Fundraising is a lot easier when you have traction

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This week was a bit of a carryover from the one before as Bolt's drama keeps unfolding — another story to be continued. But capital also flew to startups with traction, VC funds with track records, and worthy theses.

Most interesting startup stories from the week

Some stories emerge and die in a matter of days. Others require us to stay tuned for more, and this week brought us several of these.

Bolt soap: It's no overstatement to say that the fallout after Bolt's letter to investors has been wild. The $14 billion valuation the fintech startup said it was seeking seemed as shocking as the terms of the potential deal. Now one of its proposed new backers, The London Fund, has been found to be scrubbing its web page, and the saga is likely not over.

Board pressure: Ailing startup Fluid Truck, a Zipcar for commercial trucks, saw its board oust its sibling co-founders amid allegations of mismanaging funds, sources said. The leadership shake-up follows several rounds of layoffs and other cost-cutting measures, which clearly weren't the end of the story.

Food squared: Only a few weeks after GrubMarket acquired Good Eggs for an undisclosed sum, the $3.6 billion food delivery and supply chain startup made another acquisition. This time, its target was FreshGoGo, a New York-based B2C platform selling Asian groceries and ready-made dishes. The companies didn't disclose the terms of the deal, which may not be the last as the food delivery space keeps on consolidating.

Exec shuffles: AI expert Andrew Ng stepped down as CEO of Landing AI, the computer vision company he co-founded, which will now be headed by ex-COO Dan Maloney. As for Ng, he transitioned to an executive chairman role, but we also expect to hear more news from his AI Fund soon.

Open wallet: OpenAI is reportedly in talks to close a new funding round led by previous backer Thrive Capital at a valuation of more than $100 billion. Once again, stay tuned.

Most interesting fundraises this week

At the risk of stating the obvious, fundraising is a lot easier when you have traction, and news this week confirmed this.

Enterprise resource planning: Opkey, an AI-based ERP testing platform, has closed a $47 million Series B round of funding. ERP apps are a large source of IT spend for big organizations, which makes automated testing valuable. This helped the company secure 200 large enterprise customers and partnerships with system integrators like KPMG and PwC.

Skills for bills: With cloud spending another top concern for businesses, nOps raised a $30 million Series A to help companies optimize their AWS bill. The company also said that its customer base grew 450% over the past 18 months.

Fast money: Comun, a neobank focused on serving Latino immigrants in the United States, has raised a $21.5 million Series A less than nine months after its previous round thanks to its traction: It reported growing monthly revenue by “50x” in the first six months of 2024. Its founders plan to use the capital to grow the team in order to scale and launch new products.

Big fish: Canadian AI startup Viggle raised a $19 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Two Small Fish. The company is responsible for JST-1, a 3D-video foundation model it trained on YouTube videos, which lets users control animated characters, inspiring many memes.

Most interesting VC and fund news this week

Swiss-made: Helped by its track record, Redalpine, a science-heavy European VC firm created in 2006, raised $200 million for its seventh early-stage fund. With offices in Zurich and Berlin, it also plans to open one in London, partly due to its interest in university spinouts.

Improving cancer care: With $30 million in committed capital, Oncology Ventures is a new VC firm that will join the ranks of other cancer-focused VC firms — but with a focus on startups that improve patient care. It is led by Ben Freeberg, a solo GP and cancer survivor.

ICYMI: Being a solo GP or even a small VC fund is hard, but the SEC just made life a little easier for emerging funds. The dollar threshold for a vehicle to be considered a “qualifying venture fund” and benefit from corresponding exemptions is now $12 million, up from $10 million.

Last but not least

The secondaries market is hot, fueled in big part by an appetite for shares in hot AI companies, and the last few days have brought us more proof. An SEC filing revealed that New Enterprise Associates (NEA) reentered the space by raising more than $468 million for NEA Secondary Opportunity Fund, yet another fund dedicated to the buying of secondary shares. Meanwhile, it emerged that Paris-based Palico got approval from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to be the first company able to facilitate end-to-end LP secondaries transactions.