Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of all the pieces you’ll be able to’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox each Friday? Sign up right here.
This week was a little bit of a carryover from the one earlier than as Bolt’s drama retains unfolding — one other story to be continued. But capital additionally flew to startups with traction, VC funds with observe information, and worthy theses.
Most fascinating startup tales from the week
Some tales emerge and die in a matter of days. Others require us to remain tuned for extra, and this week introduced us a number of of those.
Bolt cleaning soap: It’s no overstatement to say that the fallout after Bolt’s letter to buyers has been wild. The $14 billion valuation the fintech startup mentioned it was in search of appeared as stunning because the phrases of the potential deal. Now certainly one of its proposed new backers, The London Fund, has been discovered to be scrubbing its internet web page, and the saga is probably going not over.
Board stress: Ailing startup Fluid Truck, a Zipcar for business vans, noticed its board oust its sibling co-founders amid allegations of mismanaging funds, sources mentioned. The management shake-up follows a number of rounds of layoffs and different cost-cutting measures, which clearly weren’t the top of the story.
Food squared: Only a number of weeks after GrubMarket acquired Good Eggs for an undisclosed sum, the $3.6 billion meals supply and provide chain startup made one other acquisition. This time, its goal was FreshGoGo, a New York-based B2C platform promoting Asian groceries and ready-made dishes. The firms didn’t disclose the phrases of the deal, which might not be the final because the meals supply area retains on consolidating.
Exec shuffles: AI skilled Andrew Ng stepped down as CEO of Landing AI, the pc imaginative and prescient firm he co-founded, which can now be headed by ex-COO Dan Maloney. As for Ng, he transitioned to an govt chairman position, however we additionally count on to listen to extra information from his AI Fund quickly.
Open pockets: OpenAI is reportedly in talks to shut a brand new funding spherical led by earlier backer Thrive Capital at a valuation of greater than $100 billion. Once once more, keep tuned.
Most fascinating fundraises this week
At the chance of stating the plain, fundraising is rather a lot simpler when you will have traction, and information this week confirmed this.
Enterprise useful resource planning: Opkey, an AI-based ERP testing platform, has closed a $47 million Series B spherical of funding. ERP apps are a big supply of IT spend for giant organizations, which makes automated testing useful. This helped the corporate safe 200 massive enterprise prospects and partnerships with system integrators like KPMG and PwC.
Skills for payments: With cloud spending one other prime concern for companies, nOps raised a $30 million Series A to assist firms optimize their AWS invoice. The firm additionally mentioned that its buyer base grew 450% over the previous 18 months.
Fast cash: Comun, a neobank centered on serving Latino immigrants within the United States, has raised a $21.5 million Series A lower than 9 months after its earlier spherical because of its traction: It reported rising month-to-month income by “50x” within the first six months of 2024. Its founders plan to make use of the capital to develop the workforce with a purpose to scale and launch new merchandise.
Big fish: Canadian AI startup Viggle raised a $19 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Two Small Fish. The firm is accountable for JST-1, a 3D-video basis mannequin it skilled on YouTube movies, which lets customers management animated characters, inspiring many memes.
Most fascinating VC and fund information this week
Swiss-made: Helped by its observe document, Redalpine, a science-heavy European VC agency created in 2006, raised $200 million for its seventh early-stage fund. With places of work in Zurich and Berlin, it additionally plans to open one in London, partly because of its curiosity in college spinouts.
Improving most cancers care: With $30 million in dedicated capital, Oncology Ventures is a brand new VC agency that can be part of the ranks of different cancer-focused VC corporations — however with a give attention to startups that enhance affected person care. It is led by Ben Freeberg, a solo GP and most cancers survivor.
ICYMI: Being a solo GP or perhaps a small VC fund is difficult, however the SEC simply made life just a little simpler for rising funds. The greenback threshold for a automobile to be thought-about a “qualifying enterprise fund” and profit from corresponding exemptions is now $12 million, up from $10 million.
Last however not least
The secondaries market is scorching, fueled in large half by an urge for food for shares in scorching AI firms, and the previous couple of days have introduced us extra proof. An SEC submitting revealed that New Enterprise Associates (NEA) reentered the area by elevating greater than $468 million for NEA Secondary Opportunity Fund, yet one more fund devoted to the shopping for of secondary shares. Meanwhile, it emerged that Paris-based Palico bought approval from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to be the primary firm in a position to facilitate end-to-end LP secondaries transactions.
