Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of every little thing you possibly can’t miss from the world of startups. Need it in your inbox each Friday? Enroll right here.
This week in startup information, we have now some contrarian bets, funding rounds from all around the globe, new VC funds, and a last phrase of warning.
Most fascinating startup tales from the week
A number of tales this week remind us that simply because one thing didn’t work earlier doesn’t imply it isn’t price attempting from a unique angle. Plus, one M&A that provides us a break from different WordPress information.
New wave: A brand new wave of desalination startups is engaged on deep-sea reverse osmosis, a expertise that’s turning into simpler to deploy and will deliver financial savings, with projections that it may produce water utilizing 30% to 50% much less power than onshore reverse osmosis.
Filling the hole: YC’s newest batch had loads of AI startups, and a few fascinating enterprise ones, however the accelerator has decreased its concentrate on creating markets. In Africa, native accelerators backed by African YC alumni are taking this as a chance with new packages.
Bett(h)er: WaveForms AI, a brand new audio massive language mannequin (LLM) firm, hopes to make AI extra personable with its personal foundational fashions. Its founder, Alexis Conneau, is obsessive about the film “Her,” but in addition considering arduous about how to not create a dystopia. “We wish to do exactly the alternative of what the corporate in that film does,” he instructed TechCrunch.
Automated for the bots: WPAI, a startup that builds AI options for WordPress, is getting acquired by Automattic. Its crew will lead WordPress’ AI efforts.
Most fascinating fundraises this week
With the top of the 12 months quick approaching, this week introduced us many funding rounds, so right here’s a pattern that additionally showcases their vary, each in measurement and in geographic distribution.
Taking off: Archer Aviation, a startup constructing vertical takeoff and touchdown (VTOL) plane, raised $430 million in contemporary fairness funding that introduced its whole financing to just about $2 billion. Archer additionally closed an unique partnership with Anduril to collectively construct protection plane.
Stealthy no extra: Berlin-based startup Upvest, which makes a stock-trading API utilized by a few of Europe’s greatest fintech firms, raised a €100 million Collection C spherical ($105 million) led by once-secretive VC agency Hedosophia.
Robotic steps: Swiss robotics firm Anybotics, an ETH Zürich spinout constructing quadruped autonomous inspection robots for industrial purposes, raised one other $60 million, bringing its Collection B spherical of financing to a complete of $110 million. The capital will assist it increase within the U.S., the place it not too long ago opened an workplace in San Francisco.
Sturdy credentials: Flare, a Canadian menace publicity administration startup, closed a $30 million Collection B spherical of funding led by Base10 Companions. The corporate needs to assist SMBs and mid-market firms thwart the rise of info-stealer malware, or software program that collects login credentials, as occurred within the Snowflake incident earlier this 12 months.
Crossing the Channel: Aqemia, a French startup within the sizzling AI-enabled drug discovery area, raised its second fundraise of the 12 months: a brand new $38 million spherical led by Cathay Innovation, which it can use to rent and open an workplace in London.
Letting VCs in: Numia, a startup from Argentina that brings offline and on-line buyer interplay information into one place, introduced a $3.5 million seed spherical led by Cometa. CEO Gustavo Lauria stated the corporate is already worthwhile however determined to boost exterior capital for the primary time to achieve prospects which might be additionally restricted companions in enterprise funds.
Most fascinating VC and fund information this week
Open to confusion: The OpenAI Startup Fund raised over $44 million for its fifth particular function automobile (SPV), which a spokesperson stated “might be used to assist quite a lot of present portfolio firms and to make new investments.” Regardless of its identify, the fund says it doesn’t have OpenAI as an investor however that its backers embrace Microsoft and different OpenAI companions.
New dimension: Dimension Capital raised an oversubscribed $500 million fund to maintain on investing on the intersection of tech and life sciences. Portfolio firms embrace AI biotech firms Chai Discovery and Enveda Biosciences.
Paper tiger: Identified for the “spray and pray” technique that led it to put money into over 315 startups in 2021 alone, the fifteenth fund of hedge fund Tiger carried out notably poorly, with paper losses standing at greater than 15%, in keeping with a current disclosure.
Final however not least
In an interview, Lead Edge Capital founder and managing associate Mitchell Inexperienced instructed TechCrunch editor-in-chief Connie Loizos that there’s “an excessive amount of cash chasing too few firms which might be overvalued.” This makes his agency more and more steer away from typical enterprise capital offers and towards buyout-like “management offers” extra generally related to personal fairness. “I additionally refuse to put money into firms at 100 occasions or 200 occasions or 500 occasions income. That sport will finish badly,” he predicted.
