VC Daily Digest - 13/09/2023

👋 Welcome to Today’s VC Daily Digest!

Your Monday to Saturday Daily Morning Dose of Venture Insights, Funding Updates and Startup Stories Delivered Straight to Your Inbox🚀. Stay Informed and Stay Ahead In the World of Venture Capital !

📢 Top Venture Capital News

‘Lack of innovation’ drives funding away from crypto: In a year that has seen a significant decline in venture capital funding for the crypto space, Tony Cheng, a partner at Foresight Ventures, offers some insights. He suggests that the lack of new innovations may be driving venture capital firms away, and advises founders to focus on survival and profitability over growth. Despite the current market conditions, Cheng remains optimistic about the future of the crypto space, emphasizing the importance of resilience and adaptability in these challenging times. More Here

Sierra Ventures Raises $265 Million to Continue ‘Right-Sized Fund’ Approach: Sierra Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based venture firm, has announced the successful closing of their 13th fund at $265M, surpassing its target. The firm continues its strategic focus on early-stage B2B investments across North America, with a track record of generating top-performing funds and being the first investor in unicorns such as Reify Health, Phenom, and Astronomer. Under the leadership of Managing Partners Mark Fernandes, Tim Guleri, and Ben Yu, Sierra Ventures has raised three top-performing funds since 2012, and maintains a disciplined approach to its investment strategy. More Here

Anna Wilding Launches Female-Focused Prodco & Plots $50M VC Raise For Content Fund: Production veteran and President Obama photographer Anna Wilding has launched a production company, Broader Horizons Entertainment (BHE), and is working to raise $50M for a content fund. The company has secured IP and will be driven-by feature film, with sports, music and adventure also part of the plan, founder Anna Wilding told Deadline. It’s backed by unnamed private investment sources. More Here

Seed VC Firm Uncork Hires Accel Partner Amy Saper As Fifth Partner: After raising a fresh $400 million to fund seed stage companies, venture capital firm Uncork Capital has now brought on a fifth partner. The firm announced Tuesday that it had hired Amy Saper away from her position as a partner at the blue-chip VC firm Accel, where she’s specialized in early-stage investments in fintech and B2B software. More Here

📢 Top Startups News

Can the quick grocery delivery model only work in emerging markets?: The instant grocery delivery sector has experienced a rollercoaster ride in recent years. Despite an initial rush of capital and inflated valuations in 2021, many companies are now grappling with a harsh reality check. Notable closures include Fridge No More and Buyk, while Gorillas was sold to Getir for less than its initial funding. However, it's not all doom and gloom - companies thriving in 2023 share a common trait: their focus isn't on Western Europe or the U.S. More Here

Klaviyo could be the rare startup to defend a late-stage 2021 valuation: As the IPO market revives, it's clear that some startup valuations from 2021 were significantly off. Case in point: Instacart, once valued at an astounding $39 billion, is now inching towards a $10 billion valuation as it prepares for public markets. However, not all valuations were misplaced. Klaviyo, a Boston-based email marketing firm, is one such example. Despite initial skepticism, its fully diluted valuation at the midpoint of its $25 to $27 per share price range places it at a robust $8 billion, close to its $9.5 billion post-money valuation from May 2021. If Klaviyo manages to raise its price range before going public, it could match its last private valuation, a remarkable feat in the current venture capital landscape. More Here

📢 Featured: Today’s Featured Article

A Guide For Finding Product-Market Fit In B2B

Recently I have read this article by Lenny Rachitsky on finding the product market fit in B2B where he talked about the how the giant B2B companies found their PMF and what’s the general time line it take to reach PMF.

Although There is no one formula to reach PMF, but he discussed based on giant companies experience - so if you are a founder building in B2B or a product guy. Have a Look! 👇

📢 Top AI News

AI is changing how we work and create. It's also damaging our environment: We're beginning to see how generative AI, like ChatGPT and Bard, are taking the workforce by storm — but a more significant impact is brewing as we adapt to more widespread adoption of the technology, environmentalists warn. Insider previously reported AI is like a tidal wave prepared to crash over the economy, eliminating more jobs than we yet realize. And while the tech has far-reaching implications in academia, our dating lives, and how we create art, the massive computer systems and server farms needed to power AI contribute to the climate crisis through massive emissions and vast amounts of water consumption. More Here

Billionaire VC Marc Andreessen welcomes the symbiotic AI future: ‘It’s going to be a much better way to live’: The 2013 film Her, a science-fiction romance starring Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson, isn’t far off from what billionaire Marc Andreessen sees in humanity’s near future. In the movie, Phoenix’s character develops a friendship with an advanced artificial-intelligence companion, voiced by Johansson, that eventually deepens into a bizarre love. More Here

Cloud Savings Leader Usage.AI Announces $9 Million VC Financing Round: In less than 18 months since its inception, Usage.AI, a pioneer in cloud savings identification, has successfully raised $9 million in a funding round led by Amity Ventures and other existing investors. The company's rapid growth, from serving 100 customers at the start of the year to over 300 global enterprises today, is a testament to its effective and user-friendly approach to cloud cost savings. More Here

UPMEM Raises €7M to Revolutionize AI and Analytics Processing: UPMEM, a pioneering fabless semiconductor startup, has secured €4.1M in equity and a €2.5M grant to advance their game-changing Processing In Memory (PIM) chips. These chips are set to revolutionize AI and big data applications, offering massive energy efficiency and hardware footprint gains. UPMEM's PIM solution, now available globally, can reduce energy consumption, cost, and hardware footprint by up to 10 times, potentially reducing data center electricity consumption by 20%. More Here

Join 2600+ Avid Readers For Daily Morning Venture Insights, Funding Updates And Startup Stories In Your Inbox. 🚀!

📢 Top Startup’s Fundraising News

Lyten is the latest EV battery startup to score hundreds of millions raised $200M: Lyten, an innovative startup focusing on lightweight, lithium-sulfur batteries for electric vehicles, has secured a $200 million Series B funding round led by Prime Movers Labs. The funding will support the launch of an automated pilot line in San Jose, California, with plans to start shipping EV batteries in 2024. Unlike traditional lithium-ion batteries, Lyten's batteries will exclude key minerals like nickel, manganese, cobalt, and graphite, offering potentially greater energy storage and less environmental impact. More Here

Druid, a conversational AI platform for enterprises that integrates with ChatGPT, raises $30M: European AI startup Druid has raised $30 million in a Series B funding round, aiming to further its growth in the U.S., which currently constitutes the majority of its revenue. Founded in Romania in 2018, Druid provides "conversational business applications" that leverage both traditional and generative AI models, like ChatGPT, to automate customer support. This recent funding will help Druid extend its global footprint, especially in the U.S., which now makes up about 60% of its revenue. More Here

Zenity strives to keep no-code/low-code apps secure raised $16.5M: In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, low-code and no-code tools are empowering non-technical users to create apps and workflows. However, this democratization of technology also poses a security risk. Zenity, an Israeli startup, has recognized this challenge and developed a solution to secure these applications. With a recent $16.5 million Series A investment, Zenity aims to provide security teams with greater visibility into these new applications, without limiting the capabilities of the users creating them. More Here

Enfabrica, which builds networking hardware to drive AI workloads, raises $125M: Enfabrica, a networking chip startup, has raised $125 million in a Series B funding round, bringing its total raised to $148 million. The funds will be used to support R&D, operations, and team expansion. Enfabrica's chips are designed to handle AI and machine learning workloads, addressing a high demand for networking technologies in the AI industry. The company's unique architecture for networking chips aims to meet the I/O and memory movement requirements of parallel workloads, including AI, and to bridge the gap between AI workload demand and the cost, efficiency, and scalability of compute clusters. More Here

Parallax removes the friction from cross-border payments raised $4.5M: Parallax, a startup aiming to streamline cross-border payments, has raised $4.5 million in seed funding to tackle the $21 trillion market. Leveraging blockchain technology, Parallax offers near-instant transfers of stablecoin, crypto, or traditional currencies, initially focusing on remote workers and freelancers. The company, founded by Mika Reyes, is set to expand into other areas like remittances for migrant workers and is already supporting users from over 150 countries. More Here

CertifID, which develops products to prevent wire fraud, raises $20M: CertifID, a startup combatting wire fraud in real estate, has successfully raised $20 million in a funding round led by Arthur Ventures. The company, co-founded by Thomas Cronkright after a personal loss of $180,000 to fraud, collaborates with Tyler Adams to provide a platform protecting home buyers, sellers, and real estate businesses from cybercrime. With wire fraud victims in the real estate sector increasing by 380% since 2017, CertifID's mission is to create a "world without wire fraud." The fresh funding will be used to support product development and scale operations to meet the growing demand for its products. More Here

AuthMind raises seed funding for its identity SecOps platform: Maryland-based startup AuthMind, co-founded by Shlomi Yanai and Ankur Panchbudhe, has raised an $8.5 million seed round led by Ballistic Ventures and IBM Ventures. AuthMind aims to help businesses protect themselves from identity-related cyberattacks by securing their identity surface and identifying attacks and vulnerabilities in real time. The company's unique approach involves analyzing a company’s network flow to build a holistic view of all their cloud, on-prem, SaaS apps, password managers and more. This approach brings the identity context to almost everything that happens within a company’s cybersecurity infrastructure and network, proving especially helpful during post-incident investigations. More Here

English learning platform ELSA lands $23M Series C: ELSA, the English language learning platform, has successfully raised $23 million in Series C funding and launched ELSA AI Tutor, a tool designed to enhance English pronunciation, grammar, and tone. This funding round, led by UOB Venture Management and others, brings ELSA's total raised to $60 million. The fresh capital will be used to expand ELSA's global offering, with a focus on Taiwan, the Middle East, Turkey, and Japan. ELSA's AI Tutor, which uses speech recognition to offer personalized lessons, is aimed at individuals seeking to improve their English conversational skills for professional settings. More Here

SQream calls in $45M to expand its GPU-based big data analytics platform: In 2010, Israeli data analytics startup SQream made a strategic bet on the potential of GPUs for processing and querying large datasets. Today, that bet is paying off in a big way, with the rise of AI and the massive data processing it requires, as well as the ever-increasing amount of data the world produces daily. SQream is now announcing a new funding round of $45 million, led by World Trade Ventures, to continue its growth trajectory. The company, which counts Orange, Samsung, LG, Alibaba, and PubMatic among its customers, plans to use this funding to double down on growth in North America. More Here

Enfabrica, which builds networking hardware to drive AI workloads, raises $125M: Enfabrica, a company focused on developing networking chips for AI and machine learning workloads, has successfully raised $125 million in a Series B funding round. This funding will be directed towards supporting R&D, operations, and team expansion. The company's unique approach to networking hardware, the Accelerated Compute Fabric Switch (ACF-S), is designed to efficiently handle the data movement needs of modern AI workloads, potentially addressing a significant bottleneck in the AI industry. With AI infrastructure investments projected to reach over $500 billion by 2027, Enfabrica is strategically positioned to contribute to this rapidly growing market. More Here

🗞️ Interesting Tuesday’s Reading On: Startups & Venture Capital

• 📜 Decoding Startup Valuations with the Venture Capital (VC) Valuation Method Read More

• 📪 The Game-Changing Clause For Entrepreneur. Read More

• 📑 Is the "1% Market Fallacy" Holding Your Startup Back? Read Here

• 📰 Why Your Startup Idea Isn’t Big Enough for Some VCs? Read More

• 📮Visualizing Funding Runway & Burn Rate Read More

• 🗃️ Decoding Term Sheet: Liquidation Preference | Participation & Non-Participation Rights Read Here

• 📪Hidden Trap Of Convertible Note and Liquidation Preference Multiples Read More

🦄 Weekly Updates: Inside The Founders & Investors Community

👉 Join the community of Verified 1500+ Investors & Founders Backed By Y-Combinators, a16z and others ? Join Here

What did you think of today's newsletter?

• ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Amazing piece

• ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ This was really good

• ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ It was okay

• ⭐️ ⭐️ Not your best

• ⭐️ Waste of time

✍️Written By The Venture Crew Team

🤗Join Community 🗈 Want to Feature 📢 Sponsor Us 👉 Follow Us