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| Here's a look at today's Startups briefing. - The U.S. and India signed a MoU to increase innovation among startups.
- Byju's could be currently worth less than $2B, per CB Insights.
- Airbnb acquires stealth mode AI startup started by one of Siri's founders.
We interviewed serial entrepreneur Tomas Halgas. You can read excerpts from the interview below and watch the interview with the link provided. Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and India's Minister of Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal signed a MoU on "Enhancing Innovation Ecosystems through an Innovation Handshake." The MoU builds upon the "Innovation Handshake" initiative announced during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the U.S. in Jun. 2023. More: - The MoU intends to increase cooperation between startups across the two nations, reduce regulatory hurdles, facilitate the sharing of startup fundraising best practices, and promote innovation and job growth.
- Both nations also want to strengthen the ecosystem for deep tech sectors and startups working on critical and emerging technologies.
- Both nations will jointly organize events, such as hackathons and open innovation programs.
- Two Innovation Handshake events are scheduled in the U.S. and India in early 2024.
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| 2 | | Struggling Indian edtech startup Byju's could be currently worth less than $2B, according to CB Insights. 
What the numbers say: The implied valuation represents more than a 90% drop over Byju's peak valuation of $22B from its Series H round. The revised valuation is less than the $4.6B total equity capital raised by the firm to date. Additionally, Byju's has raised $1.5B in debt funding. Relevance: Notable investors that have backed Byju's include Qatar Investment Authority, BlackRock, Tiger Global Management, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Silver Lake, DST Global, and Tencent. What happened: The firm's $22B valuation from 2022 divided by its $430M reported revenue from FY 2022 gives it a valuation to revenue multiple of 51x. The revenue multiple is far higher than edtech peers. Duolingo has a $8.5B market cap on $484M revenue, while Coursera has a $2.8B valuation on $609M revenue. The revenue and implied valuations give Duolingo, Coursera, Udemy, and Pluralsight revenue multiples of 17.6x, 4.6x, 2.9x, and 8.9x, respectively. CB Insights arrived at Byju's revised valuation of under $2B using the revenue multiples of Coursera and Udemy. However, using the average and median values, Byju's valuation range stands between $2.9B and $3.7B. Byju's investor Prosus officially marked down the value of its stake in Byju's earlier this June, which gives it an implied valuation of $5.1B. | | | |
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| 3 | |  In this interview, we had the pleasure of speaking with Tomáš Halgaš, a serial entrepreneur who has worked for Facebook, sold his company to Twitter, and now runs his startup, Sutro. We spoke on a number of topics, and here are some of the highlights from our conversation:
Tomaš describes Sutro as an AI platform that enables users to create apps without prior coding knowledge, helping replace mundane technical tasks and letting companies focus on the more interesting aspects of their products. When we asked him what he learned about people from working at companies such as Facebook and selling his startup to Twitter, he said, "Users respond to either zero incentives or tremendous financial incentives, but efforts where there are only limited incentives do not work." To watch the full interview, click here. | | | |
| 4 | | Airbnb has acquired Gameplanner.AI, an AI startup working in stealth mode since its founding in 2020. The company reportedly paid just under $200M for the acquisition, sources close to the matter informed CNBC. The acquisition will help Airbnb accelerate the development of its AI projects. More: - Gameplanner.AI was founded by Adam Cheyer, one of the founders of voice assistant Siri – which Apple later acquired.
- The acquisition comes as Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky announced plans to turn the company into a "travel concierge" that learns about user's preferences and gives personalized travel experience recommendations.
Zoom out: - The deal is Airbnb's first acquisition since 2019 and the first since becoming a public company.
- Based on GAAP, Airbnb is profitable and had $11B worth of cash and liquid assets on its balance sheet at the end of September.
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| 5 | | Ajinomoto acquired gene therapy startup Forge Biologics for $620M in an all-cash deal. Forge Biologics will continue to operate as a subsidiary of Ajinomoto. Yasuyuki Otake, Ajinomoto's general manager, said, "Forge's unparalleled expertise in gene therapy development and manufacturing will be a transformative addition to our core growth area of Healthcare as part of our ASV Initiatives 2030 Roadmap." More: - Ajinomoto stands to gain Forge's 200,000 square-foot facility in Columbus, Ohio, and 300 employees.
- Forge has raised $330M in total funding to date, per Crunchbase.
- It last received a $90M Series C funding led by Aisling Capital and Drive Capital in Sep. 2022.
- Earlier this year, Life Bioscience inked an agreement with Forge to use its adeno-associated virus process development, toxicology, manufacturing, and analytical services.
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| 6 | | Battery management systems maker Element Energy raised $111M in fresh capital, consisting of $73M in Series B equity and a $38M debt facility. Cohort Ventures and an unnamed clean energy generation company co-led the equity tranche, while Keyframe Capital Partners provided the debt facility. The firm will use the proceeds from the round to develop a 50-megawatt-hour pilot project in Texas, which is expected to go online early next year. More: - The facility will repurpose used EV batteries to store energy on the grid.
- The startup's CEO, Tony Stratakos, claims that its battery management and diagnostics systems can help a reused battery last an additional 15 years.
- Element Energy's Texas site will have battery storage capital equivalent to about 5,000 home batteries.
- The startup expects to commercialize the technology by the end of 2024.
- New investors Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Drive Catalyst, FM Capital, and AFW Partners participated in the Series B round, joined by existing backers LG Technology Ventures, Edison International, Prelude Ventures, and Radar Partners.
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| 7 | | 3D generative AI startup Atlas emerged from stealth with a $6M seed funding round. The funding is made up of two rounds, namely a $4.5M tranche led by 6th Man Ventures and a $1.5M round led by Collab+Currency. More: - The startup is developing a 3D model generation platform that builds virtual worlds using reference images and text.
- Atlas was formed in early 2021 by Ben James.
- The firm received a research grant from the European Union's High-Level Expert Group.
- Atlas has partnered with Consortium 9, Shrapnel, and Square Enix.
- A16z's Scouting Fund Shrapnel, Contango, Gaingels, GFR Fund, New Renaissance Ventures, Square Enix, and Wagmi Ventures participated in the funding round.
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| 8 | | Quick Hits: - Elevate your Kubernetes skills with this must-read resource for building cloud native applications. Get your Kubernetes Cookbook today.*
- AI firm OpenAI has paused new signups to its ChatGPT platform due to overwhelming demand, according to CEO Sam Altman.
- Crypto exchange OKX is developing its own Layer-2 blockchain, which will likely be launched in Q1 2024. The blockchain has been released to developers for testing.
- Low-carbon aluminum maker Hydro is partnering with Watt Electric Vehicle Company.
- Clinical-stage ophthalmology biotech startup Eyebiotech Limited extended its Series A round with an additional $65M, bringing the total raised under the round to $130M. Bain Capital Life Sciences, Omega Funds, Vertex Ventures HC, SV Health Investors, Jeito Capital, Samsara Biocapital, and MRL Ventures Fund participated in the round.
- Italian direct air carbon capture startup CarpeCarbon bagged €1.7M ($1.85M) in pre-seed funding to design its first DAC plant in Piedmont.
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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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