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| Here's a look at today's VC briefing. - European VC deal values increased for the third consecutive quarter.
- U.S.-based supply chain startups raised $1B VC funding in Q3, significantly lower than last year's tally.
- Princeton's endowment posted a 1.7% loss on investments, causing a dip in endowment value to $34.1B.
Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | European startups raised €15.8B ($16.7B) in VC funding in Q3, up 6% QoQ. Deal values increased for the third consecutive quarter despite a dip in deal count. Despite the increase in funding, the total capital deployed is still 22.5% lower than the same period last year. More: - The U.K. and Ireland raked in the largest share of VC funding in Europe, followed by France and the Benelux region.
- Deal value dropped 80% in Central and Eastern Europe, making it the region that suffered the most significant decline.
- Non-traditional investors, including PE firms, hedge funds, and sovereign wealth funds, participated in 2,638 deals worth €32.3B ($34B).
- Participation of non-traditional investors fell for the first time since 2019.
- The deal value of VC-backed acquisitions increased from €1.9B ($2B) in Q2 to €3B ($3.2B) in Q3, bringing the total value of acquisitions in the first nine months of the year to €6B ($6.3B).
- European VCs raised 91 funds worth €13.9B ($14.7B) in Q3.
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| 2 | | U.S.-based supply chain startups have raised just $1B in VC funding so far this year, per Crunchbase. 
What the numbers say: The funding raised so far this year is less than one-fifth of last year's tally of $6.6B. A similar slump in VC funding can be seen globally. Crunchbase data shows that global supply chain startups have raised $2.1B in total funding so far this year. What happened: Investors' interest in supply chain startups has waned due to the pricing declines, recent slump in demand, and heightened global container freight rates. Where to see the impact: Seattle-based trucking logistics startup Convoy — which had raised $800M in equity and $250M in debt funding — shut down operations last week, citing a "massive freight recession." Convoy's peers are also struggling, with global freight-forwarding and logistics platform Flexport laying off 20% of its workers. Shopify sold off supply chain unicorn Deliverr to Flexport earlier this year for a fraction of the $2B price it paid for it last year. | | | |
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| 3 | | Early-stage VC firm Flourish Ventures raised $350M for its latest fund. The firm will invest in fintech startups in the U.S. and emerging markets with the new fund. Individual check sizes will range from $2M to $7M. The firm typically backs six to 10 new startups a year. More: - With the new fund, the firm's assets under management now total $850M.
- EBay founder Pierre Omidyar is the firm's sole limited partner.
- Flourish's global managing partner and co-founder Tilman Ehrbeck said, "Since our capital is permanent, we are more flexible and not subject to the same pressures of other funds that have to deploy or exit in a certain time frame. We believe that gives us a comparative advantage."
- The firm has backed 71 startups to date, most notable of which are digital bank Chime, Brazilian neobank Neon, embedded finance startup Unit, and payments infrastructure company Flutterwave.
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| 4 | | Princeton University's endowment fund reported a 1.7% loss in the latest fiscal year ending June, due to which the endowment's value declined to $34.1B. Princeton reported negative returns for the second consecutive fiscal year. More: - Princeton's endowment typically provides about two-thirds of the school's net annual operating revenue.
- In the latest fiscal year, it distributed $1.6B to the university.
- The valuation of Princeton's allocation to private equity was down 11% in the recent fiscal year.
- However, the company was able to offset part of the losses as the asset class had provided 7.5% returns in the previous fiscal period.
- Princeton has received 19% returns through private equity investments over the past 10-year period.
Zoom out: - Princeton's endowment results were the weakest amongst the Ivy League colleges.
- Endowments that have invested in alternative assets, such as private equity and venture capital, have been heavily impacted due to the poor recent performance of the asset class.
- Meanwhile, the endowments that invested majorly in public equities fared comparatively better as the S&P 500 jumped 18% in the same period.
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| 5 | | The House Fund closed its Fund III at $115M. The firm invests in pre-seed and early-stage startups emerging from UC Berkeley, with roughly 70% earmarked for pre-seed-stage startups. The firm is looking to primarily invest in Berkeley-affiliated AI startups founded by alumni, faculty, PhD candidates, students, recent graduates, and dropouts. More: - UC Berkeley professor Ken Goldberg will join The House Fund as a part-time partner.
- The House Fund's average first checks are about $2M, with the fund reserving capital for follow-on rounds.
- Per managing partner Jeremy Fiance, "We can write a check as small as $100,000 in a recently graduated founder or dropout and are fine being the only investor, for example."
- The House Fund also runs an accelerator program that provides selected startups with $1M initial investments and a $10M post-money SAFE note.
- The House Fund has nearly $330M worth of assets under management.
- Notable previous investments include scalable compute platform Anyscale, software development platform Crowdbotics, and robotics startup Ambi Robotics.
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| 6 | | Today's Funding: AI - AI model creation and optimization software maker Moreh bagged $22M in Series B funding from AMD, Korean telecom firm KT, Smilegate Investment, and Forest Partners.
Consumer electronics - Founders Fund led a $17M Series A funding into webcam maker Opal Camera Inc. Kindred Ventures and YouTube content creators Marques Brownlee and Casey Niestat participated in the funding round.
Energy - Advanced geothermal energy solutions maker Eavor Technologies raked in $182M in fresh funding led by OMV AG. Canada Growth Fund, Monaco Asset Management, Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund, BDC, bp Ventures, Temasek, and others participated in the round.
Fintech - Multicurrency mobile wallet and corporate credit card provider YouTrip landed $50M in Series B funding led by Lightspeed.
Healthcare - Betteromics, a healthcare startup that helps clinicians and researchers extract insights from data using computation and AI techniques, secured $20M in Series A funding. Sofinnova Partners and Triatomic Capital led the round, with participation from SHAKTI.
Machine learning - Machine learning workload optimization platform CentML extended its seed funding round with an additional $27M capital provided by Gradient Ventures, TR Ventures, and Nvidia.
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- EQT AB-backed Swedish hyperscale cloud computing startup Evroc is looking to raise €4B ($4.2B) in fresh funding to build 10 giant data centers in Europe. The firm hired former Google executive Philip Beevers as its chief technology officer.
- Insurance broker Aon joined as the 10th member of U.K.'s finance minister Jeremy Hunt's "Mansion House Compact" initiative, which is aimed at increasing direct investments from pension funds into high-growth British startups. 10 pension funds have committed to investing 5% of their funds, roughly translating to £50B ($60.5B), in unlisted companies by 2030.
- African climate tech VC firm Persistent is in talks with investors to raise a $100M new fund to back early-stage startups in the region.
- Garuda Ventures closed its debut fund at $31M. The fund aims to invest in B2B-focused software startups in the pre-seed and seed stages.
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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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