14 Silicon Valley Startups Raised $393M - Week of August 19, 2024
💰 Microsoft's $260 Billion in ARR 🔪 Kill Switch’ for $100M Millionaires 💰 Enterprise Sales Tips for Founders 🍔 The Adoption of ChatGPT 🇨🇳 Six “Little Artificial-Intelligence Dragons” of China
Happy Monday!
I am co-hosting Tech for America: What’s Ahead for Government Tech on September 12th in San Francisco with Hanwha Life featuring speakers from Google, Microsoft, Intel and MLtwist:
Bruce Andrews - Chief Government Affairs Officer at Intel Corporation
Thomas Osborne, MD - Chief Medical Officer | Microsoft Federal Civilian
David Smith - Founder and CEO at MLtwist
Carolyn McGourty Supple - Head of Public Affairs and Customer Engagement, Google Public Sector
Here are a few great things to read/watch this week:
💰 $260 Billion in ARR is breathtaking at Microsoft’s scale - Just about everything in Cloud, SaaS and AI is firing on all cylinders at Microsoft:
Azure and Cloud up +30%
Dynamics (its CRM) up +19%
LinkedIn up +10%, and accelerating
GitHub has 2X in past 24 months to $2B ARR
🇨🇳 Six “Little Artificial-Intelligence Dragons” of China - Chips or not, the Chinese AI industry is pushing ahead. Since 2023, 40% of Alibaba’s investments in China and 30% of Tencent’s have targeted AI startups. The 6 AI Dragons are:
Zhipu AI 智谱
Baichuan AI 百川智能
Lightyear AI 阶跃星辰
Lingyi Wanwu 零一万物
💰 Enterprise Sales Tips for Founders - I really like this Enterprise Sales video by Pete Koomen, founder of Optimizely. As a founder, if you are not capable of selling your product yourself, you’re not going to be able to hire somebody to sell it for you. Great tips on generate inbound demand and writing cold emails.
🔪 ‘Kill Switch’ for $100M Millionaires - Harris’ campaign said it agrees with a series of items in President Biden's last budget proposal which applies to individuals with at least $100 million in wealth who do not pay at least a 25% tax rate on their income (inclusive of unrealized capital gains). Payments can be spread out over subsequent years. Within that $100 million club, you'd only pay taxes on unrealized capital gains if at least 80% of your wealth is in tradeable assets (i.e., not shares of private startups or real estate). Read on Axios to learn more
🍔 The Adoption of ChatGPT - Journalists, developers, and marketers are the highest users of ChatGPT compared to other roles.
Read research by University of Chicago.
This week a total of 14 startups raised $393M in funding, 0 M&As:
$81M goes to 3 Enterprise startups
$23.5M goes to 2 FinTech startups
$120.5M goes to 3 Blockchain startups
$65M goes to 3 Healthcare startups
$85M goes to 1 Construction startup
$6M goes to 1 Clean Energy startup
$12M goes to 1 Space Travel startup
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Edith
X, LinkedIn
Funding (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley)
Enterprise
Opkey (AI-based ERP testing platform) raised $47M Series B led by PeakSpan Capital
Eppo (A/B experimentation platform) raised $28M Series B led by Innovation Endeavors
Kubiya (conversational AI for DevOps teams) raised $6M Seed led by Heavybit
FinTech
Lettuce Financial (automated accounting and tax solution for solopreneurs) raised $15M Series A led by Zeev Ventures
Skyfire Systems (AI payment processing) raised $8.5M Seed from Ripple Labs
Blockchain
Story (blockchain technology to protect intellectual property) raised $80M Series B
Fabric Cryptography (verifiable processing unit chip for cryptography) raised $33M Series A led by 1kx, Blockchain Capital
Sorella Labs (on-chain liquidity markets) raised $7.5M Seed led by Paradigm
Healthcare
XII Medical (obstructive sleep apnea therapies) raised $45M Series B led by Omega Funds
Solace (patient healthcare advocate platform) raised $14M Series A led by Inspired Capital Partners
Piramidal (AI brainwave analysis ) raised $6M Seed led by Y Combinator
Construction
Fortera (low-carbon cement technology) raised $85M Series C led by Khosla Ventures and Temasek
Clean Energy
Enteligent (smart solar power charging) raised $6M Seed led by Taronga Ventures
Space Travel
Starpath Robotics (lunar resource extraction) raised $12M Seed led by 8VC, Fusion Fund
IPO & M&A (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley)
N/A