Plus, BlackRock marks down Byju's valuation by 95%
| For January 12, 2024 |  |
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| Here’s a look at today’s Startups briefing. - ⚠️ Circle Internet Financial filed for IPO in the U.S.
- 🚫 Dextrous Robotics shut down operations.
- ✂️ BlackRock marked down Byju’s valuation by 95%.
We have also rounded up the top early-stage funding rounds of the week. Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | Circle Internet Financial, the company behind USDC stablecoin, filed documents for an initial public offering in the U.S. The firm is yet to confirm the number of shares and price range for the offering. This is Circle's second attempt at going public. More: - The Boston, Mass.-based startup issues USDC stablecoin linked to the U.S. dollar.
- USDC is the second biggest stablecoin behind Tether.
- About $25B worth of USDC is already in circulation.
- Circle planned to go public via a SPAC merger with blank check firm Concord at a $4.5B valuation in July 2021.
- Due to the jump in USDC circulation, the company made new plans to go public at double the valuation of $9B.
- The SPAC merger was finally called off in December 2022.
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| 2 | | VCs deployed $668.3M in early-stage North American startups this week between Jan. 6 and Jan. 12, per Crunchbase data. Healthcare startups raked in 28% of the funding this week. Gaming, biotech, and 3D technology startups nabbed 15%, 7%, and 7% of the financing, respectively. 
Here are the top five largest rounds announced this week: - California-based Game development company Second Dinner has raised $100M in a Series B funding round led by Griffin Gaming Partners.
- Primary and specialty care clinic group Harbor Health extended its Series A funding round with an additional $95.5M funding led by General Catalyst. Alta Partners, 8VC, Health 2047 Capital Partners, Lemhi Ventures, and Martin Ventures participated in the round.
- Computer vision startup Luma AI closed its Series B round at $43M. Andreessen Horowitz led the round, joined by Amplify, Matrix, Nvidia Corp., and other investors.
- AI-powered hospital workflow streamlining platform Artisight secured $42M in Series B funding from NVIDIA and existing investors.
- Low-code mobile app development platform FlutterFlow closed its Series A round at $25.5M. GV (formerly Google Ventures), Gradient Ventures, Xoogler Ventures, and Y Combinator led the round.
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| 3 | | Warehouse robotics startup Dextrous Robotics shut down operations in December 2023, CEO Evan Drumwright announced on LinkedIn. Drumwright added, "Put simply, we adopted an aggressive trajectory 18 months ago that the recent investment market didn't support. We became insolvent as a result." More: - The Memphis, Tenn.-based startup had developed a chopstick-like robot to offload boxes from trucks called Dx-1.
- Dextrous Robotics has raised about $8M in total funding since its inception.
- The company decided to shut down operations after failing to secure additional funding to start production of its robots.
- As the firm is entirely customizable, it had to rely on custom–made parts and could not use off-the-shelf products.
- This move increased the bill of materials to more than $300,000 per unit, which was a big point of concern with investors that Drumwright approached for funding.
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| 4 | | BlackRock marked down the value of its stake in Indian edtech startup Byju's by 95%. The investment firm lowered the value of its shares from $4,660 a piece in 2022 to $209.6. The new share value gives Byju's an implied valuation of $990M, effectively snapping away its unicorn status. More: - Byju's was valued at $22B in early 2022 and pegged to be worth $50B by investment bankers.
- It was estimated to be valued north of $40B when it planned to go public via a SPAC merger in early 2022.
- BlackRock owns less than a 1% stake in Byju's, while Prosus owns a 9% stake.
- Prosus has also marked down the value of its stake in Byju's, which gives the firm an implied valuation of less than $3B.
- Byju's spent $2.5B in 2021 and 2022 on acquisitions and has raised about $5B in equity and debt funding since its inception.
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| 5 | | Developer productivity startup Harness Inc. acquired competitor Armory Inc. The firm did not disclose the financial details of the transaction. However, sources pegged the all-cash deal to be worth $7M. Harness' CEO Jyoti Bansal said, "We view this acquisition as a testament to our commitment to the developer community and to simplifying and improving the developer experience." More: - The transaction price is much lower than the $82M raised by Armory from its investors, including Y Combinator, Insight Partners, and other institutional investors.
- Harness will continue supporting Armory's existing clients and incorporate its products into its continuous integration and deployment products.
- Autodesk and Informatica are two of Armory's most popular clients.
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| 6 | | Energy storage startup RedoxBlox received $25M in grant and VC funding to decarbonize two critical areas of the economy. The California Energy Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy awarded RedoxBlox $8.9M and $6.7M in grants, respectively. Additionally, it received $9.4M in Series A funding led by Khosla Ventures. More: - RedoxBlox will use the proceeds to support demonstrations of its thermochemical energy storage technology.
- The San Diego, Calif.-based startup aims to deliver zero-carbon electricity and heat.
- The California Energy Commission, University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) have selected RedoxBlox to create long-duration energy solutions.
- RedoxBlox is also backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which led the firm's seed round and participated in its Series A round.
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- European technology services giant ABB Asea Brown Boveri Ltd. acquired mobility and industrial robots startup Sevensense Robotics AG for an undisclosed sum.
- About 260 companies have signed up for OpenAI's ChatGPT Enterprise offering which launched last August. More than 150,000 employees from these companies have been using the platform.
- Inflection Point Ventures launched the first batch of its six-week-long accelerator program. The firm will shortlist about 40 companies for the first cohort.
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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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