Initial Therapeutics raises $75M to develop therapies that stop diseases in their early stages

Plus: Ashton Kutcher's Sound Ventures closes $240M fund to invest in AI startups

Inside.com Part of   Network May 02, 2023

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Initial Therapeutics has raised a $75M Series A funding round to develop therapies that stop diseases in their early stages. Apple Tree Partners led the investment. More: The company creates therapies that target factors known to play key roles in disease and designs molecules to enter the ribosome, which it describes as the machine of the cell itself, to selectively stall the formation of pathogenic proteins. The advantage of this approach is that modulating the cellular activity of known, well-validated targets does not require prior characterization of the mature protein target’s structure or the presence of druggable binding pockets in the mature protein. Initial Therapeutics was founded by several professors who teach at UC Berkeley, UCSF, and UC Irvine. The company is based in San Francisco.

Ashton Kutcher's Sound Ventures has closed a $240M fund to invest in AI startups. The company currently manages over $1B worth of assets. More: Sound Ventures aims to invest in companies that specialize in artificial intelligence that define their categories. The company has invested in companies such as: Airbnb, Spotify, Square, Shazam, OpenAI, Flexport, Brex, GitLab, Airtable, etc. The firm is led by General Partners Effie Epstein, Ashton Kutcher, and Guy Oseary.  The company is based in Los Angeles.

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Nomba has raised a $30M Pre-Series B funding round. The platform processes $1B worth of transactions every month. More: Nomba aims to become a one-stop shop that offers a full range of financial business and management tools for companies of all sizes. Nomba serves three business segments: agents and unit merchants that run retail businesses that have under $100,000 in yearly transaction revenues; medium-sized businesses with $100,000 to $1M in yearly transaction revenue; and companies with transaction revenue over $1M. Base10 Partners led the funding round, while Partech, Khosla Ventures, Helios Digital Ventures, and Shopify also participated in the round. Over 300,000 businesses from the three segments use at least one Nomba-powered product. The company has seen its revenues grow 150% year-over-year since 2020.

Campus Edu has raised a $29M round to provide an online college degree taught by renowned professors. The company has about 850 students enrolled. More: Campus is an accredited college that offers online and in-person associate degrees and certificate programs. Its online degree programs are taught by professors at universities such as Princeton, UCLA, NYU, Vanderbilt, etc. Campus offers associate degrees in AWS cloud administration, Accounting, Cosmetology, Barbering, etc. The school provides a free laptop, free WiFi, unlimited tutoring, and individual support coaches. The round was led by Discord founder Jason Citron, OpenAI founder Sam Altman, Figma founder Dylan Field, etc.

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💵 Today's funding: SaaS Odaia (Canada), provides insights SaaS platform for pharmaceutical companies: $25M B led by Threshold Ventures and Monograph Capital, with participation from Wittington Ventures, Flint Capital, BDC Capital's Women in Technology Venture Fund, StandUp Ventures, and Graphite Ventures. Venture Capital Vera Equity (New York), an early-stage venture capital firm: $20M led by external investors. Manufacturing Hived (U.K.), a delivery network powered entirely by electricity: $12.4M A led by Planet A Ventures, with participation from Maersk Growth, Eka Ventures, and Pale blue dot. Fintech Gappify (California), provides cloud-based solutions that streamline accounting: $10M B led by FINTOP Capital, with participation from Rally Ventures, Stage 2 Capital, SaaS Ventures, and Pasudeco & Co. Entendre Finance (New York), an accounting and bookkeeping solution for Web3 companies: $4M Seed led by Basis Set with participation from Valhalla, Caffeinated, Moonpay, Alumni, MDig, and Alpine. Hardware Altris (Sweden), develops sodium-ion batteries: $5.2M Growth led by previous investors and employees. Consumer Mi Alma (Georgia), aims to help people experiencing grief and loss: $1.5M Pre-Seed led by angel investors. Gaming SuperDuperSecret Co. (California), builds multiplayer games: $1M Pre-Seed led by Round 13 Digital Asset Fund, Merit Circle, Polygon Ventures, Solana Foundation, LD Capital, Overwolf, Big Brain Holdings, and angels investors.

Quick Hits: The company behind these surgical robots is planning to list on Nasdaq. Last day to fund your investment is on 5/10.* Texas-based healthcare company VMG Health has acquired BSM Consulting for an undisclosed amount. Morgan Stanley Investment Management has acquired RowCal, a Minnesota-based property management services provider. Israel-based gaming company Fanton has raised $300,000 in a pre-seed funding round at a $5M valuation. ePlus has acquired assets of the Network Solutions Group for an undisclosed amount. Demo Divvy, get an Ember heated mug. Hot coffee and quick and easy expense management — get both when you demo Divvy.* *This is sponsored content.

Upcoming events at Inside: May 02 - Inside Startups Coffee Break (Register Here) May 08 - Inside.com Town Hall (Register Here) May 11 - Testing and monitoring large language models (LLMs) with TruEra (Register Here) * *This is a sponsored listing.

Arbër is an Inside writer who also has experience in entrepreneurship. He has experience covering Consumer Tech, Venture Capital, NFTs, Crypto, etc. Arbër holds a Bachelor's degree in Business from XAMK University in Finland. When he is not reading(and writing) business news, he chooses to watch sports or anime...and then read news about sports or anime. 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 and 1972 Fords.

Join us on May 11th and 18th for a hands-on overview of how to analyze and improve the performance of your LLMs.

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