Wiz Rejects Alphabet’s $23 Billion Acquisition Offer & Ex-Google Researcher AI Startup Raised $500 Million

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☕Hey there, Welcome to today's quick rundown in the Venture Daily Digest Newsletter. We've got the scoop on startup fundraising, VC funds, and some cool tech – all in just 5 minutes!

Top News

Ex-Google researcher Aiden Gomez co-founded Cohere startup that develops customized AI models for enterprise tasks has raised $500 Millions.

Cybersecurity startup Wiz, based in New York, has reportedly turned down a $23 billion acquisition offer from Alphabet, Google's parent company. CEO Assaf Rappaport informed employees that the company will remain independent, aiming for $1 billion in ARR and an IPO as its next milestones.

Other Major News

• Venture Curator Hub: Get Access To 10000+ investors' email contact database & more. (Scroll Down)

• Elon Musk's xAI Powers Up 100K Nvidia GPUs to Train Grok. (Scroll To Tech News)

• Elon Musk announced that Tesla's Optimus robots will begin "low production" for internal tasks in 2025, with mass production for other firms starting in 2026. (Scroll To Tech News)

• Tesla to have humanoid robots for internal use next year (Scroll To Tech News)

• Building Cap Table As A Founder: Template to Download. (Scroll To Featured Article)

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Startup Funding Updates

Monarch Tractor, based in California, develops autonomous electric tractors with integrated technology for automated driving features. The startup raised $133 million in a Series C round, bringing its total funding to $220 million. The round was co-led by Astanor and HH-CTBC Partnership L.P., an affiliate fund of Foxconn. More Here

Loyal, an Atlanta, GA-based healthcare technology company focused on digital patient engagement, raised $33.5M in Series B funding. Backers included Concord Health Partners and multiple strategic investors. More Here

Aviato, based in San Francisco, is an analytical platform for private market data that tracks funding rounds, headcount, and other metrics for investors and companies. The startup raised $2.3 million in seed funding from investors including 8VC, Soma Capital, and SoftBank. More Here

MetaBeat, a Seoul South Korea-based provider of a Fan-to-Earn Kpop Music NFT platform, raised $3M in funding. Backers included FZF Ventures, Layer OTC, and Dubain Labs. More Here

Fragment, based in New York, offers a ledger API that enables engineers to build software for tracking customer balances and real-time, double-entry accounting. The startup raised $9 million in a seed round, bringing its total funding to $10.8 million. Investors include BoxGroup, Avid Ventures, and executives from companies like Stripe, Plaid, and Uber. More Here

Cowboy Clean Fuels, a Greenwood Village, CO-based climate tech and energy transition company, raised approx $13M in Series B funding. The round was led by Machan Investments, the family office of former energy executive Dan Dinges. More Here

Endless Health, an Austin, TX-based end-to-end at-home testing and preventive medicine company, raised $4.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Next Coast Ventures, which was an early investor, and Asset Management Ventures. Antler Elevate also increased their investment. More Here

Elly Analytics, a Palo Alto, CA-based martech startup developing a marketing analytics platform, raised $1M in Seed funding. The round was led by Altair Capital and PTV Ventures with participation from angel investors. More Here

Monarch Tractor, a Livermore, CA-based creator of the MK-V, a fully electric, driver-optional smart tractor and Wingspan Ag Intelligence (WingspanAI) farm management platform, raised $133m in Series C funding. The round was co-led by Astanor and HH-CTBC Partnership, L.P., with participation from At One Ventures, PMV and The Welvaartsfonds. More Here

Linx Security, a NYC-based company which specializes in identity security and governance solutions, raised $33M in funding. The round was led by Index Ventures and Cyberstarts, with participation from Mickey Boodaei and Rakesh Loonkar, as well as Cerca Partners and Knollwood Investment Advisory. More Here

Lario Therapeutics, an Edinburgh, Scotland, UK-based biopharmaceutical company developing precision medicines for epileptic and neurological disorders, received a $6M Grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF). More Here

Heeler Security, a Bethesda, MD-based application security space startup, raised $8.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Norwest Venture Partners with participation from Storm Ventures. More Here

Draupnir Bio, a Copehagen, Denmark-based biotechnology company harnessing the natural machinery of the lysosome to develop oral, small molecule degraders of extracellular disease-causing proteins, raised €12M in Seed funding. Backers included MP Healthcare and EIFO and existing investors, Gilde Healthcare Partners, Inkef Capital and Novo Holdings. More Here

Onego Bio, a Helsinki, Finland-based precision fermentation company, secured €14M in new funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator Program and additional Series A investors. More Here

Digital First AI, a Kraków, Poland-based marketing tech company, raised €3.5m in funding. The round was led by 4growth VC, with participation from Plug&Play and Sher Ventures, Hub71, and the owners of creative agency McCANN Poland. More Here

Cell BioEngines, a NYC-based company researching stem cells in order to develop new cell therapies, raised additional $2M in funding. The round consisted of $1.75M from SOSV and the Partnership Fund, and $0.25M from Empire State Development’s NY Ventures, the state’s venture capital arm through the Pre-Seed and Seed Matching Fund Program. More Here

Trait, a Berlin, Germany-based provider of a training app, raised €1M in Seed funding. Backers included HTGF, better ventures and others. More Here

Finbee Verslui, a Lithuania-based crowdfunding platform for business, raised €35M in The round was led by Pollen Street Capital. More Here

Grover, a Berlin, Germany-based company which specializes in technology rentals, raised additional €50M in funding. Backers included Cool Japan Fund (CJF), a public-private fund from Japan and existing investors, such as Energy Impact Partners, Korelya, Augmentum und Circularity Capital. More Here

Zivoe, a George Town, Cayman Islands-based provider of a real-world asset (RWA) credit protocol, $8.35M in funding. Backers included Andrew Keys, Iceberg Capital, Concave, and others. More Here

Saltroad, a Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK-based provider of an online platform that matches parents with qualified speech and language (SLT) practitioners, raised £575K in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Techstart Ventures and Ascension VC. More Here

Wealthbrite, a London, UK-based provider of a commercial awareness and financial literacy program, raised £200K in funding. Backer included Jo Wetz and Mary Bonsor. More Here

Saiz, a Berlin, Germany-based provider of a platform that leverages data analytics to personalise garment measurement, raised €2.5m in seed funding. The round was led by EnjoyVenture and Salica Investments, with participation from Houghton Street Ventures, Gateway Ventures and strategic angels. More Here

The Bouqs Company, a Marina Del Rey, CA-based company which specializes in direct-to-consumer (“DTC”) floral delivery, raised over $23M in funding. The round was led by CrowdOut Capital along with new and existing investors. More Here

Venture Capital Updates

Menlo Ventures and Anthropic have partnered to launch the $100 million Anthology Fund, aimed at investing in early-stage AI companies. The initiative will provide funding starting at $100,000 and $25,000 in Anthropic model credits to selected startups. Menlo Ventures, which recently led a $750+ million funding round in Anthropic, sees this as an opportunity to identify promising AI startups and potentially back them in future rounds.

Featured Article

Building Cap Table As A Founder: Template to Download.

A cap table, or capitalization table, is a chart typically used by startups to show ownership stakes in the business. It lists your company's securities (i.e., stock, options, warrants, etc.), how much investors paid for them, and each investor's percentage of ownership in the company.

You can obtain a stockholder ledger from your lawyer, which lists all stockholders and shows how many shares or options they hold. However, I don't consider this document a comprehensive cap table. In this, I am sharing a cap table template that is used by various leading VC firm’s partners.

The basic outlines of this cap table are:

1. It shows all the major stockholders of the company listed on the left side. It also shows the major option holders and buckets of option holders

2. It shows all of the classes of stock and how much was paid for them across the top of the columns

3. For each investor, you show how much of each class was bought and how many shares of that class they own as a result

4. You total up the cost and shares and then calculate ownerships on a fully diluted basis (which means you include the options, whether issued or non-issued or vested or non-vested).

I like this presentation for its simplicity and because it shows the progression of financing activity. It also has the benefit of showing how much each investor has put in on a cost basis, which many cap tables leave out.

If you want to make a cap table for your company, feel free to replicate this format. If you have angel investors, put them in the angel section. I would include the largest ones and bucket all the rest into “other angels.”

If you’ve got any questions about this cap table, or cap tables in general, feel free to email me.

Previously we have shared this in our Venture Curator Newsletter.

Startup’s Latest Buzz

Acquisition & Going Public

OV Loop, a Boston, UK-based company building an app commerce network, acquired Skipti, a transportation facilitator that helps drivers, retailers and consumers schedule, deliver and return rentable products to and from homes. More Here

Infogain, a Los Gatos, CA-based company which specializes in digital customer experience engineering, acquired Impaqtive, a NJ-based summit level Salesforce consulting services firm. More Here

Layoffs & Bankruptcy

Byju's, once India's biggest startup, faces insolvency proceedings over a $19 million debt to the cricket board. CEO Raveendran warns of potential service shutdown and mass employee exits in a court filing. The ed-tech giant, valued at $22 billion at its peak, has suffered recent setbacks including job cuts and investor accusations of governance lapses. More Here

Startups & People

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz summoned to testify before House committee over major Windows PC outage. Homeland Security Chair demands details on incident's causes and CrowdStrike's mitigation steps. Kurtz stated outage was due to Falcon content update issue, not a security or cyber incident.

Latest In Emerging Tech

Elon Musk announced that Tesla's Optimus robots will begin "low production" for internal tasks in 2025, with mass production for other firms starting in 2026. Musk initially stated the Optimus robot would be ready to perform tasks in Tesla's EV factories by the end of this year. Musk's plans for Optimus and AI products come as Tesla faces reduced demand for electric vehicles and anticipates low profit margins in upcoming quarterly results.

Nvidia is developing a new AI chip named "B20" specifically for the Chinese market to comply with U.S. export restrictions. The "B20" chip, part of Nvidia's advanced Blackwell series, is aimed for release and shipment in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia plans to collaborate with Inspur for the distribution of the "B20," despite current tighter U.S. export controls on advanced semiconductors to China.

Elon Musk's xAI has started training its AI models using over 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs at a new supercomputing facility in Memphis, Tennessee, described as the most powerful AI training cluster globally. This facility, known as the "Gigafactory of Compute," is built in a former manufacturing site, and xAI secured $6 billion in funding, creating jobs for roles like fiber foreman, network engineer, and project manager.

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