Startup Monday: Latest tech trends & news happening in the global startup ecosystem (Issue 139- September 14)
Welcome to Startup Monday, my weekly newsletter that recaps the week in the global startup ecosystem. To have this newsletter emailed to you, you can sign up here.
Top startup news to follow this week:
1. AI Startup World Labs Launches With $230M From Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia’s Venture Arm
It was reported just last month that the Stanford, California-based company had raised a pair of financing rounds two months apart, and that the latest valued the company at over $1 billion.
World Labs is co-founded by artificial intelligence pioneer , commonly referred to as the “godmother of AI.” She previously has led AI at and is a co-director of the Google Cloud . She has spent much of her time trying to solve the issues surrounding building Large World Models for AI that can perceive and interact with the 3D world. Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence
The round is just the latest huge raise by an AI startup — once again showing investors’ insatiable appetite for the technology.
Just last week, AI research lab Safe Superintelligence raised from a litany of big-name investors including Andreessen Horowitz and . The round valued the company at $5 billion, per , which first reported the round. Sequoia Capital
Then this week AI-enhanced work assistant and enterprise search startup raised more than at a $4.6 billion valuation co-led by $260 million in a Series E funding and . Altimeter Capital
2. AI startup Poolside nears $3 billion valuation before ever releasing product
The company is set to raise nearly $500 million in new financing, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Bain Capital Ventures, an existing investor in Poolside, is in talks to lead the investment round.
The startup didn’t respond to requests for comment. Bain declined to comment.
3. Nvidia-backed AI startup CoreWeave mulls share sale at $23B valuation: report
CoreWeave is a New Jersey-based cloud provider that gives users access to an array of GPUs, including Nvidia’s H200 Tensor Core models, for training large language models, inference and high-performance computing applications.
CoreWeave was valued at $19.1B in May following its latest funding round. It was valued at $7B last December.
Some of its primary investors include Nvidia, Blackstone, Coatue, Magnetar, Altimeter Capital, Fidelity and Lykos Global Management.
CoreWeave plans to have 28 data centers built by the end of the year. It is also building data centers in Europe. It has two in the U.K., and plans to open others in Norway, Sweden and Spain by the end of 2025.
4. German startup secures $62M for ‘carbon negative’ biogas power plants
“Reverion’s technology works very efficiently in both ways — you can use the plants to store that energy and provide it back to the grid when there is demand,” Christoph Baumeister, principal at Possible Ventures, one of the investors in the round, told TNW.
Reverion — spun-off from the Technical University of Munich in 2022 — will use the fresh funds to begin serial production of its power plants as it races to fulfill over $100mn in pre-orders.
Unlike most of the plants in operation today, Reversion’s tech turns biogas into electricity using specially-designed solid oxide fuel cells that boost efficiency to 80% — double that of conventional gas engines.
Reverion’s name is derived from ‘reversible’ and ‘ions’ because the startup’s plants can be used both to generate electricity — during times of demand — and to make methane and hydrogen when there is a surplus of renewable energy on the grid.
The plant also captures the CO2 produced during the electrochemical reaction inside the fuel-cell, which can then be sold to make products like Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) or buried underground for perpetuity. Reversion claims this makes it a CO2 negative technology.
5. XP Health grabs $33M to bring employees more affordable vision care
Antonio Moraes, the grandson of a late prominent Brazilian billionaire, was never interested in joining the family-owned conglomerate of construction companies and a bank. Shortly after graduating from college, he founded one of Brazil’s first impact funds, which invested primarily in companies that made healthcare more accessible and affordable.
But while attending Stanford University, where Moraes received a master’s degree in business administration and healthcare policy, he realized that instead of investing in impactful companies, he wanted to start his own.
As a part of an entrepreneurship class, Moraes and his co-founder, an engineering grad student, James Wong, visited multiple eyeglass manufacturing factories in China. They discovered that designer frames that sell for as much as $600 in the U.S. cost only about $10 to produce. “We thought there’s something very wrong with these markups,” Moraes told TechCrunch.
Because vision care and eyeglasses are expensive, many employees buy frames with their vision insurance, but the benefits typically don’t cover all the costs, Moraes said. “With vision insurance, people expect not to pay anything, but then they leave the optician’s office with a $300 out-of-pocket bill.”
On Thursday, XP Health announced a $33.2 million Series B led by QED Investors with participation from Canvas Ventures, American Family Ventures, HC9 Ventures, Valor Capital Group and Manchester Story. The round comes less than two years after XP Health’s $17.1 million Series A.
6. A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs
From major layoffs at Tesla, Amazon and Microsoft to small fintech startups and apps
The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and , this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker . Companies like Layoffs.fyi , , , , and have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized startups have also seen a fair amount of cuts, and in some cases, have . shut down operations altogether
By tracking these layoffs, we’re able to understand the impact on innovation across companies large and small. We’re also able to see the potential impact of businesses embracing AI and automation for jobs that had previously been considered safe. It also serves as a reminder of the human impact of layoffs and what could be at stake in regards to increased innovation.
Is laying off around 650 employees in its gaming division. The layoffs come eight months after the gaming division after faced 1,900 job cuts Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard.
Has shut down its operations citing a “tough funding environment,” co-founder Alexsandra Guerra announced on LinkedIn.
7. French embedded insurance startup Neat secures $55 million
There is some fine print however. In addition to the traditional equity-for-cash financial transaction, a portion of this funding round is a debt facility. It’s around 60% in equity and 40% in debt, according to the company. So it’s more like a €30 million round with €20 million in debt on top of that.
Neat helps other companies sell insurance products to their own customers. In insurance lingo, it focuses on affinity insurance contracts linked to another service or product.
For instance, if you’re buying a smartphone, you might want to buy an insurance product to make sure you’re covered in case of accidental drops. Other examples include travel insurance, concert ticket insurance or warranty extensions for household appliances.
Neat focuses on embedded insurance products, which means that partner retailers find insurance customers for it. As a result, retailers also get a commission on each insurance product sold, but they don’t have to deal with the complexities of the insurance industry directly.
At the other end of the equation, Neat works with insurance and reinsurance companies so that they cover the risks directly. Neat acts as a managing general agent.
“In our business, we usually say that we hold the company’s checkbook, in the sense that we create our own rates, products, and policies. At the same time, we outsource the risk to insurers or reinsurers that trust us,” Neat co-founder and CEO Maximilien Dauzet told TechCrunch.
8. Munich-based Reverion raises €56 million for serial production of renewable power plants
, a company building reversible, carbon-negative power plants, announced it had raised €56 million in Series A funding , including non-dilutive funding. The oversubscribed round was led by Energy Impact Partners (EIP) with participation from Honda and the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund). Existing investors Extantia Capital, UVC Partners, Green Generation Fund, Doral Energy-Tech Ventures, and Possible Ventures also joined the round. This funding will enable Reverion to begin serial production of its power plants and meet over $100 million in customer pre-orders collected to date.
Reverion’s patented technology is paving the way to 100% renewable energy by using the full potential of biogas. Their reversible power plants overcome the limitations of conventional technologies for power generation from biogas, significantly increasing revenue for operators from the same biomass. Unlike conventional gas engines, which are inefficient and emit millions of tonnes of CO2 annually worldwide, Reverion’s fuel cell-based plants achieve up to 80% efficiency in power generation, doubling the electricity output of gas engines.
In addition, these plants can also operate reversibly to produce and store renewable natural gas or green hydrogen in times of electricity surplus, enhancing grid flexibility. Finally, Reverion’s plants capture the CO2 created during power generation, thus making carbon-negative power generation from biogas possible, cutting emissions and transforming the biogas industry for a sustainable energy future.
“What Reverion has accomplished is nothing short of exceptional and exemplifies the market traction we look for in emerging climate tech companies,” said Ashwin Shashindranath, Partner at Energy Impact Partners. “Their innovative approach and rapid progress highlight their potential to become leaders in renewable energy not only in Europe but across the globe.”
Reverion has already secured over $100 million in pre-orders, reflecting strong demand from customers, mainly farmers, and industrials. Farmers are particularly attracted to Reverion’s technology for its ability to double the output of existing biogas plants while creating new revenue streams.
For industrial customers, Reverion’s units are optimized for deep integration into thermal and chemical processes, providing not only electricity but also heat and various gases for on-site use. This diverse customer base underscores the broad appeal and versatility of Reverion’s carbon-negative power plants and positions the company to play a key role in the transition to sustainable energy. This funding round is critical for the company to deliver these containerized, plug-and-play power plants at scale.
“Farmers with biogas plants struggle with regulatory retrofit demands and the limitations of traditional technologies. This customer segment is exactly where Reverion is entering the market,” added Dr. Stephan Herrmann, CEO and Managing Director at Reverion GmbH. “The demand for our units has been overwhelming in Germany, and we’re not stopping there — we’re preparing for a global push with strategies tailored to each region’s regulations. In this financing round, we’ve selected partners offering capital and crucial expertise in scaling hardware startups and advancing innovative energy technologies. We’re excited to onboard top-tier investors from the US and Japan as we grow the company.”
9. Antwerp-based Beebop.ai raises €4.9 million to integrate residential devices into the power systems
Beebop, a power grid orchestration software, announced its €4.9 million seed round, led by Angular Ventures, with support from Contrarian Ventures. Beebop is already used by leading utilities and manufacturers across Europe, the UK and the Middle East, and expects to control more than 100K residential assets under management in the coming year.
Beebop’s orchestration middleware efficiently enables utilities, grid operators, manufacturers and Virtual Power Plant (VPP) technology leaders to control complex fleets of residential assets. This solution empowers partners to deliver more value from the power system to end-customers, spanning solar and energy storage, EV chargers and heat pumps.
Beebop brings together a uniquely experienced team in the power grid flexibility market. Beebop is led by Jan-Willem Rombouts, who previously founded and scaled Virtual Power Plant pioneer REstore NV (acquired by Centrica in 2017). He is joined by Sandra Trittin, who previously founded and scaled Tiko Energy Solutions, a cleantech energy aggregator (acquired by ENGIE in 2019). The founding team is completed by former REstore NV executive Prof. Bert Claessens.
10. Paris-based VC Wind gets €30 million from EIF for its new early-stage Article 9 fund
Wind, a European venture capital firm built and backed by entrepreneurs, has secured a €30 million commitment from the European Investment Fund (EIF) for Wind II, its new early-stage Article 9 fund.
The investment follows Wind II’s first closing at €90 million and is set to drive the development of cutting-edge Deeptech solutions across Europe’s essential services and infrastructure industries.
Wind’s second fund, Wind II aims to address critical areas vital to human well-being and environmental health, such as food and air quality, mobility, energy, construction, and security. The fund will invest in early-stage French and European tech companies whose cutting Deeptech solutions enable essential services and infrastructure to adapt to the challenges posed by climate change, while operating in a manner that respects the environment.
“We are thrilled that the European Investment Fund has endorsed Wind II’s investment thesis,” added Thierry Vandewalle, Founding Partner at Wind. “This partnership will allow us to drive the development of technologies that are both sustainable and commercially viable.”
Wind II plans to invest in approximately 30 startups, with ticket sizes ranging from €500,000 to €5 million. The fund has already backed three pioneering companies to date: Eclipse (energy storage solutions), Sopht (green IT), and Entroview (battery diagnostics for gigafactories and automobile constructors). Other Wind investors include major institutional players such as Bpifrance, BNP Paribas, Sopra Steria, and over 120 successful entrepreneurs to date.
Wind II will be addressing two major pillars of the European Union (“EU”) Taxonomy climate mitigation and adaptation and as such, its strategy is considered fully aligned with the European Green Deal. It will strongly contribute towards EIF’s Climate Targets and Public Policy Objectives regarding Sustainability & Green Transformation.