| Hey Insiders, Today we are taking a look at the funding trend for space startups in H1, Sequoia China's $2.8B yuan-denominated fund, and Mayfield's $250M AI seed fund. We have also rounded up the top global late-stage funding rounds of this week. Scroll down for some quick hits, and then let us know what other content you'd like to see in future issues. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
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What the numbers say: Space startups nabbed $2.4B in funding from 172 deals in the first half of this year, per Crunchbase. At the current rate, funding is expected to come below 2020's totals at this year's end. The funding slump for the space sector has continued since last year, when funding dropped 25% from hitting a record high of $12.1B in 2021 to $9B in 2022. Relevance: Most notable funding rounds that closed this year include German satellite maker Isar Aerospace's $174M Series C fundraiser, satellite firm Astranis' $200M round at a $1.6B valuation, and rocket engine maker Ursa Major's $100M investment at a $400M pre-money valuation. What happened: Deeptech startups, especially the space sector, have witnessed a dramatic pullback in VC funding. This year no startup in the space sector has been able to raise mega funding rounds of over $250M, unlike 2021 and 2022, which saw 14 and five such rounds, respectively. |     | |
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VCs deployed $706.7M in late-stage and beyond global startups this week between July 15 and July 21, per Crunchbase data. The fashion sector raked in 38% of the funding this week. The e-commerce, AI, and edtech sectors nabbed 27%, 15%, and 6% of the financing, respectively. Here are the top five largest rounds announced this week: - Skims, the fashion apparel brand co-founded by Kim Kardashian, nabbed $270M in Series C funding at a $4B valuation. Wellington Management led the round, joined by Green Oaks Capital Partners, D1 Capital Partners, and Imaginary Ventures.
- Korean fashion e-commerce startup Musinsa secured $190M through a Series C funding round at a $2.76B valuation. KKR led the round with backing from Wellington Management.
- Language learning platform Preply extended its Series C funding round with $70M in additional funding, bringing the total raised under the round to $120M. Horizon Capital led the funding round with participation from Reach Capital, Hoxton Ventures, and others.
- Tractable, an AI startup for cars and property damage appraisals, raised $65M in Series E funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from Insight Partners and Georgian.
- Chinese autonomous driving startup HoloMatic Technology raised $42M (300M yuan) in Series C funding led by Technology Financial Group and Guangdong Automotive Group (GAC).
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| 3 | | Sequoia Capital China is looking to raise nearly 20B yuan ($2.8B) for its seventh yuan-denominated fund. The fund intends to back early-stage tech, healthcare, and consumer sector startups. The government of the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou is reportedly set to contribute 5B yuan ($695M) to the fund, according to sources. More: - Sequoia China may face difficulty in raising the targeted sum from state-backed investors due to the current economic conditions in China.
- Last year, the firm raised a $9B U.S. dollar-denominated fund from global investors.
Zoom out: - Last month, Sequoia Capital announced that the Chinese affiliate is splitting up into an independent identity and will take up the name HongShan, the Chinese translation of Sequoia.
- The split is expected to be completed by next March.
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| 4 | | Early-stage VC firm Mayfield earmarked $250M toward its AI Start fund, which intends to invest in seed-stage startups. The firm will allocate capital toward the new fund from its existing funds and a new pool of capital. Mayfield's leader Navin Chaddha informed Forbes that the firm had $1.3B in dry powder available. More: - Chaddha added, "Having participated on web, mobile, and cloud, we think AI is an even bigger opportunity, and this is going to make humans superhuman."
- The firm also hired former Intel Capital and Clear Ventures executive Vijay Reddy to lead the new fund.
- Individual check sizes from the current fund will average between $1M to $4M for a 10% or lower stake.
- Typically, the firm invests between $7M to $12M for a 20% stake.
- Mayfield has nearly $3B in assets under management (AUM).
Zoom out: - Last May, Mayfield secured $580M for its 17th flagship fund and $375M for its third follow-on fund.
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| 5 | | Farizon Auto, a Chinese startup making electric and hybrid trucks, secured $600M in Series A funding led by Boyu Capital and Yuexin Industrial Fund. Less than a year ago, Farizon raised $300M in pre-Series A funding. Farizon will use the fresh funding to accelerate product development and expand beyond China. It plans to sell a light electric cargo van in Europe as early as 2024. More: - The startup is owned by Chinese EV maker Geely, which also owns Volvo, Polestar, and Zeekr.
- Geely acquired Volvo for $1.8B in 2010.
- Farizon's current round is the second largest VC funding round for an EV startup, behind Zeekr's $750M Series A round in February that gave the luxury EV startup a $13B post-money valuation.
- United Clean Energy and Linjiang Industry Group participated in Farizon's current round.
Zoom out: - Farizon's current round is an unusual bright spot on what is otherwise a poor funding environment for EV startups globally.
- EV startups have raised $4.2B so far this year, 41.9% of which was deployed in Asian startups.
- Last year, the sector nabbed $14.3B in VC funding.
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| 6 | | Today's Funding: Data - Unstructured Technologies, an LLM data processing startup, raised $25M led by Madrona Venture Group.
Healthcare - Santa Monica, California-based healthcare billing automation and patient financial engagement company Collectly nabbed $29M Series A funding led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from YC, Wayfinder Ventures, Burst Capital, Cabra VC, and Davidovs VC.
- Rwandan women's health startup Kasha raised $21M in Series B funding led by Knife Capital, with Finnfund, DFC, Beyond Capital Ventures, Five35 Ventures, and others in participation.
- Behavioral health company UpLift secured $10.7M in Series A funding led by Ballast Point Ventures.
Logistics - Terminal Industries, an Austin, Texas-based startup building AI solutions for the logistic industry, emerged from stealth $17M in seed funding co-led by 8VC and Prologis Ventures.
Marketplace - Digital goods marketplace Whop nabbed $17M in Series A funding at a $100M valuation. Insight Partners, Peter Thiel, and others provided the funding.
PropTech - Oakland, California-based real estate investing startup Mynd raised $30M led by Invesco Real Estate.
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| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Elevate your cloud expertise with the AWS Cookbook. Practical, concise, AWS-focused: This resource is your key to cloud success.*
- Startups established by mixed-gender founding teams consisting of at least one woman founder raised $24.1B in VC funding in H1 2023, raking in 28.1% of the entire capital deployed across all startups. Startups with all-women founding teams nabbed $1.4B in the same period, representing 1.6% of the total capital deployed.
- Global multi-asset manager Bracket Capital closed its third flagship fund at $150M. The firm also secured $300M in co-investment and an evergreen fund.
- Motive Partners acquired a majority stake in With Intelligence, a British asset management data and intelligence firm, for £400M ($513M).
- Saison Capital founding partner Chris Sirise left the firm to form Web3-focused accelerator and incubator firm LiquidX Studio.
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 | Analyst | | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | This newsletter was edited by Aaron Crutchfield | |
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