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TikTok's Challenges, Marc Benioff's Surprise, and AI-powered Obituaries

TikTok's Challenges, Marc Benioff's Surprise, and AI-powered Obituaries

We hope you're gearing up for a fantastic weekend.

Luke Nco
September 16, 2023

We're excited to announce that Disrupt is just around the corner, and we can't wait to see some of you there next week! 🚀

In the meantime, if you're in the market for a new podcast, we recently had a fantastic conversation with former Vice President Al Gore and Lila Preston from Generation Investment Management, a sustainability-focused firm. They discussed Generation's latest report on climate tech trends, and we highly recommend reading it to get up to speed on various critical issues. 🌍🌱

Big Fundings:

AWAK Technologies, a Singaporean company specializing in portable dialysis machines, secured $20 million in a Series B round. 💉💰
Beam Benefits, an Ohio-based startup offering benefits administration services, raised $40 million at a $200 million valuation. 💼💵
Evolectric, based in Long Beach, California, raised $15 million to help fleet owners convert gas-powered vehicles to EVs. 🚗🔌
Gooder Foods, marketing noodle products under the brand Goodles, raised $13 million in a Series A round. 🍝💸
Iomed, a Barcelona startup using Natural Language Processing for medical data extraction, secured $10.7 million in a Series A round. 🏥📊
Linear, a San Francisco startup providing collaborative workspaces for software development teams, raised $35 million in a Series B round. 👩‍💻
Moment, a New York startup streamlining fixed income trading, raised $17 million in a Series A round. 💹💰
Revel, a Spanish startup enabling car leasing through a subscription service, secured $16 million in equity and $106.7 million in debt. 🚗🔑

Smaller Fundings:

Databutton, a Norwegian startup claiming to use AI for creating interactive web applications, raised a $5.1 million seed round. 🖥️💡
Patronus AI, a New York startup ensuring LLMs are ready for real-world situations, raised $3 million in a seed round. 🤖📚
Range Protocol, a Singapore startup allowing users to invest in automated DeFi trading strategies, raised $3.75 million in a seed roun
Raylo, a London startup offering electronics leasing, raised $6.2 million.
Sailes, a Kansas City startup developing AI-powered chatbots for sales prospecting, raised $5.1 million in a Series A round. 🤖📈
Series AI, a San Francisco startup building game development tools, raised $7.9 million in a seed round. 🎮💰
Superorder, a New York startup providing restaurants with comprehensive management tools, raised $10 million. 🍽️💼
Paradigm, the crypto-focused venture fund co-founded by Fred Ehrsam and Matt Huang, is planning to raise a new fund, potentially targeting $1 billion. 💱

All Your Documents In One Place

Going Public

Instacart is increasing its IPO price range by nearly 10%, aiming for a fully diluted valuation of $10 billion. 🛒💰
Neumorea Therapeutics, backed by Softbank and Amgen, had a lackluster public market debut, closing with a $2.5 billion market cap.

People

Marc Benioff announced that he doesn't work well in an office after calling Salesforce workers back to their desks. 🏢🚫
Google's Sergey Brin quietly finalized his divorce from Nicole Shanahan, prompted by allegations of an affair with Elon Musk. 💔📰
Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, is looking to return from retirement. 📈💼

Data

Housing affordability is expected to worsen. 🏡💰

Essential Reads

China is using vocational school students as data annotators to advance its AI industry, with low pay and limited prospects. 🇨🇳📊
Meet the executive trying to make Microsoft smarter about AI. 🤖🖥️
X continues to limit links to competitors. 🔗🚫

That's a wrap for this week's news roundup! We hope you have a fantastic weekend ahead. 🌟📆