Hey, Insider! Want to be featured in next week’s newsletter? Answer our weekly question: Who are the first three people a startup should hire? Share your response here. | |  Karan | |
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RealWear, a startup that develops augmented reality headsets for industrial applications, announced it is going public via a SPAC merger with Cascadia Capital. The listing would value the combined company at $375.5M. More: - RealWear's headsets project an Android tablet below the line of sight, enabling workers to access document navigation, video calling, and forms.
- The startup generated $20.5M in revenue in 2022, increasing by $13.9M versus 2019.
- RealWear raised a $23.5M Series C in June with participation from Foundry Group, Qualcomm Ventures, and Columbia Ventures Corporation, among others.
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Generation Space, which is part of British space investment firm Seraphim Space, will launch an accelerator program in the U.S. The program will give more than $150M in funding to 12 startups. More: - The program will mainly support entrepreneurs working on climate technology, defense, communications, and mobility.
- Generation Space already has a European Seraphim Space accelerator program.
- Since 2018 this program has raised $240M in equity funding from 90 venture capital firms.
- Due to the challenging economic outlook, funding for the space industry in 2022 saw a decrease larger than 50% when compared to 2021.
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Tori Dunlap, the founder of financial advice platform Her First $100K, shared tips on starting businesses with minimal investment. Dunlap's most important advice is, "Before the business concept is proven, founders should keep it as lean as possible until their business is earning money." More: - Dunlap started her business as a side hustle in 2016, investing as little as $40 into the business to get it off the ground.
- Her business has since grown to $4M in revenue and amassed over two million followers on social media platforms.
- She says newly formed businesses should operate as lean startups, avoiding expenses, such as new equipment purchases or investing in paid advertising, for as long as possible.
- "While I started the business on my own, outsourcing tasks and bringing people onto the team was the best investment I ever made," writes Dunlap.
- Lastly, she recommends that founders always make financial investments or decisions that align with the core business goals and avoid going all-in on creative projects, especially ones that mimic trends or business models of other startups.
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Voyager Space, which is developing a private space station with Lockheed Martin, announced it raised an $80.2M round. The Starlab space station was previously granted $160M from NASA's Low-Earth Orbit Destinations program. More: - Voyager is expecting Starlab to be fully operating in 2028.
- The startup partnered with Hilton to develop crew suites and communal areas aboard the space station.
- Voyager plans to include labs for biology, physics, materials, and plant habitation.
- The round includes participation from NewSpace Capital, Industrious Ventures, and Midway Venture Partners, among others.
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 A message from TRUERA Free workshop on AI/ML quality and performance Are you a data scientist or machine learning engineer interested in learning more about how to analyze, test, and improve the performance and explainability of your machine learning models? Then this 4-session live online workshop is for you! Register today – space is limited! AI Quality: Driving ML Performance and Trustworthiness is a free class taught live by five experts from leading universities, including Carnegie Mellon University, MIT and Stanford University. Each session covers the essentials of key topics for managing machine learning models, including: - Accuracy and performance debugging
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Indian frontline worker management platform BetterPlace acquired a majority stake in the Indonesian online job portal MyRobin for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition will help the company gain a foothold in Indonesia as it ramps up its expansion strategy for Southeast Asia. The firm committed to investing $50M to back its expansion across the region. More: - CEO Pravin Agarwala said, "We plan to expand into other countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, and then the entire Asia region before entering the Middle East by 2026."
- BetterPlace roped in former Jungle Ventures managing partner Sandeep Uberoi to help with the expansion strategy.
- To date, the firm has nabbed $91M in venture funding, the last of which came in the form of a $40M Series C round led by Jungle Ventures.
- MyRobin's venture backers include SOSV and Antler.
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Magic, a startup building a code-generating platform, raised $23M in Series A funding. The startup aims to compete with GitHub's platform. More: - Alphabet's CapitalG led the funding round, in which Elad Gil and Nat Friedman.
- Magic provides an AI product that helps software engineers write, review, debug, and plan code changes.
- The tool can "communicate" in natural language and collaborate with users on code changes. Magic's product is still in construction and is not yet available to the public.
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I'm Kiani from Inside.com, and last week, we asked our community, "How do you handle failure and bounce back from it?" and we received dozens of responses! Here are some highlights: - Michael Doemner (p/DigiNomad), Chartmaster at All Over The Map Family, wrote, “We teach our kids and our community a method that we sum up with the acronym S.A.L.T. Surrender, Align, Listen, Take Action … There is no way to fail when you have learned and incorporated new wisdom into your future actions.” You can read Michael’s full description of the S.A.L.T acronym here.
- James Spurway (p/james-spurway), Co-Founder at Indochina Consulting, whose comment I wish I could fit in its entirety, concluded with an important message, writing, “After a business failure, you need to give yourself time to grieve and heal before considering your next move. And you need to forgive yourself. You'll know when you're ready to put yourself out there again.” You can read James’s full comment here.
- Lydia Sugarman (p/lksugarman), CEO at Venntive, answered, “I always look for the silver lining. Seriously, what are the hidden benefits I can derive from a failure? At the very least, I learned something new. It might be painful, but in that case, I'll probably never forget it. Every failure should make you smarter, stronger, more adaptable, better able to meet future challenges.”
Join the conversations at Inside.com, and we may shout out your name and business or contact you for more! ⭐️
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- Rebellyous Foods, an alternative meat product startup founded by former Boeing engineer Christie Lagally, raised $9.5M in funding.
- German grocery delivery startup Yababa is shutting down operations and filing for bankruptcy. European VCs, including Creandum, Project A Ventures, and Food Labs, invested $15.5M in the firm in Nov. 2021.
- French VC firm Ovni Capital held the first close of its debut fund at $54M (€50M). The firm aims to back 30 early-stage deep-tech startups.
- Non-custodial wallet maker Cenoa, co-founded by former Getir CTO Emre Ertan, raised $7M in seed funding led by Quiet Capital and Underscore VC.
- Anti-fraud platform SEON reportedly acquired anti-money laundering startup Complytron for €2.5M ($2.68M).
- Check out this demo-on-demand and find out how 4,000+ fast-growing companies got compliant quickly. *
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 |  | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | | | Editor | Vibha Chapparike is a Freelance Writer & Editor at Inside.com. With her post-graduation in Management and Finance completed, Vibha is expanding her knowledge in venture capital, business, startups, and technology. She has had a career in public relations and communications. An ardent reader and writer currently residing in Singapore, you can follow Vibha on Twitter @VChapparike. | |
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