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This week's newsletter is about startups, but also about big tech companies expanding their reach through both acquisitions and investments.
This week's most interesting startup stories
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Tech IPOs remain rare in the U.S., and M&A dominated exit news this week. Additionally, there is one new startup to track.
Public market breakthrough: Blaize, an AI chip startup founded by Intel engineers in 2011 and focused on edge applications, went public on Tuesday after announcing its intentions through a SPAC a day earlier.
Buy now, pay now: Amazon plans to acquire Indian BNPL startup Axio for more than $150 million, according to sources. This will help the e-commerce giant accelerate its expansion into financial services in India, one of its fastest-growing markets.
Car sales: eBay plans to acquire Caramel, a startup that helps car sellers and buyers complete the final stages of a transaction. The company previously acquired Cargigi, an advertising and marketing technology company for car dealerships, and British advertising site Motors.co.uk.
Moody's to acquire Cape: Moody's has agreed to acquire geospatial AI startup Cape Analytics for an undisclosed sum. This will allow financial services companies to create real estate databases that they plan to use to provide local risk insights to their insurance customers.
The idea of AGI: Renowned AI researcher François Cholet collaborates with Mike Knoop, co-founder and head of AI at Zapier, to “develop and operationalize” artificial general intelligence (AGI) We launched Ndea, a research science lab.
This week's most interesting VC and funding news
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Mammoth ambitions: Colossal Biosciences has raised $200 million in a Series C round at a hefty $10.2 billion valuation, with equally big ambitions to bring back the woolly mammoth and two other extinct species.
Takeoff: Fast-growing space infrastructure startup Loft Orbital has raised $170 million in Series C funding co-led by Tikehau Capital and Axial Partners. The company declined to disclose its valuation, but this is more than the $160 million it has previously raised in a single round.
Rise of the Avatar: Synthesia, a British startup that uses AI technology to help companies build avatar-based videos, closes a $180 million Series D funding round led by NEA at a valuation of $2.1 billion. did.
GPT for Biology: French AI startup Bioptimus has raised $41 million to develop fundamental AI models for biology specifically trained for downstream biological applications.
Digital Switch: With a goal of becoming the healthcare industry's largest fintech startup, Berlin-based startup Nelly raises $51 million in Series B funding to help more medical practices transition to digital workflows .
Quantum Acceleration: Quantum computing startup SEEQC has raised $30 million in Series A enhancements co-led by Booz Allen and NordicNinja to accelerate the commercial deployment of its chips and improve its capabilities.
Spinoff: Intel has announced plans to spin off its corporate venture arm, Intel Capital, into an independent fund that will begin operating independently in the second half of 2025, with Intel as the “anchor investor.”
Founders and Investors: Powerset, an investment program co-founded by Angel List alum Jake Zeller, operates as a type of decentralized venture fund, with five to 10 founders co-founded by other Give $1 million to invest in a startup.
Nvidia's AI empire: Just days after TechCrunch rounded up Nvidia's startup investments, another company has been added. That company is MetAI, a Taiwanese company that develops digital twins using Al.
Last but not least
After spending more than two years interviewing founders on TechCrunch's recently concluded Found podcast, Rebecca Szkutak shared her considerable advice about startups. In this post, she shared her five recommendations that stood out the most. Some of them are counter-intuitive, such as “There's no harm in not being number one,'' but all of them are worth reading.