PIN'd

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
November 24, 2023

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

You probably know this already, but first and foremost, Sam is back. ‘Nuff said. Original tweet attached. Straight from the source.

The CEO of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, will step down after the company pleaded guilty Tuesday to violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money laundering law, among other charges. The company will pay more than $4.3 billion to settle the charges. Yikes, yet another windfall for crypto.

Kyle Vogt, the CEO of General Motors' robot-taxi unit Cruise, has resigned from the company a day after apologizing to staff as the company undergoes a safety review of its U.S. fleet. His decision follows weeks of turmoil at the unit, which had to pull all its vehicles from testing in the United States to conduct a safety review after an Oct. 2 accident that ended with one of Cruise's self-driving taxis dragging a pedestrian.

Pre-seed and seed companies have a new bucket of capital to go to. Twelve Below, a New York-based venture capital firm, closed on $108 million in capital commitments.

Riverwood Capital has closed on $1.8 billion in new capital, the growth investment firm announced. The firm last raised in 2020, with total capital commitments of $1.4 billion at that time. Riverwood’s strategy is to invest in and support “high-growth” mid-size technology companies that are either profitable or with positive unit economics.


💰 Funding announcement highlights

Craftwork, a startup that aims to create a consumer brand for home repairs, raised a $6 million seed round from Forerunner Ventures, General Catalyst, Y Combinator, a16z General Partner Jeff Jordan, and DoorDash Co-founder Evan Moore.

Quoherent, a startup developing room-temperature edge-capable quantum processors, raised a $4.7 million seed round led by Morpheus Ventures, with Draper Associates, Khosla Ventures, and Alpha Edison also taking part.

Osium AI, a Paris startup that aims to use AI to discover new materials, raised a $2.6 million seed round. Investors included Y Combinator, Kima Ventures, Singular, Collaborative Fund, and Raise Phiture.

Phare Health, a startup that uses large language models to capture data from clinical notes, raised a $3.1 million seed round led by General Catalyst, with participation from KHP Ventures and Bertelsmann Investments.

Privy, a startup helping companies build out blockchain-based tools for their operations, raised $18 million from Paradigm, with previous investors Sequoia Capital, BlueYard Capital, and Archetype also contributing.

📚 Interesting reads of the week

You know you want more OpenAI drama. Well this piece gives a breakdown of all that went down this past weekend (felt like a whole year tbh), and some things you might have missed. Juicy.

Starting a startup is an exciting journey filled with innovation and potential, but as a company grows, so do the complexities of its governance. Trace Cohen explores how startup BoDs work, how they are chosen, their powers and responsibilities, and the legal pros and cons associated with having a formal board.

Self-explanatory, and a great list!

After years of astronomical growth, the global unicorn club — 1,200+ members strong — is on the cusp of shrinking. Learn more about the stats and data, and what to expect, in this report.

The last OpenAI article, we promise. If you haven’t seen the threads on AGI yet, this article gives a good, brief explanation of the AGI fiasco surrounding OpenAI and Sam Altman.

💪 Tech Mafia of the week

Highlights:

💰 Most money raised: Affirm

⭐ Startup to keep an eye on: Pylon

🤑 Total money raised by the Yelp Mafia: $8 billion

Weekly tech mafia leaderboard

Yelp's alumni network has built some amazing companies, with a major focussed on SaaS, health and AI.

The Yelp Mafia takes the 16th spot, with 56 companies founded in total and $8 billion raised.

PS: Are you a Yelp 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.

Antler is looking for a Finance Director.

Sina Capital is looking for a Head of Investor Relations.

Trust Ventures is looking for an Investment Analyst.

Launch Factory is looking for a Venture and Innovation Associate.

MicroVentures is looking for a Venture Capital Manager. 

📠 Fun fact of the week

The term FemTech was coined by the Danish entrepreneur Ida Tin in 2016. She was pitching Clue, a fertility cycle tracking app, to a group of investors, majority of them male.

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