What happened: Energy startups at the pre-Seed (including crowdfunding, accelerators, and incubators) and Seed stages raised a combined $85.64M in 2023, with a median deal size of $2.42M and a median post-valuation of $14.9M. Why it matters: Tokyo-based startup Helical Fusion's recent $6M Seed round this week adds to the trend of early investments in nuclear, which include Virginia-based NearStar Fusion, which raised $130,000, and Osaka-based EX-Fusion's $1.09M, both through equity crowdfunding. Where to see the impact: There were 19 reported deals in the early stages for energy companies in March 2023, down from 54 investments during the same month in 2022. Barring major data delays, fewer energy startups are being accepted into accelerators or raised via equity crowdfunding thus far this year. However, round sizes for early energy startups have been increasing since 2019, when they passed the $1M mark, rising to $1.70M in 2022.
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Roboto, a Seattle-based startup that works on software for AI developers, emerged from stealth with a $4.8M Seed round. The company was started by former Amazon drone engineers Benji Barash and Yves Albers-Schoenberg. More: - Roboto works on helping users analyze data and troubleshoot points of failure in robot development. The startup claims data analysis platforms like Splunk or Datadog do not support multimodal sensor data.
- The startup currently has five employees and plans to onboard smaller robotics companies.
- Venture funding for robotics startups fell 44% YoY in 2022.
- “At some point, society will not continue to function well without leaning on robots to do some of these jobs that we don’t want to do," said Barash.
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Anthropic, founded by the former VP of OpenAI, is looking to raise $5B in the next two years to compete with OpenAI and expand into multiple industries. Anthropic's Series C funding pitch deck proposes spending $1 billion over the following 18 months to create a new "Claude-Next" AI model that is 10X more powerful than the most sophisticated AI currently in use. More: - Anthropic released Claude commercially in March following a closed beta late last year, allowing around 15 partners initial access.
- According to the pitch deck, the frontier model (Claude-Next) could be used to build virtual assistants to automate large portions of the economy.
- The new model powered by its "constitutional AI" is a next-generation algorithm for self-teaching AI that seeks to align it with human intentions.
- AI research startup that creates and commercializes its text-generating AI systems competes with OpenAI and other startups like Cohere and AI21 Labs.
Zoom out:
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Agnostiq, a startup that works on quantum computing, raised a $6.1M Seed round led by Differential Ventures. The Toronto-based company develops an orchestration tool that enables the building, testing, and comparing of workflows. More: - The news comes as companies such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft are launching their own high-performance computing systems.
- The startup caters to academics running large-scale experiments, data scientists, and enterprise teams working across clouds.
- The round included participation from recurring investors Scout Ventures, Tensility Venture Partners, and Green Egg Ventures, among others.
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Native, an AI firm, raised a $3.5M Seed round. JumpStart and Ivy Ventures led the round, with additional investments from 11 Tribes and Connetic Ventures. More: - According to Pitchbook, Native was among the only 24 generative AI businesses earning a venture-backed Seed round in Q4 2022.
- Native uses AI-powered digital twins to provide brands with fast, reliable market insights based on real-time industry, consumer, and product data.
- Frank Pica, CEO and co-founder of Native, stated, "Consumer research is going through a renaissance, and generative AI is leading the way."
- Always-on market intelligence platform is already collaborating with market leaders, such as McKinsey & Company and Kellogg's.
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Veloce Energy closed its Series A led by ITOCHU, a hundred billion-dollar Japanese conglomerate, and Ecliptic Capital, a Texas-based venture firm. The company plans to use the funding to scale its eMobility and Grid Edge Technology solutions. More: - Veloce Energy provides a comprehensive and cost-effective FastGrid hardware and software infrastructure platform to simplify the deployment, operation, and expansion of EV charging stations and commercial and solar storage.
- “We are excited to finalize our Series A efforts with additional investors, having already proved our products to two sought-after partners,” said Jeff Wolfe, Veloce CEO and co-founder.
- The development comes as companies building electric vehicle charging stations apply for grants and tax breaks from several sources, including the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) and the Inflation Reduction Act.
Zoom Out: - In Jan 2023, KORE Power's Mark 1 lithium-ion battery module and Veloce Energy's VPort BESS achieved an Underwriters Laboratories (UL) fire testing result of 0" clearance from combustibles.
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- Polish startup Reakto, which works on a rapid response drone network, raised €1.03M (~$1.12M) to launch its product.
- Chicago-based EdTech startup Innovare raised $2M as part of its Seed round to scale its analytics platform.
- Australian food marketplace ChefPrep declared insolvency seven months after rebranding to CoLab and acquiring a competitor.
- Mrge, an e-commerce advertising company, acquired Montreal-based publisher network SourceKnowledge.
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 |  | Nicolas S. is a Sr. Analyst at Inside, covering transportation and startup 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 startups. Follow him at @MobilityNerd. _______
Shriram is a freelance writer at Inside.com. He is pursuing a Master’s in Business with Marketing at Warwick Business School. He worked as a Senior Consultant in Tech and Political Consultancies before his Masters. He is passionate about Tech, Marketing, Strategy, Anthropology, and Politics. He is also the Postgraduate Ambassador for Warwick Business School. |  | | Editor | Christopher Hachey is an editor based in the New York City area. Reach out to him at chris@inside.com | |
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