VC Daily Digest - 25/10/2023

📮Today’s Major News

• Africa's Startup Scandals Rising

• France's New Tax Relief System for Investment

• SEC's Rules Pose Challenges for Fintech Startups

• Innovative Tech Solutions Revolutionize Construction Compliance

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💰 Massive Fundings Updates

Triple-A, which enables clients to pay in or accept crypto and get fiat money in their bank accounts the next day. It has raised a $10 million Series A from returning investors Peak XV (former Sequoia India and Southeast Asia) with strategic backing from MENA-focused venture firm Shorooq Partners, alongside undisclosed repeat backers. More Here

Signos, a metabolic health platform that utilizes a unique AI-engine with a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) to offer real-time data and recommendations for healthy weight management, has announced a successful $20 million Series B funding round. The round was led by Cheyenne Ventures and GV (Google Ventures), with additional investments from Dexcom Ventures and Samsung. More Here

Node, A New e-commerce startup founded by ex-paypal executive raised $2.75 million in a seed funding round led by Neotribe Ventures, and including participation from executives and founders from companies such as Bill Me Later, Boku, Citicards, Facebook, Magento, Meta and PayPal. More Here

Twelve Labs, San Francisco-based startup building models that can understand videos at a deep level. company announced that it closed a $10 million strategic funding round from Nvidia, Intel and Samsung Next, bringing its total raised to $27 million. More Here

Aleph, which allows finance and operations teams to centralize their financial data from disparate systems, including enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management platforms, and bring it directly into their spreadsheets with permissioning and version control. It raised $16.7 million in a funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures with participation from Khosla Ventures, Picus Capital and Y Combinator. More Here

Oxolo, A German startup out of Hamburg with generative AI-driven video platform which can optimize engagement on the fly. It raised a €13 million Series A funding round led by DN Capital. Also participating were German angel investors, including Christian Vollmann, Johannes Plehn, Thomas Hagemann, Stefan Wiskemann, Alex Täubert and Mischa Rürup.

Censys, which provides customers with insights about critical internet-connected infrastructure. It raised $50 million in a Series C funding round plus a $25 million debt round, bringing its total raised to $128.1 million. Decibel Partners led the round with participation from GV, Greylock and Intel Capital. Other participants included Ascension Ventures, Four Rivers Partners V, L.P. and accounts managed by Hamilton Lane. More Here

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

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

France Boosts Tech Investment with Innovative Tax Breaks: France plans to implement a new tax relief system for angel investments in tech startups, drawing inspiration from the UK's SEIS and EIS schemes. Starting in 2024, individuals investing in JEI-labeled companies will receive a 30% income tax break. In 2025, new categories JEIC and JEIR will offer 50% tax breaks for deep tech startups and 30% for other startups, aiming to boost early-stage funding and support innovation in the French tech ecosystem. More Here

Africa's Rising Startup Scandals, Fake Users and Funds: SoftBank sues IRL, a social media startup, for $150 million after discovering 95% of its reported 20 million users were fake, leading to the company's collapse. Similarly, Ghanaian fintech Dash, once valued at $1 billion, shuts down amid reports of inflated user numbers and missing funds, causing investor Insight Partners to halt African startup investments, highlighting lax due diligence practices in the region's tech scene. More Here

Wellington Management, the Boston-based investment management firm, yesterday announced the final close of its first early-stage venture fund, Wellington Venture Investments I, with $150 million in capital commitments. More Here

OrbiMed Advisors, the New York-based investment firm, has raised more than $4.3 billion to invest in healthcare at a time when many startups are struggling to secure funding. It raised roughly $1.86 billion for its ninth venture-capital vehicle, $1.71 billion for its fourth royalties and credit pool, and a $751 million Asia fund, its fifth fund focused on the region. More Here

💡 Startups Snap: The Latest Buzz

SEC's AI Rules Pose Challenges for Fintech Startups: SEC's proposed rules, mandating conflict elimination instead of disclosure for AI use, could hamper fintech startups. These stringent regulations might require significant investment, posing uncertainties and risks for innovative players in asset management and brokerage sectors. Startups must tread carefully to ensure compliance and viability. More Here

Innovative Tech Solutions Revolutionize Construction Compliance: Recent amendments to the Davis-Bacon Act in the U.S. present challenges for construction firms, necessitating innovative solutions for compliance. Construction technology startups can leverage robotic process automation (RPA) to automate data collection, ensuring accurate and unified labor data management. Additionally, technologies like vector databases and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) can help startups keep up with prevailing wage rate changes, simplifying compliance processes and reducing errors. More Here

Pebble, the Twitter alternative previously known as T2, is shutting down as they run out of time to make Pebble happen — the app maxed out at 3,000 daily active users, out of 20,000 registered users. That daily user figure fell to 1,000 daily users following its rebranding from T2. More Here

WordPress.com owner buys all-in-one messaging app Texts.com for $50M: WordPress.com and Tumblr owner Automattic is adding another company to its portfolio , it has acquired the all-in-one messaging app Texts.com for $50 million. The app brings all your messaging apps together in a single dashboard, including iMessage, Slack, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, Messenger, LinkedIn, Signal, Discord and X. 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

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

• Decoding Sequoia Capital: How Do They Dominate the VC Landscape? Read More (Venture Capital)

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

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

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✍️Written By Sahil R | Venture Crew Team

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