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| Hey Insiders, Here are the latest stories: - Plus splits U.S. and Chinese operations due to growing political tensions
- Equity crowdfunding remains resilient amidst a VC funding dip
- Captions releases AI-powered video dubbing feature
If you find this newsletter useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | Self-driving truck startup Plus has split its U.S. and Chinese operations into two independent companies due to the rising geopolitical tensions between the two nations. The U.S. entity will retain the brand name Plus, whereas China's Full Truck Alliance (FTA) has taken over the Chinese division, known as Zhijia Technology. More: - FTA increased its stake in Zhijia Technology to become a controlling stakeholder via a stock swap arrangement, which diluted its ownership in Plus.
- FTA had a 30% stake in Plus before the split.
- Plus started the split after it had to postpone its SPAC listing in the U.S. after China's cyberspace regulator initiated an inquiry into FTA looking for potential national data security risks.
- "Subsequently, Plus began to split off its China and U.S. business, to cope with the increasingly stringent regulatory environment on both sides due to tensions between China and the United States," the company said in a statement.
Zoom out: - The startup's strategy to split its divisions mimics the broader trend, as two notable U.S. venture firms, Sequoia Capital and GGV Capital, made a similar decision to separate from their Chinese divisions a few months ago.
Q: Will more U.S.-based startups split from their Chinese divisions due to rising political conflicts? Join the conversation here. |     | |
| 2 | | 449 equity crowdfunding deals were completed in the first half of this year, 10% higher than the same time in 2021, per Pitchbook. 
What the numbers say: With the exception of Q2 2022, equity crowdfunding has been in line with the quarterly levels seen since Q2 2021. 224 crowdfunding deals were completed in the second quarter of this year, one less than the preceding quarter's tally of 225. What happened: Startups struggling to raise capital from investors or those not wanting to raise down rounds at lower valuations are turning to crowdfunding to meet their capital needs. Startups can raise up to $5M from crowdfunding platforms after the SEC increased the annual cap from the previous $1M in 2020. Even some micro-fund managers and emerging VCs have turned to crowdfunding to raise capital. Relevance: Eliza Bank has launched an equity crowdfunding campaign on Wefunder for her startup, The Still, which had difficulty raising capital from investors after posting an operating loss of over $6M in 2022. However, with only $800,000 cash in hand, Bank turned to crowdfunding, offering equity shares at a 73% discount over its last valuation. | | | |
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| 3 | | Captions, a startup developing video editing tools powered by artificial intelligence, launched a video dubbing feature. Lipdub enables translation to 28 languages, including Hindi, Spanish, and Italian. More: - Captions claims more than 3 million app users and 100,000 DAUs.
- The app also removes filler words and reduces background noise from recordings.
- The startup was founded in 2021 by Gaurav Misra, former head of design engineering at Snap.
- Captions raised a $25M Series B led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and SV Angel in June.
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| 4 | | Cybersecurity firm Arctic Wolf Networks acquired Revelstoke Security for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition will help Arctic Wolf expand its platform's features, automate cybersecurity tasks, and lower the response time to detect and remediate breaches. More: - Arctic Wolf has raised more than $600M in equity and debt funding to date, whereas Revelstoke has raised $38M.
- Arctic Wolf provides solutions that help detect and respond to cyber threats and malicious activity, such as malware and ransomware.
- The firm's solutions are used by over 4,600 organizations.
- "With Revelstoke, we hope that customers will soon be able to unlock hundreds of additional detection and response actions to further drive down cyber risk for organizations of almost any size," said Arctic Wolf's chief product officer, Dan Schiappa.
- Revelstoke has developed a security orchestration, automation, and response platform that helps cybersecurity teams detect and respond to hacking attempts.
Zoom out: - In 2022, Arctic Wolf acquired Tetra Defense, a platform that allows organizations to restore malware-infected systems to an earlier secure state.
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| 5 | | Conveyor, a startup that automates security and compliance reviews, raised a $12.5M Series A led by Cervin Ventures. The company uses large language models rather than questionnaires to draw answers to security questions by reviewers. More: - "As a customer, it means a future where evaluating a vendor's security and compliance posture, even in-depth, is as effortless as tapping your phone at checkout," said Conveyor CEO Chas Ballew.
- Conveyor's LLM is capable of reading different data in different formats, including Salesforce.
- The startup believes that it has achieved approximately 96% automation of answers.
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| 6 | | Third-party Reddit app Narwhal announced it is launching a subscription-based version. The app enables customization of themes, colors, and swipe controls. More: - The announcement comes in the aftermath of Reddit's API price increases, which led to channel moderator protests and the shutting down of third-party apps such as Apollo.
- Narwhal's subscription tier would enable an ad-free experience for $3.99 per month.
- Another third-party Reddit reader app, Relay, released a multi-tiered subscription with different API call limits.
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- Aerovy raised $800,000 in pre-seed funding from Purdue Innovates, M25, and Flywheel Fund. In addition, the firm announced a new partnership with battery container technology maker Electro Base.
- Singaporean VC firm Jungle Ventures announced a new initiative, First Cheque, to invest in pre-seed and seed-stage startups. The firm will invest $2M, half of which will be an equity investment, with the remaining half as a no-cap convertible note.
- Indian insurance policy aggregator InsuranceDekho raised $60M in Series B funding from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, BNP Paribas, Eurazeo, and Beams Fintech Fund.
- Life Science Washington Institute and Washington State Department of Commerce provided $25,000 grant each to 20 early-stage life sciences startups in Washington.
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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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