New Funding Rounds Confirm That Money Attracts Money

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Money Attracts Money

This week seemed to confirm that money attracts money, with a couple of startups announcing new rounds of funding only months after their previous ones, and familiar names launching new ventures.

Most Interesting Startup Stories from the Week

Salva Health: Won the Startup Battlefield competition at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 with the promise to lower breast cancer mortality thanks to an affordable screening device.
Gecko Materials, Luna, MabLab, and Stitch3D: The four other finalists out of the initial 200 shortlist.

Finding Momentum is Key to Success

Whether it’s about IPOs, lobbying, or launching in public, finding momentum is key to success. Confetti time!

IPOs: Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman declared that she wasn’t surprised that we haven’t seen a resurgence in startup IPOs yet. However, she thinks these will start to return with momentum in 2025.
Lobbying: A petition calling for a new legal form for European startups is gaining momentum, with hopes of fostering Pan-European tech champions, but there are many hurdles to overcome along the way.

EU Inc Momentum

A petition calling for a new legal form for European startups is gaining momentum, with hopes of fostering Pan-European tech champions, but there are many hurdles to overcome along the way. Eaten up:

Generative AI unicorn ElevenLabs: Hired the team behind open source read-it-later app Omnivore. The team will now focus on ElevenReader, ElevenLabs’ own reader app.

Most Interesting Fundraises this Week

If the names below sound familiar, it’s because several of these startups raised their previous rounds quite recently:

Chatbots: Sierra, an AI customer service startup co-founded by OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor and longtime Google exec Clay Bavor, is valued at $4.5 billion after raising $175 million.
Threat intelligence: French cybersecurity startup Filigran secured a $35 million Series B round of funding for its threat intelligence platform.

Xaira Therapeutics Raises $1 Billion

Top of the week’s news: Xaira Therapeutics raises $1 billion in a mega-round, one example of AI-enabled drug discovery. Europe and Fundraising dominate this week’s newsletter.

Europe

A petition calling for a new legal form for European startups is gaining momentum.
Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman declared that she wasn’t surprised that we haven’t seen a resurgence in startup IPOs yet.

Fundraising

Several of these startups raised their previous rounds quite recently.
Xaira Therapeutics raises $1 billion in a mega-round, one example of AI-enabled drug discovery.

United States and Venture Capital

Xaira Therapeutics is one example; it raised a $1 billion mega-round earlier this year. Topics covered include:

Venture capital: A few examples of startups that have raised significant funding rounds.
AI-enabled drug discovery: The growing trend of using AI in the pharmaceutical industry.

United States

Several of these startups raised their previous rounds quite recently.
Xaira Therapeutics raises $1 billion in a mega-round, one example of AI-enabled drug discovery.

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