VC Daily Digest - 09/11/2023

📮Today’s Major News

• Former investors from Bill Gates’ investment office launched VC fund

• Zeus Living, the proptech startup backed by Airbnb shutting down the operations

• Featured Tweet: How to Find The Right Problem To Solve? : Y-Combinator Strategy

• New Pre-Seed Funds Are Popping Up Everywhere

  
  

  

  Source: Google Images

Despite the overall decline in venture capital investments and returns, there's a surge in pre-seed stage funding activity. In the past month, several firms, including Catalyst Fund, ALIAVIA Ventures, Greylock, Garuda Ventures, The House Fund, and Bee Partners, have announced new funds, totaling over $220 million, excluding Greylock's $1 billion fund. Pre-seed deals have decreased since 2021, with just 788 global deals in Q3 2023, attributed to higher valuations and reduced risk appetite.

However, early-stage investments remain attractive, with an entry point at around $3 million or $5 million in valuation, offering healthy returns. Specialized firms like GFR Fund, focusing on gaming and entertainment startups, find success by staying niche and offering unique value propositions, attracting founders and LPs from the industry. Additionally, initiatives like "Pre-seed to Succeed," a $50 million investment program, provide support to startups with minimum viable products, nurturing innovative ideas in uncertain times.….

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💰 Massive Fundings Updates

Mogul club, Washington, D.C.-based that wants to help more people achieve their dreams of becoming a landlord. to It has raised total of $4.2 million in funding, $3.6 million of which was recently raised in a seed round of funding, AY Ventures led mogul club’s seed round, which also included participation from Tim Draper & Associates, Draper B1, InterVest, Draper Dragon and Blizzard Fund. More Here

Load, a latin america based startup trying to revolutionize the food supply chain raised $2.05 M led by Nazca and other investors like Canary, Alaya Capital and a group of angel investors joined the funding round. More Here

EarnBetter, a startup founded by former Credit Karma employees, is developing a platform that lets users upload an existing resume or cover letter and have AI reformat and rewrite it for a particular job listing. Andreessen Horowitz, Abstract Ventures and Figma founder Dylan Field are among the investors in the startup’s $4.5 million seed round. More Here

Finkargo, a two-year-old Bogotá startup whose platform provides SMBs with trade financing and other trade-related services, raised a $20 million Series A round led by QED Investors, with Nazca as well as previous investors Quona, Flybridge, Maya, and ONEVC also contributing. More Here

Talus Renewables, a two-year-old Austin startup that develops sustainably produced ammonia for commercial use, raised a $22 million Series A round co-led by Material Impact and Xora Innovation, with Cavallo Ventures and Rice Investment Group also stepping up. More Here

Black Ore Technologies, an Austin startup whose platform is designed to streamline tasks for accountants and other financial services professionals, raised a $60 million round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Oak HC/FT, with additional participation from General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, SV Angel, and PayPal co-founder Max Levchin. More Here

Upciti is a French startup that has been working on a hardware sensor for city centers that is easy to install and maintain. the company secured $7.5 million (€7 million) in new funding this summer. Point Nine and Chalfen Ventures are leading the round, with existing investors Demeter and Innovacom also participating. More Here

Tabnine, AI powered platform to generate the code it raised $25 million in a Series B funding round led by Telstra Ventures with participation from Atlassian Ventures, Elaia, Headline, Hetz Ventures, Khosla Ventures and TPY Capital. More Here

Ozone, the maker of an AI-powered collaborative video editor in the cloud, has raised $7.1 million in seed funding and is launching in open beta. The round included funding from Y Combinator, NEA, General Catalyst, LGVP, Bluewatch Ventures, Polymath Capital Partners, Pioneer Fund, SOMA Capital and Olive Tree Capital, as well as the founders of Dropbox, Tinder and Lightricks. More Here

QuickNode, a blockchain deployment platform aiming to bring Web 2.0 services into web3. QuickNode has raised around $115 million. Upon raising $60 million from 10T Holdings, Tiger Global and others, the company was valued at $800 million in January. More Here

Summer, which helps customers buy — and rent out — vacation homes, raised $18 million in a funding round led by backers including QED and Viola Group alongside a $50 million debt facility from Setpoint Capital. More Here

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🚀 Venture Capital Highlights

Mendoza Ventures closes Truist Ventures' investment for its $100M: Mendoza Ventures, a female and Latinx-founded Fintech, AI, and Cybersecurity Venture Capital firm, today announced that Truist Ventures is investing in its Early Growth Fintech Fund as a limited partner. The fund is targeting $100M and will invest in early growth-stage startups with a focus on diverse teams. More Here

Former investors from Bill Gates’ investment office launched VC fund: Former investors from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust and the Gates family office have launched Bison Ventures, a $135 million fund dedicated to deep tech startups addressing global challenges. The Seattle-based fund focuses on AI, engineering, and biology applications, investing in early-stage companies with diverse leadership. Bison Ventures aims to support breakthrough science and engineering solutions, backing startups in areas such as behavioral health, plant stress detection, and generative AI. More Here

📬 Featured: Today’s Featured Tweet

How to Find The Right Problem To Solve? : Y-Combinator Strategy

One of the most common reasons for startups failures is founders attempting to solve the wrong problem.

Successful founders, on the other hand, choose the right problem to solve. How Do They Find It? 👇

💡 Startups Snap: The Latest Buzz

Zeus Living, the proptech startup backed by Airbnb, is shutting down operations after raising $150 million in debt and equity, including a $55 million Series B round in 2019. The company, valued at $205 million during its peak, faced financial challenges amid rising interest rates, impacting its ability to manage homes. Meanwhile, rival Anyplace secured $8.27 million in Series B funding, highlighting the ongoing growth in the flexible living space market. More Here

LXA, a technology startup focused on reimagining Asia's mortgage ecosystem, today announced the completion of its US$10 million seed funding round led by New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA), with participation from Openspace Ventures and EDBI. More Here

Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, is reportedly considering going public in 2024, despite the crypto industry's downturn. The company's potential IPO aligns with the rising importance of stablecoins and their revenue streams, particularly from increased interest rates. Circle's revenue surge is attributed to higher interest rates, boosting income from its USDC reserves, making an IPO a strategic move despite the market challenges. More Here

Swedish fintech firm Klarna has confirmed its plans for an initial public offering (IPO) and has initiated a legal entity restructuring to set up a holding company in the United Kingdom. The move follows a positive third quarter with increased revenue and profit for Klarna, which has 150 million customers globally and a valuation of $6.7 billion. The company has not yet decided on the timing or location of the IPO but views the U.K. as a favorable market for its global investor base. More Here

Robotics funding saw another dip: In 2023, robotics investments continue to decline, following a peak in 2021, as global interest in automation wanes amidst easing supply chain challenges. The sector, now facing a second consecutive year of reduced funding, reflects broader trends in decreased VC investments. However, robotics companies are diversifying applications, proving their value beyond manufacturing, and leveraging sustained interest in artificial intelligence technologies to maintain stability in the market. More Here

Vanguard has reduced the value of its investment in Indian ride-hailing startup Ola by 63.7%, implying a lowered valuation of approximately $2.65 billion, down from $7.3 billion in 2021. Neuberger Berman has also slashed the worth of its PharmEasy shares by over 90%, valuing the startup at around $550 million, down from $5.6 billion in 2021, citing news of potential equity offers at lower prices. More Here

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🤖 The Latest In Emerging Tech: AI

Hugging Face has a two-person team developing ChatGPT-like AI models: Hugging Face's two-person team, H4, aims to empower the AI community by developing open source large language models and tools for AI-powered chatbots, inspired by ChatGPT. Their recent models, Zephyr-7B-α and Falcon-40B, utilize Nvidia A100 GPUs for training and align with Hugging Face's mission to provide accessible AI resources. While H4 doesn't directly monetize its work, it contributes to Hugging Face's Expert Acceleration Program, supporting enterprise solutions, and collaborates with open AI initiatives to empower the community. More Here

Meta, Hugging Face, and Scaleway have joined forces to launch an AI-focused startup program at the Station F campus in Paris, emphasizing open and collaborative AI development in France. Startups can apply until December 1, 2023, with five winners gaining access to mentoring from Meta, Hugging Face's platforms, and Scaleway's compute resources, focusing on projects built on open foundation models. The initiative underscores the push for openness in AI amid ongoing industry debates about regulation and development approaches. More Here

🗞️ Today’s Must Read On: Startup, Technology & VC

• 15+ Ways a Venture Capitalist Says “No” Read More (Startups)

• The Six Moats of Data Businesses Read More (startups & venture capital)

• Do the things, that don’t scale by Paul Graham (My Fav.) Read More (Startups)

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✍️Written By Sahil R | Venture Crew Team

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