VC Daily Digest - 28/11/2023

📮Today’s Major News

• Whatsapp Billionaire & Former Sequoia Capital Partner Building Fund To Backed Startups

• European VC Market Still Struggling to raise funding

• An Unicorn startup - Veev Shutting Down it’s business.

• Featured Article: How Did The Great Startups Like Airbnb or Instagram Make Pivot Decisions?

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💰 Massive Fundings Updates

Cradle, a biotech and AI startup based in US aims to find generative approach to protein design, landing big customers and a hefty $24 million of new investment. The Previous investor Index Ventures led the round, with Kindred Capital (also a seed investor) participating, along with individual investors Chris Gibson, Tom Glocer, and others. More Here

Construex, an Ecuador-based software-as-a-service marketplace for the construction and design industries, secured $4.6 million in seed funding. Zacua Ventures and Fifth Wall co-led the round and were joined by ABSeed and Terracotta Ventures. More Here

RepeatMD, US based startups aims to provide turnkey software solutions to operators in the aesthetics and wellness sector. It has raised $40 million in a funding round led by Centana Growth Partners and Full In Partners, with participation from Proof and Mercury Fund, along with a $10 million loan from Silicon Valley Bank. More Here

Mozaic (previously Jammber), aims to solve the payment splits between creators for a project through API and chrome extension. It has raised a $20 million Series A round of funding from Volition Capital. Mozaic has raised more than $27 million to date from investors like Rise of the Rest, Maverick Nashville and music industry executive Joe Galante. More Here

PhysicsX, A London based AI platform to create and run simulations for engineers working on project areas like automotive, aerospace and materials science manufacturing — industries. It has raised $32 million in funding. The round, a Series A, is being led by General Catalyst. Others in the round include a very interesting mix of financial and strategic backers. They include Standard Industries, NGP Energy, Radius Capital and KKR co-founder and co-executive chairman, Henry Kravis. More Here

EMotorad, an Indian startup manufacturing electric bikes, raised $20 million in a Series B round. The three-year-old startup has raised more than $22.5 million in total funding, with Singapore’s Panthera Growth Partners leading the latest round, along with participation from Alteria Capital, xto10x Technologies and Green Frontier Capital — the startup’s existing investor. More Here

Vivodyne, a two-year-old Philadelphia startup that grows human tissues in the lab to test potential new therapies before they go to clinical trials, raised a $38 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures, with Bison Ventures, MBX Ventures, Kairos Ventures, and CS Ventures also stepping up. More Here

Privy, a two-year-old New York startup that works with mainstream companies like Resy to build blockchain-based services for consumers that work through Privy's wallet, raised an $18 million Series A round led by Paradigm, with previous investors Sequoia Capital, BlueYard Capital, and Archetype also contributing. More Here

Nanochon, a Washington, D.C.—based regenerative cartilage innovator. Nanochon develops solutions utilized by sports medicine physicians to treat active patients requiring cartilage restoration. It has raised undisclosed amount from cultivate(MD) Capital Funds LP, funds. More Here

🚀 Venture Capital Highlights

A Secretive $10 Billion Firm Backed By WhatsApp Billionaire Jan Koum Is Quietly Building A Startup Portfolio: Former Sequoia Capital partner Michael Abramson, with support from WhatsApp billionaire Jan Koum, quietly leads Newlands, a tech-focused firm with nearly $10 billion in public equities. The fund, likened to Koum's family office, maintains a low profile, making investments in tech stocks and early-stage startups. Newlands' extensive portfolio includes positions in Meta, Tesla, Alphabet, Amazon, and DoorDash, among others, with a reported startup investment strategy emerging alongside its significant public holdings. More Here

Interplay, A New York-based VC firm, invest in B2B marketplaces and other B2B ecommerce platforms has raised $45 million fund. It will use the money raised to invest in 20 more very early stage B2B ecommerce marketplace and platform companies. It will provide with small cash infusions of $1 million to $2 million per start-up. More Here

European VC Market Still Struggling to raise funding: The companies in Europe are on track to raise just $42 billion this year — less than half the $85 billion that startups in the region raised in 2022.The downturn in the technology sector — dragged by inflation, higher interest rates and geopolitical events impacting the VC funding. More Here

New California law requires diversity reporting for venture capital and private equity firms: California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Fair Investment Practices by Investment Advisers (Senate Bill 54) into law, requiring venture capital companies with ties to California to annually report demographic information of the founding team members at invested companies. The law aims to address funding inequities for women and minority-owned firms, applying to various investment entities beyond traditional venture capital. Reporting begins March 1, 2025. More Here

📬 Featured: Today’s Featured Article

How Did The Great Startups Like Airbnb or Instagram Make Pivot Decisions?

Pivoting in the business world has become a bit of a buzzword, hasn't it?

It's almost like a shiny badge of honor that some wear proudly. The whole concept revolves around changing course when things aren't going as planned, and there are people out there who actually brag about how many times they've pulled off a pivot.

But let's just pause for a moment and really think about what this means. Read More Here👇

💡 Startups Snap: The Latest Buzz

Startup Acquisition

Molten Ventures acquires Forward Partners for £41.4 million: Molten Ventures PLC has expanded its portfolio with the acquisition of Forward Partners Group PLC, a transaction valued at £41.4 million. The deal, which is an all-stock agreement, allows Forward Partners’ shareholders to exchange their holdings for new Molten shares at a ratio of one for nine. More Here

EU regulators voiced their opinion today that Amazon's planned purchase of iRobot for $1.4 billion could squelch competition in the robot vacuum market. Amazon vowed to address their concerns. More Here

People

Elon Musk is visiting Israel in an apparent attempt to dampen charges of anti-Semitism against him. Israeli authorities have told him that he can only operate Starlink in Israel with their approval. More Here

The San Francisco-based venture firm SignalFire seems to be signaling its bet on a turnaround in 2024; it says it just finished a hiring spree, adding nine new members to its roster. More Here

Shutdown

Veev, Tech-enabled home builder - former unicorn, is reportedly facing shutdown after an abrupt cancellation of a capital-raising initiative. The company, which raised $600 million, focused on prefabrication and innovative building processes, pivoting from traditional real estate development. The reported layoffs of 30% of its workforce in November 2022 and parallels with the demise of proptech venture Reali, co-founded by Veev's leaders, highlight challenges in the proptech sector. More Here

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🤖 The Latest In Emerging Tech: AI

With AI chatbots, will Elon Musk and the ultra-rich replace the masses?: Elon Musk's new AI, Grok, raises concerns due to its potential to amplify his biases and influence user-generated content on the X platform. The fear is that Musk's AI could drown out authentic discourse, paving the way for other influential figures to manipulate public opinion through convincing, AI-generated content, undermining the true voice of the people. The use of LLM-powered chatbots threatens to distort popular opinion by flooding platforms with artificially generated perspectives. More Here

OpenAI probably isn’t building humanity-threatening AI: Recent reports on OpenAI's "Q*" project, flagged for its potential danger, may be exaggerated. Some researchers argue Q* builds on existing AI work, such as Q-learning and A*, with origins in the mid-20th century. While it could enhance language models, concerns about it leading to artificial general intelligence or threatening humanity are disputed, emphasizing the need for a nuanced understanding of AI advancements. More Here

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

• Predicting VC Success Through Crunchbase data Read More (startups)

• Is Your Start-Up Idea A ‘Tarpit Idea?’ Bad Vs Tarpit Idea? Read More (Startups)

• Great Ideas Look Bad At Early Stage - By Sam Altman Read More (Venture Capital)

• How to Talk About Valuation Numbers When Investor Ask? Read More (Startups & Venture Capital)

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✍️Written By Sahil R | Venture Crew Team

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