Friday, April 25, 2025

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can't miss from the world of startups.

This week confirmed that deals can still happen in a troubled world, but price considerations and adjustments are now part of the picture.

Most interesting startup stories from the week

Image Credits: Ather Energy

Uncertain times are rarely good for M&As, which raises fears that tariff turmoil may have compromised the startup exit outlook for 2025. But don't expect a total deal drought — as confirmed by this week's news.

Price conscious: Anysphere, the company behind Cursor, is growing so fast that an acquisition by OpenAI is reportedly off the table. Whether OpenAI will acquire Windsurf instead remains to be confirmed, but the competition between the two AI coding assistant rivals is heating up.

Plane view: Datadog acquired AI-powered data observability startup Metaplane, a YC alum that has raised some $22.2 million to date. Deal terms were not disclosed.

Hired: Erik Torenberg became a16z's newest partner after the VC firm acqui-hired him and his podcast network, Turpentine, whose shows are set to continue.

Downsized: Ather Energy, an Indian EV startup seeking to go public, trimmed its IPO size and target valuation, citing market conditions.

Most interesting VC and funding news this week

Image Credits: Supabase

This week confirmed that vibe coding is as hot as can be, but startups in several other sectors also raised funding. Plus, there's still money to be deployed into emerging markets.

Vibe coding: Supabase, an open source database startup that benefits from the hype around vibe coding tools, raised a $200 million Series D just seven months after its C round at a reported $900 million valuation, which now officially increased to $2 billion.

Adaptive Computer, a vibe coding startup that differentiates itself by focusing on non-programmers from day 1, also raised funding: a $7 million seed round led by Pebblebed.

Too many chats: Manychat, which provides an AI-enabled tool for businesses to manage and automate conversations across multiple messaging channels, raised a $140 million Series B led by Summit Partners.

Spotting flaws: Endor Labs, a startup that builds tools to scan AI-generated code for vulnerabilities, locked a $93 million Series B round led by DFJ Growth.

Sovereign AI: Formerly known as Xayn, Berlin-based legal AI startup Noxtua raised a $92.2 million Series B that follows its pivot into developing sovereign AI for law-related use cases such as drafting legal documents.

Shear money: Fintech API brokerage startup Alpaca picked up a $52 million Series C to further expand internationally.

Virtual CISO: Cynomi, a London- and Tel Aviv-based startup that provides SMBs with an AI-powered "virtual CISO," raised a $37 million Series B co-led by Insight Partners and Entrée Capital.

Superpowers: After gathering a 150,000-person waitlist, health tech startup Superpower launched publicly and announced it raised a $30 million Series A backed by several celebrities.

Debt financing: Froda, a Swedish fintech startup that developed a debt financing platform for SMBs, secured a $22.7 million Series B led by Swedish fund Incore Invest.

Cheat code: Chungin "Roy" Lee, a 21-year-old Columbia student who was suspended after developing a job interview cheating tool, raised $5.3 million in seed funding for his startup, Cluely, which offers an AI tool to "cheat on everything."

Copy-paste: Backed by more than 75 unicorn founders and VCs, Fluent Ventures is distributing $40 million to international founders, replicating proven business models in emerging markets.

Last but not least

Image Credits: Techstars

In case you missed it, Techstars recently updated its standard deal: It will now invest $220,000 into startups entering its three-month program. That's $100,000 more than previously, with new deal terms that mirror Y Combinator's.