| Here's a look at today's VC briefing. - North America topples Asia to bag the largest share of early-stage VC deals
- Gaingels was the active investor in October, inking 14 deals in the month
- Stride pauses fundraising, lays off three members from its investment team
We have also rounded up the top late-stage funding deals of the week. Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | North American startups accounted for the largest share of early-share VC deals, closing 3,949 deals so far this year or 34.4% of global deals, per Pitchbook. North America toppled Asia from the top spot for the first time since 2014. Asia recorded 3,828 deals, representing 33.3% of the total. More: - Last year, North America had a 32.6% share of early-stage deals after closing out the year with 5,959 deals.
- Asia accounted for the largest share of early-stage VC deal activity due to the rapid growth of the VC ecosystem in the area, especially in China.
- While early-stage deal activity has slumped globally, Asia witnessed a much greater decline in overall deal flow.
- Across all regions, the number of early-stage deals dropped 26.5% YoY in Q3 2023 to 3,105 deals.
- The VC funding dip has impacted all stages of dealmaking.
- Despite the dip, early-stage startups still represented 36.3% of all rounds.
|     | |
| 2 | | VCs deployed $603M in late-stage and beyond global startups this week between Nov. 4 and Nov. 10, per Crunchbase data. Fintech startups raked in 30% of the funding this week. Automotive, logistics, and biotech startups nabbed 20%, 13%, and 13% of the financing, respectively. 
Here are the top five largest rounds announced this week: - Rebate management platform Enable cemented its unicorn status with a $120M Series D funding round that valued the company at $1.12B. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round, joined by Menlo Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Insight Partners, and Sierra Ventures.
- Autonomous driving startup May Mobility closed its NTT Group-led Series D round at $105M. The round saw participation from Toyota Ventures, State Farm Ventures, BMW i Ventures, Cyrus Capital, and others.
- Indian logistics startup Xpressbees secured $80M in fresh funding led by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan VC fund division at a $1.4B valuation.
- AI-powered medical imaging analysis company Elucid closed its Series C funding round at $80M. Elevage Medical Technologies led the round, joined by existing investors.
- Financial services startup InCred cemented its unicorn status with a $59M Series D funding round.
| | | |
| 3 | | Gaingels was the most active U.S. startup investor in October with 14 deals, the most deals it's done in a single month since last November. Khosla Ventures was the second most active investor, inking 10 deals. Both Gaingels and Khosla were tied for the third spot in the most active U.S. investor list in September. More: - Gaingels mostly invested in seed through Series B rounds, with the firm's largest round participated in being machine learning software platform Modal Labs' $16M Series A round.
- After leading the charts in September, Andreessen Horowitz opted for a conservative approach in the following month with just eight deals.
- Index Ventures suddenly inked six deals in October after closing zero deals from July to September.
- General Catalyst, Google Ventures, NEA, Point72 Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and SignalFire each participated in five funding rounds in the most recent month.
| | | |
| 4 | | British early-stage VC firm Stride will not raise its third fund, founder Fred Destin announced in a LinkedIn post. The firm also let go of three members of its investment team. More: - Destin said, "We are pausing and not raising a new fund. We are still actively investing our second fund and have £220M ($268M) of committed capital and 50 projects to look after. Our core priority is supporting our founders and driving as much value as we can for our investors on the two funds we have raised."
- The news comes after the firm was gearing up to raise its third fund in 2024.
- The decision has not been influenced by the stock market collapse of portfolio company Cazoo.
- Cazoo's market cap has fallen from a peak of about $8B to $15.78M.
- The firm had invested £8.4M ($10.25M) in Cazoo.
- Partner Lina Zakarauskaite, principal Michelangelo Valtancoli, and associate Giles Collee are the three members who are leaving the firm.
| | | |
| 5 | | Lightspeed Faction, a newly formed joint venture between emerging VC manager Faction and Lightspeed Venture Partners, secured $285M in capital commitments towards its specialist blockchain fund. The fund exceeded its initial target of $250M. More: - Lightspeed Faction is an independent unit of Lightspeed and has full investment discretion.
- Faction leveraged Lightspeed Venture Partners' limited partner network to raise the funds.
- 80% of the investor base consisted of institutional investors, with strategic investors forming the remaining 20%, per Lightspeed Faction's co-founder and managing partner Samuel Harrison.
- The firm has already backed 20 startups with the funds, including Crossmint, Lens, Narya.ai, Skip.money, and Matter Labs.
- Lightspeed Faction is writing average checks of $7.5M.
Zoom out: - Crypto-focused VCs raised funds worth $21.6B in 2022.
- However, fund managers started facing headwinds in raising fresh capital after the collapse of FTX.
| | | |
| 6 | | Today's Funding: AI - AI-driven robotics company Aigen closed its Series A round at $12M. ReGen Ventures, NEA, Cleveland Avenue, Incite, and Susquehanna Private Equity provided the funding.
- DeepInfra, a startup providing scalable and cost-effective infrastructure solutions to run AI models, emerged from stealth mode with a $8M seed round led by A.Capital and Felicis.
Biotech - Virtual cardiometabolic care services provider Vida Health raised $28.5M in fresh funding led by General Atlantic, Ally Bridge, Canvas Ventures, Hercules Capital, and others.
Fintech - Private investment management platform Arch received $20M from Series A funding led by Menlo Ventures. Existing investors Craft Ventures and Quiet Capital participated in the round, joined by new investors Carta, Citi Ventures, GPS Investment Partners, and Focus Financial Partners.
Enterprise software - Snaptrude, a startup developing an operating system for architecture, engineering, and construction companies, raised a Series A round worth $14M. Foundamental and Accel led the round, joined by Fortius Ventures.
| | | |
| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Bike Friday is on! Upway sells discounted e-bikes from top brands, rigorously inspected and certified by master mechanics. Get discounts of up to $1,000 on a selection of e-Bikes!*
- Mexican unicorn used-car marketplace startup Kavak is exiting the Peru and Colombia markets at the beginning of next year to concentrate its efforts on the domestic market.
- Standard Chartered Bank's VC division SC Ventures is set to establish a $100M crypto fund in the UAE along with SBI Holdings. The fund will back global seed to Series C stage decentralized finance, tokenization, infrastructure, payments, and metaverse startups.
- Coatue reportedly left Stability AI's board after the AI startup raised $50M from a convertible note financing led by Intel. Another board member, Lightspeed Venture Partners' Gaurav Gupta also stepped down from the board observer role after differences of opinion with the management.
- Deel, an HR startup last valued at $12B, touched $400M in annual recurring revenue last month.
- Alternative asset management firm CoVenture Management hired Graham Kohan as a managing director.
- Design UIs in seconds with Uizard's AI. Generate screens from text, convert screenshots to wireframes, and hand off to collaborators. Try it free!*
*This is sponsored content. | | | |
| Upcoming Events | | NOV
14 | | Dive into Metricool's plans and learn how to manage, analyze, and schedule content across all social media platforms.* | | | | | | | 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 Inferior good: Inferior goods are goods whose demand decreases when income increases, as opposed to normal goods whose demand increases when income increases. 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 Aaron Crutchfield | |
| |
| |
Comments
Post a Comment