Plus, Anthropic hires Instagram's co-founder as product head
| For May 16, 2024 |  |
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| Here’s your daily Startups briefing: - 🔎 AI startup Stability AI is exploring sale options as cash reserves dwindle
- 📈 Funding for AI-powered cybersecurity startups surged in 2024
- 🦄 Humanity Protocol cemented its unicorn status with a $30M seed round
Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | AI startup Stability AI is exploring sale options amidst financial troubles. Stability AI has reportedly already held initial discussions with at least one potential buyer, as reported by The Information and Reuters. The firm is reportedly facing a cash crunch and owes about $100M in outstanding bills to cloud computing providers and other vendors. More: - The British startup generated less than $5M in revenue in Q1 2024 and lost over $30M in the same period.
- This news of a potential sale comes just a month after Stability AI laid off staff as part of a restructuring effort.
- Shortly before the layoffs, founder and former CEO Emad Mostaque resigned from his post.
- Last October, the firm had about 200 employees around the world.
- Stability AI has raised about $173M in total funding from Coatue, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Intel Corporation, and other investors.
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| 2 | | Funding for AI-powered cybersecurity startups more than doubled from $103M in Q4 2023 to $263M in Q1 2024, per Crunchbase. 
What the numbers say: So far in Q2, funding has already crossed the $400M mark, suggesting that VC funding for the sector has likely made a comeback after a slight slowdown in Q4. New York-based data and cybersecurity firm BigID's $60M Series E round from March was the biggest round to close in Q1 2024. BigID's funding round pales in comparison to the equity rounds in the broader cybersecurity space, which includes cloud security startup Wiz's massive $1B round at a $12B valuation. Relevance: While investor interest in startups using AI for data protection, identity verification, and third-party risk has surged, VCs are taking a measured approach before investing heavily, as many are skeptical of claims made by AI startups. With the rise of AI platforms, investors are also keen on investing in startups preventing the spread of disinformation, especially with national elections around the corner. Investors expect M&A dealmaking in the space to pick up pace, especially towards the last quarter of this year. | | | |
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| 3 | | Decentralized identity startup Humanity Protocol cemented its unicorn status, touching the $1B valuation mark after completing a $30M seed funding round. The startup will use the incoming capital to accelerate hiring and product development. More: - Humanity Protocol is developing a blockchain-based identity system that recognizes individuals by using scans of people's palms.
- The startup is gearing up for a "public test network launch" in the second quarter of this year.
- About 500,000 have signed up for the waitlist.
- Kingsway Capital led the seed round with additional backing from Animoca Brands, Blockchain.com, and Shima Capital.
- Founder Terence Kwok highlights the growing demand for verified digital identities amidst the rise of generative AI-powered deepfakes.
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| 4 | | AI startup Anthropic hired Instagram's co-founder and former CTO Mike Krieger as its chief product officer. Krieger will lead the company's product engineering, management, and design efforts as it looks to grow its AI offerings and expand its customer base. More: - Anthropic has attracted large sums of capital from Amazon.com and Alphabet.
- In March, it launched a suite of models known as Claude 3, which the company claims outperformed the GPT-4 model from OpenAI and Gemini 1.0 Ultra from Google on various benchmark tests.
- CEO Dario Amodei said in a statement, "Mike's background in developing intuitive products and user experiences will be invaluable as we create new ways for people to interact with Claude, particularly in the workplace."
- Kriger sold his AI-driven news platform Artifact to Yahoo last month after it failed to gain traction.
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| 5 | | Biotech startup Uniquity Bio emerged from stealth mode to develop new therapeutics to treat immunology and inflammation indications. The startup received $300M in funding from Blackstone Life Sciences. More: - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave Uniquity Bio clearance to commence the Phase II trial of Solrikitug, an anti-TSLP antibody licensed from Merck & Co.
- The drug is viewed as a potential treatment for asthma and chronic pulmonary disease.
Zoom out: - Uniquity expects the global immunology market to grow by more than 150% from $98B in 2023 to $257B in 2032, as more established pharmaceuticals and new entrants enter the market to challenge the dominance of AstraZeneca and Amgen.
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| 6 | | Construction tech startup Buildots launched a new AI platform called Delay Forecast. The platform aims to predict potential delays in construction projects before they occur. The tool integrates with Buildots' existing dashboard and assists in the decision-making process. More: - Powered by AI analytics, Delay Forecast provides in-depth insights into the root causes of lags and recommends solutions to get projects back on track.
- The platform was developed after Buildots found that 62% of construction activities run slower than planned, with 25% operating at half the expected pace.
- During global beta testing, the Delay Forecast platform facilitated a 50% reduction in delays across construction sites when used along with the company's Performance Driven Construction Management (PDCM) platform.
- Co-founder and CPO Aviv Leibovici said, "At Buildots we believe that accurate progress data, performance indicators, and data-driven insights are critical to solving issues that plague almost all construction projects, such as delays and inefficiency."
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| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Restaurant accounting, inventory, and workforce management platform developer Restaurant365 raised $175M in fresh funding at a valuation of more than $1B. ICONIQ Growth led the round, with additional support from KKR, L Catterton, and all other existing backers. The startup plans to use the fresh funding to expand its product portfolio and customer base. Last month, the firm acquired ExpandShare, a training platform for restaurants.
- Harness, a DevOps platform that includes a CI/CD pipeline, code repository, developer portal, and infrastructure as code support, availed a $150M debt facility from Silicon Valley Bank and Hercules Capital. Last year, the company crossed the $100M mark in annual recurring revenue.
- AI-powered workplace messaging startup Glue emerged from stealth. The startup was founded by Zinc's former VP of engineering Evan Owen and serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist David Sacks. Sacks' VC firm Craft Ventures, incubated and funded the company through multiple seed rounds since its inception in 2021.
- Medical equipment maker Samsung Medison is set to acquire French ultrasound AI company Sonio for $92M.
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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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