PIN

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
April 26, 2024

Welcome to PIN’d - our weekly newsletter where we pin (lol, bear with us) the most important tech/startup news of the week for aspiring angels, vc’s, startup investors, founders, etc. Expect a new weekly roundup from us every Friday morning!

If you’re receiving this, it’s because you’ve signed up for our waitlist and/or for newsletter updates.

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📰 This week’s best news

Eniac has secured $60 million for Select 1, the firm’s fund for follow-on later-stage investments in portfolio companies, and $160 million for Eniac VI. Co-founder and general partner Nihal Mehta stated that the firm plans to make its first investment from its sixth fund "shortly" and intends to make approximately 40 investments across both funds.

Shasta Venture, the VC firm behind Nest and Canva, failed to secure approval from its limited partners for a continuation fund. The move needed two thirds approval.

Marc Tessier-Lavigne, former Stanford University president, is now the CEO of Xaira Therapeutics, a new drug development startup. The company has raised $1B from leading Silicon Valley firms like Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Xaira Therapeutics uses AI models to discover new treatments for diseases.

Rippling, a workforce management software, has just closed a Series F round, led by existing investor Coatue Management, raising $200 million and valuing the company at $13.4 billion. This news follows earlier reports of a potential $670 million secondary component. Rippling's founder, Parker Conrad, has clarified that this is a $590 million tender offer, with $200 million earmarked for employee stock options and the remaining $390 million available to seed investors and others.

Walmart-backed fintech One launches ‘buy now, pay later’ loans

Walmart's fintech startup, One, now offers BNPL loans for high-value items at select US stores. One will compete with Walmart's existing partners, including Affirm, generating $648 billion in revenue last year. Ads for both One and Affirm compete for consumer attention in Walmart's electronics aisles.

Wiz, a cloud security unicorn, is in advanced negotiations to acquire its rival Lacework for $150-$200 million, a fraction of Lacework's previous $8.3 billion valuation. Wiz recently acquired Gem Security for about $350 million and Raftt, a developer collaboration platform, in December 2023.

Tesla teases its upcoming Uber-like self-driving ride-hailing app

Tesla has released its Q1 2024 financial results and hinted at the launch of its upcoming self-driving ride-hailing app, formerly known as ‘Tesla Network’, positioning it as a competitor to Uber. Tesla has been discussing this app for years, with previous talks of launching it without self-driving capability. However, it is now clear that Tesla is waiting for self-driving technology to be ready before releasing the app.

💰 Funding announcement highlights

Pascal, a startup based in Broomfield, CO, raised nearly $10 million producing lab-grown diamonds, with $2.5 million from Andreessen Horowitz.

Clarity Pediatrics, a startup that offers pediatric chronic care for ADHD patients, raised $10 million in a seed round from Rethink Impact, Homebrew, Maverick Ventures, January Ventures, Vamos Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and Citylight V.

Accacia, a startup developing a platform to help real estate and infrastructure measure and manage carbon emissions, raised a $6.5 million pre-Series A from Illuminate Financial, AC Ventures, Accel, and B Capital.

Exowatt has raised a $20 million seed round to sell advanced thermal energy storage systems using phase-change materials designed for data centers. Andreessen Horowitz, Atomic, and Sam Altman were part of the investors.

Campus, a startup offering community college education through a mix of online and in-person classes to keep tuition within the maximum Pell Grant award, recently secured a $23 million Series A extension. The round was led by Founders Fund, with 8VC also participating.

📚 Interesting reads of the week

Tiffany Zhong spent the last decade studying social media habits and used the information to create Nospace, the Gen Z version of Myspace. Like MySpace and early Facebook, Nospace allows users to have customizable profile pages and share updates on their activities.

Users can also share what they are watching, eating, reading, and listening to in real life, and "star" their interests to connect with like-minded people. Additionally, the app will list a user’s closest friends, similar to the MySpace Top 8.

Pavel Durov, the billionaire CEO of Telegram, an encrypted messaging and social media site, was about to move his company to downtown San Francisco ten years ago. However, after an attempted mugging on the streets following a visit to Twitter's office, he changed his mind.

Multiple decentralized identity protocols are being developed to increase user privacy, enable interoperability, provide one-click sign-ons, protect against identity theft, and allow self-sovereign ownership of data. This article analyzes the four main challenges to achieving these goals.

Investors are using special purpose vehicles (SPVs) to invest in hot AI startups like OpenAI and Anthropic. These vehicles pool money from multiple parties to back a single company.

Thrive Capital, Soul Ventures, and SparkLabs Global Ventures have used SPVs to buy shares of OpenAI. Meanwhile, several investment firms used SPVs to buy Anthropic shares owned by bankrupt crypto exchange FTX.

💪 Tech mafia of the week

Highlights:

💰 Most money raised: Signifyd

🤑 Total money raised by the Klarna Mafia: $196 million

Weekly tech mafia leaderboard

The Klarna alumni network has built some amazing companies, so we took a look at the top companies.

The Klarna Mafia takes the 62nd spot, with 17 companies founded in total and $196 million in total raised.

PS: Are you a Klarna employee/alum interested in getting your community together to invest in the community (and earn carry/other benefits along the way)? Or are you a member of another community that you think would make for an amazing startup investment community? 😉

Learn more about us and sign up for the waitlist here.

📌 PIN tweet of the week

💼 Who’s hiring in VC?

Looking to get into VC? Below are this week’s curated VC job openings.

25Madison is looking for a VC Director.

Amex Ventures is looking for a VC Analyst.

Chicago Pacific Founders is looking for a VC Associate.

Commerce Ventures is looking for a Senior VC Associate.

AI Fund is looking for a Corporate Innovation Lead.

📠 Fun fact of the week

In 1998, Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, wrote a check for $100,000 to an entity that did not yet exist: a company called Google Inc.

This early funding, provided before Google was even formally established, is one of the most famous angel investments in history and was crucial to Google's initial development.

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