| Hey Insiders, Today we are taking a look at Farizon's $600M Series A round, NineDot's $25M revolving credit facility given by the New York state, and Charmed's $400,000 funding from Madrona Ventures. We have also rounded up the top early-stage funding rounds of this week. Scroll down for some quick hits, and let us know what other content you'd like to see in future issues. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | Boyu Capital and Yuexin Industrial Fund led a $600M Series A funding round into Chinese EV truck maker Farizon Auto, a subsidiary of Chinese automotive giant Geely. The size of the current round is double its previous $300M pre-Series A funding round from Oct. 2022. The fresh funding will enable Farizon to accelerate product development and pursue global expansion beyond China, starting with Europe, where it plans to sell a light electric cargo van as early as 2024. More: - Farizon eventually intends to build its presence across Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and South America.
- United Clean Energy and Linjiang Industry Group participated in Farizon's current round.
- Farizon's parent Geely also owns automotive brands Zeekr, Polestar, and Volvo, the latter of which it acquired for $1.8B in 2010.
- Zeekr is the only EV startup to nab a larger round than Farizon this year, closing out a $750M Series A fundraiser in February at a $13B post-money valuation.
Zoom out: - In H1 2023, EV startups secured $4.2B in VC funding. At this rate, funding is unlikely to match last year's annual tally of $14.3B by this year's end.
|     | |
| 2 | | 
VCs deployed $743M in early-stage global startups this week between July 15 to July 21, per Crunchbase data. FinTech sector raked in 18% of the funding this week. Biotech, healthcare, and AI sectors nabbed 17%, 14%, and 10% of the financing, respectively. Here are the top five largest rounds announced this week: - Unstructured data orchestration platform Hammerspace raised $56.7M through its first institutional investment round. Prosperity7 Ventures led the round with additional support from Pier 88 Ventures, ARK Invest, and others.
- Southlake, Texas-based cardio-renal disease treatment maker Renibus Therapeutics held the initial close of its Series B funding round at $47M.
- General purpose zero-knowledge virtual machine technology maker Risc Zero secured $40M in Series A funding led by Blockchain Capital.
- Corporate credit card fintech startup Karat Financial nabbed $70M in Series B funding. The funding consists of a $40M equity tranche led by SignalFire and a $30M debt facility provided by TriplePoint Capital.
- Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech startup Surge Therapeutics closed its Series B funding round at $32M. Bioluminescence Ventures led the funding round, joined by KdT Ventures, Piedmont Capital, 8VC, Alumni Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and others.
| | | |
| 3 | | NineDot announced it secured $25M in revolving credit from New York State Energy Research and Development Authority's NY Green Bank. The startup aims to build 400 MW of energy systems by the end of 2026. More: - NineDot plans to use the revolving credit to fund its connectivity to the grid in the New York City Metro area through 14 energy storage sites.
- According to the NYC Department of Building's methodology, if NineDot's 5 MW batteries operated for all of 2022, it would have saved 420 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents.
- NineDot was a participant in ride-hailing company Revel's vehicle-to-grid testing with Fermata and Con Edison in Brooklyn.
| | | |
| 4 | | Charmed, a startup that works on game development tools, announced it raised $400,000 from Madrona Ventures. The company is developing the Texture Generator, which enables painting 3D objects based on user prompts. More: - Charmed's other products include a tool for texture map creation in the style of dungeon games such as Diablo and a quest generator.
- "Generative AI is the first time where, if you have the ability to build a game mechanic but not the art assets, you can start to produce those things with programming tools," Jeremy Tryba, Charmed's founder.
- Tryba previously worked as VP at Snap, Placed, and Foursquare.
- Charmed enters a space with startups such as Versed and Scenario working on AI tools for game development, in addition to big players such as Roblox and Microsoft.
| | | |
| 5 | | Portrait Analytics, a startup focusing on generative AI for investment research, raised $7M in a round led by Unusual Ventures. "AI has the potential to act as a bandwidth multiplier, but that won't be achieved by simply bolting ChatGPT onto existing products and data flows," said David Plon, the startup's CEO. More: - The company was co-founded in 2022 by David Plon, who was a public markets principal at Baupost, and Connell Gough, a full-stack developer.
- The product is currently in beta with asset managers, as Portrait plans a wider analyst access release "in the coming months."
- The round brings Portrait's total funding to $10M.
- Other investments by Unusual Ventures include Carta, Robinhood, Harness, and Vivun.
| | | |
| 6 | | Square Roots, a vertical farming startup co-founded by Elon Musk's brother Kimbal, shut down most of its locations on Tuesday. Additionally, the firm also laid off most of its staff, sources informed Business Insider. More: - The smart farming startup had raised over $90M in funding from investors, including David Sach's Craft Ventures, since its founding in 2016.
- Co-founder and CEO Tobias Peggs informed employees through a Zoom call on Tuesday that the company is planning to shut down its production at its farms in Springfield, Ohio; Shepherdsville, Kentucky; Kenosha, Wisconsin; and one farm in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
- The company will continue to keep another farm in Grand Rapids active and has held 10 workers at the location as it focuses on a new business model, pivoting away from manufacturing and packaging its own products to supporting business partners such as Gordon Food Services as a "farming as a service" provider.
| | | |
| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Elevate your cloud expertise with the AWS Cookbook. Practical, concise, AWS-focused: This resource is your key to cloud success.*
- Affini-T Therapeutics, a cell therapy biotech startup spun out from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, is shutting down its Seattle lab and laying off its staff. The startup emerged from stealth mode with $175M in funding last year.
- German thermal satellite data startup Constellr nabbed €17M (18.93M) seed funding led by Karista, with additional support from FTTF, Lakestar, Vsquared, Amathaon Capital, OHB Ventures, EIT Food, and others.
- Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and Crypto Oasis Ventures signed an MoU to collaborate on the latter's startup accelerator programs.
- Indian industrial robotics startup Ati Motors bagged $10.85M in Series A funding from Blume Ventures, Athera Venture Partners, Exfinity Ventures, and MFV Partners.
- There are 12,000+ ways for small businesses to qualify, but finding out if you're approved takes only two minutes. Apply now with no obligation, and discover what refund you're entitled to.*
*This is sponsored content. | | | |
| Upcoming Events | | JUL
25 | | Lacework hosts former CEO of Starbucks, Jim Donald, for a fireside chat on what CEOs need to know about cybersecurity.* | | | | | | | JUL
31 | | #TwoCents Discussion Community Challenge | | | | | | | AUG
2 | | Join Vanta and VioletX and find out how growing startups should navigate the complex compliance space.* | | | | | | | OCT
16 | | Meet Our Fund 5, Building and Investing in AI | | | | | | | NOV
7 | | Join us for Strategic Marketing 2023 and meet 300+ CMOs and senior marketing leaders from the world's biggest brands.* | | | | | | * This is a sponsored event | | | |
Term of the Day Earned media: Earned media describes the publicity and awareness that a company receives for free as a result of positive word-of-mouth or recommendations. Question of the Week What's your stance on unpaid internships: valuable experience or exploitation? Join the conversation |
INSIDE STARTUPS LEADERBOARD (7 DAYS) |
 | Analyst | | 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. | | This newsletter was edited by Vibha Chapparike | |
| |
| |
