Latest AI, Biotech & Fintech Raises + News

TECH IN THE NEWS

Plain Saylor — Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy, a Bitcoin holding trust became the second-most traded stock after Nvidia recording volumes of $33.27B.

No Show — A federal judge on Friday rejected the SEC's request to sanction Elon Musk after he failed to appear for court-ordered testimony for the its probe into his $44B takeover of Twitter.

Crypto Table — Andreessen Horowitz, Ripple, Kraken, and Circle are competing for a seat on a crypto advisory council that the incoming Trump administration reportedly plans to establish.

DOGE — Musk has outlined more details on the Department for Government Efficiency plans to slash federal jobs by working with agency appointees to find the minimum number of employees required to perform its functions. 

COP29 — The "developed" nations agreed to pay $300B per year by 2035 to help less developed countries tackle the impacts of climate change at the global summit.

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DEALS WE’RE WATCHING
Closed Deals:

MASSIVE DEALS

xAI — Elon Musk's AI startup raised a further $5B at a $50B valuation, with investors including Qatar Investment Authority, Valor Equity, Sequoia, and Andreessen Horowitz. It was valued at $24B when it raised $6B in the spring.

Anthropic — Amazon invested an additional $4B in the AI startup, making AWS their primary training partner for AI model development and deployment, with early access to fine-tuning capabilities for AWS customers.

Cyera — The NY/Israeli data security startup, secured a $300M Series D at $3B valuation, led by Accel and Sapphire, with participation from Sequoia, Redpoint, Coatue, and Georgian.

Promise — A newly established LA-based gen AI entertainment studio, received undisclosed funding from Andreessen Horowitz and Hollywood’s Peter Chernin.

Enveda Biosciences — The biotech startup using AI for natural medicinal compound discovery, raised a $130M Series C co-led by Kinnevik and FPV with Baillie Gifford, Premji, Lux, Dimension, The Nature Conservancy, and more.

Enfabrica — The AI data center chip startup raised a $115M Series C led by Spark with backing from Arm, Cisco, Samsung and others to enhance data center efficiency.

Kong — The San Francisco API management platform company raised a $125M Series E at $2B valuation co-led by Tiger Global and Balderton. Total is at $346M+.

LARGE DEALS

MatX — The Mountain View-based specialized AI chips startup founded by Google alums, raised $80M Series A at $300M post-money, led by Spark Capital.

Oura Health — The Finnish Smart ring maker raised a $75M Series D at $5B from sole investor, glucose monitoring company, Dexcom, 2x its 2022 Series C valuation.

Spectro Cloud — The San Jose-based Kubernetes management platform raised a $75M Series C at $750M valuation led by Goldman Sachs, its total raised is $160M.

Nivoda — The New York and London startup online diamond marketplace startup raised $51M led by Northzone, with Avenir, Headline, others participating.

Lightning AI — The New York AI deployment platform startup raised $50M from investors including Cisco, J.P. Morgan, Nvidia, and K5 Global, reaching $103M total.

Rox — A San Francisco AI sales assistant agent startup raised $50M in seed Series A funding from Sequoia, General Catalyst, and GV to do sales tasks unsupervised.

OneChronos — The ten-year-old NY-based institutional trading platform uses advanced math to match buyers and sellers in the equities market. It has raised $32M led by Addition.

Lightyear — NY-based business telecoms services management platform raised a $31M Series B led by Altos, with Ridge, Amplo, Zigg, and Susa joining.

SMALLER DEALS

Distyl — SF-based tailored AI workflow automation startup raised $20M Series A led by Lightspeed, with Khosla, Coatue, Dell Capital, and Nat Friedman joining.

New Lantern — The SF-based startup uses AI medical imaging to assist radiologists in analyzing medical images like CT scans, MRIs. It raised a $19M Series A led by Benchmark.

Prompt Security — The NY/Tel Aviv-based AI tool interaction monitoring security startup raised an $18M Series A led by Jump, with Hetz, Okta, and F5 participating.

BrightAI — A SF-based AI and IoT-powered physical asset monitoring startup used by factories raised a $15M seed round from a sole investor, Upfront Ventures.

Noble — A NY startup with a platform enabling cross-chain issuance and management of digital assets raised $15M Series A led by Paradigm.

Exit Watch:

TradePMR — Robinhood will acquire the registered investment advisers (RIAs) company with $40B AUM for approximately $300M in a cash-and-stock deal to enhance its advisory business.

BlueHalo — The Defense contractor AeroVironment will acquire defense tech company BlueHalo from Arlington Capital in a $4.1B deal, including a $1.4B Space Force contract; Arlington will retain significant stake.

McIntosh Group — Audio giant Bose is acquiring the parent of McIntosh and Sonus Faber hi-fi brands with a focus on improving its automotive sector audio business.

Dazz — After declining Google's $23B offer, Israeli cybersecurity startup Wiz has acquired Palo Alto startup Dazz for $450M to expand its cloud security capabilities.

Harper — WordPress parent, Automattic has acquired this developer-focused grammar checker, gaining a private, open-source Grammarly alternative.

Companies to Watch:

Rain AI — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is reportedly leading a $150M round for the AI chip startup, hoping to position it as a potential Nvidia rival. Rain claims its chips are more energy-efficient and powerful than Nvidia's. Analysts believe it has potential as a significant player.

Robinhood — Analysts at Bernstein named HOOD the top “crypto deregulation trade” following Donald Trump’s win, rating the stock as outperform, and raising their price target to $51.

Snowflake — Announced a multiyear partnership with Anthropic to enhance its AI development capabilities, particularly in gen AI tools and give customers secure Claude 3.5 access.

BrightAI — The AI/sensor-powered physical infrastructure monitoring platform has bootstrapped to $80M ARR without VC investment by utilizing connected devices. It has now secured a $15M seed round from Upfront to expand.

Ample — The SF-based company has built an EV battery-swap system, and partnered with Mitsubishi Corp. to expand by converting pilot customers in EU and Japan into contracts. The deal involved $25M of a planned $75M round.

The Funding Buzz

Qiming Ventures — The leading Chinese VC firm plans a leadership transition while preparing for a $1B fund raise.

Gilroy & Rajaram — Former Coatue investor Michael Gilroy and tech exec Gokul Rajaram will raise a $400-500M debut fund for a new VC firm ****to back U.S.-based early-stage fintech and software startups.

Bling Capital — The Miami-based Seed-stage consumer tech VC fund raises $270M fourth fund, half for follow-on investments in its breakout startups.

Accolade Partners — The D.C.-based fund of funds has raised $202M for its third blockchain-focused fund.

Initiate Ventures — A female-founded, healthcare and life sciences-focused VC firm raised a $45M debut fund to invest $500K-$3M in seed/Series A startups.

Build Your Legacy (BYL) Ventures — NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo launched an early-stage sports, entertainment, consumer, and tech focused firm. The debut fund aims to connect entrepreneurs with industry leaders.

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