15 Silicon Valley Startups Raised $650.3M - Week of April 21, 2025.
📺 TED Interview of Sam Altman 🤔 Forbes’ Top 50 AI Startups 🇨🇳 Why Trump Could Lose His Trade War With China 📈 Taobao and DHgate are Up 🤼♂️ Trump Froze Harvard’s $2.2B Federal Grants
Happy Easter Monday!
In the US alone, consumers are estimated to spend $23.6 billion during this holiday which is $1 billion more than last year approaching but less than its all time high of $24B in 2023. And you guessed it 92% of that is on candy!
Here are a few great things to read/watch this week:
📺 Chris Anderson vs. Sam Altman - As usual, TED’s Chris Anderson did not hold back in his candid live conversation with Sam Altman on the rapid rise of A.I. Altman explored how models like ChatGPT could soon become extensions of ourselves — while also tackling big questions around safety, power, and moral responsibility. He painted a future where AI will almost certainly surpass human intelligence — and challenged us to think about what comes next. Definitely uncomfortable at times, definitely a must-watch.
🤔 Forbes’ Top 50 AI Startups - Here’s a great roundup for all the A.I. builders and investors out there to keep tabs on. A few fun facts: OpenAI tops the funding chart with a jaw-dropping $63.92B, while LangChain sneaks in with just $35M. 👀 The two youngest startups on the list were both born in 2024: World Labs, led by the godmother of AI Fei-Fei Li, and Thinking Machine Labs, founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. But wait... where’s DeepSeek? Kinda odd it didn’t make the cut. Read more on Forbes.
🇨🇳 Why Trump Could Lose His Trade War With China - This is my favorite interview of the week! Thomas Friedman didn’t mince words after his latest trip to China — he thinks the U.S. is in serious trouble. It’s not just about Trump’s escalating trade war. In Friedman’s view, the entire Washington consensus that sees China as merely a hostile adversary, is outdated and dangerous.
He describes a China that has rapidly advanced in manufacturing and tech — in some areas, even outpacing the U.S. In this conversation, Friedman breaks down what he saw on the ground, from breakthroughs in A.I. and EVs to clean energy innovation. He argues that if the U.S. doesn’t rethink its strategy and reinvest in domestic manufacturing, it risks getting left behind — or, as he puts it, “steamrolled.” Watch The Ezra Klein Show interview below 👇
📈 Taobao and DHgate are Up & SHEIN & Temu are Down - Taobao just cracked the U.S. top 5 free iPhone apps — thanks, oddly, to Trump’s China tariffs. A wave of viral TikToks from Chinese sellers spilled the tea: a lot of luxury goods are made in China, shipped to Europe, slapped with a label, and resold at sky-high prices. U.S. shoppers took note — and in April alone, Taobao and DHGate downloads surged 514% to 185K downloads. Read more on Techcrunch.
🤼♂️ Trump Froze Harvard’s $2.2B in Federal Grants - The Trump administration has frozen $2.2B in grants to Harvard after the school refused a list of federal demands — the first university to push back. In a letter, Harvard called the demands illegal. The move is part of a broader White House effort, led by a 20-person task force, to challenge what it sees as liberal dominance in higher ed. Former Harvard president Larry Summers weighed in with a NYT op-ed: "If powerful places like Harvard don’t stand up to Trump, who can?" These clashes could ripple into endowments — key LPs for many VC funds. As of June 30, 2024, Harvard University's endowment was valued at $53.2 billion, making it the largest university endowment in the world.
Last week a total of 15 startups raised $650.3M in funding, 3 exits:
$268.8M goes to 9 Enterprise startups
$138M goes to 1 Blockchain startup
$3.5M goes to 1 Healthcare startup
$205M goes to 2 BioTech startups
$15M goes to 1 Robotics startup
$20M goes to 1 Manufacturing startup
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Edith
X, LinkedIn
Funding (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley)
Enterprise
Hammerspace (high-performance data platform for AI) raised $100M Series B led by Altimeter Capital
ExaForce (agentic SOC platform) raised $75M Series A led by Khosla Ventures, Mayfield Fund, Thomvest Ventures, Touring Capital
Goodfire (AI interpretability research) raised $50M Series A led by Menlo Ventures
Doss (AI-powered ERP and data platform) raised $18M Series A led by Theory Ventures
Foundation EGI (engineering general intelligence platform) raised $7.6M Seed led by E14 Fund & Union Lab Ventures
Bauplan (programmable data lake) raised $7.5M Seed led by Innovation Endeavors, South Park Commons
Nexad (adsense for AI) raised $6M Seed from a16z’s Speedrun, Prosus Ventures, Point72 Ventures, and Sequoia Capital’s Scout Fund
Riza (AI code implementation) raised $2.7M Seed led by Matrix Partners
SlashExperts (B2B marketing and sales platform) raised $2M Seed led by Social Leverage
Blockchain
Auradine (mining infrastructure solutions) raised $138M Series C led by StepStone Group
Healthcare
RISA Labs (AI-powered workflow automation in Oncology) raised $3.5M Seed led by Binny Bansal
BioTech
Glycomine (replacement therapies for serious rare genetic diseases) raised $115M Series C led by Abrdn, Advent Life Sciences, CTI Life Science Fund
Attovia Therapeutics (antibody-based therapeutics) raised $90M Series C led by Deep Track Capital
Robotics
Scout AI (robotic foundation model for defense) raised $15M Seed led by Align Ventures, Booz Allen Ventures
Manufacturing
Conifer (electric hub motors) raised $20M Seed from True Ventures, MaC Ventures, MFV Partners
IPO & M&A (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley)