VC Daily Digest - 21/09/2023

Your Daily VC Navigator: Unveiling Venture Insights

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Venture Daily Digest
September 21, 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🚀.

📢 Venture Capital Highlights

Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately?: Y Combinator has been on the defensive as of late. This past weekend, leaders from the popular accelerator were vocal on X in their reaction to a comment made by the CEO of another accelerator at an event. Ali Partovi, who founded Neo in 2017, was the keynote speaker at HackMIT on Saturday, September 16. During his 15-minute speech, Partovi says he mentioned YC once, saying: “The mentor ratio: we have as many mentors as Y Combinator, except they’re serving 20 startups rather than 250 startups.” The comment seemingly infuriated YC CEO Garry Tan, who took to X. More Here

Deep Tech VC Launched by Ex-Nvidia, Samsung Execs Raises $140 Million Fund: Global Frontier Technology Ventures (GFT), a venture capital firm launched by former Nvidia and Samsung executives, on Tuesday said it has raised $140 million for its inaugural fund. The Palo Alto-headquartered fund will focus on investing in early-stage artificial intelligence (AI) startups and other firms focusing on cutting-edge science, known as "deep tech." "Our focus will be on the U.S and Israel", co-founder Jeff Herbst told Reuters, adding that over of the fund's investors came from Asia. More Here

A small venture capital player becomes a symbol in the fight over corporate diversity policies: A venture capital firm that has backed buzzy new companies like restaurant chain Slutty Vegan and beauty brand Live Tinted has become symbolic of the fight over corporate diversity policies since becoming a target of a lawsuit over a grant program for Black women. But the Fearless Fund is a tiny player in the approximately $200 billion global venture capital market. More Here

📢 Massive Fundings Updates

JOKR now valued at $800M after bagging about $50M in Series D funding: Online grocery delivery company JOKR is out to show that it can continue to be a leader in the industry. JOKR announced it secured approximately $50 million in Series D financing at a post-money valuation of $800 million. This is down from the company’s $1.3 billion post-money valuation following a $50 million Series C announced in February. More Here

PureSpace prevents spoiled produce by removing ripening gas riased $4M: The UN estimates that about one-third of all food produced goes to waste before it even gets the chance to decompose in your fridge. That abysmal stat explains one key reason why leading VCs and celebrities have poured cash into companies that aim to prevent supply-chain food loss. The firm most recently raised a $4 million Series A round. Next, it aims to secure a $10 million Series B sometime later this year to fund its expansion into the U.S. More Here

Alpha3D wants to accelerate digital asset and AI-powered generation through cheaper, hyperscaling technology raised $2M: Its platform aims to help anyone — regardless of 3D modeling knowledge — to generate 3D digital assets from text prompts or uploaded images within minutes. The digital assets can then be used in augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), virtual try-on (VTO), gaming, the metaverse or as an NFT. Alpha3D has raised close to $2 million. Investors include venture capitalists and angel investors like Sebastien Borget, co-founder and COO of The Sandbox; Taavi Rõivas, former prime minister of Estonia; and others from Meta, Slack and PwC, to name a few, according to its deck. More Here

Petnow claims to be able to identify dogs and cats from their snouts raised $5.25M: Standard pet ID tools, like tags and chips, are imperfect. Tags become easily detached, and not every owner is comfortable with the idea of microchipping their pet. Even those who are comfortable often run into problems with microchips, like chip damage and outdated ID databases. Petnow, which has raised $5.25 million in funding so far from Daedeok Venture Partners and DigiCap at a $24 million valuation. More Here

Legit Security lands $40M to lock down apps and dev environments: Legit Security, a cybersecurity company developing a platform to identify app vulnerabilities from code, has raised $40 million in a Series B funding round led by CRV with participation from Cyberstarts, Bessemer Venture Partners and TCV. More Here

Google-backed Indian audio platform Kuku FM raises $25 million: Google-backed audio content platform Kuku FM has raised $25 million in a new funding round as it looks to make deeper inroads with its audiobook offerings in the South Asian market. Indian billionaire and technologist Nandan Nilekani’s Fundamentum Partnership led the Series C funding in Kuku FM, with International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank. Temasek-backed Vertex Ventures also participated in the new financing round, said the five-year-old startup that counts 3one4 Capital and Krafton also among its backers. More Here

Ghana’s Complete Farmer, which connects farmers to global food buyers, raises $10.4M: Ghanaian agritech Complete Farmer seeks to transform farming practices in the region by developing critical technical and physical infrastructure to enhance efficiency in the agricultural value chain. It raised a recently concluded $10.4 million pre-Series A funding round ($7 million equity and $3.4 million debt) to consolidate its efforts. More Here

Corti, an AI ‘co-pilot’ for healthcare clinicians, raises $60M: A Copenhagen startup called Corti has raised $60 million to expand its contribution to the field: an AI assistant designed to support healthcare clinicians with patient assessments in real time. Prosus Ventures and Atomico are leading the Series B investment, with previous backers Eurazeo, EIFO and Chr. Augustinus Fabrikker also participating. More Here

📬 Featured: Today’s Featured Tweet

Interesting Life Story Of New Product Hunt’s CEO

Recently Rajiv Ayyangar, New CEO Of Product Hunt shared a tweet on how product hunt changed his life and now he is stepping in as CEO.

From launching his first startup’s product on product hunt and eventually raising fund from a16z, he comes a long way. It’s a great read for founders and investors. Have a Look! 👇

📢 The Latest In Emerging Tech: AI

Gaming industry may not be ready to adopt AI: Video games are in focus with the Tokyo Game Show 2023 underway — but some of the biggest game developers in Japan say hot trends like generative AI and virtual reality/augmented reality headsets for game development may not be ready yet. Game developers like Japan's Koei Tecmo have been using conventional algorithmic AI "for a long time," Hisashi Koinuma, president and chief operating officer of Koei Tecmo Games told CNBC, but challenges still remain when utilizing the latest iteration — generative AI — in game development. More Here

AI-focused tech firms locked in ‘race to the bottom’, warns MIT professor: The scientist behind a landmark letter calling for a pause in developing powerful artificial intelligence systems has said tech executives did not halt their work because they are locked in a “race to the bottom”. Max Tegmark, a co-founder of the Future of Life Institute, organised an open letter in March calling for a six-month pause in developing giant AI systems. Despite support from more than 30,000 signatories, including Elon Musk and the Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, the document failed to secure a hiatus in developing the most ambitious systems. More Here

Former Meta AI VP debuts Sizzle, an AI-powered learning app and chatbot: Founded by the former vice president of AI at Meta, Jerome Pesenti, Sizzle is a free AI-powered learning app that generates step-by-step answers to math equations and word problems. The company recently launched four new features, including a grading capability, a feature that regenerates steps, an option to see multiple answers to one problem and the ability to upload photos of assignments.Sizzle recently secured $7.5 million in seed funding, led by Owl Ventures, with participation from 8VC and FrenchFounders. More Here

GitHub expands access to Copilot Chat to individual users: Three months ago, GitHub launched Copilot Chat, its ChatGPT-like programming-centric chatbot, out of private preview by making it available to organizations with a Copilot for Business subscription. Today, it’s taking this a step further by also opening up the Copilot Chat beta to all current GitHub Copilot for Individual subscribers in Visual Studio and VS Code. Copilot for individual users costs $10/month and Copilot Chat is a free addition to the existing subscription. More Here

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📢 Startups Snap: The Latest Buzz

Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain implant startup, set to begin human trials: Elon Musk’s controversial biotechnology startup Neuralink opened up recruitment for its first human clinical trial Tuesday, according to a company blog. After receiving approval from an independent review board, Neuralink is set to begin offering brain implants to paralysis patients as part of the PRIME Study, the company said. PRIME, short for Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface, is being carried out to evaluate both the safety and functionality of the implant. More Here

Klaviyo’s strong IPO pricing should give unicorns an idea of what they are worth: Last night, Klaviyo, a Boston-based marketing automation company, priced its IPO at $30 per share, $1 above its previous price range, which it had raised recently. This pricing looks to be a win for the late-stage startup, as it gives the company a fully diluted valuation of around $9.2 billion, which isn’t all that far from its last private valuation of $9.5 billion. More Here

Don’t use builds, reveals or animations in your pitch deck: Pitch deck is your pièce de résistance when you’re trying to convey a ton of information about your startup to a would-be investor in as few slides as you can. Sixteen, in fact, seems to be more or less the right number. From time to time, I see founders trying to get a little bit too clever for their own good. I get it. In a world of ever-advancing technologies, it can be tempting to embed your pitch deck with all the latest bells and whistles. Build-ins, reveals, animations — many such elements have become more accessible thanks to advanced presentation software. More Here

Roblox acquires voice moderation startup Speechly: Two years after announcing voice chat was coming to Roblox, the gaming company has acquired a voice tech startup, Speechly, offering voice chat moderation, real-time transcription and Voice API that lets companies add AI voice technology and voice interfaces to their products and experiences. More Here

After relaunching as a studio for creators, LimeWire acquires BlueWillow, a Midjourney competitor: In the Wild West of generative AI, a new, unlikely cowboy is riding into town. LimeWire — once infamous for music piracy and incurring the wrath of the music industry before shutting down — last year pivoted under new owners into the world of content creation. Now, to build that out further, today it’s announcing the acquisition of BlueWillow, a popular generative AI image creation platform that competes with services like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. More Here

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

  • The future of Silicon Valley Read More (Venture Capital )

  • Navigating Dilution and Ownership in Startup Fundraising Read More (Startup)

  • The Dawn of AI : Pricing Power & Profits in NVidia's Business Read More (Technology)

  • Deciphering: “Don’t think this is venture-backable.” Read Here (Startup)

  • Decoding Term Sheet: Liquidation Preference | Participation & Non-Participation Rights  (Venture Capital)

  • Building a Generational Business Databrick by Databrick Read More (Technology)

What Do You Think Of Today's Newsletter? 🤓

✍️Written By Sahil R | Venture Crew Team

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