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 Capital — Donald 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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