Welcome to Startups Weekly your weekly wrap-up of whatever you cant miss from the world of start-ups.
Desire it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here.Startup news this week was fairly routine in a great way: Aside from a small kerfuffle in between Y Combinator and Google, there was no headline-grabbing drama.
Just stable development and company as usual.Most intriguing startup stories from the weekImage Credits: ChimeWith IPO plans, acquisitions, and brand-new launches, this week offers genuine factors for optimism and bullishness.
But dont get carried away, either: Were not all set for Theranos 2.0.
Intriguing filing: Digital consumer bank Chime openly applied for an IPO this week.
Among other numbers, the documents exposed it paid around $33 million to the Dallas Mavericks as part of its marketing efforts.Neon lights: Databricks is planning to invest around $1 billion to get Neon, a startup constructing an open source option to AWS Aurora Postgres, with hopes that their combined offerings will let customers more efficiently deploy AI representatives (whatever those are).
Catching the worm: Savings and financial investment start-up Acorns obtained EarlyBird, a financial investment gifting platform for households, for an undisclosed amount.
EarlyBird will shut down, and its co-founders will help build out Acorns Early, the startups wise money app for kids.Bridging spaces: AutoUnify, the current startup coming out of Porsches partnership with endeavor studio UP.Labs, intends to become the Plaid of automobile retail with an API that bridges the communication space between dealerships and service stores on one side and manufacturers and software application suppliers on the other.Friend or enemy: Google released its AI Futures Fund, a brand-new initiative seeking to purchase AI start-ups that use DeepMinds tools.
This week, Y Combinator released a quick implicating Google of being a monopolist that has stunted the U.S.
startup ecosystem.Dual use: British startup Vertical Aerospace is working on a hybrid-electric eVTOL airplane that would capitalize on its position as the only European player in the space, among increasing demand for home-grown defense solutions.Are you kidding? Elizabeth Holmes partner, Billy Evans, is reportedly trying to raise $50 million in funding for a brand-new blood-testing startup with a pitch that resembles Theranos.Most intriguing VC and funding news this weekImage Credits: BestowAI was once again a repeating style in the pitches from startups that revealed rounds today, but these business focus on a large range of sectors and issues.
Plus, theres fresh financing for fintech and for New York-based startups.Bestowed: Insurtech start-up Bestow raised a $120 million Series D, consisting of $75 million in primary investments, to launch brand-new items and underwriting capabilities.AMD-powered: Las Vegas-based TensorWave raised a $100 million financing round co-led by Magnetar and AMD Ventures for its data center facilities, which mainly relies on AMD hardware.One step ahead: Sprinter Health, a business offering at-home preventative health care services such as blood draws, raised a $55 million Series B round led by General Catalyst.Pan-African: Egyptian start-up Nawy, Africas largest proptech platform, protected a $52 million Series A led by Partech Africa and $23 million in financial obligation financing to support its MENA expansion.
Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are its next markets.Breakfast club: Fast-growing AI note-taking platform Granola raised a $43 million Series B at a $250 million evaluation and launched a cooperation function for teams.Fusion in a bottle: University of Wisconsin spinoff Realta Fusion obtained $36 million in fresh financing, which it plans to use to settle the style of its Anvil prototype reactor.Talking children: Hedra, a company helping artists produce podcasts featuring AI-generated talking babies, secured $32 million from a16z.Fashionable: Doji, a start-up wishing to make virtual garments try-ons both fun and social, protected a $14 million seed round led by Thrive Capital it will utilize to improve its AI avatars.Bigger apple: New York-focused VC company Work-Bench raised $160 million for its 4th fund, which will support seed-stage creators building enterprise software.Deeper: Mercury co-founder and CEO Immad Akhund introduced a $26 million fund to back early-stage start-ups more officially than as an angel investor.
The fintech company was last valued at $3.5 billion in a March financing round.Last but not leastImage Credits: Eric SlesingerCIA officer turned investor Eric Slesinger might be the only American VC exclusively buying European defense tech.
In a recent episode of the StrictlyVC Download podcast, he told A Technology NewsRoom about the perhaps prescient relocation that led him to discovered 201 Ventures.