PIN'd

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
March 29, 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

Adam Neumann, the founder of WeWork, has made a preliminary offer to buy the company out of bankruptcy for over $500 million, only five years after he was ousted. However, it is uncertain whether he has secured the necessary financing and support from creditors to complete the deal.

Online investing platform Robinhood is expanding beyond your portfolio and into your wallet. The company this week announced the launch of the Robinhood Gold Card, a rewards credit card for Robinhood Gold subscribers.

The FTX bankruptcy estate announced that it sold the majority of its shares in Anthropic, an AI startup, to a group of 24 institutional investors. According to court filings released on Friday, the main buyer is ATIC Third International Investment Company, a tech investment firm fully owned by the government of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund, Mubadala. 

Stability AI announced that its founder and CEO, Emad Mostaque, has resigned from both his position and the company's board. The startup, which has received funding from investors like Lightspeed Venture Partners and Coatue Management, has not yet named a permanent replacement for the CEO role. This announcement comes as the second major change in leadership at a high-profile AI startup this week.

Y Combinator is reportedly raising three new funds totaling at least $2 billion. These funds will cover the next four batches of YC's biannual program and follow-on investments in select companies. As part of its accelerator program, Y Combinator invests $500,000 in each participating company in exchange for over 7% ownership.

Canva recently acquired the Affinity creative software suite, including Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher, with features similar to Adobe's Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign software, respectively. This move positions Canva as a powerful challenger to Adobe's dominance in the digital design industry. 


💰 Funding announcement highlights

Profluent, a startup that uses AI for protein design, raised $35 million in funding, led by Spark Capital. Insight Partners and Air Street Capital also participated.

Bedrock Security, a startup that uses AI to manage and protect sensitive information for companies, raised $10 million in seed funding, with Greylock as the deal lead.

OpenPipe, a startup that offers developers a platform to train large language models on their data, has raised $6.7 million in a seed round led by Costanoa Ventures. Y Combinator was also part of the deal.

Tennr raised $18 million in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Foundation Capital and The New Normal Fund also contributing. The company uses AI to automate healthcare tasks such as scheduling appointments and resolving insurance issues.

Picogrid, a startup developing software that connects autonomous defense systems, such as drones, unmanned vehicles, and AI-driven surveillance tools, raised $12 million. The seed round was led by Initialized Capital. Starburst Ventures, Credo Ventures, Giant Step Capital, Domino Ventures, and Alumni Ventures also pitched in.

Nourish, a startup based in New York raised a $35 million Series A round from Index Ventures, Maverick Ventures, TCV, Y Combinator, Thrive Capital, and BoxGroup. The platform connects people to registered dietitians covered by insurance.

📚 Interesting reads of the week

Michael Seibel’s, Managing Director/CEO at YC accelerator, has decided to hand over his leadership responsibilities. In this letter, he explains his call.

Paul Graham reflects on meeting Steve and Alexis and how they were one of the reasons they started YC. He didn’t like the idea they pitched, but he really liked them, so he decided to fund them to work on something else.

The creators of Sora have been working with visual artists, designers, creative directors and filmmakers to incorporate their feedback. Here’s what they have to say. 

These are the lawyers you need to have on your radar if you want to succeed in the startup ecosystem.

Wondering if Robinhood’s new Gold Card is worth it? Here’s a run down on how it works.

💪 Tech mafia of the week

Highlights:

💰 Most money raised: Netflix

🤑 Total money raised by the Intuit Mafia: $12 billion

Weekly tech mafia leaderboard

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

The Intuit Mafia takes the 17th spot, with 238 companies founded in total and $12 billion in total raised.

PS: Are you an Intuit 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.

Energy Impact Founders is looking for a VC Investor.

Baird is looking for a VC Vice President.

DVC is looking for a VC Analyst.

The Production Board is looking for a VC Associate.

Endeavor is looking for a Senior VC Associate.

📠 Fun fact of the week

Slack was originally developed as an internal tool for a gaming company, Tiny Speck, while they were working on a game called "Glitch." After "Glitch" failed to gain traction and was shut down, the company pivoted and launched Slack in 2013.

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