PIN

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
August 02, 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!

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📰This week’s best news

Bill Gates-backed climate VC Breakthrough Energy Ventures has gathered $839 million in its effort to raise the firm’s third flagship fund, according to a regulatory filing, making it the largest climate fund raised so far this year.

Stripe has acquired its competitor Lemon Squeezy, a US-based payment processing start-up founded four years ago. Patrick Collison, founder of Stripe, welcomed Lemon Squeezy to the team on X, and added: “We’re going to scale merchant of record selling in a big way.”

Alex Cook, a partner at Tiger Global who managed some of its major fintech investments and deals in India, is leaving the firm after nearly seven years. This departure adds to other high-profile changes within Tiger Global. The company has declined to comment.

Canva announced the acquisition of Leonardo AI, a GenAI-based content production platform. Initially, it was created to tackle high production costs and long development cycles in game development, but it later expanded to cover areas such as marketing, advertising, fashion, product design, and education. The acquisition is part of Canva’s objective to develop a "world-class suite of visual AI tools."

Samuel Schiffmann, the Harvard dropout who created a Webby Award-winning website that tracks COVID-19, is now working on an AI device called "Friend." As the name suggests, the device is designed to combat loneliness by acting as a companion. The neck-worn device connects to your phone via Bluetooth, listens to you constantly, and can send messages proactively. Schiffmann has raised $2.5 million from investors, including Caffeinated Capital’s Raymond Tonsing and others.

Moxxie, a VC firm founded by Katie Jacobs Stanton, former head of media at Twitter, closed a $95 million third fund, surpassing its $85 million target. Moxxie focuses on investing in underrepresented founders, and about a third of its portfolio companies are led by female founders. The firm's name symbolizes courage with an extra X for the female chromosome.

CB Insights recently released their Q2 Venture Report. AI startups dominated the recent quarter, securing almost a third of all funding. The rest of the venture ecosystem remains unenthusiastic.

Flo Health, a fertility-focused period-tracking app, has recently secured a $200 million Series C investment from General Atlantic. This funding values the startup at over $1 billion post-money, making it the first "purely digital" women's health app to achieve unicorn status. The investment will be utilized to attract more users and cater to older ones by focusing on menopause and perimenopause.

Marcy Venture Partners, Jay-Z's firm, is reportedly in talks to merge with Pendulum Holdings, a firm co-founded by Barack Obama's former financial advisor.

💰 Funding announcement highlights

Clutch Security, a startup that specializes in securing and managing non-human identities, such as APIs, bots, and service accounts, raised a $8.5 million seed round. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the deal, with Merlin Ventures and Cyber Club London also joining.

Hyperbolic, a startup that provides GPU resources and AI services through a cloud platform, raised a $7 million seed round. Polychain Capital and Lightspeed Faction were the main investors, with Chapter One, LongHash, Bankless Ventures, Republic Digital, Nomad Capital, CoinSummer Labs, Third Earth Capital, and Balaji Srinivasan also contributing.

Sybill, a startup that created an AI assistant for sales teams to automate and streamline tasks like taking meeting notes, generating call summaries, and drafting follow-up emails, raised an $11 million Series A round. Greycroft, Neotribe Ventures, Powerhouse Ventures, and Uncorrelated Ventures all invested.

ZeroTier, a startup that developed a virtual networking platform used by IT professionals and organizations to create secure, private networks for various devices, raised a $13.5 million Series A round led by Battery Ventures. Bonfire Ventures, Anorak Ventures, Grand Enterprises, Airbridge Equity Partners, and First In Ventures also joined.

DocketAI, a startup that creates an AI-powered virtual sales engineer designed to help sales teams handle technical queries and repetitive tasks, raised a $15 million Series A round. Mayfield and Foundation Capital co-led the deal.

📚 Interesting reads of the week

Delian Asparouhov, Partner at Founders Fund and Co-Founder and President of Varda Space Industries, was featured in the latest episode of 20VC. He discusses VC winners and losers and shares insights about Founders Fund, as well as what every young VC needs to know.

In striking contrast to the widely reported cooling of the AI hype cycle, recent data reveals a surge in funding for generative AI companies. The second quarter of 2024 saw a record-breaking $300 billion invested in the sector, marking a 300% increase year over year.

Sequoia Capital's Roelof Botha, a former rugby player with an unconventional approach, has steered the firm through a turbulent VC landscape. Despite a post-COVID correction and the FTX collapse, Sequoia continues to thrive under Botha's leadership. His strategy involves departing from traditional fund cycles and launching innovative initiatives like Arc, an immersion program for early-stage startups.

OpenAI started introducing ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode on Tuesday, allowing users to access GPT-4o’s ultra-realistic audio responses. The alpha version is currently accessible to a select group of ChatGPT Plus users, and OpenAI plans to gradually make the feature available to all Plus users in the fall of 2024.

In their new book "Pattern Breakers: Why Some Startups Change the Future," investors Mike Maples, Jr. and Peter Ziebelman introduce the "Inflection Theory." This theory, derived from their analysis of numerous successful startups that pivoted from their original business ideas, highlights the critical moments or events that significantly alter a company's trajectory. These inflection points can lead to rapid growth or necessitate transformative changes, ultimately shaping the future of the company.

💪Tech mafia of the week

Highlights:

💰 Most money raised: Commure

🤑 Total money raised by the Anduril Mafia: $876 million

Weekly tech mafia leaderboard

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

The Anduril Mafia takes the 51rd spot, with 13 companies founded and $876 million raised.

PS: Are you an Anduril 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.

Mirae Asset Capital is looking for a VC Associate.

Guggenheim Investment is looking for an Investment Performance Associate.

Geek Ventures is looking for a VC Investor.

Outlander Ventures is looking for a Chief Financial Officer.

Montana Capital is looking for a Senior Associate.

📠Fun fact of the week

In 2018, Loom paid $150k for the domain 'loom.com,' a journey that involved negotiating with a public SaaS company and outmaneuvering a competing startup willing to spend up to $500k. Their clever offer to pay the competing party $75k to rebrand allowed Loom to secure the domain for a fraction of its appraised value.

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