Friday, August 16, 2024

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can't miss from the world of startups. I'm Anna Heim from TechCrunch's international team, and I'll be writing this newsletter moving forward.

This week, we're looking at some companies being created, funded, shut down and acquired — the circle of startup life.

Most interesting startup stories from the week

Image Credits: Neon Money Club

While one company made a splash out of stealth, a few others faded from the radar this week.

Out of the woods: Black Forest Labs is the name of the startup behind Grok's AI image-generation feature. As its name suggests, the company is German, but its latest backers are a who's who of Silicon Valley, including a16z and Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan. In a blog post earlier this month announcing it was leaving stealth mode, the company stated that its mission is to "bring state-of-the-art AI from Europe to everyone around the world."

Sad tally: Founder and CEO Jason Brown announced that his fintech company, Tally, was shutting down after running out of cash. Backed by a16z, the 9-year-old startup helped consumers manage and pay off their credit card debt through a lower interest loan, until it pivoted to a B2B model with a partnership that later failed to materialize.

Scored goal: Score, a dating app for people with good to excellent credit, shut down in early August, which was actually months later than initially planned for what was meant to be a temporary project. Its parent company, Neon Money Club, which launched in 2021 to help teach about financial literacy, is now working on adding to its Amex card and Time investing account.

Discounted jewels: Having once sought to go public at a valuation over $40 billion, Indian edtech startup Byju's will see its insolvency proceedings resume after a Supreme Court order. Once the country's most valuable startup, Byju's isn't alone in its woes: Sources told TechCrunch that Oyo, which was once in the second spot at $10 billion, saw its valuation slashed to $2.4 billion in a new round.

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Most interesting fundraises this week

Image Credits: Zepto

Inasmuch as raising funding is worth celebrating, there was also some good news in startup land this week.

New crown: Indian instant delivery startup Zepto is now valued at $5 billion following a $340 million round that brings the fresh funding it raised this year to nearly $1 billion.

New winds: Formerly known as Accellion, U.S. cybersecurity startup Kiteworks is now valued at over $1 billion after raising a $456 million round. Though it suffered a data breach in 2021, the newly minted unicorn has now been profitable for the last two years and plans to use some of the funding for acquisitions.

New scoops: Fei-Fei Li's stealthy startup World Labs was valued at over $1 billion in its latest $100 million round of funding, which was led by NEA, TechCrunch learned from sources. This was the second round raised by the AI professor's new venture since its inception earlier this year.

More bots: EliseAI, a company developing chatbots for landlords to deal with renters, has raised a $75 million Series D round at a $1 billion valuation. It now plans to further expand into healthcare following the launch of dedicated solution HealthAI in 2023.

More copilots: Anysphere, the startup behind GitHub Copilot rival Cursor, has raised over $60 million in a Series A round, sources told TechCrunch. Co-led by a16z and Thrive Capital, it comes with a $400 million post-money valuation.

Care now, pay later: PayZen, a BNPL solution for healthcare, has secured $32 million in Series B funding and a $200 million debt facility to enable patients to pay their medical bills in interest-free installments. The VC round was led by NEA, with participation from existing investors.

Most interesting VC and fund news this week

Image Credits: Balderton

Bullish on Europe: European VC firm Balderton Capital raised $615 million for its latest early-stage fund and $685 million for its second growth fund. The billion-plus fundraise was greeted with cautious optimism by the VCs TechCrunch spoke with.

Fighting the slump: Singapore VC Antler raised $72 million for its second Southeast Asia fund, Antler SEA Fund II, which will focus on the pre-launch, pre-seed and seed money stages and which it already started deploying.

Last but not least

Image Credits: Hadrian

As defense tech keeps heating up, Hadrian acquired Datum Source, a company founded by SpaceX alums that uses AI to help hardware companies find manufacturing partners, which is particularly helpful for startups going after DoD contracts. CEO Chris Power put this acquisition into context, while stating that this will be the "first of many" acquisitions for Hadrian.