| Here's your daily Startups briefing: - 🔋 Battery startup Rondo Energy partnered with energy company EDP
- 💰 Investors bailed out Gro Intelligence after it nearly collapsed
- 🤝 PE firm WindRose acquired a majority stake in CardioOne
Thank you! Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | Battery startup Rondo Energy inked a partnership with Portugal-based energy company EDP to power up to two gigawatts of heat battery installations across Europe starting in 2025. Rondo believes its heat batteries can cut industrial emissions by 80% by storing excess renewable energy. More: - Rondo Energy has developed a heat battery that harnesses renewable energy and converts it into high temperatures to power industrial processes.
- The heat battery consists of a superheated clay brick, which is heated to a temperature of up to 1,500C (2,700F) and boasts an energy storage capacity equivalent to a Tesla Model X, per Rondo Energy.
- Rondo has received backing from Microsoft Corp., Rio Tinto, and Aramco.
- EDP will develop large-scale decentralized solar and wind parks with a capacity of 400 MW to supply renewable energy to the project.
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| 2 | | VCs deployed $645.9M in early-stage North American startups this week between March 2 and March 8, per Crunchbase data. AI startups raked in 32% of the funding this week. Biotech, IT, and fintech startups nabbed 11%, 6%, and 6% of the financing, respectively. 
Here are the top five largest rounds announced this week: - Chronic cough treatment biotech startup Nocion Therapeutics raised $62M in Series B funding led by Arkin Bio Capital and Monograph Capital. Existing backers Canaan Partners, Mass General Brigham Ventures, F-Prime Capital, Mission BioCapital, and Osage University Partners participated in the round.
- Canadian AI chip startup Taalas emerged from stealth with $50M capital raised across two funding rounds led by Quiet Capital and Pierre Lamond. Ljubisa Bajic, the founder of Tenstorrent, founded Taalas along with Tenstorrent engineers Drago Ignjatovic and Lejla Bajic.
- Cloud-based AI interference platform Baseten closed its Series B funding round at $40M, valuing the firm at over $200M. IVP and Spark Capital led the round, joined by Greylock, South Park Commons, Lachy Groom, and Base Case. Greylock, South Park Commons, Lachy Groom, and Base Case.
- Sapphire Ventures and Ansa Capital led a $35M Series A round into Defense Unicorns, a startup providing open-source software and AI for national security systems.
- AI-powered digital health platform Healthee closed its Series A funding round at $32M. Fin Capital, Glilot Capital Partners, and Group11 co-led the funding round, with additional support from TriNet.
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| 3 | | Investors bailed out climate-tech startup Gro Intelligence, which was tethering on the edge of collapse, with a $10M funding round. Gro's board fired Sara Menker from the CEO role and co-founder Sewit Ahderom from the COO role in February after discovering the company delayed contributions to 401(k) employee retirement plans and missed paying some payroll taxes. The company promoted CTO James Cariello to the CEO role. The company is also letting go of 60% of its 150 employees. More: - The climate data startup leverages AI to forecast crop yields.
- Existing investors TPG and Intel Capital participated in the current round, which effectively wipes off the previous common shareholders.
- Investors with preferential shares have also potentially lost all their money and might be able to recoup the principal amount if the firm sells for about $200M.
- The startup's valuation plummeted from the peak of $850M in 2022 to between $20M and $25M over the past week.
- Over the past few weeks, Menker was expecting to ink big contracts, which would have likely catapulted the company's valuation to between $1B and $2B.
- However, the company was burning cash and did not pay heed to the board's recommendations to cut costs.
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| 4 | | New York-based private equity firm WindRose Health Investors acquired physician enablement company CardioOne for an undisclosed sum. In addition to the acquisition, WindRose will also inject $100M of additional capital into CardioOne to support its ongoing growth. CardioOne will use the proceeds to accelerate expansion and widen its service offerings. More: - CardioOne offers a fully integrated platform with an electronic health record system, telehealth, cardiac workflow, practice management, supply and inventory management, and value-based contracting tools to independent cardiology clinics.
- CEO Jasen Gundersen said the firm could expand into imaging, disease detection, and ambulatory surgical centers with the new funding.
Zoom out: - The acquisition paved an exit for early investor Redesign Health, which built and helped the startup raise $8M in seed funding last year.
- CardioOne initially wanted to raise a Series A round before WindRose made a buyout offer.
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| 5 | | Networking and cybersecurity startup Todyl closed its Series B round at $50M. The firm intends to use the fresh funding to grow its workforce and expand globally by establishing offices in new regions. Additionally, part of the funds will be used to accelerate product development and further develop its networking and cybersecurity capabilities. More: - Todyl offers a single platform that unifies secure access and edge security, security information and event management, managed extended detection and response, endpoint security, security orchestration, and governance risk and compliance.
- The startup recently added security orchestration, automation, and response functionality to its technology.
- Base10 Partners led the current round, joined by existing investors Anthos Capital, Tech Operators, and StoneMill Ventures.
- The fresh funding brings the firm's total funding raised to date to $83.8M, including a $28M Series A round led by Anthos Capital in 2022.
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| 6 | | Photographic and video equipment rental firm Lensrentals acquired selected assets and the brand of competitor BorrowLenses. While the official financial details of the transaction are unknown, the deal is likely an all-cash transaction, a source informed TechCrunch. Lensrentals CEO Tyler Beckman believes the acquisition will help the company operate at a greater scale. More: - With the acquisition, Lensrentals will be able to expand its 400,000 rentable item inventory with additional stock from BorrowLenses.
- The added inventory means customers will have more choices when buying rented equipment at a steep discount through Lensrentals' Keeper Program.
- BorrowLenses localized approach complements Lensrentals' national reach.
- Due to the hastened nature of the acquisition, Lensrentals is still evaluating the viability of keeping BorrowLenses' employees and its office in San Carlos.
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| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Sales teams at MongoDB, Warmly, and User Evidence are seeing 56% more pipeline from this simple framework.*
- Open-source AI and ML models startup Hugging Face launched an internal project to develop open-source robotics. Former Tesla staff scientist Remi Cadene is leading the project.
- AI and robotics solutions startup Dexory expanded into the U.S., deploying its technology at global logistics and supply chain giant DB Schenker's warehouses in Utah.
- Payment orchestration startup Purse acquired customer identity and access management startup ReachFive for an undisclosed sum.
- Cloud-based services provider Civo acquired open-source GitOps platform Kubefirst from its parent firm Kubeshop.
- Web3-enabled fantasy sports platform Sorare laid off 22 employees or 13% of its workforce. The layoffs only impacted its team in New York, as the firm decided to centralize its workforce at its Paris headquarters. The remaining 11 employees in New York have been asked to move to Paris.
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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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