VC Daily Digest - 12/10/2023

📮Today’s Major News

• VCs Legal Battle Threatens DEI Efforts

• Sony Ventures earmarks $10M to invest in African entertainment startups

• Indian startups were not spared in the global venture slowdown of Q3

• More money won’t fix your failing startup — here’s how to get investors to back a pivot

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🚀 Venture Capital Highlights

Investors suggest funds prepare for the fallout of the Fearless Fund lawsuit, not worry about it: Fearless Fund, which provides grants and investments to women of color, has been indefinitely barred from deploying its $20,000 grant to Black women after the American Alliance for Equal Rights, led by conservative activist Edward Blum (best known as the man who helped overturn affirmative action in education), sued them over the scheme. The lawsuit against the venture firm could result in significant adverse ripple effects on the venture community’s efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the startup ecosystem. More Here

Indian startups were not spared in the global venture slowdown of Q3: Venture capital investment hit some big bumps in the last quarter. Still, the declines we’re seeing in terms of deal volume and value in India this year is stark in comparison, especially for a country that’s as populous, online and replete with technical talent as this one. Venture investment totals could clock in at less than $1 billion per quarter if this trend doesn’t reverse in the next quarter or two. More Here

Sony Ventures earmarks $10M to invest in African entertainment startups: Sony Group established Sony Innovation Fund: Africa, a program that will support the growth of entertainment businesses in Africa. Appropriately, the Tokyo multinational conglomerate, through Sony Ventures Corporation (SVC), has earmarked $10 million for early-stage startups in gaming, music, film and content distribution.

💰 Massive Fundings Updates

AI revolutionizing MRI scans, banked $32M: Munich-based startup Orbem, born from PhD research into MRI tech, set out to fix the problem and speed up the process. An industrial MRI scanner is combined with an AI-based platform, which enables hatcheries to determine the sex of an egg in a contactless and non-invasive manner. It raised a €30 million ($31.8 million) Series A funding round led by 83North. The round was joined by new investor La Famiglia and existing investors The Venture Collective and Possible Ventures. More Here

Carefull lands $16.5M to shield seniors from financial fraud: Carefull, a fintech platform that aims to help banks protect older customers from fraud, scams and “money mistakes,” raised $16.5 million in a Series A round led by Fin Capital with participation from TTV Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Commerce Ventures, Montage Ventures and Alloy Labs. More Here

Conveyor raises $12.5M to automate security reviews using LLMs: Chas Ballew founded Conveyor, a startup building a platform that uses large language models (LLMs) along the lines of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to generate responses to security questions in the original questionnaire format. Conveyor raised $12.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Cervin Ventures, bringing its total raised to $19 million. More Here

Yooga a restaurant operating system raised $2.3M: Yooga, developing a Brazil-based restaurant operation management system, raised its first institutional funding of $2.3 million in seed capital. The round was led by SaaSholic with participation by Gilgamesh, Apex Partners and Backfuture. Vinicius Melo, Victor Sortica and Cassiano Guerra Fernandes co-founded the company in 2017, and bootstrapped Yooga for three years before taking $300,000 in a friends-and-family round in 2020. More Here

Anysphere raises $8M to build an AI-powered IDE: Anysphere, a startup building what it describes as an “AI-native” software development environment, called Cursor, raised $8 million in seed funding led by OpenAI’s Startup Fund with participation from former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi and other angel investors. More Here

Phasio helps local manufacturers manage their customer relationships raised $2.5M: Phasio automates all manufacturing by channeling WhatsApp, SMS and email messages into its manufacturing interface.Founded in 2021 by Harry Conor Lucas and Sudharshan Raman, Phasio announced today it has raised $2.5 million in seed funding. Airtree Ventures led the round, with participation from 500 Global, Entrepreneur First, Michael Sorkin’s Gattaca Ventures and Tan Teik Guan. More Here

Data transformation startup Prophecy lands $35M investment: Prophecy, a low-code development platform for companies to transform their data, today announced that it raised $35 million in a Series B funding round led by Insight Partners and SignalFire, with participation from J.P. Morgan, Singtel Innov8, Databricks Ventures and Dallas Venture Capital. More Here

Peer-to-peer fashion rental marketplace Pickle picks up $8 million: New York-based peer-to-peer fashion rental marketplace Pickle, which lets users earn passive income from their closets, is readying an expansion with the close of an $8 million seed round, co-led by FirstMark Capital and Craft Ventures, with participation from Burst Capital. More Here

Aampe aims to personalize app marketing with algorithms raised $7.5M: Aampe, a marketing automation platform for mobile apps, recently closed a $7.5 million funding round led by Matrix India and Peak XV. Bringing Aampe’s total raised to $9.3 million, the new cash will support product development and growing Aampe’s go-to-market teams. More Here

KIT Plugins, an audio software startup raises $1 million: KIT Plugins, a music software development startup, has raised $1 million in seed funding led by Copycat Holdings. The Nashville-based startup offers digital audio emulations of rare analog gear to help producers and musicians record quality studio sound. More Here

Thread, which develops a platform to autonomously inspect utility assets, raises $15M: Thread startup developing a robotics platform to collect inspection data for utilities, today announced that it raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Badlands Capital with participation from Minnkota Power Cooperative, Generational Partners, Rosecliff Ventures, Excell Partners, Homegrown Capital and Kevin O’Leary’s Wonder Fund North Dakota. More Here

Modal Labs lands $16M to abstract away big data workload infrastructure: Modal Labs, a platform that provides cloud-based infrastructure to data teams and app developers, particularly those creating generative AI applications, has raised $16 million in a Series A funding round led by Redpoint Ventures, with participation from Amplify Partners, Lux Capital and Definition Capital. More Here

🤖 The Latest In Emerging Tech: AI

Box unveils unique AI pricing plan to account for high cost of running LLMs: As generative AI becomes embedded in enterprise software, one of the challenges that companies face is how to fairly price it to recoup the cost of running their content against foundational large language models like OpenAI’s. Box introduced Box AI last May, bringing generative AI to the platform via a partnership with OpenAI. Today, at BoxWorks, the company’s customer conference, it announced a unique way to price its AI functionality. More Here

Character.AI introduces group chats where people and multiple AIs can talk to each other: Character.AI, the a16z-backed AI chatbot startup from ex-Google AI researchers, is out today with a new feature for its subscribers. The chatbot platform, which offers customizable AI companions with distinct personalities and tools to make your own, is now offering a group chat experience where users and their friends can chat with multiple AI characters at once. More Here

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💡 Startups Snap: The Latest Buzz

More money won’t fix your failing startup — here’s how to get investors to back a pivot: It’s a tough time right now for founders looking to raise their next round, and many are coming to the painful realization that VCs simply aren’t buying what they’re selling. Investors are looking for clear signs of stable, profitable growth. If your company isn’t seeing strong growth with customers eager to use the product and share it with others, it might be time to pivot the company in a new direction. More Here

EU also warns Meta over illegal content, disinfo targeting Israel-Hamas war: The European Union has expanded its warning about illegal content and disinformation targeting the Israel-Hamas war circulating on social media platforms to Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. Yesterday the bloc’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, published an urgent letter to Elon Musk, owner of X (formerly Twitter) — raising concerns the platform is being used to disseminate illegal content and spread potentially harmful disinformation in the wake of Saturday’s surprise attacks on Israel by Hamas terrorists based in the Gaza Strip. More Here

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

• Building Applications with AI - Lessons from LangChain, Hearth, & Context.ai Read More (AI)

• The Startup Ecosystem Is Beyond Broken Read More (Startups)

• The story of Benchmark, the greatest VC ever Read More (Venture Capital & Startups)

• Mastering the Foundation: Go-To-Market Strategy for Startup Success Read More (Venture Capital & Startups)

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✍️Written By Sahil R | Venture Crew Team

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