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| Here's a look at today's VC briefing. - 👩🏻 All-female teams in Northwestern Europe received a fraction of the funding.
- 🇨🇳 VC funding deal value for Chinese startups fell by 29.1% YoY.
- 💰 Japanese battery maker AESC is eyeing a $10B valuation in the upcoming round.
We have also rounded up the top late-stage funding rounds of this week. Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | All-female-founded startups in Northwestern Europe received just a small fraction of the total venture funding so far this year, per a new report by Unconventional Ventures. Women-led startups received 1.9% of funding in the U.K., 1.7% in Germany, 1.2% in Nordic countries, and just 0.6% in France. More: - Iceland fared much better than other European nations, with women-led startups bagging 7.3% of the total capital.
- Unconventional Ventures' co-founder Nora Bavey said, "The persistent and substantial funding gap is glaringly obvious... addressing and closing this gap will require uprooting the ingrained biases against diverse founders that permeate Europe's VC ecosystem."
- In Nordic countries, all-female-led startups represented 6.1% of the funding rounds but could bag only 1.2% of the capital.
- The discrepancy between the two suggests that women-led startups are getting smaller funding rounds than their male counterparts.
Zoom out: - The situation is the same in the U.S., where all-women teams secured 1.9% of the total capital raised in 2022.
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| 2 | | VCs deployed $291.7M in late-stage and beyond global startups this week between Nov. 18 and Nov. 24, per Crunchbase data. AI startups raked in 40% of the funding this week. Cloud computing, fintech, and healthcare startups nabbed 26%, 15%, and 14% of the financing, respectively. 
Here are the top five largest rounds announced this week: - File-sharing platform maker LucidLink Corp. raised a Series C funding round worth $75M. Brighton Park Capital led the funding round, joined by Headline, Baseline Ventures, and other institutional investors.
- Enterprise-focused AI solutions startup AI21 extended its Series C round by another $53M. The fresh sum brings the total raised under the round to $208M. Intel Corp's venture arm, Intel Capital, and Comcast's VC division, Comcast Ventures, participated in the funding round.
- InVivium Capital led an oversubscribed $45M Series C funding round into precision medicines maker Alto Neuroscience Inc. The funding round saw participation from Franklin Templeton, Point72, Eli Lilly, Lightswitch Capital, WhatIf Ventures, and others.
- Tax return and accounting automation startup Indy secured €40M ($43.7M) in fresh funding from BlackFin Capital Partners, La Maison, and iXO.
- Percutaneous ventricular assist device maker Supira Medical closed its Series D funding round at $40M. Cormorant Asset Management and The Capital Partnership led the funding round, joined by 415 Capital, AMED Ventures, PA MedTech VC fund, and Unorthodox Ventures.
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| 3 | | So far this year, VCs have invested $34.6B in Chinese startups through 2,675 funding rounds, per GlobalData. Deal count has dropped 15.7% YoY compared to the 3,175 deals that closed at the same time last year. Meanwhile, the deal value has slumped 29.1% compared to the previous year's tally of $48.8B from the same period. More: - The decline in China is in line with the global VC funding slump seen throughout 2023.
- Despite the decline, China continues to dominate the APAC VC landscape, raking in a 60.5% share of the region's total VC funding.
- "China is also a key global market," per GlobalData's lead analyst Aurojyoti Bose, second only to the U.S. in both funding volume and deal value.
- China nabbed 17.1% of the global VC funding in the first nine months of this year.
- Notable rounds raised by Chinese startups so far this year include GTA Semiconductor's $1.8B funding, Envision's $1B round, and ROX Motor Tech's $1B financing.
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| 4 | | AESC Group, an EV battery manufacturing startup controlled by clean energy firm Envision Group, is looking to raise about $1.5B in Series C funding from private investors. The firm is aiming for a $10B valuation in the upcoming round. According to sources, the firm will use the new round to gear up for an IPO listing in the U.S. More: - The Japanese firm makes high-performance batteries for EVs and electric storage systems and has production facilities across the U.S., the U.K., France, Spain, China, and Japan.
- AESC Group was initially the battery operation and production facilities of Nissan Motor Co.
- Chinese clean energy firm Envision acquired a majority stake in the firm in 2019, while Nissan retained a minority stake.
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| 5 | | Early-stage VC firm NP-Hard Ventures secured €12M ($13.1M) in capital commitments towards its debut fund. The fund exceeded the initial target of €10M ($10.9M). The firm intends to back "product-obsessed" founders across Europe and the U.S. More: - The firm intends to back 20 pre-seed stage startups. It has already backed 15 so far, including virtual drawing board startup Tldraw, infrastructure-as-a-code software platform Terraform, and manufacturing emission reduction firm Emidat.
- Paul Veugen, Anke Huiskes, and Micha Hernandez van Leuffen founded NP-Hard Ventures.
- The trio had already collectively invested in 50 early-stage startups across the U.S. and Europe over the last 36 months.
- NP-Hard Ventures will write checks averaging €250,000 (~$273,045).
- 25% of the fund is reserved for U.S. startups and another 25% for follow-on investments.
- 70 limited partners contributed capital to the new fund, including former founders, two Dutch technical universities, and a fund of funds.
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| 6 | | Today's Funding: AgTech - Italian vertical farming startup Planet Farms raised $40M in fresh funding at a $500M valuation. Names of the investors were not disclosed.
Fintech - Abu Dhabi-based wealth technology company Alpheya raised $300M in fresh funding from Lunate and BNY Mellon.
- British open banking startup Crezco raised a Series A round of $12M led by MMC Ventures and 13Books Capital.
Transportation - HumanForest, the company behind e-bike operator Forest, extended its initial £12M ($15M) Series A round with an additional £5M ($6.3M). The latest capital infusion came from Guil Mobility Ventures, Fen Ventures, and Triodos Bank U.K.
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| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Raising capital? Fundingstack gives you fundraising super powers. Access a DB of 200k investors + CRM, pitch hosting, investor updates, and more. Sign up here to get priority access.*
- The British High Court has ruled in favor of allowing the patenting of training of artificial neural networks (ANNs) and ANNs themselves. The new ruling overturns an earlier decision taken by the U.K. Patent Office.
- Cruise, the robotaxi firm majorly owned by General Motors, will resume service in a single city. The state of California had revoked its license to operate robotaxi service, after which CEO Kyle Vogt stepped down from the top role.
- B2B marketplace startup OfBusiness is looking to raise between $150M to $200M in fresh funding at a $6B valuation. The firm had last raised a $325M round from investors at a $5B valuation in 2021.
- Investor Elron is set to make $47M in cash after Smith & Nephew completes the $330M acquisition of CartiHeal. The firm could receive an additional $40M, contingent upon the company reaching certain milestones.
- Experience exciting new stories of innovation from prominent brands like LEGO, Ben and Jerry's, Delta, and VMware on Season 2 of Adobe's The Power of Teamwork podcast.*
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| Upcoming Events | | NOV
25 | | AI in Financial Services with Saroop Bharwani | | | | | | | NOV
25 | | The Future of Fractional Work with David Berkowitz | | | | | | * This is a sponsored event | | | |
Term of the Day Long (position): A long position involves the purchase of a security from another party believing it will appreciate in value. Question of the Week What perks would convince you to return to the office? Join the conversation |
 | Analyst | | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | This newsletter was edited by Vibha Chapparike | |
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