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This week in startup news, we highlight some contrarian bets, funding rounds from around the world, new VC funds, and a final warning.
This week's most interesting startup stories
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Several articles this week remind us that just because something hasn't worked before doesn't mean it's not worth trying from a different angle. Plus, we have one M&A to take a break from other WordPress news.
New Wave: A new wave of desalination startups is working on deep-sea reverse osmosis. The technology is expected to be easier to implement and potentially bring cost savings, using 30% to 50% less energy to produce water than land-based reverse osmosis.
Bridging the gap: YC's latest group included a number of AI startups and some interesting enterprise startups, but the accelerator has reduced its focus on development markets. In Africa, local accelerators supported by African YC alumni are seeing this as an opportunity for new programs.
Bett(h)er: WaveForms AI, a new audio large-scale language model (LLM) company, wants to make AI more personal with its unique foundational models. Founder Alexis Conneau is obsessed with the movie Her, but she's also passionate about ways to avoid creating a dystopia. “We want to do the exact opposite of what the companies in that movie are doing,” he told TechCrunch.
Automation for bots: WPAI, a startup building AI solutions for WordPress, is acquired by Automattic. That team will lead WordPress' AI efforts.
This week's most interesting fundraisers
Image credit: Rebecca Beran/TechCrunch
A number of funding rounds took place this week as the end of the year approaches. As such, a sample illustrating its range, both in size and geographic distribution, is provided below.
Takeoff: Archer Aviation, a startup developing vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft, has raised $430 million in new equity funding, bringing total funding to nearly $2 billion. Archer also entered into an exclusive partnership with Anduril to jointly manufacture defense aircraft.
No more stealth: Upvest, a Berlin-based startup that develops a stock trading API used by some of Europe's biggest fintechs, has a Series C led by the once-secretive VC firm Hedosophia. It raised 100 million euros ($105 million) in a round.
Robot Steps: Anybotics, the Swiss robotics company spun out of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich to develop quadrupedal autonomous inspection robots for industrial applications, raises another $60 million in Series B funding The total amount was $110 million. The capital will help the company expand in the U.S., where it recently opened an office in San Francisco.
Strong track record: Canadian threat exposure management startup Flare has closed a $30 million Series B round led by Base10 Partners. The company wants to help small and medium-sized businesses thwart the rise of information-stealing malware, or software that harvests login credentials, as happened with the Snowflake incident earlier this year.
Crossing the Channel: Aqemia, a French startup gaining attention in the field of AI-powered drug discovery, has raised its second round of funding this year. The company has raised $38 million in a new round led by Cathay Innovation and plans to use this funding to open an office in London.
VC is in: Numia, an Argentinian startup that integrates offline and online customer interaction data in one place, announced a $3.5 million seed round led by Cometa. Chief Executive Officer Gustavo Lauria said the company is already profitable, but decided to raise external funding for the first time to reach customers who are also limited partners in venture funds.
This week's most interesting VC and fund news
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Room for confusion: OpenAI Startup Fund has raised more than $44 million for its fifth special purpose vehicle (SPV), which a spokesperson describes as “support for a variety of existing portfolio companies and new investments.” I will use it.'' Despite its name, the fund does not have OpenAI as an investor, but says its backers include Microsoft and other OpenAI partners.
New Dimension: Dimension Capital raises an oversubscribed $500 million fund to continue investing at the intersection of technology and life sciences. Portfolio companies include AI biotech companies Chai Discovery and Enveda Biosciences.
Paper Tiger: Hedge fund Tiger's No. 15 fund, known for its “spray-and-pray” strategy that led to investments in more than 315 startups in 2021 alone, has performed particularly poorly, according to a recent report. The paper loss amounted to more than 15%. Disclosure.
Last but not least
Image credit: Mitchell Green
“Too much money is chasing a few companies that are overvalued,” Mitchell Green, founder and managing partner of Lead Edge Capital, told TechCrunch Editor-in-Chief Connie Loizos in an interview. Because of this, his firm is increasingly moving away from typical venture capital deals and toward “control deals” like buyouts commonly associated with private equity. “I also refuse to invest in companies that are 100x, 200x, 500x revenue. That match will end badly,” he predicted.