Investors and founders can meet their match with Cherub, the ‘Raya of angel investing’Jaclyn Johnson and Angeline Vuong were on a hike deliberating how hard it can be for people to get started in angel investing when they realized they had stumbled upon a startup idea.
Today they are the co-founders of Cherub, a marketplace that pairs angel investors with entrepreneurs.
Johnson likens Los Angeles-based Cherub to Raya, an online membership-based community for dating, in that it matches founders and angel investors based on their preferences.
Of those deals, 40% were new angel investors, meaning they were accredited investors that had never written checks before.
Angel investor Allen Orr told TechCrunch that he had used other platforms such as AngelList in the past.
And more AI companies are receiving investments than ever before, with 1,812 AI startups announcing funding in 2023, up 40.6% versus 2022, according to the Stanford HAI report.
“There’s been a more deliberate approach by investors in evaluating AI investments compared to a year ago.
According to a PitchBook report compiled for TechCrunch, VCs invested $25.87 billion globally in AI startups in Q1 2024, up from $21.69 billion in Q1 2023.
Despite the general malaise within AI investor circles, generative AI — AI that creates new content, such as text, images, music and videos — remains a bright spot.
“We’ll soon be evaluating whether generative AI delivers the promised efficiency gains at scale and drives top-line growth through AI-integrated products and services,” Kumar said.
Noname Security, a cybersecurity startup that protects APIs, is in advanced talks with Akamai Technologies to sell itself for $500 million, according to a person familiar with the deal.
Noname was co-founded in 2020 by Oz Galan and Shay Levi and is headquartered in Palo Alto but has Israeli roots.
The startup raised $220 million from venture investors and was last valued at $1 billion in December 2021 when it raised $135 million in a Series C led by Georgian and Lightspeed.
While the sale price is a significant discount from that valuation, the deal as it currently stands would be for cash, the person said.
In February, Israeli news outlet Calcalist reported that Noname was in negotiations with several potential buyers, including Akamai.
Cendana, Kline Hill have a fresh $105M to buy stakes in seed VC funds from LPs looking to sellIf you ask investors to name the biggest challenge for venture capital today, you’ll likely get a near-unanimous answer: lack of liquidity.
Cash-hungry venture investors, whether VCs themselves or their limited partners are increasingly looking to sell their illiquid positions to secondary buyers.
“We simply passed the hat around to our existing LPS at Kline Hill and Cendana,” said Kim.
It then passes these opportunities to Kline Hill, which values, underwrites and negotiates the transaction price.
Traditional secondary investors, such as Lexington Partners and Blackstone, recently raised their largest secondary funds ever.
Venture capitalists’ appetite for fusion startups has been up and down in the last few years.
The road to true fusion power remains long, but the kicker is that it’s no longer theoretical.
He added the timeline was to be able to get to fusion energy by the mid-2030s.
If we manage to get to that then the middle of the 2030s is possible.”The startup’s investors are equally convinced.
And there are at least 43 other companies developing nuclear fusion technologies.
Check out the complete roundtable lineup at TC Early Stage 2024Among the highlights of Early Stage are its fan-favorite roundtable sessions.
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Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures (VKAV) plans to back up to 21 growth-stage companies across the continent after closing its first fund at $60 million.
The pan-African VC hit the milestone following fresh backing from Nigeria’s SCM Capital formerly Sterling Capital Markets Limited, and the only non-Japanese investor.
Verod-Kepple is the latest African VC to get capitalized, amid an ongoing investment downturn, allowing it to provide much-needed capital to series A and B startups even as local capital pools for growth-stage companies remain limited.
We think there’s still a need for more growth stage capital with locally based investors,” she said.
How VKAV makes investmentsThe VKAV fund backs startups that are building infrastructure for the digital economy, solving inefficiencies encountered by businesses, and market creators for the emerging consumer population.
Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal is in talks to raise capital for his new startup, Indian fintech Navi.
Bansal is talking to investors to raise at a valuation of around $2 billion, three sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
The Bengaluru-headquartered startup Navi has been largely self-funded up to now — Bansal owns 97% of the company — and this would be its first large outside fundraise since it was founded in 2018.
After a particularly rough 2023 in which overall startup funding fell 73% in the country, this could be a signal that growth stage funding rounds are back on the table.
Even if this might become Navi’s first external raise, that doesn’t mean Bansal has not been talking to interested parties.
Venture firm Maniv has grown by nearly every measure since it launched eight years ago in Israel — from its investor base and 40-startup portfolio to its geographic focus, footprint and fund size.
There are, however, some notable evolutions that hint at the Maniv’s investment strategy with its third and latest fund known as Maniv III, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.
Maniv, once firmly focused on Israeli startups, continues to expand its geographic focus and now has active portfolio companies in nine countries.
The VC firm has also largely stopped using the once trendy umbrella term “mobility,” (often leaving it out of its original name Maniv Mobility) and has opted instead to talk about deep tech, decarbonization and digitization of the transportation sector.
“I thought the trajectory of that term (mobility) was going to continue to clarify overtime, but in fact, I think the opposite has happened for a bunch of reasons,” Granoff explained, adding that while the term mobility might not be used as often, it is still very much central to its mission.
We’ll publish several pieces throughout the year as the AI boom continues, highlighting key work that often goes unrecognized.
Kristine Gloria leads the Aspen Institute’s Emergent and Intelligent Technologies Initiative — the Aspen Institute being the Washington, D.C.-headquartered think tank focused on values-based leadership and policy expertise.
What are some issues AI users should be aware of?
What is the best way to responsibly build AI?
How can investors better push for responsible AIOne specific task, which I admire Mozilla Ventures for requiring in its diligence, is an AI model card.
