Deal of the Week
Berkeley-founded FOMO raised a $75M round led by Index Ventures.
FOMO is a trading app for crypto. Pretty interesting given the size of the raise and the broader crypto bear market. Bitcoin is around $60K, down from peaks of $122K, so FOMO must be doing well despite the current market headwinds.
A fascinating company in this space is Hyperliquid (read this) which has built a super impressive business without raising any VC funding, offering everything from 24/7 crypto trading to indices and perpetuals.
Promiscuous AI Researchers Continues
The musical AI chairs continue.
A group of top researchers left Google for Anthropic last week, and Google stock dropped on the news.
Note: The fact that non-competes are not enforceable in California means this trend will continue — and it is what makes Silicon Valley hum. See my old writing on this here.
A lot of AI’s magic sauce sits in the minds of a few people and a lot of this sauce is getting sucked up by Anthropic. I asked Claude to create me a map of AI talent (so don’t trust it fully) and directionally it is pretty obvious Anthropic continues to be the place the top researchers want to be at.
WhatsApp the best app of all time?
Pretty cool visualization of social apps here.
WhatsApp is pretty incredible in terms of engagement. Meta seems to be trying to put more focus on this, recently adding a new CEO to help further monetization. I recently mentioned I am bullish on Meta. The market seems to be disagreeing with me right now 😜. WhatsApp’s future monetization was a key reason.
The other incredible thing here is Snapchat’s amazing metrics, but it seems to not be good at converting them into market value. currently valued at $7B in the public markets. Someone should take these guys out, if they can get the founder to agree!
Although I am definitely a Meta glasses buyer vs. Snap’s. Team Kylie Jenner!
And in another nod to talent moving around, great to see Berkeley legend Dawn Song has just moved to Meta.
In Real Life gets more expensive?
This seems like a pretty strong trend as content becomes commoditised through advances in AI in person experiences become more valuable. This is also linked to the K-Shaped economy where increasingly a small number of people are driving a lot of consumer spend.
Note: I always have a slightly visceral reaction to ‘IRL’ as a word, not sure why.
Quick Takes
Enjoyed this from Neo on the finding Cursor. Hats off to Neo who are on a serious heater and underlining the magic of venture capital (when it works!)
Congrats to Berkeley founded Arena who we have profiled a few times. Just hit a $100M run rate.
We have banged the robotics drum all year - and it seems funding is reflective of this now.
Summary by the #️⃣ & 💰:
9 Berkeley-founded companies funded
$835M of capital raised from the 23rd June to 29th June
💡 Got any ideas or feedback on how to improve this weekly digest? Just hit reply.
Acquisition / IPOs
📺 Vibe.co. $1.4B Acquisition 🇺🇸 Self-serve CTV advertising. 💰 Walmart Connect
🐻 Arthur Querou, Co-Founder & CEO. EECS Article
Closed Rounds
🩺 Alan. $554.5M Series G 🇫🇷 AI-powered health insurance. 💰 Prosus, Teachers’ Venture Growth, Index Ventures
🐻 Charles Gorintin, Co-Founder & CTO. MFE Financial Engineering Article
🧬 Lycia Therapeutics. $75.0M Series D 🇺🇸 Extracellular protein degraders. 💰 Balyasny Asset Management, Blue Owl Capital, OrbiMed
🐻 Carolyn Bertozzi, Co-Founder & Scientific Advisor. PhD Chemistry Article
🪙 FOMO. $75.0M Series B 🇺🇸 Consumer crypto trading app. 💰 Index Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Benchmark
🐻 Prashan Dharmasena, Co-Founder. BA EECS Article
🧠 Nura Bio. $74M Series B 🇺🇸 Neuroprotective disease therapies. 💰 The Column Group, Euclidean Capital, Sanofi Ventures
🐻 Tim Kutzkey, Co-Founder & Chairman. PhD Biology Article
🛠️ Probook. $34.0M Series A 🇺🇸 AI dispatch for trades. 💰 Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Venture Initiation Program
🐻 Lewis Zhang, Co-Founder & CTO. BA EECS Article
💾 Agni Semiconductor. $10.0M Seed 🇺🇸 Low-power memory chips. 💰 Sunrise Energy Metals, University of Pennsylvania,
🐻 Chris D’Couto, Founder & CEO. Haas MBA Article
❤️ Pathway Labs. $8.5M Seed 🇺🇸 AI cardiology detection platform. 💰 AlleyCorp, Breyer Capital, 10X Capital
🐻 Rishi Satoor, Founder & CEO. BA EECS Article
📊 Samepage. $4.9M Seed 🇺🇸AI product intelligence. 💰 Craft Ventures, Freestyle Capital, Glasswing Ventures
🐻 Sahil Jain, Founder & CEO. BA Economics Article
🍜 Bias. $0.5M Early Stage VC 🇺🇸 Modern Korean instant ramen. 💰 Simple Food Ventures
Date Built By Berkeley Started | Companies Funded | Total Raised ($M) |
7/8/24 | 784 | 226,964 |
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Built By Berkeley, where we announce all the funding rounds by Berkeley-founded companies. This is a community effort, so please let us know if we missed a company here. 🐻
