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Money attracts money, as the saying goes. This week seems to confirm that, as two startups announced new rounds of funding just months after their previous rounds, and familiar names launched new projects.
The most interesting startup stories of the week
Whether it’s an IPO, a squeeze or a public launch, finding momentum is the key to success.
Confetti time: Salva Health won the Startup Battlefield competition at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 with a promise to reduce breast cancer death rates thanks to an affordable screening device. The other four finalists from the initial shortlist of 200 are Gecko Materials, Luna, MabLab and Stitch3D.
Half Zomato: Swiggy, India’s largest food delivery and express commerce company, is looking to go public at $11.3 billion, less than half the market capitalization of rival Zomato.
Wait and see: Adena Friedman, CEO of Nasdaq, announced that she is not surprised that we have not seen a rebound in startup IPOs yet. However, she believes these will start to come back strongly in 2025.
EU momentumA 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 hurdles to overcome along the way.
I ate: Genetic AI unicorn ElevenLabs has named the team behind the open source Omnivore app to read later. The team will now focus on ElevenReader, ElevenLabs’ proprietary reader app.
Most interesting fundraiser this week
If the names below sound familiar, it’s because many of these startups have made their previous rounds recently.
Chat bots: Sierra, an AI customer service startup co-founded by OpenAI chief Brett Taylor and longtime Google executive Clay Bovor, is valued at $4.5 billion after raising $175 million.
Threat intelligence: French cybersecurity startup Filigran has secured a $35 million Series B funding round for its suite of threat management products, which includes open source and enterprise offerings.
More robots: Read AI, whose bot sums up meetings and more, has released a Chrome extension and announced it has raised $50 million in a Series B funding round, just six months after its $21 million Series A funding.
Protein cages: Archon Biosciences has come out of stealth and announced that it has raised $20 million in seed funding. The biotech startup is applying artificial intelligence to drug development, with a focus on addressing shortcomings in antibody therapies.
Demand for chips: GMI Cloud, a US-based startup that provides GPU cloud infrastructure, has raised a Series A funding round consisting of $15 million in equity and $67 million in debt financing. The round was led by Headline Asia, with participation from strategic investors based in Asia.
Hot wave: Brightwave, a startup that developed an AI agent for asset managers, has raised a $15 million Series A just four months after its seed round.
The most interesting venture capital and funds news this week
Wild Bets: Actress and director Olivia Wilde quietly launched an investment firm late last year, according to Bloomberg. It’s called Proximity Ventures, and it already invests in the consumer and enterprise sectors.
Same premise, more capital: African venture capital firm Janngo Capital has closed its second fund, which was oversubscribed at €73 million (about $78 million) and plans to continue writing checks ranging from €50,000 to €5 million.
New frontiers: The $100 million Crosscut Fund VI will invest in “frontier technologies,” including power and energy, space, underwater exploration, advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, and security and defense.
Horizon Europe: The European Innovation Council will allocate €1.4 billion (about $1.5 billion) to European deep tech research and startups next year, an increase of €200 million compared to 2024.
Last but not least
AI is often present in finance stories these days, but aggregated data adds more nuance to the picture. Of the nearly 240 mega rounds in US startups tracked by Crunchbase so far this year, 87 have gone into biotech and healthcare, putting that category ahead of pure AI, though crossovers are common — e.g. In AI-powered drug discovery. Xaira Therapeutics is one example; It raised a massive $1 billion round earlier this year.
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