Welcome to Startups Weekly — a weekly roundup of must-sees from the world of startups. Want it delivered to your inbox every Friday? Sign up here.
This week, several startups announced new rounds without disclosing their valuations. This does not mean these were down rounds, but rather confirms that our overall focus is far from unicorns. These days, the ARR (annual recurring revenue) figure a company wants to achieve before going public can be $1 billion.
This week's most interesting startup stories
Image credit: Vinted
IPOs are back in the news, but not everyone is lamenting their absence.
Used: Vinted was valued at €5 billion in a secondary share sale. Lithuania's second-hand market joins a growing number of European scale-ups that have taken this route to ensure liquidity for interested parties in the absence of an IPO on the roadmap.
On the bright side: Ro CEO Zakaria Reitano says he's “never saying never” the telemedicine company will go public, but believes the benefits of being a private company are increasing. , he said in a recent interview.
Checkbox: Checkbox: Wiz hopes 2025 will be the year it hits $1 billion in ARR. The company's co-founders believe this figure is a prerequisite for the cybersecurity company, which rejected a $23 billion acquisition by Google, to go public.
Big move: Fintech company Groww is one of several Indian startups moving its headquarters to India to better comply with local laws and potentially be able to go public more easily. reported TechCrunch's Manish Singh.
Tailwind: U.S. federal regulators have cleared the way for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to share U.S. airspace with planes and helicopters, a big win for startups in the space.
This week's most interesting fundraisers
Image credit: Phoenix
There are only a few AI-related funding rounds taking place this week, but AI will be at the center of some of the really big funding rounds that may happen in the near future.
Counter-Stripe: One year after becoming a payments processor, fintech startup Finix raises $75 million in Series C funding to help grow in the U.S. and expand to more countries .
Money Circle: Concentric AI recently raised $45 million in a Series B round. The San Mateo-based startup operates in the data security posture management space and has made several M&A deals in recent years.
Open Check: Socket raises $40 million to detect security vulnerabilities in the open source code that software companies increasingly rely on.
Expansion: Fixify closes a $25 million Series A round to help IT teams deal with ticket overload through a combination of automation and human analysts.
Rumor: AI search engine Perplexity is reportedly aiming to raise $500 million. Mira Murati, former CTO of OpenAI, is also said to be raising money for a new AI startup.
This week's most interesting VC and fund news
Image credit: Sean Simmers, Washington Post/Getty Images
Ducks in a row: Privacy-focused company DuckDuckGo plans to invest in and acquire like-minded early-stage startups. The company's past investments include AI model training platform EverArt, according to a review by TechCrunch.
Breather: Andreessen Horowitz is making private GPU clusters available to AI startups in its portfolio through a program called Oxygen, the VC firm confirmed this week.
Partners only: Filings reveal Benchmark is raising $170 million for a new fund. TechCrunch understands that this will be a partner-only fund, with the majority of the funding coming from the company's historic and current partners.
Old and new: US VC veteran General Catalyst has raised $8 billion in new funding. New VC firm Chemistry has raised $350 million in debut funding.
Last but not least
Accel partner Philippe Botteri Image credit: Accel
The race for fundamental AI models is still in its infancy, and there are still opportunities for smaller startups, Accel partner Philippe Bottelli told TechCrunch. This includes its European counterpart, despite its funding disparity with its U.S. peers.