VC Daily Digest - 27/09/2023

📢 Major News

• Increasing Legal Obstacles In Venture Capital Funding

• Fall of Most Valuable Indian Startup: Byju's

• OpenAI is raising funds at a valuation of $80 billion to $90 billion:

• Featured Tweet: VC Funds: Do They Really Take a 2% Management Fee?

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📢 Venture Capital Highlights

Legal Obstacles In Venture Capital Funding: Venture capital (VC) funding drives the innovation and growth of startups, supporting their progress on a global scale. In the first quarter of 2023, VC-backed companies raised over $44 billion. Now, a rising trend is cross-border venture capital investments, expanding opportunities beyond home countries. More Here

US judge refuses to block venture capital fund's grants for Black women: A federal judge in Atlanta on Tuesday rejected a bid to bar a small venture capital fund from awarding grants to businesses run by Black women, in a case brought by the anti-affirmative activist behind the successful U.S. Supreme Court challenge to race-conscious college admissions policies. More Here

T-Mobile Launches Second CVC Fund to Fuel the Next Generation of Connected Products and Services: T-Mobile Ventures is launching a second investment fund to unlock innovative products and services that bring consumers and business customers deeper connections to their world. In an increasingly digital world where connectivity is the critical currency, T-Mobile Ventures is focusing its second fund on innovative products and services that bring customers closer to things that matter most to them. More Here

VC firm Anzu Partners raises $200M for third fund, announces 12 new investments: Anzu Partners has raised more than $200 million at the close of its third venture capital fund. Fund III was established to invest in companies developing next-generation solutions in clean technology, industrial innovations and life sciences. Investors in Fund III include new and returning public and private institutions, single and multifamily offices, and accredited investors across the United States and overseas. More Here

Pan-African contrarian investor P1 Ventures reaches $25M first close for its second fund: Pan-African venture capital firm P1 Ventures has reached the first close of its second fund at $25 million. The venture capital firm secured this capital from some of Africa’s largest industrial conglomerates and private companies, several fund of funds and general partners of global funds based in the U.S. and Europe. More Here

📢 Massive Fundings Updates

AI chip company Kneron raises $49M to scale up its commercial efforts: Kneron, which is developing AI chips to power self-driving cars, among other autonomous machines, today announced that it raised $49 million in an extension to its Series B round from investors including Foxconn, Alltek, Horizon Ventures, Liteon Technology Corp., Adata and PalPilot. More Here

Crediverso takes on legal after $3.5M capital infusion: Crediverso, a company that launched at TechCrunch Disrupt 2020, raised $3.5 million in what founder and CEO Carlos “Charlie” Hernandez called a pre-Series A funding round. The new investment enables the company — which has helped thousands of users in the U.S. Latino community with financial products advice — to jump into legal tech and services. More Here

GIC in talks to lead $40 million funding in India’s Vegrow: The Singapore sovereign fund is evaluating leading a $40 million Series C funding round in Vegrow, the sources said. The talks, which have not finalized and so the terms could still change, currently value the Indian startup at a pre-money valuation of about $250 million, one of the sources said. More Here

Series, which aims to replace ERP systems, lands $25M: Seeking to solve the seemingly intractable problem, three entrepreneurs — Brexton Pham, Daniel Lai and Tamby Kojak — co-founded Series, a startup launching its platform widely today. Backed by $25 million in funding across seed and Series A rounds led by 776 and Basis Set Ventures, with participation from Pear VC, Kleiner Perkins, Day One Ventures, Hustle Fund, Caffeinated Capital, Wischoff Ventures and several angels, Series is developing software that attempts to centralize — and automate — businesses’ finance and operations stacks. More Here

Kolena, a startup building tools to test AI models, raises $15M: Kolena, a startup building tools to test, benchmark and validate the performance of AI models, today announced that it raised $15 million in a funding round led by Lobby Capital with participation from SignalFire and Bloomberg Beta. The new cash brings Kolena’s total raised to $21 million, and will be put toward growing the company’s research team, partnering with regulatory bodies and expanding Kolena’s sales and marketing efforts. More Here

On-chain leverage trading platform Avantis Labs raises $4M seed round led by Pantera Capital: Avantis Labs, a decentralized finance (DeFi) derivatives ecosystem, has raised $4 million in a seed funding round led by Pantera Capital, the company’s co-founder and CEO Sehaj Singh exclusively told TechCrunch. Founders Fund, Galaxy, Coinbase’s Base Ecosystem Fund and Modular Capital also invested in the round. The capital will be used to grow its flagship product Avantis, a perpetual-trading and market-making protocol. More Here

Erudit raises $10M to monitor workplaces for ‘misalignment’: Startups developing and selling work-monitoring software have been a beneficiary of the trend, unsurprisingly. Just today, Erudit, which uses AI to keep track of workforce stats like turnover risk and burnout rate, raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Conexo Ventures, Athos Capital, Ignia Partners, True Blue Partners and Fondo Bolsa Social. More Here

AI startup Gizmo raises $3.5M by using gamified quizzes and flashcards to make learning fun:
Gizmo, a generative AI learning startup that uses gamified quizzes to engage learners, today announced $3.5 million in seed funding from NFX, Ada Ventures, and Capital T. The company will use the funding to scale its platform globally, hire more engineers and roll out new features. More Here

📬 Featured: Today’s Featured Tweet

VC Funds: Do They Really Take a 2% Management Fee? 🤔

All VC funds take the standard 2 and 20 - right? 2% management fees and 20% success fees. But this is not true at all?

From new research by carta found that small VC firms charge way more than 2% management fees. Have A Look 👇

📢 The Latest In Emerging Tech: AI

OpenAI is reportedly raising funds at a valuation of $80 billion to $90 billion: OpenAI is in discussions to possibly sell shares in a move that would boost the company’s valuation from $29 billion to somewhere between $80 billion and $90 billion, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing people familiar with the talks. More Here

The writers strike is over; here’s how AI negotiations shook out: After almost five months, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) has reached an agreement with Hollywood studios to end the writers strike. Starting Wednesday, writers will be able to resume work under the conditions established by their new contract. During the historic strike, AI emerged as a key point of contention between the writers and studios. Though text-based generative AI tools like ChatGPT are very creatively limited as they stand, writers worried that studios would still try to take advantage of these fast-developing tools to avoid paying union members. More Here

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📢 Startups Snap: The Latest Buzz

Bootstrapping is cool once again: Bootstrapping, or funding your own company, has long been the first route many founders take when they set out on their entrepreneurial journey. But it’s not a decision that they have any say in. Often, sources of capital only flow to those with the networks and the opportunity to get warm introductions to investors, so for most of history, bootstrapping has been what has fueled many businesses started by people without access to those networks. More Here

Byju’s to cut as many as 5,000 more jobs amid business restructuring: Byju’s plans to cut as many as 5,000 jobs in the coming weeks, a person familiar with the matter said, as the Indian edtech giant looks to pare down costs amid a broader restructuring of its business following a delayed IPO and pressure from lenders. The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, which recently appointed a new head for its India business, is planning to remove redundant roles spanning both its offline and online ventures. More Here

Alchemist Accelerator’s latest startups range from sneakernet for energy to solar panel cleaning bots: Alchemist Accelerator’s demo day, and there are 22 companies making their debut across a wide range of industries. Whether you’re building a construction business, cleaning solar panels or exploring quantum computing, there’s something for you here. Alchemist also announced a partnership with Microsoft under which the latter will provide startups with $350,000 in Azure credits, presumably a “first one’s free” approach to get them hooked on the services. Especially generative AI stuff, for which Microsoft is clearly pushing to be the default provider. More Here

Google Podcasts to shut down in 2024 with listeners migrated to YouTube Music: Google announced this morning it will be shutting down its Google Podcasts app later in 2024 as part of its broader transition to move its streaming listeners over to YouTube Music. The company earlier this year announced YouTube Music would begin supporting podcasts in the U.S., which will expand globally by year-end. More Here

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

• Startups Fail All The Time, But Many Could Fail Better By Thinking Beyond the VCs and Founders Read Here (Startup)

• Why it's Better To Raise Less Capital In The First Round? Read More (Startups)

• Hidden Clauses In The Term Sheet that Every Founder Should Know Read More (Startup & Venture Capital)​

• What I have learned from users By Paul Graham? Read More (Startups)

• Does an AI Premium Exist in the Fundraising Market? Read More (Technology)

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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