| Here's a look at today's Startups briefing. - ✅ Open AI CEO Sam Altman is seeking government approval for a new AI chip manufacturing venture.
- 🛠 Anthropic is developing Prompt Shield technology to prevent election misinformation.
- 👤 Outfox Hospitality hires Whole Foods executive as its new CEO.
We have also rounded up the top early-stage funding rounds of this week. Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is seeking U.S. government approval for his new AI chip manufacturing venture. Altman has apparently lined up investors and partners from the U.S., the Middle East, and Asia. However, they want Altman to secure government approval to ensure that the firm has all the security clearances needed to avoid triggering any antitrust backlash in the future. More: - Altman is worried that creating and issuing equity from a new entity might attract scrutiny from antitrust regulators, as U.S. law prohibits an individual from simultaneously holding a board of director or officer positions at two directly competing companies.
- Altman needs billions of dollars to build the cutting-edge chip manufacturing facility, which is supposed to prevent any chip shortfall that could halt AI deployment.
- Per the Bloomberg report, Altman met with Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing executives last month to discuss a possible partnership.
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| 2 | | VCs deployed $1.1B in early-stage North American startups this week between Feb. 10 and Feb. 16, per Crunchbase data. Biotech startups raked in 42% of the funding this week. Healthcare, AI, and proptech startups nabbed 13%, 11%, and 4.9% of the financing, respectively. 
Here are the top five largest rounds announced this week: - Non-opioid pain medicines maker Latigo Biotherapeutics emerged from stealth mode with a $135M Series A round led by Westlake Village BioPartners. 5AM Ventures and Foresite Capital co-led the funding, with additional support from Corner Ventures.
- Antibody-drug conjugates developer ProfoundBio has raised a $112M Series B round led by Ally Bridge Group. Other participants in the funding include Lilly Asia Ventures, RA Capital Management, OrbiMed, Medicxi, and LifeSci Venture Partners.
- London, U.K.-based VC firm Medixci has merged six dermatology-focused portfolio startups into a new entity called Alys Pharmaceuticals. Medixci has armed the new biotech startup with $100M in seed funding to make it "a new R&D-centric multi-platform pipeline in immuno-dermatology."
- Firefly Bio, a biotech startup developing degrader antibody conjugates to treat cancer, emerged from stealth with a $94M Series A funding. Founding investor Versant Ventures co-led the latest round along with MPM BioImpact. Decheng Capital and Eli Lilly & Company participated in the round.
- Areteia Therapeutics, a biotech startup developing therapies for eosinophilic asthma, added $75M capital to its initial $350M Series A round, bringing the total raised under the round to $425M. Bain Capital Life Sciences led the extension round, joined by GV, ARCH Venture Partners, Sanofi, Maverick, Capital, and others.
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| 3 | | AI startup Anthropic is developing a new technology called Prompt Shield, which will help prevent election misinformation. The new technology comes ahead of the upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential election. More: - With the technology, Anthropic's chatbot Claude will redirect users asking for voting information to TurboVote, an accurate source for voting information.
- Anthropic acknowledged that the need for the new technology stemmed from Claude's shortcomings regarding politics and election.
- Since the platform is not trained on political and election information, Claude is prone to hallucinating facts.
Zoom out: - Anthropic is the latest AI startup to prevent political campaigning and lobbying on its conversational AI chatbot.
- Rival OpenAI is employing a similar technological approach, diverting users asking election-related questions to the ChatGPT program to CanIVote.org, a nonpartisan website run by the National Association of Secretaries of State.
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| 4 | | EV ridesharing and fast-charging infrastructure startup Revel is looking to raise $200M in fresh equity funding, sources informed Bloomberg. The Brooklyn-based startup is raising fresh funds to expand its vehicle charging network in New York City and the San Francisco Bay area. More: - Revel has a network of fast chargers in Brooklyn and Queens and plans to expand to more areas.
- The firm has seen a surge in fast-charging usage since October after Uber and Lyft added more electric vehicles thanks to New York's Green Rides Initiative.
- Revel has raised $214M in total funding to date and is backed by BlackRock Renewable Power, Toyota Ventures, Maniv Mobility, Goodyear Ventures, and Shell Ventures.
- The startup raised $126M in Series B funding led by BlackRock in February 2022.
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| 5 | | Whole Foods Market executive Rob Twyman is set to succeed Liz Williams as the CEO of upscale grocery startup Outfox Hospitality. Outfox Hospitality is the holding company resulting from the merger of two venture-backed startups, Foxtrot Market and Dom's Kitchen & Market. Twyman is tasked with leading the growth of both companies within Chicago and its expansion into new markets. More: - Williams was named the CEO of Foxtrot in April last year, ahead of its merger with Dom's Kitchen & Market in November later in the year.
- After the company merged, Williams took over the top role of the newly formed holding company.
- Both Foxtrot and Dom's were backed by venture capital firms, with the former raising $100M in 2022 and the latter getting $50M from investors to date, per Crunchbase.
- Foxtrot has 15 outlets, while Dom's has two locations.
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| 6 | | Scribe, a startup automating internal business process documentation, bagged $25M in Series A funding. The firm aims to scale the company and double its employee count from 50 to 100 by next year. Co-founder and CEO Jennifer Smith wants to maintain the company's culture while growing it. More: - The San Francisco, Calif.-based startup reported 400% growth in revenue and claims to have supported about one million teams.
- The fresh funding brings the total funding raised by the firm to date to about $55M.
- Scribe claims it has most of the cash remaining from its $22M Series A round.
- Redpoint Ventures led the current round, with additional support from New York Life Ventures, Amplify Partners, Tiger Global, and XYZ Ventures.
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| 7 | | Quick Hits: - If your business accepted Visa or MasterCard from Jan. 1, 2004, to Jan. 25, 2019, you may be entitled to a share of the historic $5.6 billion settlement.*
- Energy-efficient AI architecture startup Literal Labs hired chip design firm Arm's former vice president Noel Hurley as its CEO.
- Environmentally-friendly cement maker Sublime Systems is quadrupling its office space as it gears up for growth. The firm is adding 23,000 square feet of space to its 6,500-square-foot office at Rafi Properties' Somernova Campus.
- Indian startup incubator T-Hub is launching a new cohort of its 100-day flagship program, LAB32. The firm is doing the program in partnership with Hexagon.
- Childcare network and care benefits company Upwards closed its Series B round at $21M. Alpha Edison led the round, with additional support from M13 and Fika Ventures.
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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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