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From TechCrunch
By Marina Temkin
July 19, 2024
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups.
Shortly after Google parent Alphabet reportedly abandoned its ambitions to purchase online marketing software company HubSpot, the tech giant decided to pursue another big acquisition. This time, Google is in advanced discussions to pay $23 billion for Wiz, a cloud security startup with astronomically fast revenue growth. Wiz, a mere four-year-old business, has already achieved $500 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), TechCrunch learned exclusively this week.
Google’s offer is more than Wiz’s last valuation of $12 billion, but will this rocket ship agree to sell itself now and forgo its IPO dreams? A person close to the company told us that there’s a 50% chance the deal won’t happen.
SoftBank eyeing AI: The Japanese giant has purchased Graphcore, a U.K.-based AI chipmaker once considered to be an Nvidia rival, for an undisclosed amount. While Graphcore’s processors’ popularity is nowhere near Nvidia’s, SoftBank hopes that the chipmaker will play a big role in its pursuit of AI riches.
Another deal for Deel: Payroll provider Deel is on an M&A streak. After buying two other companies this year, this week it scooped up Hofy, a startup that delivers and manages equipment for remote office workers. We understand that Deel paid over $100 million for Hofy, which raised $30.2 million from VCs.
Head-shaking sale: In 2018, investors touted HeadSpin as “one of the fastest-scaling software companies” ever. By 2020, it was valued at $1.1 billion. Then the startup’s founder pleaded guilty to overstating HeadSpin’s revenue and went to prison for fraud. HeadSpin was recently bought by private equity firm PartnerOne for a mere $28 million, TechCrunched has learned, while most former employees received nothing for their options.
Looking for a job is hard, but it can be especially difficult for people with disabilities. That’s why disability activist Keely Cat-Wells created Making Space, a talent acquisition platform for disabled workers. But finding investors for her startups wasn’t easy.
One prospective investor even advised Cat-Wells to find a male, non-disabled co-founder. She ignored that suggestion and grabbed a $2 million pre-seed round from Utah-based VC Beta Boom.
Search for AI: Google helps humans search the internet. AI platforms need to search the internet, too, but at a much larger scale. Exa, which raised $17 million from Lightspeed, Nvidia and YC, does just that.
Consecutive rounds: Back-to-back raises all but disappeared for non-AI startups post-2021 boom. But could Coast, which describes itself as “a financial services platform for the future of transportation,” bring the trend back? It just raised a $40 million Series B from ICONIQ Growth just four months after announcing a $25 million venture round.
AI talent: After six years of operating as a bootstrapped business, Tribe AI raised $3.2 million to help companies hire contractors who can implement AI strategies.
While new fund news was sparse this week, VCs certainly stayed in the limelight.
a16z co-founders for Trump: Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz recorded a nearly two-hour podcast in which they explained why they are switching political parties. The pair admitted that they are single-issue voters and that the issue centers on the interest of startups (and potentially their own pocketbooks). In short, they say the Biden administration wants to overregulate AI, won’t provide clarity on crypto and is proposing a tax on unrealized capital gains that they can’t stomach. They think Trump will be more favorable for startups.
VC at RNC: David Sacks, a Craft Ventures founder and an All-In podcast co-host, gave a speech at the Republican National Convention. Sacks may be a well-known figure in Silicon Valley, but his name recognition among average Republicans remains low, wrote TechCrunch reporter Margaux MacColl, who was at the RNC. “The applause was tepid throughout his speech.”
Menlo plus Anthropic fund: Menlo Ventures was one of the biggest investors in Anthropic’s Series D. This week the VC firm teamed up with the the LLM maker on a $100 million fund for backing pre-seed, seed and Series A AI startups.
AI fundraising is on a tear, but did you know that this year the number of AI companies that raised $100 million rounds or higher already stands at 28? We expect this list to keep growing in the coming months.
UK founders grow frustrated over dearth of funding: ‘the problem is getting worse’
According to Dealroom data cited by the Financial Times, British start-ups raised just £16.2 billion last year, far less than the more than £65 billion raised by their counterparts in Silicon Valley during the same period. In fact, the U.S. appears to be pulling further ahead each year. In 2024, 57% of global venture capital funding went to U.S. startups — the first time that share has exceeded 50% in over a decade, per Dealroom. This widening gap is part of a years-long trend that U.K. founder
Apr 13, 2025
OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence reportedly valued at $32B
Safe Superintelligence (SSI), the AI startup led by OpenAI’s co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, has raised an additional $2 billion in funding at a $32 billion valuation, according to the Financial Times. The startup had already raised $1 billion, and there were reports that an additional $1 billion round was in the works. SSI did not comment on the new funding, which was reportedly led by Greenoaks. Sutskever left OpenAI in May 2024 after he appeared to play a role in an ult
Apr 12, 2025
Cofertility’s radical model for women: Freeze your eggs for free by donating half of them
In recent years, focus on career and delayed marriage age is driving some women to consider preserving their fertility through egg freezing. But the steep cost of the procedure, estimated at $10,000 to $15,000 per attempt, means many women can’t afford it during their most fertile years: 20s and early 30s. Cofertility, a startup founded by former Uber executive Lauren Makler and health tech angel investor Halle Tecco, offers women no-cost egg freezing in exchange for donating half the retrieved
Apr 12, 2025