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| Hey Insiders, Today we are looking at rounds in geospatial and industrial sensor software and SoftBank's lawsuit against the founders of a portfolio company. I hope you enjoy today's edition! Nicolas
p/mobilitynerd | |
| 1 | | SoftBank's Vision Fund II has filed a lawsuit against the founders of portfolio company IRL, alleging fraudulent activities. The suit includes allegations of inflating user metrics and deceiving the fund about performance resulting in significant financial losses. More: - IRL, a social media startup once valued at $1B, received a $150M investment from SoftBank in May 2021.
- The founders allegedly used fabricated user engagement numbers, secretly deploying bots on their platform to create the illusion of a thriving social network while concealing fraudulent activities.
- It all came to light when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission initiated an investigation into IRL in late 2022, leading to the suspension of CEO Abraham Shafi in Apr. 2023 and the eventual dissolution of the company in June.
- SoftBank's Vision Funds have faced challenges since the market peak in 2021, and the conglomerate reported a substantial fiscal year loss of $32B as of Mar. 31, 2023.
Why it matters: - The lawsuit raises concerns about SoftBank's due diligence and scrutiny over its portfolio companies, especially in light of previous missteps like investments in FTX and WeWork.
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| 2 | | Tractian, a software startup focusing on industrial sensors, raised $45M through a growth round led by General Catalyst. This values the company at $205M. More: - Tractian plans to use more than half of the funds for research and development, with the remainder going to hiring and U.S. go-to-market.
- "The difference will be whether we will take the decision not to make a profit strategically to continue investing or whether we will want to make a profit and balance the accounts," said the startup's CEO and co-founder, Igor Marinelli, in regard to whether it would reach profitability by the end of the year.
- The Atlanta-based startup also has offices in Brazil and Mexico, in addition to a factory in São Paulo.
- The round included participation from Next47 and Monashees.
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| 3 | | Astra announced it would reduce 25% of its workforce and shift 50 engineers and manufacturing staff from launch operations to spacecraft production. This move aims to cut costs for the space company, focusing on its spacecraft engine business to generate revenue amidst financial challenges. More: - Astra's strategic reallocation and workforce reduction reflect a shift towards prioritizing spacecraft production and the spacecraft engine business.
- The layoffs and reallocation are expected to impact the testing timeline for Rocket 4 and Launch System 2.0, delaying these under-development projects.
- The financial challenges and dwindling cash reserves highlight the urgency for Astra to secure stable financial footing to sustain its operations and growth plans.
- For Q2, Astra anticipates revenues of $0.5M-$1M, with a relatively low cash balance of $26M-$26.5M available.
- The company's stock is down 70% compared to Aug. 2022.
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| 4 | | One Model, an AI-powered platform for workforce decision-making, has secured $41M in funding. Riverwood Capital led the financing and will fuel the company's growth initiatives, including technology enhancement, product development, customer success, and market expansion. More: - The platform aims to expand its people analytics product roadmap to cater to diverse data science, analyst, managerial, and C-level audiences. It operates as a "people analytics" platform, which focuses on gathering and utilizing organizational and talent data to enhance business results.
- One Model plans to enhance its AI capabilities to provide analysts and decision-makers with actionable forecasts while maintaining ethical solid data governance.
- One Model offers functions such as recognizing skill or talent gaps within a company and predicting future workforce requirements aligned with demographics and business objectives. This can lead to assessing turnover expenses and headcount data.
Why it matters: - The market for people analytics software is projected to grow from $2.58B in 2022 to $7.67B by 2031.
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| 5 | | Satim, a Poland-based startup focusing on satellite insights, raised €1.8M (~$1.97M) through a round led by geospatial-focused VC firm Cultivation Capital. The startup plans to transform SAR data into insights for government, military, and maritime commerce applications. More: - Founded in 2012, Satim developed SATREC, a software for automatic object recognition and classification for satellite imagery.
- Other participants in the round included Hustle Fund, Verissimo Ventures, The Flying Object, Everywhere Ventures, and Startupist Ventures.
- The Krakow-based startup previously raised a pre-Seed round of $1M in Apr. 2022, which was also led by Cultivation Capital alongside OpAmp Capital.
- Satim received $120,000 from Techstars in Jun. 2020 and a €45,000 (~$49,300) grant from Polish accelerator Space3ac in Jun. 2017.
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| 7 | | Community Corner Last week, we asked our startups community, "How significant is company culture for a startup?" Here's a highlighted conversation we received: - Jennifer Handshew (p/jenhandshew), Founder of 180 Marketing Comms, asked in return: "Do you create this culture from the people you hire or do the people you hire create the culture? Considering startups need to GET THINGS DONE does such a culture naturally develop?"
- James Spurway (p/james-spurway), Co-Founder at Indochina Consulting, answered Jennifer's above question with: "You only hire people who are great at what they do and identify with the values that the founders have set out in the vision and value statement of the company. If that means they hire someone who is rock solid but a team player over someone who is a superstar but who might erode the culture, so be it. This is something that takes a lot more effort and conscious decision-making than you would imagine."
Join the conversations at Inside.com, and we may shout out your name and business or contact you for more! ⭐️ | | | |
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- Gem Capital plans to inject €45M (~$49.4M) into early-stage game studios in Eastern Europe.
- Food waste recycling startup Bardee laid off 30 employees as it struggles to raise capital.
- PHX Ventures raised $25.4M for its second fund for seed-stage B2B software companies.
- London-based Fintech app Pockit raised a $10M growth round led by Puma Private Equity.
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Term of the Day Cash burn: Cash burn is defined as the amount of cash a company utilizes to meet its expenses in a specific period. 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) |
 | 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. ---------
Robel Kelkile was born and raised in the Bay Area. Now a writer @Inside, Robel covers all things San Francisco and is passionate about tech, venture, education, and city and state government | | This newsletter was edited by Vibha Chapparike | |
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