AI Bill Killed + Latest Startup, VC News

TECH IN THE NEWS

AI Bill Killed - California Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed the SB 1047 bill seeking to hold AI developers liable for safety by preventing “critical harms.”

More China Cuts - China's central bank will tell banks to cut mortgage rates by the end of October, and major cities will ease home-buying curbs to boost the market.

Wall Street Super Teams - Big banks and private equity giants like Citigroup and Apollo are joining forces to capture a bigger slice of the $1.7T private credit market.

ETF Boom - Assets in actively managed ETFs have topped $1T worldwide, boosted by easier regulations and a wave of product innovation including crypto ETFs.

Unique Investment Opportunity: Whiskey Casks

Here’s an investment opportunity you didn’t know you were missing - whiskey casks.

But where to start?

Try Vinovest.

Vinovest differentiates its whiskey investing platform through strategic sourcing and market analysis. With Vinovest, you can invest in Scotch, American, and Irish whiskey casks, providing diverse and flexible exit options.

Vinovest team targets high-growth markets and caters to a range of buyers, from collectors to brands using casks for cocktails. This approach not only enhances your liquidity but also increases your portfolio’s resilience against market fluctuations. Discover how Vinovest’s innovative strategy sets it apart from competitors.

Schedule a call with a Vinovest advisor to learn more.

DEALS WE’RE WATCHING
Closed Deals:

MASSIVE DEALS

Connected Fitness Tech - German fitness equipment and software maker EGYM raised a $200M Series G at $1.2b+ post-money.

AI SaaS Infrastructure Tools - San Mateo, CA startup Observe raised a $145M Series B co-led by Madrona and Evolution Equity to help businesses manage and monitor their SaaS infrastructure.

Fusion Power - Washington startup Zap Energy raised $130M led by Soros Fund with BAM Elevate, Emerson Collective, and prior backers Breakthrough, Chevron, DCVC, EIP, Lowercarbon, and Shell.

Fleet Fuel/Expense MGMT - San Francisco payments startup raised a $130M Series C in equity and debt co-led by General Catalyst and Bloomberg Beta, with support from Mastercard.

Digital Transformation - San Jose startup WhatFix closed a $125M Series E led by Warburg Pincus and backed by SoftBank’s Vision Fund for a strategic acquisition.

Scalable Modular Blockchain Infrastructure - Blockchain startup Celestia Foundation raised $100M led by Bain Capital Crypto.

LARGE DEALS

O-S Firebase Alternative - San Francisco Postgres database startup Supabase raised an $80M Series C, and 40% of startups in the latest YC class use it.

Cloud-Based Contact Centers - San Francisco AI Agent startup Ujet raised a $76M Series D led by Sapphire, with KeyCorp and IonPacific and prior backers GV, Kleiner Perkins, Citi, DCM, and Ericsson joining.

Math Superintelligence - Palo Alto AI startup Harmonic raised a $75M Series A at $325M led by Sequoia with Index, Jasper Lau’s Era Funds, GreatPoint, DTS, Nikesh Arora and Jared Leto.

Robotic Needle-based Procedures - San Mateo, CA biotech startup Mendaera raised a $73M Series B led by Threshold, with Lux, PFM, and Frederic Moll joining.

Automating Enterprise Cybersecurity - Portland startup Torq raised a $70M Series C led by Evolution with Bessemer, Notable, Greenfield and Strait joining.

Low-Carbon Cement - Somerville, MA startup Sublime Systems raised $75M in equity and pre-payments from major building material companies Holcim and CRH.

Laser-Powered Fusion - German fusion startup Marvel Fusion closed a $70M Series B led by HV Capital for its experimental Colorado fusion energy facility.

SMALLER DEALS

EV Autonomous Aircraft - Alameda defense/agriculture aircraft startup Pyka raised a $40M Series B led by Obvious Ventures, with Prelude Ventures, and YC taking part.

Autonomous Trucks - Houston startup Bot Auto raised a $20M pre-Series A round to commercially deploy autonomous trucking.

Automated Enterprise Workflows - San Francisco startup Distyl AI raised a $20M Series A at a $200M+ valuation backed by previous investor Coatue.

Landbase - World’s 1st agentic AI designed for go-to-market, exited stealth with a $12.5M Seed co-led by A*, 8VC, and First Minute, with General Catalyst and others.

MemGPT Maker - Letta, a much-anticipated AI startup from UC Berkeley’s Labs startup factory emerged from stealth with a $10M seed at $70M post-money led by Felicis’ Astasia Myers with angels like Google’s Jeff Dean.

AI Product Creation Copilot Platform - San Francisco creation/retail platform startup Arcade raised $17M from Reid Hoffman, Brit Morin, Heretic Ventures, and Ashton Kutcher.

AI Ops for Veterinarians - Canadian medtech startup Scribenote raised an $8.2M seed led by Andreessen Horowitz joined by Inovia Capital and Velocity Fund.

Mortgage Marketplace/Credit Card - Austin startup Mesa raised a $9.2M seed for products like its 1% cash back on loans and a rewards points on mortgages.

AI Private Equity Associate - San Francisco AI-powered virtual assistant startup Mako AI raised a $1.55M seed from Khosla.

Exit Watch:

OctoAI - Nvidia acquired the Seattle startup which makes tools for running gen AI models, for around $165M. It was previously valued at ~$900M.

Smartsheet - Vista and Blackstone are acquiring the SaaS workplace collaboration and management platform for $8.4b in cash.

Zoomin - Salesforce will acquire the Israeli data management provider for a reported $450M.

Clumio - The Santa Clara cloud-native data backup and recovery services startup is being acquired by Commvault.

Fractal - India’s first AI unicorn is reportedly weighing a $500M IPO in Mumbai at an estimated $3.5b valuation.

Companies to Watch:

Scale AI - The data labeling startup’s sales ~4x to ~$400M for H1, driven by enterprise LLM improvement services including major clients Meta and Google. Scale now has $980M in cash after raising $1b in May at $13.8b.

CACI - Virginia tech firm with US government clients saw Q4 revenue grow ~20% to $2.04b and acquired radar and comms equipment maker Azure Summit for $1.28b to bulk up its defense business.

Oportun - The mission-driven FinTech has provided $18.7b in responsible, affordable credit, and saved members $2.4b+ in interest and fees. It just extended its warehouse facility led by Goldman Sachs to $306M.

Landbase - World 1st agentic AI designed for go-to-market, exited stealth with a $12.5M Seed co-led by A*, 8VC, and First Minute, with General Catalyst and others. It claims a 7x higher conversion rate, 70% reduction in time spent per lead.

The Funding Buzz

Arch Venture Partners - Chicago VC firm that invests in early-stage life sciences deals, has raised a $3b fund, its thirteenth.

Pangaea Ventures - A Phoenix VC firm has closed on an $85M fund to invest in "hardtech innovation" with a focus on planetary health in the US, Japan and Canada.

Acurio Ventures - A generalist Spanish VC firm with $330M AUM, has closed a third fund of $166M to back startups throughout Europe. .

Pear - The Palo Alto seed-stage firm announced the Pear Emerging Manager in Residence program, which brings three up-and-coming pre-seed and seed venture funds into Pear’s offices for collaboration, such as deal flow sharing and due diligence.

Nebius Group - Amsterdam-based VC firm, which emerged from the split of Russian tech giant Yandex will invest over $1b in AI infrastructure across Europe by mid-2025, including GPU clusters and data centers.