Plus: Structure Therapeutics raises $161M from IPO debut
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Uri Levine, the co-founder of Waze, advises startup founders looking for funding to do what he calls "The Dance of the Hundred Noes." He said that since VCs evaluate over a hundred potential investment opportunities in a year, they are bound to accept only a small percentage of the startups, which is "99% no for 1% yes." Founders should not take rejection personally, and they should approach 100 VCs at the very least, says Levine. More: - Levine recollects his time at Waze, which was rejected by multiple investors — Lightspeed Venture Partners turned down an investment opportunity at a $28M valuation — and almost ran out of cash in 2010.
- He recommends that startup founders work directly with GPs rather than first-line analysts.
- Even if a venture firm declines to invest, he recommends that founders build a rapport with them, understand their expectations, and possibly get them onboard for the next funding round.
- Levine advises founders to look out for "Key Investor Indicators" (KIIs) that indicate that the investor is likely to invest in the company.
- KIIs that founders should look out for include investors discussing the deal, inquiring about other investors, reviewing the cap table, and offering advice on changes to the presentation.
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Google invested $300M in Anthropic, a startup developing an intelligent chatbot that rivals ChatGPT. The move mirrors Microsoft's $1B investment in OpenAI three years ago. More: - Anthropic was formed in 2021 after Dario Amodei and other researchers left OpenAI over disagreements on the company's direction.
- The group thought that Microsoft's investment would take OpenAI towards a more commercial path and neglect the organization's original focus, which was to work on the safety of advanced AI.
- Google will require that the startup uses the money to acquire computing resources from its cloud computing division.
- Claud, Antrhopic's chat robot, has yet to be publicly released.
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Picnic, the developer of a pizza-making robot, announced it is laying off an undisclosed number of employees to extend its runway. "Until the economic situation improves, we're slimming down and running as efficiently as possible without impacting our mission or our core business," said the startup's CEO, Clayton Wood. More: - The company builds a robot that can complete 100 12-inch customized pizzas per hour.
- The startup has ~100 employees, per its corporate Linkedin profile.
- Picnic, founded in 2016, last raised a $13.8M venture round in Nov. 2022.
- The startup's customers include the University of Mississippi and Ohio State University.
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San Francisco, Calif.-based biotech firm Structure Therapeutics raised $161M from its IPO debut on Nasdaq. The firm sold over 10.74 million American depositary shares, priced at $15 each. Structure's listing is the third largest yet for a biotech startup in the last six months. More: - The firm, formerly known as ShouTi, develops novel therapeutics for treating metabolic and pulmonary diseases.
- Structure previously raised $207M in venture funding. In Aug. 2022, it nabbed a $33M extension funding after the initial $100M BVF Partners-led Series B round in Oct. 2021.
- Notable backers of the firm include Sequoia Capital China, F-Prime Capital Partners, and Lilly Asia Ventures.
- Structure is listed under the ticker name GPCR.
Zoom out: - Two other prime IPO listings in the past six months are Third Harmonic Bio's $185M listing in September and Prime Medicine's $175M listing in October.
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ValueBase, which works on software for land appraisals, announced it secured a $1.6M Seed round. The startup uses data from aerial photography and weather balloons to feed its algorithm. More: - "If you understand that land is one of the key drivers of value, you don't necessarily need to crawl through people's windows and rifle through their house and take all these invasive pictures [for appraisals]," said the startup's co-founder, Lars Doucet.
- Hydrazine Capital, the firm by Open AI CEO Sam Altman and GameStop chairman Ryan Cohen, led the round.
- The round also included participation from former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, CEO of Gumroad Sahil Lavingia, and On Deck founder Erik Torenberg.
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Toggle, a startup that provides robots for construction companies, raised $3M on a Series A extension. The company's initial Series A funding round raised $8M and with this funding extension, it has now raised a total of $15M. More: - Toggle will use the funding to increase the production of robots.
- The startup's value proposition lies in helping reduce the increasing costs in the construction sector.
- Supply chain disruptions from the pandemic, inflation, and higher labor costs have put pressure on construction companies' bottom line.
- To that matter, Toggle provides companies with robots that bend rebar, which is the steel skeletal reinforcement that all heavy construction uses.
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 |  | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot.
Nicolas is a Sr. Analyst at Inside, covering startups and transportation trends. He is an avid map maker and data nerd. Nicolas has worked in the shared-scooter space, as well as advised e-bike and moped start-ups.
Martin Ruiz-Cantu is a Business Researcher at Inside.com. He has a Master's in Global Business and Finance from Georgetown University. He previously worked at HSBC and the World Bank. He is passionate about finance, startups and tech.
| | | | 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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