Venture Capital
It’s been 50 years since Venrock established itself to expose investors to venture capital opportunities. Today, the global venture capital industry tracks just south of $200 billion and continues to grow as new entrepreneurs, engineers, financiers, and thought leaders create the economy of tomorrow. The DailyAlts VC channel tracks the trends, opportunities, key thought leaders, and next-generation industries that will generate billions in returns.
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Revaia, Europe’s largest female-founded venture capital firm, has successfully raised €150 million ($160 million) for its second fund, Revaia Growth II. The funding was secured from sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and institutional investors across Europe, with support from existing partners like Bpifrance and new backers such as mutual insurer Carac and the European Investment Fund.
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More Stories on Venture Capital
Artificial Intelligence: UK Startup Carbon Re Uses AI To Decarbonize The Biggest GHG Emitters
London-based Carbon Re uses AI to cut emissions at the most energy-intensive industries, for example, glass, cement, and steel. Its technology can develop a ‘digital twin’ of an individual plant by analysing the sensor data gathered on a minute-by-minute basis by Distributed Control Systems. In a cement plant, this creates a high-resolution digital model that captures the properties of a given kiln (the thermodynamics, and the physical processes of clinker production). AI agents can therefore learn these processes in a simulation, so to speak, and then act in real time to maximize the plant efficiency.
Venture Capital: V.C. Arm Of Agricultural Cooperatives Invests In Agtech Startup Sabanto
“The labor shortage in ag retail is a very real problem,” said GROWMARK Director of Innovation Heather Thompson. “Autonomy presents an exciting solution but adopting autonomous equipment creates a new set of challenges for traditional operations. By partnering with Sabanto, GROWMARK and our FS cooperatives have the advanced opportunity to test and learn the impacts of this cutting-edge technology.”
Artificial Intelligence: AI-Based Robotic Waste Recycler AMP Raises $91M
AMP Robotics Corp has announced a $91 million Series C round led by Congruent Ventures and Wellington Management as well as new and existing investors including Blue Earth Capital, Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), Tao Capital Partners, XN, Sequoia Capital, GV, Range Ventures, and Valor Equity Partners. The funds will be used for AMP’s international expansion as well as to scale up its operations. The company intends to enhance manufacturing capacity to support a fleet of approximately 275 robots around the world and advance its ongoing development of AI-enabled automation applications for recycling.
Venture Capital/AI: OpenAI Launches Converge, An Accelerator For AI Startups
In May last year OpenAI launched its $100 million Open AI Startup Fund to provide support to early-stage startups in fields where artificial intelligence (AI) can have a transformative effect—like health care, climate change, and education. On Wednesday, the Fund launched Converge, an accelerator program for founders building transformative companies powered by AI.
Venture Capital: Israel-Based Vintage, A Global Tech VC, Raises $631M For Fund-Of-Funds
Founded in 2003, Vintage Investment Partners is an Israeli investment firm managed by seven partners. It has closed its seventh fund-of-funds with a raise of $631 million, bringing its assets under management to more than $3.6 billion. A Fund of Funds type fund does not invest directly in companies, but in venture capital funds.
Venture Capital: J.P. Morgan Launches Life Sciences V.C. Team As Part Of Private Capital Platform
J.P. Morgan Asset Management today announced the launch of a new life sciences private equity team, Life Sciences Private Capital, as part of its J.P. Morgan Private Capital arm, a growth equity and private credit investment platform.
Venture Capital: Elon Musk’s SpaceX Launches Its Falcon Heavy Rocket On National Security Mission
Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Tuesday launched a classified USSF-44 mission for the U.S. Space Force on board its towering Falcon Heavy rocket. The launch came more than three years after the Space Test Program-2 (STP-2) mission in June 2019, which carried experimental satellites on a demonstration flight for the Pentagon. It was also the company’s record 50th launch this year from the Falcon series, with most from the Falcon 9.
Venture Capital: Indian B2B E-Commerce Platform Udaan Raises $120M
An internal email sent by Aditya Pandey, the CFO of Indian business-to-business e-commerce major Udaan revealed that the startup has raised $120 million in convertible notes and debt led by existing shareholders and bondholders.
FinTech: India’s Money View In Talks To Raise $150M At $1B Valuation
Sources have told The Economic Times that Money View, an Indian fintech, is in talks to raise up to $150 million at a valuation of $900 million to $925 million pre-money and over $1 billion post-money. The sources also revealed that global private equity giant Apis Partners is expected to join as a new investor and also lead the round.
Venture Capital: Australian VC Square Peg Raises $550M For Two Funds
Square Peg, an Australian VC firm, announced its raise of $550 million, a so-called “fifth generation” of funds, for the Square Peg Fund 4 and Opportunities Fund 2. The firm has now received capital commitments in excess of $1.6 billion since it launched a decade ago. The size and timing of the raise is noteworthy given the global macroeconomic situation and the meltdown in technology valuations.
Venture Capital: Black-Owned VC Firm Collide Capital Raises $66M From Top Investors
Collide Capital, a VC firm founded in 2016 by Brian Hollins and Aaron Samuels, seeks to back founders best positioned to solve the next generation of global challenges. The firm announced Thursday its debut VC fund of $ 66 million backed by nameplate investors. These include the University of California endowment as anchor, Citi, Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL), and Twitter (NYSE: TWTR).
Venture Capital: Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Temasek And Others To Launch Agritech For Rice Cultivation Decarbonization
Wavemaker Impact, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, GenZero, and Singapore’s Temasek have come together to create an innovative agritech that will promote rice decarbonization in Southeast Asia and the rest of Asia. The agritech will identify strategies to cut rice field emissions using a combination of climate-tech, agri-food, and venture-building capabilities.
Venture Capital: Saudi Aramco Launches $1.5B Sustainability Fund
Saudi Aramco (TADAWUL: 2222) announced Wednesday a $1.5 billion Sustainability Fund to be managed by Aramco Ventures, its venture capital arm. The Fund would support Aramco’s ambitions to achieve net-zero Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions across its wholly-owned operated assets by 2050, development of new lower-carbon fuels businesses, and furthering Aramco’s broader environmental objectives.
Venture Capital: Walmart To Raise Upto $3B For Indian E-Commerce Subsidiary Flipkart
A news report said Flipkart, Walmart’s (NYSE: WMT) Indian e-commerce subsidiary was mulling a fundraise of $2 – 3 billion at a valuation of over $40 billion to drive a country-wide expansion. Last year, Flipkart raised $3.6 billion in a funding round that had the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, GIC, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Walmart as investors. That round gave it a valuation of $37.6 billion.
Venture Capital: BASF’s VC Arm Leads $10M Round In Brazilian Fintech Traive™
BASF Venture Capital GmbH (BVC), the corporate venture company of BASF SE (ETR: BAS), has announced its first investment in South America. BVC will lead a $10 million investment round in Traive™, a Brazilian financial services provider that is developing a technology infrastructure for financial services and AI for credit risk analysis and portfolio management.
Venture Capital: Climate Tech Fund Propeller Raises $100M For Ocean Climate Startups
Climate-tech fund Propeller announced its raise of a $100 million fund to support startups aiming to solve the climate crisis by innovating planet-saving, ocean-based science and technology solutions. The fund is launched in partnership with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a private, non-profit organization established in 1930, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education.
Venture Capital: Chinese EV Maker Aion Raises $2.53B Series A
Aion, the EV unit of Chinese automaker GAC (HKG: 2238), has raised a huge RMB 18.3 billion ($2.53 billion) Series A round at a whopping RMB 103.3 billion ($14.28 billion) valuation. That puts Aion at the top of the league of Chinese private, venture capital-backed EV makers.
Venture Capital: AI-Powered, Precision Medicine Startup Tempus Raises $275M In Equity And Debt
Tempus, which uses AI to advance healthcare solutions in drug discovery, clinical trials and diagnostics, has raised $275 million through equity from previous investors and debt financing from Ares Management.
Venture Capital: JPMorgan Launching A Platform To Facilitate Venture Finance
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) is launching Capital Connect, its own venture capital platform, to simplify the funding process for startups, and expand its own penetration of the private market. Banks have sought to present a friendlier funding face to founders given the rapid increase in recent years in the number and size of unlisted and private ventures.
Venture Capital: Lionel Messi Launches Investment Vehicle
San Francisco-based Play Time Sports-Tech HoldCo LLC is a holding company created by soccer superstar Lionel Messi to explore and invest in ventures that include football teams or football technology, said a Bloomberg report.
Venture Capital: Under-The -Radar Oncology Start-up Treeline Biosciences Nabs $261M
Treeline Biosciences, a cancer biotechnology startup led by biotech executives and Co-Founders Joshua Bilenker (CEO) and Jeffrey Engelman (CSO), has landed a Series A funding of $262 million to further its research pipeline. Bilenker, who had previously worked a stint in the oncology division of the FDA, went on to found a biotech company called Loxo Oncology which was later acquired by Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) for $8 billion in 2019.
Artificial Intelligence: Open Source AI Company Stability AI Lands $101M
Stability AI, an open source AI company driven by a community of developers that launched the highly successful, free-to-use, text-to-image generator Stable Diffusion, has raised a $101 million, oversubscribed round led by Coatue, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and O’Shaughnessy Ventures LLC.
Digital Assets: Uniswap Lands $165M Series B At $1.66B Valuation
Uniswap, which intends to bring Web3 to everyone, announced a $165 million Series G round led by Polychain Capital and with participation from existing investors a16z crypto, Paradigm, SV Angel, and Variant. The round valued the company at around $1.66 billion.
Venture Capital: TripActions Raises $304M Series G At $9.2B Valuation
TripActions announced a Series G raise comprising $154 million in equity from new and existing financial investors as well as a $150 million structured capital transaction led by Coatue, marking the third financing round for the company in three years.