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| Here’s your daily VC briefing: - 🧪 TCG Labs-Soleil launched a $400M fund to back single-asset companies in the biotech industry.
- 💻 Enterprise SaaS funding dipped by 33.3% in 2023.
- 🇮🇹 Italy is planning to set up €1B fund to back AI startups.
Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | NGM Biopharmaceuticals' founder and former chief scientific officer Jin-Long Chen and VC firm The Column Group launched a new venture called TCG Labs-Soleil. The new initiative combines a venture fund with an R&D hub to create and back single-asset companies in the biotech industry. TCG Labs-Soleil has already raised a $400M fund in collaboration with The Column Group. More: - TCG Labs-Soleil is guided by The Column Group's managing partners Peter Svennilson, Dave Goeddel, and Tim Kutzkey, along with Aligos Therapeutics' co-founder Lucinda Quan, who serves as the firm's chief operating officer.
- The firm has been structured to make quick evaluations and decisions on drug development programs.
- This structure allows portfolio companies to focus on research rather than worry about raising cash every 12 to 18 months.
- While the firm is sector agnostic, it will lean more towards projects working on treating cancer, autoimmune diseases, and cardiometabolic conditions.
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| 2 | | VC funding for global enterprise SaaS startups dipped 33.3% from $109.2B in 2022 to $72.9B in 2023, per Pitchbook data cited by TechCrunch. 
What the numbers say: Funding halved in 2023 compared to 2021's record-setting high of $136B. VC funding for the sector saw a modest jump of 11.9% from $12.5B in Q3 2023 to $14B in Q4. Relevance: The uptick was due to the customer relationship segment (CRM), which witnessed a 72.5% QoQ jump in the last quarter compared to the overall enterprise SaaS average. Other segments that saw an upswing were the supply chain management (SCM) and knowledge management system (KMS) segments, trending up by 44.8% and 31.6% QoQ, respectively. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) raised $29.9B, raking in a 41% share of the total deal value, while CRM startups raked in 16.5% of the total deal value with $12.1B. | | | |
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| 3 | | Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced that the nation plans to set up an endowment of €1B ($1.09B) to promote AI startups. CDP Venture Capital, a unit of state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), backed the new fund. More: - The initiative can potentially raise an additional €2B ($2.2B) from private investors.
- The initiative hopes to leverage AI to strengthen Italy's technological advancement.
- Meloni highlighted the Italian government's dedication to crafting legislation to regulate the nation's AI sector, which is expected to be introduced in the coming weeks.
- The Italian government plans to establish a supervisory body tasked with implementing the national AI strategy.
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| 4 | | Chamath Palihapitiya's VC firm Social Capital fired its head of early-stage and venture investing, Jay Zaveri, and head of public markets and M&A, Ravi Tanuka. The firm also hired law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to investigate an undisclosed "situation" involving the two partners. More: - Sources informed the Financial Times that both had been fired over their involvement in Social Capital's investment in AI chip startup Groq.
- The VC firm backed the Silicon Valley-based startup in 2017 and 2018, investing $52.3M in a $60M convertible note.
- Groq entered the unicorn club when its valuation catapulted to over the $1B mark when it raised a $300M funding round led by Tiger Global Management in 2021.
- A spokesperson for Zaveri has dismissed the claims, calling the termination unfair and underserved.
- The spokesperson added, "The firm's leadership approved and participated in the investment that is now being used as a pretext to fire him. Mr. Zaveri stands by his 28-year track record of integrity and looks forward to the truth coming out."
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| 5 | | VC investor Eckuity Capital closed its healthcare-focused Eckuity Capital Fund I at $150M. The fund intends to back startups working on therapeutics, medtech, and digital health. More: - The firm's investment thesis includes healthcare startups leveraging AI, robotics, IoT, 3D printing, genetic engineering, genomics, biology, quantum computing, and other cutting-edge technologies.
- Eckuity, led by Vishal Jain and Youssef Sebban, currently has nine companies in its portfolio.
- The firm has a presence in New York, London, and Paris.
- The firm also hired medical oncologist Dr. Victoria Manax Rutson as its new partner.
- She held executive positions at Abraxis Bioscience, Celgene (BMS), MedSurge PI, and Duo Oncology.
- Additionally, she also served as the chief medical officer for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.
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| 6 | | Today's Funding: AI - Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, former Twitter executive Elad Gil, and other investors provided $21M funding to Cognitive AI, a startup that can turn a user's prompt into a website or video game.
Healthcare - Empathy, a New York-based startup that provides grief counseling, funeral planning, and estate settlement services, secured $47M in fresh funding. Index Ventures led the Series B round and was joined by General Catalyst, Entrée Capital, Latitude, Allianz, MassMutual Ventures, MetLife, and others.
- Healthcare billing automation and revenue cycle management firm CodaMetrix bagged $40M in Series B funding led by Transformation Capital. Existing investors SignalFire and First Cressey Ventures participated in the round.
Insurtech Robotics - Bear Robotics, a startup making autonomous AI-powered server robots for restaurants and other venues, raised $60M in Series C funding exclusively from LG Electronics. The investment makes LG the single largest shareholder in the firm.
Transportation - Mircomobility startup Voi raked in $25M in fresh capital from VNV Global, Raine Group, Balderton, Creandum, Project A, and other investors. In addition, the firm converted $85M of convertible notes from 2021 into equity.
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| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Attention busy professionals & feline owners: Meowtel has the largest elite network of insured cat sitters who tailor to your cat's every need.*
- Ontario Teachers' Pension Plans late-stage growth investment arm Teachers' Venture Growth plans to invest $80M in Indian credit underwriting fintech startup Perfios. The new funding round will supposedly raise Perfios' valuation above the $1B mark.
- UAE sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company is becoming the anchor investor for U.S. VC firm Blue Opal Capital's second VC fund.
- Early-stage VC firm 8i Ventures allocated $10M from its second fund to a new seed funding initiative dubbed Origami. Through the new initiative, 8i plans to invest between $250,000 to $2M in about 10 startups in the pre-seed to early revenue stages.
- The Government of Alberta set aside $55M from its 2024 budget to build a new multidisciplinary science hub, including an incubator at the University of Calgary.
- Everyone wants to move fast. But you need a strong DevOps foundation to accelerate your AWS workloads & release pipelines. Jump start DevOps with DoiT.*
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 | Analyst | | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | This newsletter was edited by Vibha Chapparike | |
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