PIN

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
May 10, 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

Glenn Borok and Karen Chi are the leaders of the newly launched inVest Ventures, a LinkedIn community VC fund. Since LinkedIn's inception, hundreds of companies have been founded by its alumni, such as Notion, Confluent, Cricket Health, and Figma, among others. inVest Ventures has launched through PIN and it plans to build more amazing companies by linking LinkedIn alumni founders with investment capital and deep expertise. See a breakdown of the LinkedIn Mafia here.

Max Altman, Ben Braverman, and Thomson Nguyen have raised $125 million for their seed-stage VC firm called Saga Ventures. The firm will invest in early-stage software startups outside of Silicon Valley, leading or co-leading rounds with $2-2.5 million per company across 30 businesses.

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and Bluesky, has resigned from the board of Bluesky. Dorsey revealed his resignation in an X post where he answered "no" to a question about his current board membership in Bluesky.

Lyft's Q1 results came in higher than expected, with revenue and profit above expectations, resulting in a 5% increase in its shares in extended trading. Additionally, the ride-hailing company has projected higher gross bookings and core profit for the current quarter, thanks to robust demand and benefits from new user and driver features.

DatologyAl, a Redwood City-based startup co-founded by Ari Morcos, Bogdan Gaza, and Matthew Leavitt, has raised $46 million in Series A funding led by Felicis, with participation from Radical Ventures, Amplify Partners, Elad Gil, M12, and Alexa. The funding comes only three months after announcing its $11.65 million seed round. The startup aims to improve the quality of models by assisting researchers and developers in curating their training datasets more effectively.

Managers of the bankrupted crypto exchange, FTX, have announced plans to distribute the recovered assets of the company totaling between $14.5 billion and $16.3 billion to the company’s customers and other creditors around the world at the time of its collapse in November 2022.

Iconiq Capital raised $5.15 billion across two funds associated with the seventh growth fund family, surpassing the original target of $5.75 billion. The firm manages capital for prominent tech figures, including Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey. The fund size is a substantial increase from Iconiq’s Fund VI target of $3.75 billion.

💰 Funding announcement highlights

Swypex, a startup from Egypt that offers smart corporate cards, expense management, and business banking services, raised $4 million in a funding round led by Accel.

Yoneda Labs, an SF startup whose software helps chemists optimize reactions by figuring out the best reaction parameters, raised a $4 million seed round from Khosla Ventures.

In-House Health is developing an AI-powered scheduling platform aimed at addressing the nurse shortage crisis. The startup raised a $4 million round from NEA and TMV, with previous investors Vine Ventures and Longevity Ventures also joining.

Nivoda, a startup that operates an online marketplace for diamonds and gemstones, raised $30 million in a Series A round from Avenir Growth, Headline, Abstract Ventures, and Canaan Ventures.

Privateer raised $56.5 million in a Series A round. The company, co-founded by Steve Wozniak, has developed software to track satellites. Aero X Ventures led the round, with Luxe Capital, Boca, Starburst, and the Winklevii also participating.

Wiz, a startup helping businesses identify cloud environment security risks, has raised $1 billion in a Series E round led by Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Thrive. The deal also involved Greylock, Wellington Management, Cyberstarts, Greenoaks, Howard Schultz, Index Ventures, Salesforce Ventures and Sequoia Capital.

📚 Interesting reads of the week

OpenAI is creating Media Manager, a tool to allow content creators to control how their work is used in AI research. The tool is expected to be launched by 2025.

Many companies that used to have a valuation in the billions have seen a significant decline in their value, leading to their share prices falling to an all-time low, sometimes even reaching penny-stock territory. As a result, many of these companies are opting to leave public markets and become private again.

This article explores the three key aspects of investor choice that can significantly impact a startup's path: the negotiation terms between VC and entrepreneur, the real impact of an investor's added value, and how to pick the right investor.

Mercury, a financial technology company, just launched new software that simplifies financial workflows.

💪 Tech mafia of the week

Highlights:

💰 Most money raised: Treasury Prime

🤑 Total money raised by the Brex Mafia: $203 million

Weekly tech mafia leaderboard

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

The Brex Mafia takes the 63rd spot, with 21 companies founded and $203 million raised.

PS: Are you a Brex 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.

Rev1 Ventures is looking for a Manager.

Corewell Health is looking for a Principal, Venture Capital.

HighVista Strategies is looking for a Senior VC Analyst.

Gates Foundation is looking for a VC Director.

XRC Ventures is looking for a VC Associate.

📠 Fun fact of the week

According to Pitchbook numbers, in the past three years, 26,000 AI and machine-learning startups have raised $33 billion, two thirds more than what they raised from 2018 to 2020.

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

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