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- VC Daily Digest - 07/11/2023
VC Daily Digest - 07/11/2023
WeWork CEO Made $1 Billion Through Bankruptcy & Open AI.... Open AI.....
Venture Daily Digest
November 07, 2023
📮Today’s Major News
WeWork CEO Adam Neumann made $1 billion through bankruptcy
Harry Stebbings, founder of 20VC launched 20GROWTH fund
Featured Article: How to Talk About Valuation Numbers When Investor Ask?
Open AI announcement In First Developer Conference: Summary of Open Dev Day
Sam Altman in Open AI Dev Day Summit
Open AI launches GPT-4 Turbo, an improved version accepting 128k characters and priced 3x lower than GPT-4, with a knowledge cutoff in April 2023.
OpenAI launches Text to Speech with 6 hyper-realistic voice models, setting a new standard in AI TTS technology.
OpenAI's Copyright Shield defends users' legal costs in copyright infringement lawsuits involving their API.
Users can now create custom GPT models, paving the way for a transformative shift in the AI software landscape and the development of autonomous agents.
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💰 Massive Fundings Updates
MadaLuxe Group, a luxury distribution platform for fashion and accessories. It has announce $15 million in Series A funding that values the pre-revenue company at $100 million. Financial services firm Hilco Global led the funding round, joined by global luxury investor Bezikian Zareh. More Here
Coperniq, the platform to manage your fulfillment & service operations used by industry-leading residential & commercial EPCs. The startup recently closed a $4 million seed round led by Initialized Capital, with participation from Y Combinator. More Here
Aleph Alpha, German AI research and application company that researches, develops and operationalizes large-scale AI models for language, image data and strategy, thereby contributing to securing Europe's digital sovereignty. It has raised a Series B funding round of $500 million from a consortium of seven new investors, as well as existing investors from previous rounds. More Here
Accelex, a five-year-old London startup that helps investment firms, asset managers, and hedge funds automate data-intensive tasks, such as data collection, data cleaning, and data analysis, raised a $15 million Series A round led by FactSet, with previous investors Illuminate Financial, AlbionVC, SixThirty Ventures, and Expon Capital also pitching in. More Here
Agentio, the New York-based startup is building a platform for creators to sell ad slots to brands. The startup has raised $4.25 million in seed investment funding co-led by Craft Ventures and AlleyCorp, with participation from additional institutional investors including Antler, Protagonist and Permanent Capital. More Here
Kloudfuse, which provides several tools for data observability across different compute environments. Kloudfuse today emerged from stealth with $23 million in funding, inclusive of a $17 million Series A round led by Newlands with participation from Blumberg Capital, Aspenwood Ventures, High Sage and Exponent. More Here
Appetite, an app for discovering and booking restaurants, is aiming to streamline the process of planning nights out with friends and family. It has raised $2 million seed round from a few angel investors, including Sarah Maxwell, Jonathan Grad, Alok Oberoi and Lisa Tchenguiz. More Here
Dreamfarm, a startup based in Parma, in the Food Valley of Italy, is hoping to change that. It’s cooked up a plant-based mozzarella using a base of fermented almonds. Dreamfarm is announcing the close of a €5 million pre-seed round of funding today, with investment coming from a couple of local business angels. More Here
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🚀 Venture Capital Highlights
Harry Stebbings, founder of 20VC launched 20GROWTH fund: An offshoot fund of 20VC, has secured $5 million in capital commitments to invest in pre-seed, seed, and Series A companies. Founded by Harry Stebbings, the fund will provide checks of $100,000 and more, focusing on about 50 companies without follow-on investments. The fund's unique approach involves leveraging the expertise of nine top growth and marketing leaders from companies like Shopify, Dropbox, and Facebook, delivering unparalleled operator value to startups. More Here
Gender Disparity in VC Funding In UK: A recent report by Ada Ventures reveals a significant gender disparity in venture capital funding in the UK. All-male-owned venture capital funds raised 10 times more limited partner capital than their all-female-owned counterparts, with female-owned funds securing only 7p for every £1 raised by male-owned funds. The study highlights the urgent need for transparency and change in the industry to address this funding gap and promote diversity. More Here
Factor Capital Management Launches - Targets 30M Venture Fund I: Factor Capital Management, an investment firm founded by former GSR Markets and Two Sigma Investments Executive Jake Dwyer, announced today the launch and first close of its Factor Venture Capital Fund I with approximately $10M in commitments. The fund aims to invest up to $30m in seed-stage startups that leverage blockchain technology to solve real-world problems. More Here
📬 Featured: Today’s Featured Article
How to Talk About Valuation Numbers When Investor Ask?
One of the hardest things about the fund-raising process for entrepreneurs is that you’re trying to raise money from people who have “asymmetric information.”
VC firms see thousands of deals and have a refined sense of how the market is valuing deals because they get price signals across all of these deals. Read More…
💡 Startups Snap: The Latest Buzz
WeWork declares bankruptcy: WeWork, once valued at $47 billion, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to deteriorating financial performance and high operating expenses. The company's decline was exacerbated by the shift to remote work during COVID lockdowns, leading to decreased demand for office space. WeWork founder Adam Neumann expressed disappointment and hopes for successful reorganization. More Here
WeWork CEO Adam Neumann made $1 billion through bankruptcy: In 2021, SoftBank paid former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann $480 million for half of his remaining stake, part of a $770 million payout from the SPAC process. Neumann also received $185 million for a non-compete agreement and $106 million in a settlement. Despite WeWork's downfall, Neumann launched Flow, a real-estate tech venture aiming to create community-oriented rental housing. More Here
US sanctions Russian accused of laundering Ryuk ransomware funds: The U.S. government has sanctioned Russian national Ekaterina Zhdanova for laundering over $2.3 million in ransom payments for the Ryuk ransomware group. Zhdanova allegedly used virtual currency exchanges and fraudulent accounts to help Russian elites and ransomware affiliates evade sanctions, also assisting oligarchs in moving large sums of money internationally. The sanctions are part of efforts to combat cybercriminal networks like Ryuk and Conti, targeting individuals involved in ransomware attacks. More Here
Bumble announces Slack CEO Lidiane Jones will be its new chief exec: Dating app Bumble is replacing founder CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd with Slack CEO Lidiane Jones, effective from the new year. Jones, known for her experience at Salesforce, Microsoft, and Sonos, is set to lead Bumble, while Wolfe Herd moves to the executive chair role. The transition comes amidst changing user behaviors in the dating app market, with Bumble's stock currently trading at around $12.67. More Here
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🤖 The Latest In Emerging Tech: AI
OpenAI announced at its developer conference that ChatGPT now has 100 million weekly active users, reaching this milestone within a year of its launch. The company also unveiled GPT-4 Turbo, a more powerful and cost-effective version of its text-generating AI model, along with GPTs, allowing users to create their own conversational AI systems and publish them on the upcoming "GPT Store." OpenAI introduced new APIs, including Assistants API for agent-like experiences and a text-to-speech API with preset voices and generative AI models. More Here
OpenAI introduces "Copyright Shield," pledging to cover legal costs for businesses using its developer platform and ChatGPT Enterprise facing copyright infringement claims related to OpenAI tools. The initiative excludes free and Plus tiers of ChatGPT and raises questions about training data indemnity. OpenAI joins companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon in defending customers against generative AI-related IP rights lawsuits. More Here
🗞️ Today’s Must Read On: Startup, Technology & VC
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✍️Written By Sahil R | Venture Crew Team
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