MADCash, a homegrown fintech startup providing microfunding to women entrepreneurs, announced the successful completion of its Pre-Series A funding round in an October 3 press release. It has secured a $5 million investment led by Artem Ventures, supported by MSW Ventures and ScaleUp Founders Fund. More Here
📬 Featured: Today’s Featured Article
Understand All About SAFE🤔
If you're a startup founder looking to raise funding, you've likely explored different investment options like equity, various types of debt, and convertible notes. Typically, these options fall into the categories of equity or debt instruments. However, there's another choice, SAFE - Simple Agreement for Future Equity that is neither equity or debt. Really? yes
In our recent newsletter, we shared our thoughts on this with some example. So, Have A Look 👇
📢 The Latest In Emerging Tech: AI
How our new AI feature earned 5% adoption in its first week: Since the launch of ChatGPT, a stampede of technology company leaders has been chasing the buzz: Everywhere I turn, another company is trumpeting their pioneering AI feature. But real business value comes from delivering product capabilities that matter to users, not just from using hot tech. We achieved a 10x better return on engineering effort with AI by starting with core principles for what users need from your product, building an AI capability that supports that vision, and then measuring adoption to make sure it hits the mark. More Here
Spotify spotted developing AI-generated playlists created with prompts: Following the successful launch of Spotify’s AI-powered DJ feature and, more recently, added support for AI-translated podcasts, Spotify now appears to be developing another means of using AI in its app: AI-powered playlists. References discovered in the app’s code indicate the company may be developing generative AI playlists users could create using prompts. The additions were uncovered by tech veteran-turned-investor Chris Messina, who posted screenshots of code in Spotify’s app that refer to “AI playlists” and “playlists based on your prompts.” More Here
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📢 Startups Snap: The Latest Buzz
Web3 funding is down again as the crypto winter drags on: August’s good numbers might not be able to stem the bleeding, though. To put an optimistic spin on it, maybe Q3 2023 will break the trend since a few investment vehicles like Vessel Capital’s $55 million fund and MoonPay’s venture arm were launched in recent weeks and will start deploying capital soon. But it’s anybody’s guess whether investors will move quickly — or sign bigger checks. More Here
Elon Musk’s X Corp. faces trademark lawsuit from social media ad agency: When Elon Musk rebranded Twitter to X this summer, there were concerns that the new company could face trademark lawsuits as there were nearly 900 active U.S. trademark registrations that cover the letter and branding “X” across various industries, according to comments made by trademark attorney Josh Gerben, speaking to the press at the time. Now his firm is representing what may be the first client to sue X over its trademark — a Florida-based social media ad agency, X Social Media. More Here
SBF’s trial promises to be just as riveting as the rest of the FTX drama: All eyes are on Sam Bankman-Fried this week as the former CEO of crypto exchange FTX goes on trial in one of the biggest financial fraud cases of this decade on Tuesday. And it figures: This is set to be one of those cases that’s going to inspire a bunch of documentaries and books (there’s one already), since crypto is so new, there was so much drama around Bankman-Fried and his former colleagues, there’s the sheer scale of the alleged fraud, and the massive amounts of money involved. More Here
Amid Twitter chaos, Mastodon grew donations 488% in 2022, reached 1.8M monthly active users: Consumer interest in open source, decentralized social networking isn’t something that was only reflected in news headlines over the past year, it’s also apparent in the financials behind Mastodon. The nonprofit organization powers one of the many apps that came into fashion as a Twitter alternative following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social network he’s since renamed X. According to Mastodon’s annual report, released today, the company says it’s seen a 488% increase in donations, totaling €325.9K, or roughly $341,985 in U.S. dollars. More Here
Increasing Your Startup’s Chance Of Getting VC Funding In A Recession: While some sources predict that a recession is on the horizon and others say signs point to “no,” what we know for sure is that businesses are adapting to bear the brunt of economic changes, real or imagined. Businesses are feeling the effects of fear, even while inflation is dropping and the stock market is rising. Despite some healthy economic indicators, venture capitalists are still wary about allocating funds, because there is no telling what the future holds. More Here
What Do You Think Of Today's News Updates? 🤓
✍️Written By Sahil R | Venture Crew Team
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