VC Daily Digest - 24/10/2023

📮Today’s Major News

• Investors Divided Over Impact of California's Diversity Bill

• Reliance nears deal to acquire Disney’s India business

• This actor’s startup getting bankrupt

• Featured Article: Why Your Startup Idea Isn’t Big Enough for Some VCs?

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💰 Massive Fundings Updates

Finerio Connect, a Mexico City-based fintech startup, raised $6.5 million in new funding to continue development on its open finance platform providing access to personalized financial products and services. This round led by Third Prime with participation from strategic investors Visa, Bancolombia Ventures and Krealo, Credicorp’s venture capital arm. Alaya Capital, Gaingels, Plug and Play and Winklevoss Capital. More Here

Nomad Homes, a marketplace for residential real estate listings across Europe and the Middle East, closed on $20 million in Series A extension capital. Acrew Capital led the round and was joined by existing and new investors 01 Advisors, HighSage Ventures, Abstract Ventures, Partech, Precursor Ventures, Potluck Ventures, Knollwood and several undisclosed hedge funds. More Here

Ternary, a platform that helps companies manage how much they’re spending on cloud resources across multiple public cloud providers, it raised $12 million in a Series A funding round led by Jump Capital with participation from Fin Capital, RiverPark Ventures, Great Oaks Venture Capital and Gaingels.

Island, a three-year-old Dallas startup that has developed a web browser for enterprises that offers companies enhanced security, manageability, and customization, raised a $100 million round at a $1.5 billion valuation. Prysm Capital and Canapi Ventures co-led the deal, with additional participation from Insight Partners, Stripes, Sequoia Capital, Cyberstarts, and Georgian. More Here

SwingVision, a four-year-old startup based in Saratoga, Ca., that has built a tennis coaching and analytics app, raised a $6 million Series A round led by Authentic Ventures. More Here

Harvest Thermal, a startup based in Berkeley, Ca., that is developing a smart panel to help homeowners make their heat pumps operate more efficiently, raised a $4 million round led by Earth Foundry, with MUUS Climate Partners, Starshot Capital, and Portfolia also contributing. The company has raised a total of $11 million. More Here

Signos, a five-year-old startup based in Burlingame, Ca., whose portable device tracks glucose levels in real-time and helps people make healthier lifestyle choices, raised a $20 million Series B round co-led by Cheyenne Ventures and GV, with Dexcom Ventures and Samsung Next also pitching in. More Here

Upland, a five-year-old startup based in Palo Alto, Ca., that allows users to buy, sell, and trade virtual properties mapped to the real world, raised a $7 million Series A extension. Investors included EOS Network Ventures as well as previous investors C3 Venture Capital and Animoca Brands. The company has raised a total of $25 million. More Here

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🚀 Venture Capital Highlights

Venture-Backed Exit Drought: The third quarter of 2023 saw a significant decline in venture-backed U.S. exit activity, with only a few major IPOs contributing to the total value. Despite a slight improvement from previous quarters, the exit volume remains far below the levels seen in 2021. Even with notable public debuts like Instacart and Klaviyo, the overall exit situation in the market is poor, emphasizing the challenges faced by venture-backed companies in the current climate. More Here

Investors Divided Over Impact of California's Diversity Bill: California's recently passed bill, SB 54, mandating venture firms to report diversity breakdowns of their investments, has elicited mixed reactions. While proponents praise the increased transparency, critics fear skewed data due to optional founder responses. Industry experts note the bill's potential to reshape investment decisions, with New York and the UK considering similar initiatives. More Here

Wellington Access Ventures Raises $150M To Fund Diverse Founders: The venture kickstarted in 2021 after a nudge from Wellington’s co-head of private investments, Michael Carmen. He encouraged Cummings to shift his attention from Salesforce Ventures to lead the fund. This would help Wellington’s clients to support diverse founders. Cummings is now joined by his partners Frederik Groce, Sasha McKenzie, and Van Jones, who all have ties to nonprofit BLCK VC. Their focus with the new fund will be on investing in early-stage funding rounds that might not receive attention otherwise. More Here

📬 Featured: Today’s Featured Article

Why Your Startup Idea Isn’t Big Enough for Some VCs?

VC functions with a power law, the majority of a fund’s returns come from a small percentage of investments. Because of this, Venture Capital need to know if a single investment can return the entire fund.

What does it mean? Let’s understand this More Here👇

💡 Startups Snap: The Latest Buzz

Reliance nears deal to acquire Disney’s India business: Reliance is nearing a deal to acquire Disney’s India business. Disney values its India business at about $10 billion, whereas Reliance views the assets at between $7 billion to $8 billion. Reliance in an earlier statement said the firm is always evaluating properties for acquisitions. In 2019, Disney acquired 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets for $71.3 billion, a move significantly bolstered by the inclusion of Star India. More Here

TikTok is testing the ability for users to upload 15-minute videos. The social media giant said the new upload limit is being tested in select regions with a limited group of users, but declined to share specifics. The new option increases the video upload limit on the app from 10 minutes to 15 minutes. More Here

Baby products company Hello Bello, founded by actors Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Los Angeles-based company, backed by private equity firm VMG Partners, listed assets and liabilities of at least $100 million each in its bankruptcy petition. The filing protects the company from creditors while it works out a way to repay them. More Here

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🤖 The Latest In Emerging Tech: AI

How Does AI ‘Think’? We Are Only Starting to Understand That: You can’t go very far in Silicon Valley without hitting an “AI for X” startup. AI for enterprise tech. AI for medicine. AI for dating. And on and on. Some of these startups, no doubt, are pure marketing hype. But even most of the others are simply applying existing AI to a given category of human need or desire—licensing big AI systems from well-capitalized startups and tech giants. More Here

AI is moving so fast: The tech industry is rapidly evolving with AI-focused events featuring prominent speakers like DeepMind's Shane Legg and OpenAI's Ilya Sutskever. The pace of change, especially in generative AI, is both exciting and daunting, with the rise of diverse AI models and startups. Businesses face challenges in keeping up with evolving models while navigating the potential impact on industries and society. More Here

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

• The 4 Questions Startups Should Ask Themselves about Building with Generative AI Read More (AI)

• Do VCs Think Your Go-to-Market Strategy is Boring? Read More (Venture Capital)

• Before the startup by Paul graham Read More (Startups)

• Why Founders Are Afraid to Talk About MOAT? Read More (Startups)

🚀 Break Intro VC Is Easy, With Right Community : VC Crafters

Building, Learning, Networking, & Landing on VC roles is challenging without the right direction. We're a community for learning, sharing insights, and getting help from others who know the VC best.

✍️Written By Sahil R | Venture Crew Team

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