Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly roundup of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here..
Money attracts money, as the saying goes. That seems to be confirmed this week, with a couple of startups announcing new rounds of funding just months after their last, and familiar names launching new ventures.
The most interesting startup stories of the week
Whether it’s about IPOs, lobbying, or launching to the public, finding momentum is key to success.
Time for the confetti: Silva Health wins the Startup Battlefield competition at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 with its promise to reduce breast cancer deaths thanks to an affordable screening device. The four other finalists from the initial 200 shortlist were Gecko Materials, Luna, MebLab, and Stitch3D.
Half Zomato: India’s largest food delivery and instant commerce scale-up Swiggy is looking to go public at a valuation of $11.3 billion, less than half the market cap of rival Zomato.
Wait and see: Nasdaq CEO Adina Friedman announced that she is not surprised that we have yet to see a rebound in startup IPOs. However, she thinks it will start to pick up speed in 2025.
Speed of EU Inc: A petition calling for a new legal form for European startups is gaining momentum, with hopes of fostering pan-European tech champions, but there are many obstacles in the way.
ate: Generative AI unicorn ElevenLabs has hired the team behind the open-source reading app Omnivore. The team will now focus on ElevenReader, ElevenLabs’ own reader app.
This week’s most interesting fundraisers
If the names below sound familiar, that’s because many of these startups have recently raised their previous rounds.
Chatbots: Sierra, an AI customer service startup co-founded by OpenAI chairman Brett Taylor and longtime Google exec Clay Bavor, is valued at $4.5 billion after raising $175 million.
Threat intelligence: French cybersecurity startup Filigran has secured a $35 million Series B round of funding for its threat management suite of products, which includes both open source and enterprise offerings.
More bots: Read AI, whose AI bot summarizes meetings and more, released a Chrome extension and announced that it had raised $50 million in a Series B funding round, just after its $21 million Series A round. Six months later.
Protein cages: Archon Biosciences emerges from stealth and announces it has raised $20 million in seed funding. The biotech startup is applying AI to drug development with a focus on addressing the shortcomings of antibody treatments.
Chip demand: GMI Cloud, a US-based startup providing GPU cloud infrastructure, raised a Series A round of funding consisting of $15 million in equity and $67 million in debt financing. The round was led by Headline Asia, with participation from Asia-based strategic investors.
heat wave: Brightwave, a startup that developed an AI agent for asset managers, raised Series A $15 million just four months after its seed round.
This week’s most exciting VC and fund news.
Wild bet: Actor and director Olivia Wilde quietly launched a venture firm late last year, according to Bloomberg. Called Proximity Ventures, it is already investing in the consumer and enterprise sectors.
Same thesis, more capital: African venture capital firm Django Capital closed its second subscribed fund at €73 million (about $78 million) and plans to continue writing checks ranging from €50,000 to €5 million.
New Frontiers: Crosscut’s $100 million sixth fund will invest in “frontier tech,” including energy and power, space and underwater exploration, advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, and security and defense.
Horizon Europe: The European Innovation Council will dedicate €1.4 billion (about $1.5 billion) to European deep-tech research and startups next year, a €200 million budget increase over 2024.
Last but not least.
AI is often present in funding stories these days, but aggregated data adds more value to the picture. Of the roughly 240 mega-rounds by U.S. startups so far this year, Crunchbase found, 87 went to biotech and healthcare, putting the category ahead of pure AI, though crossovers are common — for example, AI-powered drugs. In the discovery of Xaira Therapeutics is an example. It raised a $1 billion mega round earlier this year.
Credit : techcrunch.com
