PIN'd

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
February 16, 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

Notion announced that it has acquired Skiff, a platform that provides end-to-end encrypted file storage, documents, calendar events, and email. After considering user feedback, Skiff has decided to extend its sunset period from six months to 12 months.

Foundry Group is shutting down and won’t raise another fund

Foundry Group, a venture firm with almost $3.5 billion in assets under management, has made the decision to shut down and not raise additional funds. The move came as a surprise since the firm had announced a $500 million fund just last year. The company claims that the decision was part of their plan all along.

Homebrew, a venture capital firm, is planning to raise $50 million for a new fund. This news is somewhat surprising as the company had previously announced its intent to pursue an evergreen model that would be funded solely by its general partners, Satya Patel and Hunter Walk, regardless of the stage of the investments, almost two years ago.

Silicon Valley institution Y Combinator has released a new list of 20 types of startups it wants to join its accelerator program — calling for applications in sectors like artificial intelligence-powered robotics, space and defense technology. You can also read the original post here.

General Atlantic leads $50M Series C into Bold to grow digital payments in Colombia

The financial technology company Bold is creating an electronic payments infrastructure in Colombia. The firm has raised $50 million in Series C funding, which was led by its existing investor, General Atlantic. InQLab and Amador, also took part in the round, along with International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group. Bold has raised a total of $130 million.

Report: OpenAI surpasses $2 billion in annualized revenue

Reportedly, OpenAI achieved over $2 billion in annual revenue last December, making it one of the fastest-growing companies in history. The creator of ChatGPT is confident that this figure can be more than doubled by the year 2025. Business customers have shown a strong interest in using the generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools in their workplaces, which has contributed to this optimistic outlook. 

Canva's CFO Damien Singh has left suddenly after 8 years. The Australian unicorn is now looking for a finance lead with experience in publicly listed companies, in a move considered a step towards its speculated IPO. Singh's departure seems to be part of a larger succession plan that had been in the works with the leadership team since last year.


💰 Funding announcement highlights

Motif Analytics, a San Francisco startup that provides tools for growth teams to analyze customer behavior and optimize their marketing and product development efforts, raised a $5.7 million seed round co-led by Amplify Partners and Felicis, with InvestInData also chipping in.

Tortus, a London-based startup that pairs clinicians with an AI co-pilot to reduce human error in medicine, raised $4.2 million in a recent funding round led by Khosla Ventures.

Civic Roundtable, a startup based in Boston that encourages conversations and collaboration among civic leaders, policymakers, and experts to address societal issues, has raised $5 million in seed funding, with General Catalyst leading the way.

Seal Security, an Israeli startup that helps organizations secure open-source software by using generative AI, raised a $7.4 million seed round led by Vertex Ventures Israel. The investment also included Crew Capital, PayPal Alumni Fund, and Cyber Club London. 

Quilter, a company based in Los Angeles that has been working on an AI-powered platform for designing circuit boards, has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round. Benchmark led the deal with participation from Coatue, Root Ventures and Harrison Metal Capital.

📚 Interesting reads of the week

Andrew Chen, partner at Andreessen Horowitz, elaborates on why Silicon Valley is still the most founder-friendly place to raise capital. While the idea of launching a startup from anywhere has gained popularity, the crucial step of securing funding requires some unique advantages that only Silicon Valley can offer.

In this episode, the head of developer relations of OpenAI, discusses a variety of topics such as: OpenAI’s fast-paced and innovative work environment, the value of high agency and high urgency in employees, and tips for writing better ChatGPT prompts.

Most-active US investors: Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia lead slow start to year

It’s only the beginning of the year, but it appears that investors are not keen on investing in too many US-based startups. In January, only one investor, apart from accelerators, made a total of 10 or more deals: Andreessen Horowitz. 

Nvidia is now worth as much as the whole Chinese stock market

Nvidia's staggering growth has led to a valuation equivalent to the entire Chinese stock market, as defined by Hong Kong-listed H-shares.

It is anticipated that by 2025, more than 75% of VC deal reviews will be informed by AI and data analytics as VCs are increasingly using data to source, evaluate, and manage investments.

Will the CEO of OpenAI get the $7 trillion he needs for his new AI chip project? It’s actually quite simple: If new generations of AI are impressive and smart enough to reduce production costs, it will lead to another generation of AIs. But if new generations of AI don't generate excitement and can't reduce costs, then no one will fund advanced AIs, and the AI boom will fizzle out.

💪 Tech mafia of the week

Highlights:

💰 Most money raised: Monograph.

🤑 Total money raised by the Figma Mafia: $49 million.

Weekly tech mafia leaderboard

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

The Figma Mafia takes the 60th spot, with 9 companies founded in total and 49 million in total raised.

PS: Are you a Figma 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.

Clocktower Ventures is looking for a Senior Associate.

Griffin Gaming Partners is looking for a VC Analyst.

Abundant Venture Partners is looking for a Senior VC Analyst.

Lingotto is looking for a VC Investor.

Woven by Toyota is looking for a Senior VC Associate.

📠 Fun fact of the week

There have been 6,114 IPOs between 2000 and 2024. The least was in 2009 with only 62. The year 2021 was an all-time record with 1035 IPOs, beating the previous record of 480 in the year 2020.

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