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| Hey Insiders, Today's newsletter covers: - 🤖 Hugging Face's latest round
- 🤝 Yahoo's acquisition of CommonStock
- 🚲 Bin Bin's offer for VanMoof
If you find this newsletter useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Thank you. Nicolas
p/mobilitynerd | |
| 1 | | Artificial intelligence company Hugging Face announced it raised a $235M Series D with participation from Nvidia, Intel, Google, Amazon, and Salesforce, among others. The round values the company at $4.5B, doubling its worth from May 2022. More: - The new valuation is reportedly more than 100 times Hugging Face's revenue.
- The company claims 10,000 customers and 50,000 organizations on its platform for a total of over one million repositories.
- Including the new round, Hugging Face has raised $395.2M since its inception, which is under the amount raised by other AI startups such as Adept with $415M. Cohere with $435M, and Inflection AI with $1.5B.
- Earlier this month, Hugging Face announced a collaboration with Nvidia on its Training Cluster as a Service product, enabling the GPU maker's customers to train data on Hugging Face's 250,000 large language models and 50,000 data sets.
Q: Are we in an AI startup bubble? Or, do the advances in the field justify the valuations? Join the conversation here. |     | |
| 2 | | Yahoo announced the acquisition of CommonStock, a social network for stocks and crypto, for an undisclosed amount. Launched in Aug. 2020, the startup claims over $10B in connected assets. 
More: - CommonStock last raised a $25M Series A led by Coatue, with participation from Resolute Ventures and Bill Ackman, in Oct. 2021.
- Yahoo is seeking to integrate the social platform with its finance segment, which has over 150 million global users.
- Apollo Global Management acquired Yahoo in 2021 from Verizon. The ISP had previously sold Yahoo's properties, including HuffPost to BuzzFeed and Tumblr to Automattic.
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| 3 | | Istanbul-based micro-mobility operator BinBin submitted a non-binding offer for Amsterdam-based e-bike manufacturer VanMoof. Earlier this month, VanMoof's board rejected a bid from Micromobility.com (formerly known as Helbiz). More: - VanMoof filed for bankruptcy in July as it struggled to obtain funding and deferred vendor payments.
- The e-bike company had been plagued by a 10% return rate by unsatisfied customers.
- Founded in 2019, BinBin operates over 25,000 shared e-scooters and claims 3 million users across Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
- BinBin acquired Netherlands-based moped-sharing startup Go Sharing for an undisclosed amount in February.
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| 4 | | Cellares raised $255M as part of its Series C funding round. The round was led by Koch Disruptive Technologies with additional investment from Bristol Myers Squibb, DFJ Growth, Willett Advisors, Eclipse, Decheng Capital, and 8VC. More: - The California-based company provides a cell therapy manufacturing technology platform that aims at improving efficiency and scalability.
- Cellares currently has an automated facility in South San Francisco and plans to use the funds to finalize the construction of an additional facility in New Jersey for cell therapy production.
- FDA-approved CAR-T therapies involve complex manufacturing processes, including cell harvesting, modification, and culturing, often taking up to two weeks per therapy.
- Rather than relying on a traditional manual process, Cellare's new facility will be able to produce 10 times the cell therapy batches per year than conventional facilities.
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| 5 | | Lex, an AI-powered writing tool, has raised $2.75M in a seed round. The round was led by True Ventures. More: - Lex integrates AI into its platform to aid writers in their workflow and boost creativity.
- Features include formatting tools, generated suggestions, and the ability to ask AI questions within the interface.
- Unlike larger language models like ChatGPT, Lex differentiates itself by offering a niche product focused on improving the modern writing experience.
- The company is recruiting two founding engineers to join its team, one for frontend/UI using React and Prosemirror and the other for backend/ML utilizing LLMs and vector databases, offering 2%-3% equity and operating a remote team.
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| 6 | | Cypago has raised $13M to automate cybersecurity processes. The round was by Entrée Capital, Axon Ventures, and Jump Capital. More: - Co-founded by Arik Solomon and Yahav Peri, former Ernst & Young and ex-Israel Defense Forces intelligence officer, the company automates the collection, analysis, and implementation of security, compliance, and privacy controls.
- Part of its key feature is that Cypago allows companies to evaluate and assess their security initiatives compared to established benchmarks.
- With the new capital, the Tel Aviv-based company intends to expand its research and development division and hire additional staff for its product teams to build a market presence in North America and the European Union.
- According to Grand View Research, the market for risk and compliance was valued at approximately $47.22B in 2022.
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- Chinese EV charger network NaaS acquired Swedish home charger startup Charge Amps for $66.4M.
- London-based music ticketing platform DICE raised $65M as it seeks U.S. expansion.
- Volvo-backed home energy startup dcbel raised a $50M Series B.
- AI for battery health monitoring startup Accure raised $7.8M.
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Term of the Day Search engine optimization: Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing a website for search engine visibility. Question of the Week Do you share details about your salary with your coworkers? Join the conversation |
INSIDE STARTUPS LEADERBOARD (7 DAYS) |
 | Sr. Analyst | | 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.
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Born and raised in the Bay Area, Robel Kelkile is passionate about all things tech, venture, and financial education. He has previously served both universities and state governments in their engagement strategy and tracking legislation. | | This newsletter was edited by Vibha Chapparike | |
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