 Chip startups raised $700M in fresh capital in Q1’22, putting the year on pace to smash previous records. The growth was driven primarily by an interest in AI chips, which are needed to keep up with the 25x growth in processing power requirements every two years created by machine learning demands. More: - VC for semiconductor companies more than doubled since 2017 to reach $1.8B last year.
- The largest deal to date came from Ampere Computing, a Santa Clara-based outfit that raised $300M last March.
- This year’s largest funding round so far came from San Mateo-based SiFive, which pulled in $175M.
- While setting up a chip-manufacturing facility is expensive (think billions of dollars), the hot market and companies’ ability to outsource construction has won over previously skeptical VCs.
The wider lens: - PitchBook reported that global sales of AI chips soared 60% YoY last year to $35.9B.
- Roughly half that total came from specialized AI chips in mobile phones.
- The market could reach $64.9B by 2024, given the expected 20% yearly growth, PitchBook claims.
- Allied Market Research sees that number potentially rising to $194.9B by 2030.
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Singapore’s Coda Payments raised $690M at a $2.5B valuation for its cross-border payments platform. Investors Smash Capital, Insight Partners, and GIC acquired a minority stake in the company as it expands into new territories. The funding came in the form of a secondary recapitalization. More: - Coda’s platform is primarily aimed at payments made for games and other digital products.
- Beyond its payment platform, Coda also offers an alternative app store.
- Its Codashop platform brings developers and publishers in contact with geographically-diverse customers and offers 300 methods of payment.
- Operating in 50 territories worldwide, Coda says it is the only independent content marketplace with a global footprint.
- Instead of taking a 30% commission as traditional app stores do, Codashop takes 15%.
- It began in Indonesia and spread throughout Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and South America. As of last September, it was available in Europe.
- Coda currently has a 500-strong team. Prior to today’s funding, Coda’s last capital injection came in the form of a $20M round in 2019.
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Indian online food delivery giant Swiggy plowed $180M into bike taxi startup Rapido. The Series D round also saw participation from TVS Motor Company, Westbridge, Shell Ventures, and Nexus Ventures. Rapido was valued at $800M. More: - Rapido has raised $310M to date. It claims to have amassed over 25 million customers and 1.5 million driver-partners throughout the 100 cities in which it operates.
- It hopes to expand its customer base to 50 million by next year.
- Swiggy’s interest in Rapido comes as it tries to expand its network of drivers throughout the country.
- Whereas Rapido’s competitors, such as Ola and Uber, have faced setbacks in recent months, Rapido has continued growing, albeit slowly, thanks to its sole focus on two-wheeled vehicles.
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Best of Last Week M&A - Metaverse company Infinite Reality will purchase esports giant ReKT Global for $470M in an all-stock deal.
- Sonos acquired Dutch speaker startup Mayht for $100M.
- Student job board and networking platform Handshake acquired hybrid networking platform Talentspace to expand its global presence for an estimated $10M-$50M.
- Twitter has acquired Dublin-based mobile engagement platform OpenBack for an undisclosed sum.
- Accenture has acquired a London-based sustainability consultancy called Avieco for an undisclosed sum.
- Airbyte, an open-source data integration platform, bought Grouparoo, an open-source businesses data sync platform for data warehouses and cloud, for an undisclosed sum.
- Bosch will acquire Five.ai, an autonomous driving startup operating in the B2B segment, for an undisclosed sum.
- Geneva-based Proton, the startup behind the E2E encrypted webmail service ProtonMail, acquired French startup SimpleLogin, a freemium, open-source service for creating email aliases, for an undisclosed sum.
- GrubMarket, a San Franciscan company operating a food supply chain, acquired Regatta Tropicals, a provider of high-quality fruits, for an undisclosed sum.
IPO - GoTo, Indonesia’s super app, saw its shares jump as much as 23% during its IPO and were up 15% to $.03 (388 rupiahs) at midday break in Jakarta, valuing the company at about $32B.
- Ampere Computing, an Oracle-backed server processor startup, filed for an IPO.
New Funds - KKR will buy cybersecurity company Barracuda Networks from Thoma Bravo for $3.8B.
- One Equity Partners closed its eighth middle-market fund at its hard cap of $2.75B.
- Metlife Investment Management (MIM) closed a $1.6B private equity fund.
- Pantera Capital plans to close its first Blockchain Fund in the next few weeks at $1.3B.
- Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, and McKinsey & Co. have all piled into Stripe’s Frontier Fund, which is now outfitted with $925M to buy offsets from startups that remove carbon dioxide from the air.
- Portfolio Advisors LLC is looking to raise $750M toward its PA GP Solutions Fund LP, targeting sponsor-led secondary transactions.
- Accomplice, a Boston-based venture capital firm, has raised $405M for reportedly its last fund to invest in life sciences.
- SoftBank will spin off its Latin America fund into an independent investment entity called Upload Ventures with $100M per year.
- Decentralized layer 3 blockchain The Open Network (TON) raised a $250M fund.
- LionBird closed a third fund to invest in pre-scale digital health companies: $85M.
- Sterling Roads, a San Francisco-based VC firm, raised a third fund at $20M. It will back pre-seed founders of B2B companies that have gone through its coaching program.
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 Today’s Funding 💸 Agtech - Vertical Harvest (Jackson, Wyo.), hydroponic vertical farming: $8.35M A led by Nicoya AB, Raiven Capital, participation from Björn Öste, Mike Krupka.
Biotech/Health - Aurion Biotech (Seattle, Wash.), treatment for corneal edema secondary to endothelial dysfunction: $120M led by Deerfield Management, participation from Petrichor Healthcare Capital Management, et al.
- BCD Biosciences (Davis, Calif.), precision prebiotics from most natural fiber sources: $12M A led by Acre Venture Partners, participation from Seventure Partners iSelect Fund, Collaborative Fund, Skyviews Life Science.
Blockchain - Fasset (London, U.K.), digital-asset gateway for Middle Eastern countries: $22M A from Liberty City Ventures, Fatima Gobi Ventures.
- Digital Insight Games (Los Angeles, Calif.), Web3 developer and publisher: $7.5M A led by Hivemind Capital, Griffin Gaming Partners, participation from Hunt Technology Ventures, RSE Ventures, et al.
Climatetech - Ohmium International (California/India), green hydrogen PEM Electrolyzers: $45M B led by Fenice Investment Group, participation from Energy Transition Ventures.
Cybersecurity - Blueshift (Fort Mayers, Fla.), extended detection & response protection for SMEs: $6M Seed led by WestWave Capital, CyberJunction.
Data/Analytics - Elastics.cloud (San Jose, Calif.), efficient and performant architectures to create low latency composable systems: $17M Pre-A from undisclosed sources.
- Aleia (Paris, France), AI SaaS platform for data collaboration: $8.6M Seed from undisclosed sources.
Enterprise - UrbanPiper (India), restaurant management platform: $24M B led by Sequoia Capital India, Tiger Global.
Fintech - Slope (San Francisco, Calif.), BNPL platform: $24M led by Union Square Ventures, Monashees, participation from Tiger Global Management, Global Founders Capital, et al.
Gaming - Coherence (Malmo, Sweden), platform and series of tools and plugins for game development environments: $8M led by Griffin Gaming Partners.
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Quick Hits - Development team buried with technical debt? Clear their burden using low-code on AWS.*
- Sequoia Capital India has promised to perform more due diligence following several allegations of fraudulent practices at some of its portfolio companies. The company will pressure recipients of its capital to step up their compliance.
- Chris Sacca’s climate investment company, Lowercarbon Capital, announced a $350M fund to invest in carbon removal startups. Sacca is primarily known for founding the investment firm Lowercase Capital.
- Savano Capital Partners closed a $157M third fund for late-stage venture investments.
- Las Olas Capital raised a $50M second fund for seed-stage B2B software investments.
- Forbes has profiled Anna Fang of Zhenfund, who was ranked the top overall investor on the newspaper’s Midas Seed list.
*This is a sponsored post.
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 |  | Inside VC's writer/curator Stephen currently lives in Berlin and is pursuing a Master's degree in philosophy. He otherwise spends his time trying his hand at recipes from India and Southeast Asia, escaping it all at the kickboxing gym, and offending aural sensibilities with his band. |  | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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