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| Here's a look at today's Startups briefing. - 👥 Dealshare co-founders leave the firm after restructuring.
- 🇬🇧 Klarna receives regulatory nod to continue operations in the U.K.
- 🤝 Ovo acquires EV charging startup Bonnet to accelerate the transition to green energy.
We have also rounded up the top early-stage funding rounds of this week. Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | Vineet Rao and Sankar Bora, the co-founders of Indian e-commerce startup DealShare, are stepping down from their respective roles at the firm. DealShare has made restructuring changes in recent months, including layoffs, shutting down its B2B operations, and shifting focus to B2C operations in select markets. Rao resigned from the CEO role in July, while Bora also stepped down from the COO role. More: - The board of directors is currently on the lookout to appoint a successor to Rao.
- DealShare is also in the middle of relocating its non-technical functions to Gurugram.
- Rao and Bora had 11.7% and 3.2% stakes in the company as of Mar. 2022, respectively, per Startup Story Media.
Zoom out: - Last year, DealShare cemented its unicorn status after bagging a $165M Series E funding round from Dragoneer Investment Group and Unilever Ventures.
- A few months later, the company raised its valuation even further to $1.7B after raising an additional $45M from ADIA.
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| 2 | | VCs deployed $156.5M in early-stage North American startups this week between Nov. 18 and Nov. 24, per Crunchbase data. Biotech startups raked in 24% of the funding this week. Healthcare, AI, and cybersecurity startups nabbed 19%, 16%, and 12% of the financing, respectively. 
Here are the top five largest rounds announced this week: - Drug discovery biotech startup Vivodyne raised a $38M seed funding round led by Khosla Ventures. The round saw participation from CS Ventures, Kairos Ventures, Bison Ventures, and MBX Capital.
- Web3 infrastructure startup Privy bagged $18M in Series A funding. Crypto-focused investment firm Paradigm led the round, joined by existing investors Sequoia Capital, Blue Yard, and Archetype.
- Digital surgery technology maker Centese closed its Series B funding round at $15M. Medical Technology Venture Partners led the round.
- AI-powered event intelligence platform Vendelux raised $14M in Series A funding led by FirstMark Capital.
- Neobank startup iPeakoin has raised close to $10M in Series A funding, with ZhenFund leading the round.
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| 3 | | U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority has given approval to fintech firm Klarna Bank AB to continue offering credit and payment products in the nation. Klarna is yet to receive approval for its buy-now-pay-later loans. The approval supersedes a previous temporary approval given to the firm after Brexit, which was set to expire in five weeks. More: - Klarna already has a full European banking license.
- The Swedish payments firm expanded into the U.K. in recent years, rolling out its term loan and card products covered under FCA authorization.
- Klarna has been supportive of regulating its buy-now-pay-later service offerings.
- The firm said in a post on its website, "Being authorized for regulated lending means that the FCA has assessed a firm's approach to ensuring interest-bearing loans are affordable for consumers and that firms are offering suitable forbearance to consumers in financial difficulty."
Zoom out: - The firm reported its first quarterly operating profit in four years in the most recent quarter.
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| 4 | | Medical coding, billing, and auditing firm AAPC acquired Canadian AI startup Semantic Health for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition will help bolster AAPC's product offerings. AAPC will integrate Semantic Health's technology, customers, and team into its firm. More: - Semantic Health has been working in stealth mode since its founding in 2019, emerging to the public in Jun. 2021.
- The firm provides AI-powered medical coding, auditing, and documentation processing services to hospitals in the U.S. and Canada.
- AAPC will work on expanding Semantic Health's functionality and will support existing customers.
- AAPC's chief business development officer, Daniel Schwebach, said, "Right now, [Semantic Health] is a separate entity. It will, for the foreseeable future, remain that way so that they have the autonomy to operate and continue to develop [and] be fast and nimble. They're more of a startup, and so we don't want to take away from that."
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| 5 | | British energy company Ovo acquired EV charging startup Bonnet. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. The acquisition will help the firm to inch closer towards its mission of revolutionizing the EV charging experience and "take another step forward on our Path to Zero," per Ovo's chief commercial officer Mat Moakes. More: - Bonnet displays available chargers on its platform, aggregating data from 27,000 public EV chargers across 7,000 locations in the U.K., eliminating the need for multiple apps.
- Co-founders Patrick Reich and Eliot Makabu will join Ovo, along with all of its 25 employees.
- The firm recently raised a £3.7M ($4.65M) funding round from investors.
- Ovo already has a smart home EV charging product that optimizes EV charging and charges when energy costs are low.
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| 6 | | Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike launched an AI-powered cybersecurity offering dubbed Falcon Go, which catered to small and medium-sized (SMB) businesses. The application is now available through the Amazon Business platform. More: - The application is geared towards SMBs since they typically have smaller IT teams and non-technical users.
- Falcon Go extends the cloud-based and AI-powered cybersecurity solutions to SMBs, previously only available to larger organizations.
- The application will help SMBs stop ransomware attacks and prevent data breaches.
- It has features such as pre-configured protection, device protection, threat activity visibility, and full control of USB media to prevent accidental exfiltration of company data.
- Falcon Go scored 100% for ransomware protection in SE Labs testing.
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| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Raising capital? Fundingstack gives you fundraising super powers. Access a DB of 200k investors + CRM, pitch hosting, investor updates, and more. Sign up here to get priority access.*
- Brightpoint Studios, a new startup launched by founders of vocational training startup Vah Vah, is reportedly raising a $5M to $6M round. The firm is in talks with Peak XV and Nexus to lead the round.
- Meat delivery startup Zappfresh secured $4.3M in fresh funding, which it intends to use for acquisitions, expanding its operations, and infrastructure upgrades.
- The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) received a $4M grant from the National Institutes of Health. The firm will use part of the funding to provide up to $100,000 capital to as many of 44 faculty and students through its accelerator.
- Experience exciting new stories of innovation from prominent brands like LEGO, Ben and Jerry's, Delta, and VMware on Season 2 of Adobe's The Power of Teamwork podcast.*
*This is sponsored content. | | | |
Term of the Day Long (position): A long position involves the purchase of a security from another party believing it will appreciate in value. Question of the Week What perks would convince you to return to the office? Join the conversation |
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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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