PIN

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
May 03, 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.

Got a friend that wants to learn more or stay up to date on angel investing/VC? Help us spread the word and forward this email to them ;)

Subscribe here.

📰 This week’s best news

Daniel Ek, the founder of Spotify, has ventured into the health tech industry with his new startup, Neko Health. The company was launched in Stockholm in February 2020 and has quickly gained popularity, having completed 3,000 scans. Neko Health is now preparing to launch in London this summer, aiming to expand its services to the UK market. 

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison for not establishing anti-money laundering protections. Zhao, who was once the head of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, pleaded guilty in November 2023.

General Catalyst, a VC firm with a successful track record spanning 24 years, is close to securing nearly $6 billion of funding. This is quite a milestone in a time when the venture capital sector is facing difficulties in fundraising, and it highlights the firm's ability to attract investments in spite of broader market challenges.

Impossible Foods, a company that produces meat substitutes using soy, has plans to achieve a “liquidity event” within the next two to three years. This could involve going public with an initial public offering (IPO), selling the company to another business, or a capital raise.

WeWork Inc. and its major financial backers, including SoftBank Group Corp., have reached a new restructuring deal to save the struggling workspace provider from bankruptcy. This move comes after the company rejected a competing financing proposal from co-founder Adam Neumann.

Ethan Kurzweil (Bessemer Venture Partners), Kristina Shen (Andreessen Horowitz), and Mark Goldberg (Index Ventures) are forming a new early-stage investment firm that will focus on enterprise tech startups.

beehiiv, the New York startup that developed a platform for creating and distributing newsletters, has recently secured $33 million in funding. The Series B rounds is being led by NEA, with participation from Sapphire Sport and previous investor Lightspeed Venture Partners. Although the company has not disclosed its valuation with this round, it has raised a total of $46.5 million so far.

💰 Funding announcement highlights

Edia, a startup that designed a platform to enhance math learning outcomes in K-12 schools through AI-driven software, raised $9.4 million. Felicis led the round, which also included 8VC, Inspired Capital, and Susa Ventures.

Chowdeck, a startup that allows customers to order meals from different local restaurants, raised a $2.5 million seed round. The investors included Y Combinator, Goodwater Capital, FounderX Ventures, HoaQ Fund, Levare Ventures, True Culture Funds, and Haleakala Ventures.

Hinkal, a San Francisco startup offering advanced tools for managing and executing large trading orders, catering primarily to institutional investors and high-frequency trading firms, raised a $1.4 million series. SALT Fund led the round, with Draper Associates, SNZ, and Peer VC also contributing.

Shinkei Systems, a startup that mixes robotics and machine learning to reduce labor costs and improve the quality of fish processing, raised a $6 million seed round. Cantos, 8VC, Impatient Ventures, Susa/Humba Ventures, Carya Venture Partners, Ravelin Capital, Red & Blue Ventures, and Undeterred Capital all invested.

Style Protocol, a startup that allows the creation and use of customizable avatars and NFTs across different virtual gaming worlds and metaverses, raised a $2.5 million round. GBV Capital, Morningstar Ventures, Dutch Crypto Investors, Protocol Labs, and Alpha Ventures were part of the deal.

📚 Interesting reads of the week

The Financial Times finally closed a deal with OpenAI to license its content and develop AI tools, the latest news organization to work with the AI company. ChatGPT users will see summaries, quotes, and links to FT articles, and any prompt that returns information from the FT will be attributed to the publication. In return, OpenAI will work with the news organization to develop new AI products.

General Catalyst, a16z capture 44% of US VC fundraising in 2024

Assuming General Catalyst successfully closes its new vehicle on $6 billion, the two firms will have attracted a combined $13.2 billion—approximately 44% of the total LP capital committed to US VC funds since the start of the year, according to PitchBook data.

The mixed state of startup funding in 2024, in 11 charts

These 11 charts, based on the latest Crunchbase data, show the state of investment in the first quarter of the year. Although there were some mayor exceptions — some AI, healthcare, energy, and robotics startups, among others, received massive investments — overall, the tone was cautious as the year got started.

Colin Stewart, Morgan Stanley’s global head of technology equity capital markets, believes the “IPO market is back.” In an interview with CNBC’s “TechCheck”, Stewart said 10 to 15 more tech companies could go public before the end of 2024, with an even “better year” in store for 2025.

The CEO of Alphabet Inc., Sundar Pichai, is about to achieve a significant milestone for a non-founder tech executive with his net worth soon hitting ten figures. Pichai, who is 51 years old, took over as CEO of Google in 2015. Since then, the company’s stock has increased by more than 400%, which is a considerably better performance than the S&P 500 and Nasdaq over the same period.

💪 Tech mafia of the week

Highlights:

💰 Most money raised: ChargePoint

🤑 Total money raised by the Cisco Mafia: $19 billion

Weekly tech mafia leaderboard

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

The Cisco Mafia takes the 14th spot, with 735 companies founded and $19 billion in total raised.

PS: Are you a Cisco 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.

Edgworth Partners is looking for a VC Investor.

Health Velocity Capital is looking for a Senior VC Associate.

Inhite Ventures is looking for a VC Partner.

Planetary Scale is looking for a VC Associate.

Oddity Ventures is looking for a VC Manager.

📠 Fun fact of the week

Chris Sacca, an early investor in companies like Twitter, Uber, and Instagram, started with relatively modest investments and became known for his incredible portfolio.

His initial investments were often in the range of tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, but they resulted in returns that were many times the original amount, highlighting the potential impact of angel investing.

Want to learn more about investing in startups with your community through PIN’s platform? Simply reply to this email.

0