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| Hey Insiders, Today's newsletter covers: - 🚀 Niftmint joins a16z's TxO accelerator
- 📉 Texas startup funding dips 47% YoY
- 📜 Lime withdraws from Essex tender
If you find this newsletter useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | Niftmint, a startup that enables companies to sell NFTs through their e-commerce websites, announced it is joining Andreessen Horowitz's Talent x Opportunity accelerator. A16z invested $100,000 in the startup as part of the program. More: - Niftmint previously received $100,000 in a non-dilutive grant from Google for Startups' Latino Founder Fund and $72,000 from Find Ventures.
- "Once crypto technology makes its way into how brands and corporations operate, there will be a dramatic increase in operational efficiency and security," said Johnatan Blanco, the startup founder.
- Niftmint claims more than $250,000 in revenue, with T-Mobile, Ligonier Ministries, and KISS Beauty among its customers.
- A16z's TxO accelerator program accepted nine companies in the fall 2023 batch in San Francisco.
Q: Has your startup been through an accelerator program? How was the experience? Join the discussion here. |     | |
| 2 | | Texas-based startups raised $4.1B in funding so far this year. Funding for the state has dropped by 47% YoY, higher than the 43% YoY drop across the U.S. 
What the numbers say: Texas has only raked in 4% of the total startup funding deployed across the U.S. over the past 10 years. The figure is alarming, considering that 9% of the American population resides in the state. Relevance: Six Texas-based startups have been able to raise more than $100M in funding rounds so far this year. The largest round raised this year belongs to commercial space station startup Axiom Space, which bagged $350M in Series C round. What happened: Despite the funding dip, the startup ecosystem in Texas is strong due to the availability of urban infrastructure, local talent, and a network of universities. Additionally, Texas also has a strong culture of bootstrapping companies. Texas-based startups across energy, healthcare, and other industries are increasing, which should increase the funding diverted to the state in the future. | | | |
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| 3 | | Lime is withdrawing from the Essex tender for e-scooters as U.K. localities increase revenue-sharing requirements for micro-mobility companies to operate. "It results in a financially negative cycle for operators," said Hal Stevenson, Lime's director of Policy for the U.K. and Ireland. More: - Lime also withdrew from the Western England Combined Authority tender, among others, in the past 12 months.
- "Revenue share agreements can be workable in some markets where we see very high usage, but what is concerning is that these revenue share requirements are being applied in markets where they're not financially viable," Stevenson told Zag Daily.
- The operator argues that flat fees in lieu of revenue sharing allow companies to better forecast their income in a market.
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| 4 | | Craft Ventures co-founder David Sacks launched a new SaaS startup called SaaSGrid with $3.3M in seed funding. SaaSGrid's platform helps startups track 70 metrics, including ARR, cash runway, burn multiple, and customer acquisition cost. More: - The startup emerged from a due diligence spreadsheet that Craft Ventures developed internally to analyze the metrics of potential investment opportunities.
- Per Sacks, 500 startups are already using SaaSGrid's platform.
- Craft Ventures' partner Ethan Ruby co-founded the startup and will lead it as its CEO.
- Another co-founder, Teddy Ruby, has assumed the role of head of engineering.
Zoom out: - SaaSGrid's launch comes amidst a period called "software recession" by Sacks.
- Craft Ventures, which has over $3B in assets under management, has slowed its dealmaking to one or two Series A rounds and two to three seed rounds per quarter.
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| 5 | | Dave Clark announced that he is stepping down from the CEO role at logistics startup Flexport Inc. Founder and former CEO Ryan Peterson will succeed Clark. In an internal memo sent to staff members, Clark wrote, "Today, Ryan and I discussed his desire to return to focusing on growth in the core freight business. In light of that, I feel that he is best suited to lead the company in that direction." More: - Clark was formerly the consumer chief at Amazon.com.
- He initially joined Flexport in Sept. 2022 as a co-CEO — sharing the role with Peterson — before becoming the sole leader in March.
- Per sources, Clark is looking to campaign to become the governor of Texas and has reportedly roped in several political advisors ahead of the 2026 political campaign.
Zoom out: - Flexport has raised $2.3B in total funding from investors, including a $935M round in Feb. 2022 that valued the business at $8B.
- Notable backers of the firm include Andreessen Horowitz, MSD Partners, and SoftBank's Vision Fund.
- The firm reportedly raked in $3.3B in gross revenue in 2021.
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| 6 | | Players 1st, a Copenhagen-based digital platform for golf clubs, raised €1.3M ($1.4M) as it seeks to expand to the U.S. The round was led by Scale Capital's €54M Fund III for Nordic and German pre-Series A B2B startups. More: - The startup focuses on gathering feedback from golf club members and identifying improvement areas.
- Players 1st has worked with over 2,000 golf clubs globally and collected 10 million surveys through its platform.
- "With fresh capital and new American partnerships, we are well equipped to make a real difference globally. It is important to emphasize that golfers are a target group with a very high purchase power," said the startup's CEO, Morten Bisgaard.
- Scale Capital typically invests in enterprise software and deep tech, writing checks between €1M to €3M.
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- Agriculture technology startup Freight Farms is set to list on the public markets through a SPAC merger with Agrinam Acquisition Corp., which would give the combined entity a valuation of $147M.
- Spotify has backed river alkalinity stabilizer startup CarbonRun and seawater CO2 removal firm Banyu Carbon from its $1B Frontier Fund.
- ExoDexa Holdings and Atari's co-founder Nolan Bushnell formed a new startup called ExoDera. The startup aims to develop games that incorporate the K-12 education curriculum.
- Vendor management software maker Certa closed its Series B funding round at $35M. The round was led by Fin Capital and Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, with additional support from Tru Arrow Partners, Point72 Ventures, BDMI, Aglae Ventures, Mantis VC, and GOAT Capital.
- ARM targets $60 billion IPO valuation, Instacart at $24b. Get access to the Top 25 pre-IPO deals like Stripe, OpenAI, Databricks and Anduril.*
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Term of the Day Gross rent multiplier (GRM): Gross rent multiplier (GRM) is the ratio between a property’s current market value and its annual gross rental income before factoring in expenses. Question of the Week Do you share details about your salary with your coworkers? 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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