Latest AI, Biotech & Fintech Raises + News

TECH IN THE NEWS

Musk Megadeals — FT reports xAI has raised $5B at a $45B valuation (almost double its last round just a few months ago). And, SpaceX is launching a tender offer at a $250B valuation, a $40B jump from a similar deal earlier this year.

EV Tax Credits at Risk? — The Trump team plans to dismantle the $7,500 federal EV tax credit, but changing the tax code will require Congressional approval.

Gensler Gone?Trump vows to fire SEC Chair Gensler, while 18 states are suing him for regulatory overreach. Crypto PACs spent $133M on pro-crypto candidates.

Biden On The Brink — President Biden authorized Ukraine to use US long-range missiles for limited strikes into Russia, marking a significant late-term policy shift.

Cruise Controlled — The DOJ is fining GM autonomous vehicle unit, Cruise, $500K for submitting a false report with the goal of influencing a federal investigation into a safety incident last year.

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DEALS WE’RE WATCHING
Closed Deals:

MASSIVE DEALS

Ualá — The Argentine fintech startup raised a $300M Series E round at a $2.75B valuation led by Allianz X, with Stone Ridge, Pershing Square, Rodina, Claure Group, and previous investors Soros, Goldman Sachs, SoftBank, and Tencent.

Neo Financial — The Canadian banking services app raised a $258M Series D round with participation from angel investor Stewart Butterfield and previous backers Valar, Golden Ventures, Afore, and Thomvest.

Writer — The enterprise AI platform raised a $200M Series C round at $1.9B co-led by Premji, Radical, and Iconiq, with Salesforce, Adobe, B Capital, Citi, IBM, and Workday joining. It plans to expand into health, retail, and financial services.

Firefly Aerospace — The Houston company that develops commercial orbital mission launch vehicles, raised a $175M Series D round at a $2B+ valuation led by RPM Ventures with GiantLeap Capital and Human Element taking part.

Tessl — The pre-product AI coding startup raised $125M at a $500M+ valuation across seed and Series A rounds. The Series A was led by Index, with Accel, GV, and Boldstart participating, while GV and Boldstart co-led the seed.

Recogni — The AI chip startup raised $102M to develop an AI inference system for GenAI server racks. The round was co-led by Celesta and GreatPoint, with backing from Juniper Networks, BMW, Bosch, and Toyota.

Radiant — The portable nuclear microreactor startup raised a $100M Series C led by DCVC, with Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square, Felicis, Washington Harbour, Chevron T, Founders Fund, Decisive Point, McKinley Alaska, Boost VC, and Also.

LARGE DEALS

Lean Technologies — The Saudi financial app building fintech startup raised a $67.5M Series B round led by General Catalyst, with Bain, Duquesne Family Office, Arbor, and Saudi Venture Capital participating.

ScaleOps — The New York cloud cost optimization startup raised a $58M Series B round led by Lightspeed V, with NFX, Glilot Capital Partners, and Picture Capital.

Noma — The AI application security startup raised a $32M Series A round led by Ballistic with support from Glilot and strategic angel investors including current and former CISOs from McDonald’s and DeepMind.

Akash Systems — The Oakland startup building artificial diamond cooling substrates for GPUs and space radios secured $50M in CHIPS Act grants. Akash is backed by VCs Khosla, Founders Fund, and Kearny Jackson.

SwiftConnect — The CT-based smartphone building access startup raised a $37M Series B round led by Quadri, with HID, Egis, Klingenstein Fields and previous investors Crow, JLL Spark, Navitas, Tanzola, and Spring Rock Capital participating.

Vaulted Deep — The Texas carbon waste storage startup raised a $32M round led by Prelude to expand ops injecting carbon waste underground using fracking tech. Major customer Frontier is a coalition including Alphabet, Stripe, Meta, and Shopify.

SMALLER DEALS

Prokeep — A New Orleans distributor communication management startup raised a $25M Series A round led by Dahlia Equity Partners, with participation from Ironspring Ventures, S3 Ventures, and Benson Capital Partners.

UnifyApps — The San Fran Enterprise AI optimization startup has raised a $20M Series A round at ~$100M led by ICONIQ, with existing investors including Elevation.

PointFive — A New York/Israeli cloud expense reduction startup raised a $20M Series A round at ~$100M valuation led by Salesforce, with input from Index, Entree Capital, Sheva VC, and Vesey Ventures.

Fleek — A San Francisco online second-hand clothing marketplace startup raised a $14.8M Series A round led by HV Capital, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and YC.

Vittoria Biotherapeutics — A Philadelphia advanced cell therapies startup raised a $10M round led by Valley Forge, with participation from Global BioAccess Fund, Hatch Biofund, Agent Capital, Tellus BioVentures, NYBC, and U. Pennsylvania.

Lume AI — A New York AI-powered data organization startup raised a $4.2M seed led by General Catalyst, with participation from YC, Khosla, Floodgate, & Soma.

Folks Finance —A Marshall Islands multi-chain Defi leasing startup raised a $3.2M Series A round at a $75M valuation led by Borderless, with support from SOVO, Mapleblock, and Algorand.

Arphie — A San Francisco AI RFP completion startup raised a $2.9M seed round led by General Catalyst and including Definition and Recall Capital.

Exit Watch:

CoreWeave — The AI Chip infrastructure company raised a further $650M in a secondary offering, with Cisco and Pure Storage among the investors.

Pony AI — The Chinese autonomous vehicle maker is planning to IPO in the U.S., hoping to raise $165M to $224M at a peak valuation of $4.48 billion.

ServiceTitan — The California home and commercial service business company is expected to file to go public next week, backed by Index, Bessemer, Battery, and Thoma Bravo.

Neural Magic — The startup that optimizes AI models for GPUs and commodity processors has been acquired by Red Hat, an IBM-owned open source software firm.

Supermaven — The real-time AI code assistant has been acquired by Anysphere, the company behind the AI-powered code editor Cursor.

Grubhub — The food delivery service is in talks to be acquired by Wonder, the food delivery company run by former Walmart and Amazon exec Marc Lore at a value less than $1B, significantly lower than the $7B it was acquired for in 2021.

Companies to Watch:

Nvidia — TheAI chip giant is expected to report $32.9B in Q3 revenue, nearly double last year's. Three key trends driving growth: AI-optimized GPUs, networking tech, and data center sales.

Joby Aviation — In October Toyota gave the California eVTOL air taxi company $500M to ramp up production. In 2020, it acquired Uber’s air taxi moonshot Elevate as part of a complex deal meaning the companies remain in partnership.

Kalshi — The predictions marketplace has boomed during the elections, trading ~$200M in a month. It has now secured tens of millions in loans from VCs, and is now eyeing a $50M+ round.

Fathom — The four-year-old AI notetaking startup’s revenue is up 90x and usage by 20% over two years. It also recently raised a $17M Series A led by Telescope partners, with $2M coming via crowdfunding from users.

The Funding Buzz

Altos Ventures — The 28-year-old VC firm raised a new $500M fund, adding to its $7B AUM, to back enterprise and consumer software startups in the U.S. & abroad.

Chicago Ventures — The 13-year-old Chicago VC firm raised $80M to invest in early-stage startups in areas such as industrial tech, fintech, and digital health.

Forerunner Ventures — The Bay Area VC firm founded by Kirsten Green 13 years ago closed its newest early-stage fund with $500M to back consumer-focused businesses being altered by AI.

1789 CapitalDonald Trump Jr. joined as a partner at the Palm Beach VC firm with $150M AUM, focusing on companies that embrace a conservative worldview.

Amazon — Unveiled a $110M "Build on Trainium" initiative to accelerate university AI research using its custom chips, providing free access to 40,000-chip clusters.

Rosberg Ventures — The new Monaco-based fund of funds, started by former F1 champion Nico Rosberg, raised a $100M fund to invest in top U.S. VCs.

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