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| Here's a look at today's Startups briefing. - 🔥 Lineage's public listing could revive the IPO market.
- 🚫 Travel data startup Journera will shut down as it couldn't get to profitability.
- 👤 Fintech startup Plaid hired Jennifer Taylor as president.
We have also rounded up the top early-stage funding rounds of this week. Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | Warehousing and temperature-controlled logistics startup Lineage Logistics' upcoming public listing could pave the way for other startups mulling IPOs. The IPO window has remained closed over the past two years due to volatile market conditions. Other startups, including SeatGeek, Ibotta, and Rubrik, might also pursue an IPO listing depending on the success of Lineage's public debut. More: - Lineage's IPO listing could come as early as the second quarter of this year.
- According to earlier reports, the firm was targeting a valuation of over $30B, which could make it one of this year's largest listings.
- SeatGeek is planning for a listing in the second quarter.
- Digital marketing firm Ibotta and cloud and data security startup Rubrik plan to debut as soon as April, with the former aiming for a $2B valuation.
Zoom out: - Startups raised $26B in capital through IPO listings in 2023, a fraction of the record high of $339B in 2021.
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| 2 | | VCs deployed $624.4M in early-stage North American startups this week between Feb. 3 and Feb. 9, per Crunchbase data. AI startups raked in 25% of the funding this week. Fintech, biopharma, and healthcare startups nabbed 16%, 9%, and 6% of the financing, respectively. 
Here are the top five largest rounds announced this week: - Kleiner Perkins and OpenAI's Startup Fund co-led a $70M Series B funding round into healthcare startup Ambience Healthcare. Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Optum Ventures participated in the round.
- Nasdaq Private Market, a liquidity solutions startup that spun out from Nasdaq, closed its Series B funding round at $62.4M. Nasdaq led the round, with additional support from Allen & Company, Citi, Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, DRW Venture Capital, UBS, and Wells Fargo.
- Clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company Attralus raised a $56M funding round led by Alpha Wave Ventures. Bristol Myers Squibb, venBio Partners, Surveyor Capital, Vivo Capital, Logos Capital, and Sarissa Capital Management participated in the round.
- Hybrid direct air capture technology cleantech startup Avnos bagged $36M in Series A funding. NextEra Energy Resources led the round, with additional support from Shell Ventures, Safran Corporate Ventures, Envisioning Partners, and Rusheen Capital Management.
- Mainframe workload optimization startup Mechanical Orchard closed its Series A round at $24M. Emergence Capital led the round, joined by Industry Ventures, Spider Capital, Bloomberg Beta, Cendana Capital, and Webb Investment Network.
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| 3 | | Travel data startup Journera is shutting down as it could not get "to a scale where profitability was within reach," per founder Jeff Katz. Journera leveraged big data, machine learning, and AI to make travelers' journeys easier. More: - Katz, who previously founded Orbitz, said Journera was "beginning to build up the thousands of small brands who need to be part of the seamless travel ecosystem that most travelers touch — from parking, to luggage, to livery, dining, independent hotels and so much more."
- The startup had partnered with United Airlines, American Airlines, Hilton, and Marriott International.
- The firm had raised $36M in total funding since its founding in 2016, the last of which came through a $10M Series B-1 round in July 2022.
- B Capital led the Series B-1 round with additional participation from Andreessen Horowitz and BCG.
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| 4 | | Cloudflare's chief product officer, Jennifer Taylor, joined fintech startup Plaid as its first president. Taylor's appointment comes as the firm gears up for an IPO listing. A spokesperson told TechCrunch, "Jen will be a critical component of maturing our tech and product strategy as we continue to grow and evolve." More: - Taylor will be overseeing Plaid's tech and product development teams.
- Plaid initially started as a company connecting bank accounts to financial applications before venturing into lending, anti-fraud, and payments.
- The startup caters to 8,500 customers and is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Altimeter, Silver Lake, NEA, Kleiner Perkins, and others.
- Just months ago, Plaid hired former Expedia CFO Eric Hart to fill the same role.
Zoom out: - Payments giant Visa had offered $5B to acquire Plaid but backed out after receiving pushback from regulators.
- Shortly after the acquisition deal fell through, the firm raised fresh funding at a $13.4B valuation.
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| 5 | | Andreessen Horowitz led a $10M Series A funding round into the serverless data platform Upstash. The funding comes just as Uptash reported an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $1M. With the fresh funding, the firm intends to add about 15 new employees, specifically professional support and customer success team members. More: - Upstash provides a serverless data platform for data-intensive applications built on Redis and Kafka.
- CEO and founder Enes Akar says developers have found its consumption-based pricing model very compelling.
- Akar highlights that the consumption-based pricing model helps its product differentiate from other offerings available in the market by removing a barrier for developers.
- Upstash has grown its developer user count from 12,000 in March 2022 to about 85,000 today.
- The firm raised a $1.9M seed round from Mango Capital, AngelList, and ScaleX Ventures two years ago.
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| 6 | | Global development talent startup Deazy acquired peer-reviewed technical assessment firm Geektastic. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Deazy will integrate Geektastic's technical assessment solutions into its own products, enabling users to demonstrate their skills within the developer community. More: - Deazy connects enterprises with global developers through its 85 development partners.
- The British startup has raised £6.1M ($7.7M) to date, including a £5M ($6.3M) Series A round led by Puma Private Equity.
- Geektastic provides both pre-built and customizable code assessment challenges.
- Customers can build their challenges and integrate Geektastic's platform with their internal HR systems to streamline recruitment.
- Geektastic's co-founder and CEO Rick Brownlow is joining as a vetting and quality lead.
- Brownlow's primary task is integrating Geektastic's soft skill and cultural fit assessment into Deazy's product portfolio.
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- Apple acquired more than 30 AI startups in 2023, per a Statista report published by HT Tech. Apple's acquisitions were higher than other tech giants, including Microsoft, Google, Meta, and OpenAI.
- The Indian Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, has agreed to hear pleas from a group of startups contesting Google's recently implemented user choice billing policy.
- Paymart, a fintech startup launched by former PhonePe CEO Amit Narang, has roped in five Indian banks to offer virtual cardless cash withdrawal services. The firm is also in advanced discussions with four additional banks.
- Cedars-Sinai will host 10 Dutch healthtech startups at its Netherlands HealthTech Mini-Accelerator 2024 program, which will run between Feb. 12 and 16 in Los Angeles, California.
- Asia's largest ride-hailing companies, Grab Holdings and GoTo Group, have resumed discussions about a potential merger.
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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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