 Funding for creators has skyrocketed as VCs become increasingly interested in the segment, reports Crunchbase. Funding to VC-backed startups focused on content creators hit reached $637M so far this year, putting it on pace to surpass last year’s record by far. More: - Funding to the same segment of companies in 2021 was $939M, double its 2020 levels.
- Money has been flowing predominantly to two of the three types of companies active in the creator space: those providing the payment tools and the operations systems.
- The social media platforms that allow content creators to monetize their internet presence are largely fully stacked on funding.
- While most attention has been paid to the top tier of creators up until now, creator Tejas Hullur sees the creator “middle class,” i.e., people who make $50,000 or less from their content, as an emerging market.
- They need just as many tools as the top creators and are far more numerous.
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VulcanForms, a Burlington, Mass.-based manufacturing infrastructure provider, just raised $355M from Eclipse Ventures, Stata Venture Partners, Fontinalis Partners, and D1 Capital Partners. Additional support came from Standard Investments, Atlas Innovate, Boston Seed Capital, Industry Ventures, and the Simkins Family. More: - The company provides a 100-kilowatt class laser powder bed fusion additive manufacturing system with a total laser capacity of two megawatts.
- It claims that that power is 250x stronger than other commercial systems provide.
- VulcanForms has also acquired Arwood Machine Corporation to the end of expanding its additive production scaling platform.
- The latest funding has taken VulcanForm’s valuation to above the $1B mark.
- Founded in 2013, the company built its first system to validate its breakthrough industrial 3D printing technology in 2017.
- It raised seed funding that same year and went on to clinch a Series A round in 2019.
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 VC funding into Indian startups fell 37% QoQ in Q2’22 to $6.9B, down from $11B in Q1. Data from research firm Venture Intelligence showed the overall investment for the year to date standing at $17.9B, a 36% increase in 2021. More: - In keeping with the general decline in funding, new unicorn production fell to four in the last quarter, down from 12 during the same period last year and 14 in Q1’22.
- Funding for early-stage startups slipped marginally to $839M in the second quarter from $856M three months prior.
- It is still up 30% compared with the last quarter of 2021 and is twice as high as during the same period the previous year.
- While early-stage funding has shown some bright spots, late-stage investments are anything but peachy:
- With only 285 deals totaling $6.9B, late-stage funding was down from $11B in Q1’22 and $7.5B in Q2’21.
- Furthermore, in the second quarter, there were 19 funding rounds of $100M or more, cumulatively amounting to $3.6B, compared to 29 deals worth $6.7B.
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Pure Harvest Smart Farms raised $180.5M for its Middle East-focused agtech platform. Metric Capital Partners U.K., IMM Investment Corp Korea, and Olayan Group KSA were involved with the convertible note funding, in addition to several prior investors and management. More: - The capital injection is the largest convertible financing in the MEASA region to date and was heavily oversubscribed.
- The funding makes the company one of the best-funded startups in the region, not just in the agtech domain.
- Based in Abu Dhabi, Pure Harvest is developing greenhouse-based agricultural solutions for the harsh MESA region.
- Its main targets are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman.
- To date, the company is only producing tomatoes with its controlled-environment agriculture technologies. It claims that its produce is cleaner than organic.
- With a unified approach, Pure Harvest’s greenhouses measure carbon dioxide, water, and airflow and adjust sunlight, temperature, and humidity.
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 Today’s Funding 💸 Biotech/Health - Metcela (Japan), autologous cell therapies targeting serious cardiovascular diseases: $14M C led by CYBERDYNE, CEJ Fund, participation from Japan Lifeline Co., Ltd., Sony Innovation Fund, and Reazon Holdings, et al.
- Haleo (Montreal, Canada), professional virtual sleep clinic: $5.2M Seed led by Boreal Ventures, AQC Capital, participation from Investissement Québec, Desjardins Capital, et al.
Blockchain - MoHash (Bengaluru, India), debt platform for non-bank lenders using DeFi as a tool: $6M Seed led by Quona Capital, Sequoia Capital, participation from Jump Crypto, Hashed Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, et al.
Cybersecurity - watchTowr (Singapore), continuous, real-time visibility of external attack surfaces: $10.25M Pre-A led by Prosus Ventures, Vulcan Capital, participation from Wavemaker Partners.
Data/Analytics - Onomondo (Denmark), interoperable cross-border connectivity and performance management: $21M led by Verdane, participation from Maersk Growth, People Ventures, The Danish Growth Fund.
Deeptech - Oxford Quantum Circuits (London, U.K.), quantum computing: $45.5M A from Lansdowne Partners, The University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners, et al.
Enterprise - Voyantis (Tel Aviv, Israel), tools to estimate a customer’s lifetime value: $19M Seed from Target Global, Square Peg, Schusterman Family Investments, Kaedan Capital, Operator Partners.
Industrial Proptech - Fello (Cleveland, Ohio), agent-led iBuyer for home purchases: $25M led by Javelin Venture Partners, participation from Ben Rubenstein.
- Agorus (San Diego, Calif.), construction tech for building single/multi-family homes: $6.5M Seed led by Blackhorn Ventures, participation from Toyota Ventures, Point72 Ventures, Signia Ventures, DivcoWest Ventures, Kennedy Wilson.
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- Tiger Global’s embattled flagship hedge fund scraped out a 3.4% gain in June. The vehicle is still down 50.1% for the year to date.
- Deezer, a French music streaming service, saw its shares fall 35% after its SPAC-based public debut. One of the country’s first unicorns, the company is having trouble convincing investors that it can compete with the likes of Spotify.
- AstraZeneca has absorbed TeneoTwo for $1.275B. TeneoTwo’s most notable product is a clinical-stage CD19/CD3 T-cell engager for relapsed and refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
- Gtmhub, a strategy execution platform, acquired Cliff.ai, the U.K.-based provider of AI-based operational intelligence software, for an undisclosed sum.
- Brazilian proptech outfit Loft has cut 380 employees from its payroll, representing 12% of its workforce. The firm’s layoffs so far this year now total 540. The company was valued at $2.9B last year.
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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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