| Hey Insiders, Today we are taking a look at ProtectAI's $35M Series A funding round, the slowed pace of U.S.-startup M&A transactions, and AutogenAI's $22.3M seed round. I hope you enjoy today's edition! Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | ProtectAI, a Seattle-based startup that enables companies to monitor the safety of their machine learning systems, raised a $35M Series A led by Evolution Equity Partners. The company primarily offers its services to clients in the finance, healthcare, and life sciences sectors. More: - ProtectAI develops AI Radar, a "bill of materials" to track models, data, services, and the cloud infrastructure.
- The company claims to have found a vulnerability in MLFlow, an open-source platform for machine learning which would have potentially left it vulnerable to unauthenticated hackers accessing files on a user server.
- ProtectAI previously developed NB Defense, which monitors vulnerabilities in Jupyter notebooks.
- According to KPMG, 6% of organizations have a dedicated team to evaluate and mitigate risk.
|     | |
| 2 | | 
What the numbers say: 429 U.S.-based VC-backed startups were involved in M&A transactions in the first half of the year, per Crunchbase. The number of transactions expected by the end of this year will likely be the lowest since 2013, which closed at 698 deals. Relevance: Despite the slowed pace of M&A transactions, five noteworthy deals closed at more than $1B. Notable deals include Brookfield Infrastructure Partners' acquisition of data center startup Compass Datacenters for $5.5B, Savvy Gaming Group's acquisition of gaming company Scopely for $4.9B, Altria's buyout of vaping product startup Njoy for $2.8B, T-Mobile's purchase of Mint Mobile for $1.4B, and Databricks' acquisition of MosiacML for $1.3B. What happened: Initially, many had anticipated a surge in M&A activity, with larger companies, particularly those in the AI sector, eyeing smaller startups that might be available at discounted prices. However, the reality has been quite different, as M&A transactions have consistently declined quarter-on-quarter. With interest rates and economic conditions stabilizing, M&A activity may pick up pace later this year. | | | |
| 3 | | London-based startup AutogenAI, which works on generative artificial intelligence for business pitches, raised a $22.3M Seed round from Blossom Capital. Within a year of launching, the company has sourced 28 clients, including a global management consultancy and BPO organization. More: - "We've got a much smaller problem: we just want to help our customers win more work and work more effectively," said Sean Williams, Autogen's CEO, in relation to OpenAI.
- According to Williams, 10% of a total company's contract value could be lost to the cost of building the case of a bid.
- Blossom Capital founder Ophelia Brown sees this as an advantage compared to other large language model startups.
- "Where this gets interesting is when you can see clear ROI on the spend for the product," said Brown.
| | | |
| 4 | | Walmart roped in Californian startup Rubi Laboratories to conduct a pilot project to turn carbon dioxide captured from its supply chain into yarn for clothing. The startup will capture waste gases from a select number of Walmart's factories and use biochemical processes to convert them to cellulose, which will produce lyocell yarn. More: - Walmart and Rubi will jointly develop a prototype apparel collection using the yarn.
- Twin sisters Neeka and Leila Mashouf founded the startup in 2021, with the former leading it as its CEO.
- Rubi expects its equipment to capture 90% of a factory's carbon emissions.
- The startup has raised $13.5M to date from investors, including Talis Capital, Tin Shed Ventures, and H&M Group.
Zoom out: - Per Bloomberg NEF, the carbon capture industry could be worth $1T in the next decade.
| | | |
| 5 | | Aethir, a decentralized cloud infrastructure startup, revealed it raised $9M to date, valuing the company at $150M. The Singapore-based startup developed a Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network service for gaming and artificial intelligence apps. More: - Participants in the round included Sanctor Capital, CitizenX, Hashkey, Merit Circle, and Mirana Ventures, among others.
- Aethir plans to use the funds to expand through Southeast Asia, Latin America, and North America.
- The startup currently employs 68 people.
- "The cloud sector has traditionally been a challenging industry to scale, plagued by high costs, particularly for customers requiring complex real-time rendering or streaming infrastructure. That's not taking into account the additional stress on the ecosystem as a result of the AI boom," said the company's CEO, Mark Rydon, seeing an advantage in delivering access to complex cloud resources.
| | | |
| 6 | | Love Wellness, a lifestyle firm founded by TV personality Lauren Bosworth, sued pharmaceutical startup Love Health for potential trademark infringement. Love Wellness filed the complaint in the Southern District of New York after Love Health allegedly continued using the infringing trademarks even after being served with a cease and desist letter from the former. More: - The plaintiff's counsel Airina L. Rodrigues told Forbes, "Love Wellness first learned about Love Health and its infringement on the Love Wellness trademarks in mid-May, from a TechCrunch article that had run earlier that month."
- The defendant has denied any wrongdoing.
- Ryan Breslow, the co-founder of payments startup Bolt, founded two startups — Love Health and Movement DAO — two months after he stepped down from the CEO role at Bolt.
- Breslow's stake in Bolt was estimated to be worth $1.1B.
- By last September, Love Health had raised $7.5M at a $180M valuation from MaC Venture Capital and Human Capital.
- It later raised an additional $3M at a $60M valuation in October, per Pitchbook.
| | | |
| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Don't miss your chance to invest in Virtuix, one of the fastest-growing startups in the booming gaming market. Invest by 8/10.*
- Surgical navigation platform Proprio secured $43M Series B from Wheelhouse Capital, DCVC, Bold Capital Partners, and others.
- Pet telehealth startup Airvet nabbed $18.2M in Series B funding led by Mountain Group Partners.
- PLANETech announced a Nature Tech Competition to award $2.2M to startups working on the conservation and restoration of natural ecosystems.
- Google opened applications for the eighth cohort of its Startups Accelerator program in India. The company is inviting applications from AI startups between the Seed and Series A stages.
- Say goodbye to inflammation, joint pain, dry eyes, and discomfort by adding this Antarctic "supernutrient" to your diet.*
*This is sponsored content. | | | |
| Upcoming Events | | JUL
31 | | #TwoCents Discussion Community Challenge | | | | | | | AUG
2 | | Join Vanta and VioletX and find out how growing startups should navigate the complex compliance space.* | | | | | | | OCT
16 | | Meet Our Fund 5, Building and Investing in AI | | | | | | | NOV
7 | | Join us for Strategic Marketing 2023 and meet 300+ CMOs and senior marketing leaders from the world's biggest brands.* | | | | | | * This is a sponsored event | | | |
Term of the Day Acquisition premium: Acquisition premium is the amount a buyer paid for the target company above its market value. Question of the Week What's your stance on unpaid internships: valuable experience or exploitation? 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 | |
| |
| |
