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| Here's your daily Startups briefing: - ⏳ Time taken by European startups to raise Series B rounds widened by 85%
- 🌎 Fintech startup Addi raised $86M in fresh capital amidst a dip in VC funding in LatAm
- 🎯 Canadian AI startup Cohere is targeting a $5B valuation in its upcoming funding round
Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | The time taken by European Series A startups to raise the subsequent Series B round widened by 85% in H2 2023 compared to H1 2022, per data from Carta cited by Sifted. European startups took about 760 days to raise Series B funding after closing a Series A round. The median time pre-seed startups took to raise seed rounds jumped by 49% to 511 days during the same period. On the contrary, the time taken by seed startups to raise Series A rounds was cut by 1% to 391 days. More: - Median Series B round size widened by 6%, reaching a record high of £35M ($44.8M).
- Meanwhile, the median Series A round size contracted by 21% YoY in H2 2023.
- At the seed stage, the median round size witnessed a 14% drop.
- Pre-seed round sizes increased by 40%, possibly due to "the significant contraction (by 30%) in the number of pre-seed opportunities in the market year-on-year, leading to a seller's market," per Carta.
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| 2 | | Colombian fintech startup Addi raised $86M in fresh funding, consisting of $36M in equity and $50M in debt financing. Relevance: Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, and GIC provided the equity funding, while Goldman Sachs Group provided the debt facility. Co-founder and CEO Santiago Suárez said that the company's valuation dropped to about half of its $700M valuation in 2021. The buy-now-pay-later startup is now concentrating entirely on its home market of Colombia after shelving plans to expand into Brazil and Mexico. The startup's client base increased by 60% in 2023. Due to Addi's ability to diagnose and model users' creditworthiness, just 1% of loans are more than three months past the due date. 
What the numbers say: Addi's fundraising comes after VC investment in Latin America dropped to a five-year low in 2023, closing the year at $4.1B. While capital invested declined, Latin America-focused VC funds raised $2B in capital, up 40% from 2022, per Pitchbook. | | | |
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| 3 | | Enterprise-focused AI model developer Cohere is looking to raise $500M in fresh funding at a valuation of $5B, sources informed Reuters. The target valuation is more than double Cohere's previous valuation of $2.2B last June when it raised a $270M round from Inovia Capital, Nvidia, and Oracle. More: - The Canadian company increased its annualized revenue run rate from $13M in December to $22M this month.
- According to sources, the surge is partly attributed to its newly launched model Command-R.
- Cohere currently has a partnership with Oracle and plans to make its models available on other major cloud platforms in the future.
Zoom out: - Investors have invested heavily in AI startups since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT.
- Some VC investors are concerned about AI startups' ability to make enough revenue to recover the investment made in developing the AI models.
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| 4 | | Cybersecurity startup Cybereason is set to announce its third round of layoffs, which is part of a company-wide reorganization. President of Product and R&D Zohar Alon will also leave the company as part of the layoffs. The company laid off about 300 employees through the previous two rounds. More: - Cybereason parted ways with CEO Lior Div last April, with SoftBank executive Eric Gan succeeding him.
- At the same time last year, the firm raised $100M in fresh funding from investors.
- Per a Nasdaq Private Market and Axios report, the Series G shares gave the firm an implied valuation ranging between $300M and $400M, about 90% lower than its peak valuation of $3.1B in 2021.
- Since its founding 11 years ago, the firm has secured about $850M in funding, including a $325M funding round led by Liberty Strategic Capital in 2021.
- In 2021, Cybereason filed for an IPO prospectus, expecting a valuation of $5B.
- It shelved plans due to the global economic downturn in 2022.
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| 5 | | Cybersecurity unicorn startup Cato Networks has hired Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Barclays as the underwriters for its upcoming stock market listing, which could happen as early as 2025, sources informed Calcalist. The IPO listing could happen sooner if the stock markets rebound this year. Per sources, the company plans to raise over $500M from the listing. More: - The Israeli startup crossed the $3B valuation mark at a private funding round last year.
- Cato Networks is yet to finalize a valuation target for the IPO.
- The startup has raised more than $770M from investors since its founding in 2015.
- Lightspeed Venture Partners led its last $238M funding round last year, which was supported by Adams Street Partners, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Sixty Degree Capital, and Singtel Innov8.
- Cato Networks reported an annual revenue growth of 59% in 2023.
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| 6 | | Carbon accounting software startup Greenly secured $52M (€48M) in Series B funding led by Fidelity International Strategic Ventures. Greenly will use the proceeds to expand its global reach and cement its market position in the decarbonization and emission reduction industry. More: - The French startup calculates carbon emissions by category by analyzing utility data, freight bills, cloud computing usage, and financial records.
- The fundraising comes as the cleantech startup expands beyond carbon accounting and into life cycle assessments for individual projects using automation.
- Last year, Greenly reported $10M in annual recurring revenue, a figure that the startup hopes to double annually over the next several years.
- Benhamou Global Ventures, Move Capital, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and HSBC participated in the Series B round, along with existing investors XAnge and Energy Impact Partners (EIP).
- XAnge and EIP co-led the firm's €21.27M Series A round two years ago.
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- Clasp Therapeutics, a startup developing immunotherapies to treat tumors, raised $150M in Series A funding led by Novo Holdings, Third Rock, and Catalio.
- The Securities and Exchange Board of India plans to relax the minimum promoter contribution norms to make it easier for startups to go public locally.
- E-motorbike store Emoto founder Michael Joyce acquired the majority of the international inventory of Swedish bankrupt electric motorbike company Cake.
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 | Analyst | | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | This newsletter was edited by Aaron Crutchfield | |
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