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As the saying goes, money attracts money. This week seemed to confirm that, with several startups announcing new funding rounds just months after their last one, and familiar names launching new ventures.
This week's most interesting startup stories
Image credit: Romain Dillet / TechCrunch
Whether it's an IPO, lobbying, or public offering, finding momentum is the key to success.
Confetti time: Salva Health won TechCrunch Disrupt 2024's Startup Battlefield competition with its promise to lower breast cancer mortality rates thanks to an affordable screening device. The other four finalists from the initial 200 shortlist were Gecko Materials, Luna, MabLab, and Stitch3D.
Zomato in half: Swiggy, India's largest food delivery and quick commerce scaleup, is aiming to list at $11.3 billion, less than half the market capitalization of rival Zomato.
Wait and see: Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman declared she's not surprised startup IPOs haven't come back yet. But she thinks they will start coming back strong in 2025.
EU Inc Momentum: A petition calling for a new legal form for European startups is gaining momentum in hopes of fostering technology champions across Europe, but there are many hurdles to overcome along the way .
Complete Eating: The Unicorn of Generative AI Eleven Labs has hired the team behind open source read-later app Omnivore. The team will now focus on Eleven Lab's own reader app, Eleven Reader.
This week's most interesting fundraisers
Image credits: Marlena Sloss/Bloomberg and Ramin Talaie/Getty Images (composite) / Getty Images
If the names below seem familiar, it's because some of these startups have only recently raised previous rounds of funding.
Chatbots: Sierra, an AI customer service startup co-founded by OpenAI Chairman Brett Taylor and longtime Google executive Clay Baber, has raised $175 million at a valuation of $4.5 billion. It is valued at $.
Threat Intelligence: French cybersecurity startup Filigran has secured $35 million in Series B funding for its threat management product suite, which includes both open source and enterprise products.
More bots: AI bot summarizes meetings and more Read AI releases Chrome extension and raises $50 million in Series B funding round, just six months after $21 million in Series A Announced.
Protein cage: Archon Biosciences has emerged from stealth and announced 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 startup offering GPU cloud infrastructure, has raised a Series A round of $15 million in equity and $67 million in debt. The round was led by Headline Asia with participation from Asia-based strategic investors.
Hot waves: Brightwave, a startup that developed an AI agent for wealth managers, has raised $15 million in Series A just four months after its seed round.
This week's most interesting VC and fund news
Image credit: Taylor Hill / Contributor / Getty Images
Wilde's bet: According to Bloomberg, actor and director Olivia Wilde secretly launched a business venture late last year. The company, called Proximity Ventures, already has investments in the consumer and enterprise sectors.
Same argument, more capital: African venture capital firm Django Capital closes its oversubscribed second fund at 73 million euros (about $78 million) and continues to write checks of 50,000 to 5 million euros It's a plan.
New Frontiers: Crosscut's $100 million sixth fund will invest in “frontier technologies” including energy and power, space and underwater exploration, advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, and security and defense.
Horizon Europe: The European Innovation Council will allocate 1.4 billion euros (approximately $1.5 billion) to deep tech research and startups in Europe next year, increasing the budget by 200 million euros compared to 2024. .
Last but not least
Image credit:Xaira
While AI often pops up in fundraising stories these days, aggregated data adds further nuance to the picture. Of the roughly 240 mega-rounds for U.S. startups Crunchbase has tracked so far this year, 87 have gone to biotech and healthcare, a category that ranks ahead of pure AI. However, crossover is common, for example in drug discovery using AI. Xaira Therapeutics is one example. The company raised a $1 billion mega round earlier this year.