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| Hey Insiders, Today's newsletter covers: - 💰 LLM platform Deepset's $30M funding round
- 🌊 Ocean carbon removal startup Running Tide's carbon credits program
- 👥 Virtuix's $5M crowdfunding campaign for VR treadmill and much more!
If you find this newsletter useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | Deepset, an LLM development platform for enterprises, raised $30M through a round led by Balderton Capital. The company plans to use the funds to grow from 50 employees to 70-75 by the end of the year. More: - Launched in 2018, the startup bootstrapped natural language models for enterprise and, in 2019, released an open-source framework to build NLP back-end services with Transformers and other LLM architectures.
- In 2022, Deepset launched its Cloud product, which enables companies to test various LLMs and obtain performance data.
- The startup has raised a total of $46M to date, competing in a space that includes startups such as Seldon, Galileo, and Tecton and incumbent cloud companies offering MLOps services, including AWS.
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| 2 | | Ocean carbon removal startup Running Tide delivered its inaugural carbon removal credits to Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify. 
What happened: Running Tide removed 275 net tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by sinking more than 1,000 tons of limestone-coated wood waste to the ocean floor. The startup claims that CO2 contained in the material will be safely stored on the ocean floor for 800 to 10,000 years. Out of the 275 net tons of carbon dioxide equivalent saved from the process, carbon credits worth 100 tons will be transferred to Shopify. Relevance: Carbon credits from Running Tide will be able to offset a tiny portion of Shopify's gross operational emissions, which were reported to be 30,000 tons in 2022. The company purchased 23,000 tons of carbon removal credits in 2022, offsetting the remaining emissions via renewable energy power and renewable natural gas credits. What the numbers say: Running Tide's carbon credits are typically priced at $250 to $350 per ton. The company says the costs are still high, considering the firm is still in the research phase and currently has "a tremendous amount of overheads," per CEO and founder Marty Odlin. The prices are nearly two to three times higher than the highest carbon trading prices covered by the Emission Trading Systems (ETS). | | | |
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| 3 | | Virtuix, an Austin-based startup developing a VR treadmill, raised $5M through an equity crowdfunding campaign. The company claims it has delivered more than 4,000 commercial treadmills, including clients such as Dave & Buster's. More: - The startup launched in 2016 with a Kickstarter for a home VR version but later pivoted to entertainment venues with the four-player VR system, Omni Arena.
- Virtuix claims more than 300,000 registered players.
- "Now we're returning to our original vision with Omni One, our first Omni system truly designed for the home. The big difference is that now the technology is ready. Thanks to standalone VR headsets, we can offer a complete system to the end customer with a streamlined user experience," said Jan Goetgeluk, Virtuix's founder and CEO.
- The company began delivering the Omni One to 8,000 equity investors and expects to ship 1,000 units by the end of the year.
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| 4 | | Kenyan logistics startup Sendy is searching for a buyer to purchase its assets after running out of capital to continue business operations, sources informed TechCrunch. Sendy's co-founder Meshack Alloys confirmed that the firm was "in the middle of an acquisition process." The firm had to commence the sale process after key investors backed out of a new funding round. Per sources, Sendy is currently in talks with potential buyers in the B2B e-commerce and trucking space, including Trella, Sabi, and Wasoko. More: - Sendy was reportedly raising a down round at a valuation of $40M to $60M, lower than its previous valuation of $80M from last year.
- Last year the firm intended to raise $100M but could only secure a fraction of the investment from Japanese transport business Mitsui O.S.K. Lines CVC division MOL PLUS.
- Like several e-commerce companies, Sendy also faced high operational costs and marginal customer pricing problems, prompting it to lay off 10% of its workforce in July last year.
- More layoffs followed, including the departure of 54 employees later in October.
- Troubles further exacerbated, forcing Sendy to shutter its supply service and exit end-to-end fulfillment in Nigeria.
Zoom out: - Sendy has raised $26.5M in total funding to date from Toyota Tsusho, Atlantica Ventures, Enza Capital, Sunu Capital, Goodwill Investments, and others.
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| 5 | | Meta Platforms settled a lawsuit brought on by AI startup Neural Magic ahead of its trial, which was scheduled to begin next month. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Plaintiff Neural Magic asked the court to dismiss the case with prejudice. More: - The Somerville, Mass.-based startup had accused Meta Platforms of stealing its algorithms.
- Per the lawsuit, Meta hired Neural Magic's computer scientist Aleksandar Zlateski, who was responsible for solving a key problem in its "continued advancement in the world of artificial intelligence."
- Zlateski allegedly brought along key algorithms developed by Neural Magic.
- The case was allowed to proceed to trial after a testimony from an expert estimated that Meta owed Neural Magic nearly $766M in royalties.
- The Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup's platform helps run complex deep-learning algorithms on regular computers.
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| 6 | | Data storage and object security startup Symmetry Systems announced it secured a $18M round led by OVN Capital. The company develops DataGuard, which uses artificial intelligence to build agentless security with granular visibility into the data and its permissions. More: - "We believe that privacy enables individuals to have agency over their future and that privacy and data security has to be built into infrastructure — cloud today and the edge tomorrow," said Symmetry's CEO and co-founder, Mohit Tiwari.
- The product scans for anomalies and threats, aiming at helping companies manage data risks.
- The round included participation from TSG Capital Partners, Adit Capital Manage, and ForgePoint Capital.
- The company previously raised a $15M Series A led by Prefix Capital and ForgePoint Capital.
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| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Wiz partnered with Wiley to create the AWS Security Foundations Guide For Dummies. This free 46-page guide includes techniques for securing AWS resources.*
- Thermal energy storage startup Nostromo's $176M loan application under the U.S. Department of Energy's Innovative Clean Energy Loan Guarantee Program is now in the due diligence and term sheet negotiations stage.
- Credgenics, an Indian fintech startup that helps banks collect debt, tripled its valuation to $340M after raising a $50M round led by existing backers Accel and Westbridge Capital.
- The U.S. law enforcement authorities arrested John Whisenant, the former director at auto marketplace startup Tred, for allegedly embezzling $2M in company funds.
- Amazon Web Services launched AWS Build, a global educational program to help pre-seed startup founders develop a minimal viable product using AWS solutions. The first cohort will select 500 startup founders and give them AWS credits worth $2,000.
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Term of the Day Long-tail keyword: A long-tail keyword is a targeted search term used in search engine optimization (SEO) that's more specific and longer than traditional keywords. Question of the Week Do you think the 9-to-5 workday still relevant in today's modern workplace? 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 | |
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