Harris Plans To Encourage AI, Crypto

Author

Alpha
September 23, 2024

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TECH IN THE NEWS

Harris On AI, Crypto - Kamala Harris told donors Sunday she plans to “encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets", her first official AI position so far.

3 Mile 2.0 - A deal between Microsoft and Nuclear company Constellation may see the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart to power AI data centers.

Takeover - Chipmaker Qualcomm is exploring a bid to takeover struggling rival Intel, which is valued at ~$93b and recently received $3b in CHIPS Act funding.

China AV Ban - The US is to propose a ban on Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on US roads.

Twitter Probe - The SEC is seeking sanctions against Elon Musk for failure to appear in court regarding its probe of his Twitter purchase.

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  2. 🔥 Quant Trading Software Company - New Jersey - Large-scale automated day-trading algorithm designed for volatile U.S. equity markets. Profitable through extensive backtesting and live simulation. Seeking equity investment for software company.

  3. Cricket for the Modern World - India - Physical and virtual ecosystem fostering cricket experiences for enthusiasts and upcoming pros. Data-driven, locally proven, globally scaling. (Seed)

🔥 — hot deal!
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FOR EMPLOYERS
Job Candidates

Request an intro to candidates - [email protected].

  1. Struck Capital Venture Associate, ex-West2East (Russell Wilson) Director of Special Projects, ex-Phoenix Holdings Investment Associate. Harvard BA. Vietnamese pro basketball player.

  2. Lockheed Martin Software Engineer, ex-Rutgers Junior Full Stack Developer. Secret clearance. Expertise in C++, PHP, SQL. Rutgers BA in Computer Science.

DEALS WE’RE WATCHING
Closed Deals:

MASSIVE DEALS

Earth-Moon Comms - Houston satellite startup Intuitive Machines landed a $4.8b NASA contract to build an Earth-moon communications infrastructure.

CO₂ > Sustainable Jet Fuel - Berkeley startup Twelve raised a $200M Series C and $445M project equity/debt backed by Alaska Airlines, DCVC, & Emerson Collective.

Enterprise AI Search - Palo Alto startup Glean raised a $260M+ Series E at $4.6b led by Altimeter and DST Global, with SoftBank, IVP, Lightspeed and Sequoia.

German Quick-Commerce - Berlin delivery startup Flink raised $150M at a nearly $1b valuation from BOND, Mubadala, Northzone, and supermarket giant REWE.

Business Hotel Bookings - Denver corporate travel bookings startup Hotel Engine raised a $140M Series C at $2.1b, 61% larger than its last round in 2021.

LARGE DEALS

Responsive Nonprofit Fundraising Software - Phoenix startup Virtuous secured a $100M minority growth investment led by Susquehanna Growth Equity, partly to accelerate AI product innovation.

Off-Shelf Stem Cell Treatments - Boston startup GC Therapeutics raised a $65M Series A led by Cormorant, with Mubadala, Andreessen Horowitz, and Medical Excellence Capital joining.

AI Bookkeeping - Miami startup Finally has raised a $50M Series B and a $150M credit line to expand its AI-powered financial management services for SMBs.

Continuous Validation Cybersecurity - San Francisco startup Picus Security raised a $45M Series C led by Riverwood Capital to further expand.

SMALLER DEALS

Huma Finance - The San Francisco “payment financing” (PayFi) network raised $38M in a round led by Distributed Global, with İşbank’s TIBAS, Hashkey and more.

AI-Powered Hiring Platform - San Francisco startup Mercor raised a $30M Series A led by Benchmark and backed by Peter Thiel, Jack Dorsey, Adam D’Angelo, and Larry Summers.

AI-Enhanced Estate Planning - Phoenix, AZ. fintech startup Wealth.com raised a $30M Series A led by GV with Citi Ventures, Outpost, and more joining in.

Standardized Construction Permitting - New York digital plan review solution startup GreenLite, closed a $28.5M Series A led by Craft Ventures.

AI Media Generation Model Hosting - San Francisco AI startup Fal.ai raised a $23M Series A co-led by Kindred and Andreessen Horowitz at an $80M valuation. 

Real Estate Mgmt Decision-Making Data - New York real estate and financial data startup Cherre raised a $30M Series C led by HighSage and backed by Intel.

AI "Digital Coworkers" For Insurance - New York AI agents startup Roots Automation raised a $22.2M Series B led by Harbert Growth Partners.

Exit Watch:

Azure Summit Technology - Tech firm CACI has acquired the Virginia radar and communications equipment maker for $1.28b to bulk up its business catering to the defense industry.

Octo - Nvidia is in advanced talks to buy the Seattle AI software startup, for about $165M, aiming to enhance its AI software and cloud services. The company raised $132M and hit a valuation of ~$900M in 2021.

Nickelytics - California robotics company Kiwibot is acquiring the Florida advertising company for $25M to start displaying ads on its delivery robots operating at the University of Utah and UCLA campuses.

Typeface - The enterprise gen AI unicorn, has acquired two new companies: New York AI photo company Treat and Australian AI content creation and management platform Narrato.

Evisort - Workday announced today that it acquired the San Francisco AI contract management platform to support more AI and machine learning.

Companies to Watch:

Groq - The AI Chip startup has partnered with Aramco to build the world’s largest AI inferencing center in Saudi Arabia with 19k LPUs (later expanding to 200k) to power AI systems across the Middle East, Africa and India.

11x.ai - The "Automated digital workers" startup $10M ARR and raised a $24M Series A led by Benchmark.

Supermaven - The AI coding assistant startup has over 35,000 users and hit $1M ARR. It raised $12M from Bessemer, and OpenAI and Perplexity co-founders.

Decentralized, On-Device AI - San Francisco DePIN startup Pin AI raised a $10M pre-seed round from Andreessen Horowitz, Hack VC, Foresight, and Alumni.

The Funding Buzz

BlackRock - Microsoft, and Abu Dhabi's MGX are backing a $30b AI infrastructure fund as GPs, with Nvidia advising on factory design and integration.

Salesforce Ventures - Doubled the size of its AI fund to $1b to support AI companies. Its portfolio includes companies like Anthropic, Runway and Hugging Face.

Headline - San Francisco VC firm with $4b+ AUM, has raised a new $865M growth fund to invest across all stages and geographies, with teams in the US, Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

Costanoa Ventures - San Francisco boutique VC firm hit $2b AUM with a $275M early-stage fund and a $119M growth stage fund focused on AI-enabled SaaS, AI & data infrastructure, cybersecurity, fintech and defense tech.

Moderne Ventures - Chicago VC firm raised a $230M+ Core Fund III to back Seed to Series B proptech, mortgage, insurtech, and home services startups.

Era Ventures - New York proptech VC firm raised an $88M debut fund to back seed to Series B startups transformative technologies within the built environment, including real estate, construction, and property management.