PIN'd

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
November 17, 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!

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

Khosla Ventures is in the final stages of raising $3 billion for its latest set of venture funds, showing how some Silicon Valley investors remain bullish even as startups continue to stare down slower growth and lower valuations.

Airbnb announced earlier this week it has acquired GamePlanner.AI, a 12-person startup, for an undisclosed sum, amid rapid adoption of artificial intelligence that has taken the tech world by storm and pushed many companies to explore its uses.

GamePlanner.AI was co-founded by Adam Cheyer, who was also one of the founders of Apple's voice assistant Siri.

OpenAI plans to secure further financial backing from its biggest investor Microsoft as the ChatGPT maker’s chief executive Sam Altman pushes ahead with his vision to create artificial general intelligence — computer software as intelligent as humans.

Anu Hariharan, who led YC Continuity before the storied accelerator scrapped the program, has partnered with two of her former colleagues and former Brex executive Lucas Fox to launch a new fund that is targeting raising about $350 million and operating a program that some peg as “YC for growth.”

On Tuesday, Female Founders Fund (FFF) filed with the SEC to start raising $75 million for its fourth fund. That amount is the biggest yet from FFF: Fund I was $6 million, and Fund II was $25 million. In 2021, it closed an oversubscribed $57 million for Fund III, which saw Goldman Sachs, Pivotal Ventures, and Plexo Capital come on as limited partners.


💰 Funding announcement highlights

BrightGo, a CA-based janitorial software company, raised $3 million in seed funding. The round was led by Costanoa Ventures and Index Ventures.

Civitai, a platform where members can post their own Stable Diffusion-based AI image models for others to discover, raised $5.1 million in a round led by a16z.

Baton, a music collaboration platform for unreleased material, raised $4.2 million from Bitkraft Ventures, Techstars, Dorm Room Fund, NYU's Innovation Venture Fund, the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship, and others.

Shekel Mobility, a B2B marketplace for auto dealers in Africa, raised $7 million led by Ventures Platform and MaC VC, with participation from y Combinator, Rebel Fund, and others.

Diesta, the London-based InsurTech startup, successfully closed a seed funding round, raising $1.9 million. This fresh capital infusion comes from a consortium of high-profile international venture capitalists, including Antler, Restive, SixThirty, SystemaNova, and Westerly Ventures.

📚 Interesting reads of the week

Biotech is a rapidly growing industry, and investing in biotech startups offers a high potential for returns with the right strategy. In our latest article, we take a look at how Vibe Bio makes it easier to overcome the risks and challenges.

Lenny Rachitsky reached out to 30 top companies like LinkedIn, Ramp, and Slack, to find out when they hired their first product managers and how many employees the company had at the time. A really cool graphic and breakdown!

The Wall Street Journal recently investigated IPOs and found that 80% of companies that went public since 2020 are currently trading below their IPO price. This trend in the IPO market is causing stress throughout the entire venture stack. When profits are not being generated at the highest levels, adjustments in factors such as price become necessary further down in the hierarchy.

Nvidia’s data center business sells GPUs for AI + high-performance computing workloads. It hit a $17b revenue run rate (56% of revenue) in Q1, and more than doubled (!) to a $41b run rate in Q2 (76% of revenue). An in-depth article on Nvidia’s empire and the future of GPUs.

A list of the most promising private companies that the team over at Equity Zen expect to dominate the private secondary market, and eventually the public markets, in the coming years.

💪 Tech Mafia of the week

Highlights:

💰 Most money raised: Penta

⭐ Startup to keep an eye on: Feather

🤑 Total money raised by the N26 Mafia: $113 million

Weekly tech mafia leaderboard

N26 launched its first banking product in 2015. Their vision was to build a company that would make banking more accessible for millions of people around the world. The company has since scaled rapidly and formed its own powerful alumni group.

The N26 Mafia takes the 45th spot, with 39 companies founded in total and $113 million raised.

PS: Are you a N26 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 VC Student/Scout.

SCOR Ventures is looking for a Ventures Associate.

First Round Capital is looking for a Chief of Staff.

Playground Global is looking for an Executive Assistant VC.

Two Sigma is looking for an Investment Associate.

📠 Fun fact of the week

Startups have raised the most money from investors:

  1. Xiaomi - $10 billion

  2. Uber - $8.6 billion

  3. Airbnb - $4.4 billion

  4. Snap - $2.5 billion

  5. Palantir - $1.2 billion

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