August 15, 2024

Forever young

Hi there,

Here is this week’s Hot or Not.

Hot: Cloud security

In Q2’24, cybersecurity funding climbed 85% QoQ to reach its highest level in 2 years.

This jump was bolstered by a $1B round to cloud security startup Wiz — the largest cybersecurity equity funding round of 2024.

Now valued at $12B, Wiz recently rejected Google’s $23B takeover offer in favor of an eventual IPO. The company is reportedly growing at an eye-watering 100% YoY.

Dive deeper into the latest trends in cybersecurity in this research brief.

Not: Fintech

Tally, a consumer-focused personal finance app, has shut down after raising $192M in funding. It was last valued at $855M in October 2022. 

It joins fintechs like Koyo and Fronted that have closed their doors in the last year. 

Other notable startups in the space may be in for more pain, according to CBI funding and headcount trend data. 

There are more than 25 fintechs valued at $1B+ that haven’t raised funding in the last 2 years and have lost more than 10% headcount in the last 12 months.

CB Insights customers can check out the list here. 

Hot: Young blood

Longevity tech is being developed to expand human lifespans.

For example, cellular and epigenetic reprogramming startups are reprogramming the identity of cells to reverse the effects of cellular aging.

We identified 51 other promising longevity startups racing to defy death — check ‘em out in this market map.

Lukewarm: Quasi acquisitions

Big tech continues to snap up talent and tech from big-name startups — without actually acquiring the companies.

We’ll call them acqui-hires here cuz we are friends, but they’re positioned as partnerships and biz dev deals.

And they’re very attractive deals as can be seen below:

• Google acqui-hired Character.AI founders for $3B
• Amazon acqui-hired Adept’s founders, with $330M+ going to licensing its tech
• Microsoft paid $650M in a licensing deal to Inflection AI while poaching its founders

The deals reflect the high costs of AI model development. 

Whether they’re good or bad for investors is a mixed bag.

• Most of Amazon’s payment to Adept went to making its investors whole
• Inflection raised $1.5B at a $4B valuation, and its licensing deal was for $650M
• Character.AI raised $190M at a $1B valuation, so it had the best payday of the group

Which AI researcher-led company will get picked up for big $$$ next?

Here are some candidates.

The +1

Last place. This chart does not win gold — not even close. Shoutout to Alyesha Sayle for bringing this to our attention.

I love you.

Anand

@asanwal 

P.S. Our briefing on big tech in healthcare is coming soon. Register today.

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