Hey, Insider! Want to be featured in next week’s newsletter? Answer our weekly question: How many startup ideas are stored in your notes? Share your response here. | |  Karan | |
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Silicon Valley Bank's competitors, Bridge Bank and JPMorgan Chase, are stepping in to fill the startup void after its collapse. Financial institutions Mercury and Brex are also offering debt to startups. More: - Out of the companies that Kruze Consulting manages, nearly half opened new accounts with JPMorgan.
- Additionally, Mercury and Brex secured 20% and 8% of its accounts, respectively.
- JPMorgan doubled down on its efforts to support late-stage tech and pre-IPO startups following SVB's collapse.
- Rival banks are also hiring SVB's top executives.
- Last week, Stifel Financial hired three SVB executives.
- Five Star Bank is also looking at hiring many SVB employees.
Zoom out: - First Citizens Bank agreed to acquire SVB's assets for $500M worth of stock offering to FDIC.
- First Citizens will receive $110B worth of assets, nearly $73B of loans, and $56B in deposits from the transaction.
- The bank intends to capitalize on SVB's existing relationships with startups and venture capitalists.
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Apple acquired Mountain View, Calif.-based AI-powered video compression startup WaveOne for an undisclosed sum. Post the acquisition, Apple absorbed several of WaveOne's employees into various machine learning divisions. More: - Since its founding in 2016, WaveOne has raised $9M in venture funding.
- Notable backers of the firm include Khosla Ventures, Omega Venture Partners, Blue Ivy, Vela Partners, and Incubate Fund.
- WaveOne was founded by Lubomir Bourdev and Oren Rippel, both members of Meta's computer vision team.
- Rippel's LinkedIn profile shows he is now a machine learning engineer at Apple.
- WaveOne's hardware-agnostic video compression tools could reportedly reduce video file size by half.
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Pragma Bio, a South San Francisco-based tech platform for drug discovery, revealed it secured $10M in equity funding. The company plans to use the funds to develop proprietary methods in genomic sequencing and synthetic biology to develop therapies for immune system disorders. More: - The company developed Lattice, which archives interactions and correlations between natural products and human cells.
- The new funds add to a round total of $15M with participation from the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Viking Global Investors, and CJ Investments.
- The company’s previous round was a $4.5M Seed with participation from Timewise Investment, in addition to Merck and Viking Global.
- Pragma received a $15,000 grant from Texas A&M’s new venture competition.
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OneThird, a Netherlands-based startup that uses AI to predict produce shelf life, raised €2.75M (~$2.96M). The company plans to expand its technology to work for ten types of produce by the end of the year. More: - The startup claims its tech can reduce up to 25% of food waste across the supply chain.
- OneThird plans to expand to new markets in Europe and North America.
- The round was led by Pymwymic, with participation from follow-on investors Halma Ventures Limited, Oost NL, and SHIFT Invest.
- Food waste reportedly costs $1T, of which 40% consists of fresh produce.
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Refillable home care startup Blueland turned profitable in 2022. The news comes as the D2C brand expands its presence in retail outlets like Target, Costco, The Container Store, and Bed Bath & Beyond. Co-founder and CEO Sarah Paiji Yoo said, "My co-founder John and I, we've always believed that if we want to be able to make the best decision for the planet every time, the more financially successful and independent we are, the more our ability to do that will be insured." More: - Achieving profitability was the primary goal of 2022 despite raising $20M in funding from investors in Feb. 2022.
- Paiji Yoo said that financial independence was crucial for the business in order to pursue its emphasis on sustainability, which may not always align with the goals of outside investors.
- She added that the first three years as a D2C brand helped the firm accurately gauge customers' needs by conducting surveys and testing products.
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Uravu Labs, which develops technology that produces water from air moisture, raised a $2.3M Seed round. The startup plans to use the funds to expand via new partnerships in the hospitality and beverage sectors. More: - The company uses renewable energy sources, including solar and biomass, to absorb moisture and create freshwater.
- Uravu Labs, which is based in India, is planning a pilot program in Japan.
- The round included participation from Rocketship.vc, Vesta, Anicut Capital, and Echo River Capital, among others.
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Last week, we asked our startups community, "How do you protect your startup's intellectual property?" Here's a highlighted response we received: Filip Luchianenco (p/fillip), Software Engineer, answered, "You don't. Almost. - If your core business can be cloned - it will be cloned. Bigger companies will make it an add-on to their tools. Remember social media stories from Snap into Facebook? Also, regions with low production cost will just copy it. No IP will help. When Uber came up, it got cloned in tens of countries, localized. Most failed.
- Focusing on IP before market fit will significantly decrease your chances of success. You need to focus on one thing at a time. And Product Market Fit has to be your first one. Then growth. Then scale. Depending on industry you can patent meanwhile. But it can easily derail you.
- Your defensibility is not your IP. They can be worked around. Unless you spend a significant amount of cash to file your patent and even then, it won't ensure you're secured.
- Grow faster than the competition clones you. Does chat GPT need a patent? Uber? AirBnB? Tesla? By the time competition catches up, you need to be at a whole new level. Your growth rate is your success. By the time automotive companies had their first EV's, Tesla already iterated over a few models and was intensively testing their self-driving capabilities.
Above applies to tech products." Join the conversations at Inside.com, and we may shout out your name and business or contact you for more! ⭐️
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- Snap acquired 3D scanning startup Th3rd in Q2 2022 for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition was previously undisclosed.
- European DeFi startups secured $1.2B funding in 2022, representing a 120% increase over 2021's totals of $534M. Total investment into the crypto sector in Europe was $5.7B in 2022.
- HR startup Deel announced a strategic partnership with talent acquisition platform RAMP Global.
- Australian feedstock and fibre ingredients startup Cauldron raised $10.5M in seed funding led by Main Sequence and Horizon Ventures.
- AI-powered spreadsheet solution Neptyne secured $2M in pre-seed funding from Y Combinator and other angel investors.
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Upcoming Events: - March 27 - Inside Interview with Zscaler - Zero Trust Defense Strategies to Take Your Security to the Next Level (Watch On Demand)
- March 28 - Inside Startups Coffee Break (Register Here)
- March 30 - A panel on how CTOs balance and prioritize NFRs into their roadmaps (Register Here) *
- March 30 - Inside.com Book Club - The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (Register Here)
- April 13 - Inside Interview with Lacework - The Evolution of Cloud Security w/ Ulfar Erlingsson (Watch On Demand)
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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.
| | | | 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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