VC Daily Digest - 18/09/2023

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📢 Top Venture Capital News

The future of batteries needs more than venture capital: French battery maker Verkor secured more than €2 billion (around $2.1 billion) to build its Dunkirk gigafactory, which is set to be operational by 2025, with an initial production capacity of 16 GWh/year. There’s a lot to be discussed about gigafactories, the future of batteries and the green transition. For instance, that demand isn’t due to just EVs. Or how recycling might look. But what struck me the most about Verkor’s announcement is where its funding is coming from. More Here

Venture capital firm to reach $110M in assets with latest seed round: Cortado Ventures announced Monday that it has begun the final close of its oversubscribed $80 million seed Fund II. The Oklahoma City-based early-stage venture capital firm launched its second fund last year with the intent of bringing innovation and ingenuity to logistics and energy, life sciences and the future-of-work sectors. Seed Fund II brings Cortado’s total assets under management to more than $110 million in less than three years, making it one of the largest in the region and the largest venture capital firm of its kind in Oklahoma. More Here

SVB Capital Could Sell for $500 Million; Scaramucci Among Bidders: Silicon Valley Bank’s former owner is reportedly close to selling its venture capital business. SVB Capital has attracted two top bidders, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Friday (Sept. 15), citing sources familiar with the matter. Those potential buyers include SkyBridge Capital, and Atlas Merchant Capital — both working together — and Vector Capital. SkyBridge was founded by Anthony Scaramucci, famous for serving as President Donald Trump’s communications director for just 10 days. Sources told the WSJ the business could sell for between $250 million and $500 million, with a court decision on the buyer expected in the coming weeks. More Here

BlueRun Ventures China Announces Rebranding to Lanchi Ventures: BlueRun Ventures China ("BRV China" or "company"), a leading early-stage technology-focused venture firm, today announced that it is changing its English brand to Lanchi Ventures. The company has launched a new website www.lanchiventures.com to provide greater clarity and differentiation from BlueRun Ventures (BRV), the venture capital firm headquartered in Silicon Valley. Back in 2005, BRV saw that entrepreneurship and technology innovation will be a global phenomenon. It opened its China offices, contributing to the growth of local entrepreneurship ecosystem. More Here

Superorganism Announces Launch as First Venture Capital Firm Dedicated to Addressing the Global Biodiversity Crisis: Superorganism announced its launch as the first venture capital firm dedicated to the global biodiversity crisis. Founded by a seasoned venture capitalist and a conservation technologist, Superorganism aims to support early-stage technology startups working to prevent biodiversity loss. Superorganism's mission is to back visionary startup founders who are determined to create a more abundant future for humans and nature alike. More Here

📢 Top Startup’s Fundraising News

Spanish Startup Revel Raises $125 Million for Car Subscription Platform: Spanish digital car subscription service provider Revel has reportedly raised 115 million euros (about $123 million) in a funding round. The money, which includes a 15 million euro (about $16 million) capital investment and a debt financing structure of up to 100 million euros (about $107 million), will accelerate the company’s expansion plans and further develop its car subscription service. More Here

Essential AI Raising $40 Million to Build LLM Software: Artificial intelligence (AI) company Essential AI has reportedly raised $40 million in new funding. The funding round for the startup — described in a Bloomberg News report Wednesday (Sept. 13) as a “secretive” company — comes amid a wave of financing for the AI sector. The Bloomberg report — citing a source familiar with the deal — noted that Essential had raised $8 million a few months ago in a round led by Thrive Capital, which also invested in OpenAI. More Here

Quantum Computing Startup-Nanofiber Quantum Technologies Secures $8.5m Funding: Nanofiber Quantum Technologies Inc. ("NanoQT") raised $8.5m from leading venture capital investors. Phoenix Venture Partners (PvP) in the US, and Japan's JAFCO Group Co Ltd, SPARX Group Co Ltd, Keio Innovation Initiative, Inc. (KII), and Waseda University Ventures (WUV) financed the round through convertible notes. Founded in 2022, NanoQT is a leading startup company focused on fiber connectable quantum computing hardware. More Here

📢 Featured: Today’s Featured Tweet

Airtable Is Struggling

Recently Anand Sanwal shared a tweet on how Airtable once valued at $11B is struggling now to keep their position in the market. It’s the best case, on how the startup journey look like. Have a Look! 👇

📢 Top AI News

DeepMind discovers that AI large language models can optimize their own prompts: When people program new deep learning AI models — those that can focus on the right features of data by themselves — the vast majority rely on optimization algorithms, or optimizers, to ensure the models have a high enough rate of accuracy. But one of the most commonly used optimizers — derivative-based optimizers— run into trouble handling real-world applications. In a new paper, researchers from DeepMind propose a new way: Optimization by PROmpting (OPRO), a method that uses AI large language models (LLM) as optimizers. More Here

The next phase in AI is interactive bots that can carry out tasks for you: Mustafa Suleyman, a cofounder of Google DeepMind, believes that "generative AI is just a phase" — an opinion he shared during an interview with MIT Technology Review published Friday. "What's next is interactive AI: bots that can carry out tasks you set for them by calling on other software and other people to get stuff done," said Suleyman, who is currently a cofounder and CEO of a new AI startup, Inflection AI. Suleyman said that interactive AI could be more dynamic and take actions on its own if given permission — in contrast to what he described as the "static" technology of today. More Here

Adobe and Salesforce expand AI tools while tech CEOs visit Congress: As top tech leaders visited Capitol Hill last week for more AI conversations — some under oath and others behind closed doors — several of the largest platforms released even more generative AI tools for marketers and creatives. Last week, Adobe expanded its Firefly AI platform beyond beta to make it generally available across Adobe’s Creative Cloud and Experience Cloud. The new features in Photoshop and Illustrator will let people use AI to recolor photos, add or remove images and other tasks. More Here

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📢 Top Startups News

Elder tech is expanding beyond reactive solutions: My grandpa will turn 93 this November. He’s my last living grandparent, and while he hasn’t made it this far without any health complications, he’s largely thriving and still able to maintain a garden, brew beer and try new baking projects. My family has long attributed his longevity to how active he’s remained. He still takes walks, and he maintained his lawn until just a few years ago. He’s a living example of how important exercise is for those who are aging — hopefully mixed with some good genes, for my sake! Bold is built on the same premise. More Here

Future of electric motorcycles: The USA might be the land of the automobile, with its grid-oriented cities, wide roads and interstates rolling off into the horizon. But cities that were not built for cars have narrow, winding and possibly cobbled streets without many parking options, and you’ll find that mopeds and small-engined bikes of various stripes are a far more common sight in these cities than cars. They are cheap to run, easy to maintain, and relatively simple to learn to ride. Mostly, they’re not about recreation, but about transportation and business. More Here

Real estate tech companies continue to get hammered by high mortgage rates: Last week, Divvy Homes’ third round of layoffs in a year’s time. It was the latest casualty in a beaten down real estate tech sector. The rent-to-own startup Divvy Homes in September 2019 when it announced a $43 million Series B round to help in its mission to help more Americans “move from renters to [home]owners.” then covered the company’s $110 million Series C in February of 2021. Of course, at that time, it was a very different housing market. More Here

🗞️ Interesting Today’s Read On: Startups & Venture Capital

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

• 📜 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

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What do you think of today's newsletter?

• ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Amazing piece

• ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ This was really good

• ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ It was okay

• ⭐️ ⭐️ Not your best

• ⭐️ Waste of time

✍️Written By Sahil R | Venture Crew Team

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