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| Here's a look at today's Startups briefing. - IRL's co-founders sue investors for breaching fiduciary obligations.
- AI startups flock to San Francisco as the office vacancy rate hits a record high of 34%.
- Eldercare startup Papa set to lose nearly three dozen more customers.
Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | Shuttered social media startup IRL's co-founders Abraham Shafi, Krutal Desai, and Genrikh Khachatryan have sued investors for breaching fiduciary duties and "deliberately" destroying the firm to safeguard their reputation amidst a probe by regulators. They have sued SoftBank, Goodwater Capital, Floodgate Fund, and their respective representatives that joined IRL's board of directors. More: - Former CEO Shafi said, "Why would investors who had collectively invested nearly $200M into the company over several years promote this horribly damaging lie, and use it to justify hastily shutting down a company with $40M cash on hand? They needed a scapegoat. Badly."
- Shafi was ousted as the CEO after reports emerged that 95% of the firm's user base was fake.
- SoftBank had previously sued Shafi, claiming that he defrauded the Japanese firm.
- Shafi alleges that the investors named in the lawsuit used the fake bots excuse to close the company and pin the blame on him.
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| 2 | | AI startups are flocking to San Francisco, having signed deals for office spaces worth one million square feet so far this year. 
What the numbers say: The news comes amidst a record-high office vacancy rate of 34% in Q3 2023, per CBRE Group. Per real estate services company Jones Lang LaSalle, the industry's total footprint went from 2.3 million last year to 3.4 million so far this year. Relevance: Anthropic is taking over Slack's 230,000-square-foot space. Dataset improvement startup Cleanlab opened an office in Mission in June and plans to double its workforce next year. According to Kastle Systems, the occupancy rate of San Francisco office workers was 44% of their pre-pandemic rates. | | | |
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| 3 | | Eldercare startup Papa is set to lose nearly three dozen insurance plan and employer clients who have decided not to renew partnerships next year. The customers that have opted not to renew include Cigna Group, Blue Cross plans, Albertsons, Humana, CVS Health Corp's Aetna, and Molina Healthcare. More: - Customers are terminating contracts after a report uncovered incidents of abuse of workers and elderly customers.
- The report also alleged that the startup, last valued at $1.4B, failed to put in measures to prevent abuse despite being aware of the incidents.
- Papa's spokesperson denied the reports, saying, "While some of the annual [Medicare Advantage] contracts will expire at the end of 2023, Papa remains in active discussion with nearly all of those plans for 2024."
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| 4 | | Climate tech startup Eion has successfully removed 50 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere through its enhanced rock weathering (ERW) technique, which scatters crushed rocks on farmland. The firm has been using the technique for eight months on farms in Mississippi and Illinois. More: - Mineral olivine is at the core of the ERW technique, which facilitates a chemical reaction that captures CO2.
- The process involves spreading the mineral olivine, which naturally absorbs CO2 as it dissolves.
- Stripe has purchased carbon removal services worth $1M from the company to remove 500 tons of CO2.
- Eion has contracts with mining partner Sibelco for large olivine volumes of 500,000 tons.
- Sibelco's chief strategy and business development officer, Ian Sedgman, said, "If we put a very ambitious but achievable target on Eion, if they scale to between 5 and 10 million tons a year, that would already be the largest negative emissions company on the planet by a huge scale."
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| 5 | | British HR tech startup Beamery is laying off 25% of its workforce, according to Tech.eu. The move is part of a broader company-wide restructuring. The firm is looking to reduce the total costs by 35%. More: - LinkedIn records show that the firm had 421 employees.
- The cuts would mean that the company might let go of approximately 105 employees.
- This is the company's second round of layoffs after it let go 12% of its staff earlier this January.
- Beamery cemented its status as a unicorn, achieving a valuation of $1B at the $50m Series D funding round.
- The firm has raised $223M in total funding to date from Index Ventures, Microsoft's M12, EQT Ventures, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Workday Ventures, and Accenture Ventures.
- Apple and Accenture executive Dr. Christie Smith joined the company's advisory board in October.
- Earlier this month, the firm also appointed former BT CEO and Salesforce chief revenue officer Gavin Patterson as its lead independent director.
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| 6 | | CoinFund and Distributed Global led a $14M Series A round into blockchain-based asset management firm Superstate. Superstate will use the proceeds to expand its workforce, introduce private funds, and "create a framework for compliant, tokenized registered investment funds." More: - Breyer Capital, Galaxy, Arrington Capital, Road Capital, and Modular Capital participated in the round.
- The company filed a registration with U.S. regulators to offer a short-term government bond fund on the Ethereum blockchain.
- Superstate co-founder and CEO Robert Leshner said, "To date, first-generation tokenized funds fall short; they either function within private blockchains or exist in off-shore entities, removing access for U.S. investors. Superstate aims to bring on-chain advantages to U.S. investors."
- The firm had last raised a $4M seed funding led by ParaFi, Cumberland, and 1kx.
- The firm intends to add five to 10 people, mainly in the engineering department.
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| 7 | | Quick Hits: - The Kubernetes Cookbook is your comprehensive companion equipping you with the knowledge and techniques to harness the full potential of Kubernetes.*
- Refilled, an Australian startup that uses reusable bottles for its smart drink dispensers, raised $845,000 in seed funding led by Melt Ventures.
- Stability AI's vice president of audio, Ed Newton-Rex, stepped down last week over conflicts over the use of copyrighted material in developing AI tools.
- South Korean semiconductor startup Sapeon unveiled the X330 chip, which has four times the computational power and twice the power efficiency of its predecessor.
- Seattle-based data infrastructure startup Canopy emerged from stealth with a $4M seed round. Fabric co-founder Ryan Bartley led the funding round.
*This is sponsored content. | | | |
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 | Analyst | | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | This newsletter was edited by Vibha Chapparike | |
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