Welcome to Startups Weekly, a weekly roundup of the must-reads from the startup world. I'm Anna Heim from TechCrunch's international team, and I'll be writing this newsletter from now on. Want it delivered to your inbox every Friday? Sign up here.
This week we look at the process of starting a startup: how it gets founded, funded, closed, and acquired.
This week's most interesting startup stories
Image credit: Neon Money Club
While one company has made stealth its way into the spotlight, several others have flown under the radar this week.
Close call: Black Forest Labs is the name of the startup behind Grok's AI image generation capabilities. As the name suggests, the company is German, but its latest backers are a who's who of Silicon Valley, including a16z and Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan. In a blog post announcing it was coming out of stealth mode earlier this month, the company said its mission is to “bring cutting-edge AI from Europe to everyone, around the world.”
Sad Tally: Founder and CEO Jason Brown announced that his fintech company, Tally, is closing due to a lack of funding. The nine-year-old a16z-backed startup helped consumers manage and pay off their credit card debt through low-interest loans before pivoting to a B2B model through a partnership that didn't pan out.
Goal scored: Score, a dating app for people with good to excellent credit, shut down in early August, though it was actually delayed by several months because it was originally planned as a temporary project. Parent company Neon Money Club was founded in 2021 to help teach financial literacy and is currently working on adding it to AmEx cards and Time investing accounts.
Discounted gem: Indian edtech startup Byju's, which was once aiming to go public at a valuation of more than $40 billion, has had its bankruptcy proceedings reopened following a Supreme Court order. Once India's most valuable startup, Byju's isn't the only one struggling: Oyo, once in second place at $10 billion, has seen its valuation cut to $2.4 billion in a new round, sources told TechCrunch.
Most interesting fundraising this week
Image credit: Zepto
While funding is worth celebrating, there was also some good news in the startup world this week.
New crown jewel: Indian instant-delivery startup Zepto has raised nearly $1 billion in new funding this year and is now valued at $5 billion after a $340 million funding round.
A breath of fresh air: US cybersecurity startup Kiteworks, formerly known as Accellion, is now valued at more than $1 billion after a $456 million funding round. Though it was hit by a data breach in 2021, the emerging unicorn has been profitable for the past two years and plans to use some of the funds for acquisitions.
NEW: Fei-Fei Li's secretive startup World Labs has been valued at more than $1 billion in its latest $100 million funding round led by NEA, sources told TechCrunch. This was the second funding round the AI professor's new venture has raised since launching earlier this year.
More bots on the way: EliseAI, which develops chatbots for landlords to interact with renters, raised $75 million in a Series D round at a $1 billion valuation. The company now plans to move further into the healthcare space after releasing its purpose-built solution, HealthAI, in 2023.
MORE COPILOTS: Anysphere, the startup behind GitHub Copilot competitor Cursor, has raised more than $60 million in a Series A round, sources told TechCrunch, co-led by a16z and Thrive Capital and valued at $400 million after the funding.
Care now, pay later: PayZen, a BNPL solution for healthcare that enables patients to pay for medical bills in interest-free installments, has secured $32 million and a $200 million debt facility in Series B funding. The VC round was led by NEA, with participation from existing investors.
This week's most interesting VC and fund news
Image credit: Balderton
Bullish on Europe: European venture capital firm Balderton Capital raised $615 million for its latest early-stage fund and $685 million for its second growth fund. The $1 billion-plus raise was met with cautious optimism from VCs TechCrunch spoke to.
Fighting the downturn: Singapore-based venture capital firm Antler has raised $72 million for its second fund in Southeast Asia, Antler SEA Fund II, which will focus on pre-launch, pre-seed and seed funding stages, and the firm has already started deploying capital.
Last but not least
As defense tech continues to heat up, Hadrian has acquired Datum Source, a company founded by former SpaceX employees that uses AI to help hardware companies find manufacturing partners, which is especially useful for startups seeking Department of Defense contracts. CEO Chris Power explained the acquisition, saying it will be “the first of many” for Hadrian.