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This week has been busy for startups: there were no noteworthy, but there were also other exits and unusual liquidity events, and a considerable number of funding rounds in various sizes and stages.
The most interesting startup story of the week
This week we brought M&A from a serial buyer. This is an exit option that could be reassuring for founders who are still struggling with headwinds in customer retention and fundraising.
Scoop-up: San Jose, California-based Startup Mainstreet.com has become the latest fintech to be acquired by Workforce Management Company Employer.com.
Cash shortage: Despite hitting a significant development milestone recently, the general fusion fires at least 25% of its employees, with CEO Greg Twinney explaining that the Canadian Fusion Power Company is running out of money.
Datadog: Datadog has purchased Eppo, a functional flag and experimental platform that currently works under the brand “Eppo by Datadog”. This occurs immediately after obtaining an AI-powered observability startup metaprene.
Retention Issues: 11X co-founder Hasan Sukkar has stepped down as CEO and has been replaced by CTO Prabhav Jain. AI startups were scrutinized earlier this year by showing the logos of companies that are not active customers, despite claiming they are struggling to retain their customers.
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Build or Investment: CARTA has acquired SimpleClosure, a startup branded as “Turbotax of Shutdown”. The Equity Management startup has stopped offering similar items previously known as the CARTA conclusion.
Two months after purchasing Small World: MoveWorks, ServiceNow retrieved the data. World has raised more than $130 million in venture finance for its cloud-native data catalogue and data governance platform.
For conditions: The investor group is considering injecting an additional $30 million into Indian passenger compartment startup Blusmart, as long as co-founder Anmol Singh Jaggi agrees to resign.
Liquidity: Sales Automation startup Clay has taken the extraordinary step of allowing employees with at least one year tenure to sell their stock to existing supporters Sequoia. The operation values the company at $1.5 billion.
Most Interesting VC and Funding News This Week
This week’s round confirmed that it’s not the only one that can attract VCs. Longer, healthier lives, both for people and for batteries –
No Limit: Newlimit, a long-lived startup founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, has raised a $130 million Series B led by Kleiner Perkins to develop a therapy that reversible age.
Qonto Rival: Finom is Neobank, serving SMBs in several European countries, and has raised about $105 million from General Catalyst to drive its growth.
Defense Boost: Orca AI has raised a $72.5 million Series A with defense applications on its autonomous driving navigation platform for transportation, bringing its total funding to over $111 million.
Scan: OX Security, which scans for code vulnerabilities, has secured a $60 million Series B led by DTCP, which is used for growth and expansion.
Crafty: Last year, when stealth imaging models beat Openai’s Dall-E and Midjourney on popular benchmarks, Recraft raised a $30 million Series B led by Accel.
Goodbye, Business Cards: Australian startup Blinq has raised a $25 million Series A, discontinued the business cards and replaced them with a digital alternative to CRM integration.
Wisdoai, a startup in AI that helps avoid hallucinations when providing business insights, has raised $23 million in an unusually large species round.
More Power: Breathe Battery Technologies has raised a $21 million Series B led by Kinnevik Online AB, which helped software optimize and predict battery performance.
Coding Context: Unblocked is the company behind AI-driven assistants answering contextual questions about codelines, raising a $20 million Series A from B Capital and Radical Ventures.
Positive Energy: Bosch Ventures, the venture arm of Bosch, will continue to invest in Deep Tech through a new $270 million fund, but keep an eye on North American startups.
Last but not least, it’s important
Athens-based VC firm Marathon Venture Capital has shut down its latest fund and with a capital commitment of around $84 million, TechCrunch has caught up with partner Panos Papadopoulos to discuss how Greek startups are serving global markets and more.