Welcome to Startups Weekly – your weekly update on all things startups. If you want to get this delivered to your inbox every Friday, make sure to sign up. This week, several startups made big announcements about new funding rounds without revealing their valuation. This shift in focus away from unicorns shows that hitting $1 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) is becoming a significant milestone before going public.
Let’s dive into some of the most interesting startup stories from this week. Vinted, a secondhand marketplace from Lithuania, was valued at €5 billion in a secondary share sale. This move reflects a growing trend among European scale-ups to provide liquidity for stakeholders when IPOs are not on the horizon. Ro CEO Zachariah Reitano hinted at the possibility of taking the telehealth company public but highlighted the benefits of staying private. Wiz is aiming to reach $1 billion in ARR by 2025 as a prerequisite for going public, after turning down a $23 billion acquisition offer from Google.
In other news, Fintech company Groww is among the Indian startups shifting their headquarters to India to comply with local regulations and potentially ease the path to going public. Additionally, U.S. federal regulators have approved the integration of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft into U.S. airspace, providing a significant opportunity for startups in this sector.
Moving on to the most interesting fundraises of the week, Finix, a fintech startup, raised $75 million in a Series C round to fuel its expansion in the U.S. and beyond. Concentric AI secured $45 million in a Series B round, focusing on data security posture management. Socket raised $40 million to address security vulnerabilities in open source code, while Fixify closed a $25 million Series A round to streamline IT operations.
Rumors are swirling about AI search engine Perplexity’s potential $500 million raise, along with former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati’s fundraising efforts for a new AI startup.
In VC and fund news, privacy-focused company DuckDuckGo plans to invest in similar startups and consider acquisitions, while Andreessen Horowitz is offering a private GPU cluster to AI startups in its portfolio through the Oxygen program. Benchmark is reportedly raising $170 million for a partners-only fund, while General Catalyst and Chemistry raised $8 billion and $350 million, respectively.
Lastly, Accel partner Philippe Botteri emphasized that the race for AI foundational models is just beginning, and there is still room for smaller startups to compete, including those in Europe despite fundraising disparities with U.S. counterparts.
