PIN

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
June 21, 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

Nvidia became the world's most valuable company on Tuesday, dethroning tech heavyweight Microsoft as its high-end processors play a central role in a scramble to dominate artificial intelligence technology.

Stripe will probably again turn to investors and the firm’s own coffers for an employee tender offer, co-founder John Collison stated in an interview with David Rubenstein for an upcoming episode of Bloomberg Television’s “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer to Peer Conversations.”

Ilya Sutskever, one of OpenAI’s co-founders, has launched a new company, Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), just one month after formally leaving OpenAI. Sutskever, who was OpenAI’s longtime chief scientist, founded SSI with former Y Combinator partner Daniel Gross and ex-OpenAI engineer Daniel Levy.

General Catalyst, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital group, is expanding its presence in India by joining forces with local venture firm Venture Highway and earmarking $500 million to $1 billion for investments in the country.

Christopher O’Donnell has hobbies. He likes music and playing guitar, but above all, he loves building software. Which is why three years after leaving HubSpot, he built Day.ai, a CRM for the age of AI.

💰 Funding announcement highlights

Hona, a startup that helps law firms send automated updates to their clients, raised a $9.5 million Series A round. Investors included Costanoa Ventures, Ludlow Ventures, Soma Capital, and Y Combinator.

After Hour, a startup building a social stock trading app, raised a $4.5 million seed round. Founders Fund and General Catalyst co-led the deal.

Tinybird raised a $30 million Series B round from Balderton Capital, CRV and Singular Ventures. The startup ingests company data from different sources and converts it so that developers can query it using a standard JSON-based API.

Omi raised a $13.9 million Series A round from Dawn Capital and Founders Fund. The startup uses generative AI to help companies and brands create 3D stills and videos.

Finaloop, a startup that provides real-time bookkeeping services tailored for e-commerce businesses, raised a $35 million Series A round. Investors included Lightspeed Venture Partners, Vesey Ventures, Commerce Ventures, Accel, and Aleph.

📚 Interesting reads of the week

Find out how venture capitalist Sarah Cone's viral tweet about tech men being more attractive than perceived, but poorly dressed, led to a successful fashion consulting business.

The week was led by an autonomous driving startup — an industry left for dead by some. AI, biotech, space tech and cybersecurity also saw good-sized raises. Crunchbase has more.

A new ebook guide on AngelList for emerging venture fund managers with advice from experienced managers on navigating fund planning.

Open Source bi-weekly convo w/ Bill Gurley and Brad Gerstner on all things tech, markets, investing & capitalism.

Raising a first-time venture fund is more challenging now than in recent years. A breakdown of the current landscape.

💪 Tech mafia of the week

Highlights:

💰 Most money raised: Lucid Motors

🤑 Total money raised by the Oracle Mafia: $42 billion

Weekly tech mafia leaderboard

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

The Oracle Mafia takes the 7th spot, with 892 companies founded and $42 billion raised.

PS: Are you an Oracle 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.

FemHealth Ventures is looking for an Investor Relations Associate.

Pivotal is looking for a Director of Investments.

Anthemis is looking for an Investment Analyst.

Jump Trading is looking for a Data & Portfolio Operations Analyst.

B Capital Group is looking for an Investor Relations Associate.

📠 Fun fact of the week

The largest venture capital fund in the world in 2024 is Sequoia Capital, which manages assets worth $85 billion. Some of its most notable investments include companies like Apple, Google, and Airbnb​.

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

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