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| Hey Insiders, Here are the latest stories: - New home electrification startup Onsemble wants to help homeowners switch to electric water heaters
- VC funding for Seattle-based startups declines 57% YoY
- Infravision, a startup that uses drones for power lines, raises $23M
If you find this newsletter useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | San Francisco-based home electrification startup Onsemble launched to help homeowners transition from gas to electric water heaters, initially taking orders across Marin, Sonoma, and Contra Costa counties. The startup emerged from stealth mode recently when it opened its waitlist for homeowners. More: - The startup intends to launch in San Francisco in early 2024, per co-founder and president Julia Yrani.
- Yrani, a former cybersecurity executive, co-founded Onsemble along with former Google Ventures partner Rick Klau.
- The firm will also help customers take advantage of incentives outlined in the Inflation Reduction Act.
- The act has nearly $8.8B in rebates for homeowners who want to switch to electric appliances.
Zoom out: - Per the U.S. Energy Information Administration, only 8% of homes in California were all-electric in 2020.
Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of operating startups in stealth mode? Join the conversation here. |     | |
| 2 | | So far this year, Seattle-based startups have raised $1.1B in VC funding, per Crunchbase. 
What the numbers say: The sum raised so far this year is 57% lower than the amount raised during the same time last year. The recent slump is consistent with the dip seen last year compared to 2021. This dip is not exclusive to Seattle; it is a statewide phenomenon. Washington state as a whole has seen a drop in VC funding, having raised just $1.9B so far this year. However, the decline in funding in Seattle was higher than the 51% decline in VC funding seen globally. Where to see the impact: The majority of the funding, or $820M, was raked in by Series A and Series B stage startups across Washington. Seed-stage startups pulled in $281M in seed investment, which saw a comparatively modest decline of 35% YoY, lower than all other stages. Relevance: Washington state has seen just one mega funding round of over $100M, a $102M Series D funding round raised by antenna and radio-based technology maker Pivotal Commware in August. In contrast, there were 43 mega funding rounds of $100M or more in 2021 and 2022. | | | |
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| 3 | | Infravision, a startup that uses drones to install power lines, raised a $23M Series A led by Energy Impact Partners. The Queensland, Australia-based startup works with utility company Pacific Gas and Electric on power line stringing in the San Francisco Bay Area. More: - Infravision previously worked on restringing in the Snowy Mountains in Australia after the 2019-2020 fire season for Transgrid and Powerlink.
- "It is estimated that 10 million miles of new power lines are required by 2030 to reach net-zero targets, which is roughly equivalent to building the entire US and Canadian power grids again, which took us a century, in seven years," said the startup's CEO Cameron Van Der Berg.
- Infravision previously raised AU$700,000 from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency as part of an AU$1.8M Transgrid project for transmission sensor installation in western Sydney.
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| 4 | | Agtech startup Bonsai Robotics raised $10.5M led by Acre Venture Partners. The company developed an autonomy system for Orchard Machinery Corporation's ShockwaveX harvester. More: - "We have been collecting data for all 14 months we've been in existence as a company, which meant that upon delivery of the first ShockwaveX we were running the autonomy system on it within two weeks, with special thanks to Trinitas Farming for giving us an orchard where we could safely test to the absolute limit," said CEO Tyler Niday.
- Orchard Machinery Corporation first began producing hydraulic tree shakers to harvest prunes in 1961.
- The round included participation by Serra Ventures, Congruent, E14, Fall Line Capital, SNR Ventures, and Andros.
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| 5 | | Netherlands-based LLM startup Orchestra announced a €800,000 (~$839,600) pre-Seed round led by Curiosity VC and Spacetime. The company intends to launch its enterprise platform in November. More: - The startup plans to make its LLM product available to companies in Asia, Europe, and North America.
- Orquesta says its platform will enable accuracy verification with domain experts.
- The product would include integration with LLM models from OpenAI, Google, and Hugging Face, among others.
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| 6 | | Australian cleantech startup Greener launched its Greener for Business initiative. The initiative is aimed at helping organizations move towards net zero emissions. The firm aims to help SMBs in Australia halve their emissions by 2030. More: - Nearly one million SMBs have already signed up for the initiative at the launch.
- The initiative is free for SMBs nationwide and helps customers find the appropriate government rebate schemes.
- Action items suggested by the firm include switching to renewable energy, installing rooftop solar panels, changing lighting to LED-based products, and changing waste management strategy.
- The action plans suggested by the Greener for Business initiative are aligned with the UN Race to Zero program.
- Greener is backed by VC firms such as NAB Ventures and Real VC.
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- AI-powered digital identity technology company Prins AI closed its Series B funding round at $100M. AAB VC led the funding.
- Rally Ventures led a $10.5M funding round into Kyros, a technology platform that connects individuals recovering from substance use with certified peer recovery specialists.
- Spacetech startup Space Forge signed an agreement with Northrop Grumman to provide semiconductor substrates made in space.
- Norway's green hydrogen startup Hystar is looking to build its next green-hydrogen electrolyzer factory in the U.S. or Canada.
- Even the best engineers can run into challenges. Straight from the cloud experts at DoiT, here are 5 core strategies for cloud innovation.*
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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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