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| Here’s your daily Startups briefing: - 🎣 Amazon is luring startups to AWS with free credits for AI models
- 📉 Global edtech startup funding continued its downward trajectory in Q1 2024
- 🚀 Praia Health spun out from Providence health tech incubator
Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | Amazon is luring startups to its Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform by offering free credits to cover the cost of AI models from various providers, including Anthropic, Meta, Mistral AI, and Cohere. The initiative aims to increase the market share of Amazon's AI platform Bedrock. More: - AWS' VP and global head of startups, Howard Wright, said, "This is another gift that we're making back to the startup ecosystem, in exchange for what we hope is startups continue to choose AWS as their first stop."
- Over the past decade, Amazon claims to have provided free credits worth $6B to startups.
- The e-commerce giant is also offering credits worth $500,000 to startups participating in the latest cohort of Y Combinator's accelerator program, which the startups can utilize for AI models and Amazon's chips.
Zoom out: - Earlier this week, Amazon fulfilled its $4B commitment to Anthropic by transferring the remaining $2.75B.
- In return, Anthropic will use AWS as its primary cloud provider and train its AI models on Amazon's Trainium and Inferentia chips.
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| 2 | | In Q1 2024, about 100 global edtech startups raised $580M in capital from VC firms, per HolonIQ. 
What the numbers say: Funding for the sector continued its downward slide from last year. Funding slumped by 72% from $10.58B in 2022 to $2.97B in 2023. Relevance: The most notable rounds to close in the first quarter of 2024 were education financing solutions startup Avanse's $120M round, global student housing platform Amber's $21M financing, and college counseling and career guidance startup Empowerly's $15M Series A round. Quora also raised $75M in capital through a down round. The firm's valuation dropped to $500M, down from the peak of $1.8B in 2017. What happened: All markets faced a similar downward trajectory, including the U.S., Europe, India, and China. | | | |
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| 3 | | Cloud and data security startup Rubrik officially filed for an initial public offering and plans to list its shares on the NYSE under the ticker name RBRK, per Bloomberg. The company roped in Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo to lead the offering. While the official price and number of shares are yet to be finalized, an earlier report from Bloomberg indicated Rubrik's plans to raise between $500M and $700M. More: - The filing documents showed the company posted a net loss of $354M on revenue of $628M for the 12-month period ending Jan. 31.
- Losses increased compared to the $278M loss on about $600M revenue reported a year ago.
- Rubrik's annual recurring revenue surged by 47% compared to last year.
- Founded in 2013, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company caters to about 6,100 clients, including Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Home Depot, PepsiCo, Illumina, and the Denver Broncos.
- The startup touched a valuation of $4B when it raised an equity funding round from Microsoft in 2021.
- Rubrik plans to spend about $200M on Microsoft's cloud computing platform, Azure, over the next 10 years.
- Rubrik has raised $1.18B in total funding to date from Bain Capital Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, and Khosla Ventures.
- Lightspeed owns about 24% of Class B shares and Greylock owns 12%.
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| 4 | | A new healthtech startup Praia Health emerged from the Providence healthtech incubator. Praia Health bagged $20M in Series A funding led by Frist Cressey Ventures. More: - Justin Dearborn, who previously led PatientBond, Tribune Publishing Company, and Merge Healthcare, is heading Praia as its CEO.
- The startup is building a platform that helps patients manage appointments, access test results, monitor medications, and communicate with healthcare providers.
- The healthtech startup currently has about 27 employees.
- Other investors participating in the round include SignalFire, Epsilon Health Investors, and Providence Ventures.
Zoom out: - The Providence Digital Innovation Group incubator is run by the nonprofit healthcare system in Providence.
- Praia launched within the incubator in 2022.
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| 5 | | Israeli cybersecurity startup Identiq laid off about 20 of its 45 employees. The reorganization will impact staff members across its offices in the U.S. and Israel. More: - Founded in 2018, the startup helps businesses validate consumer identities, payment transactions, and other sensitive data.
- "This change will allow the company to concentrate its development efforts on the product lines that provide the most value to its customers. This decision was necessary to ensure the long-term growth of the company," the company said in a statement.
Zoom out: - Per Crunchbase, the firm has raised $52M in total funding to date, the last of which came in the form of a $47M Series A round in 2021.
- Before this, the firm bagged a $5M seed round led by Entree Capital in 2019.
- Notable backers of the firm include Insight Partners, the Sony Innovation Investment Fund, Amdocs, Vertex Ventures Israel, Oryzn Capital, and Slow Ventures.
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| 6 | | AI chipmaker Hailo Technologies Inc. extended its Series C funding round with $120M capital. The latest fundraising cemented Hailo's unicorn status, valuing it at $1.2B. Additionally, the Israeli startup launched a new AI processor called Hailo-10, which is engineered to consume less power and support large language models from Stable Diffusion and Meta Platforms. More: - Founded in 2017, Hailo specializes in designing processors for edge-computing needs, where AI models can be run locally on a smartphone or robot rather than relying on a remote data center.
- The funding round brings Hailo's total funding to date to $340M.
- Investors participating in the round include Delek Motors, OurCrowd, and Poalim Equity.
- Co-founder and CEO Orr Danon said, "We will invest the funds in developing the next wave of chip technology."
- Hailo's notable clients include Dell Technologies Inc., China's autonomous driving startup iMotion Automotive Technology Suzhou Co., and electronics maker Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.
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- A KruzeConsulting survey found that 65% of startups were using the paid version of ChatGPT. The adoption rate of ChatGPT has grown immensely compared to the 2% of respondents that used the paid version when OpenAI first introduced the AI tool in Dec. 2022.
- Shareholder Vote Exchange is reportedly shutting down, per the WSJ. The California-based startup facilitated auctions for proxy voting rights.
- Comprehensive childcare solutions provider Wonderschool acquired childhood educator marketplace startup EarlyDay for an undisclosed sum.
- Israeli cybersecurity startup C2A Security inked a long-term agreement with Daimler Truck AG to use the former's EVSec product security platform. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
- Legal technology startup Luminance secured $40M in Series B funding led by March Capital. National Grid's venture division, National Grid Partners, and law firm Slaughter and May also participated in the funding round.
- Bond's Mary Meeker led a $26M Series B funding into Seso, a startup developing an HR platform for the agriculture industry. Index Ventures, NFX, and SV Angels participated in the round.
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 | Analyst | | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | This newsletter was edited by Karan Chafekar | |
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