Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of every little thing you may’t miss from the world of startups. Need it in your inbox each Friday? Join right here!
Regardless of the quick workweek in lots of places, the previous few days have been full of deal bulletins and funding information, though it’s too early to inform how a lot was simply on maintain earlier than the U.S. election.
Most attention-grabbing startup tales from the week
There are early indicators that the U.S. IPO window could reopen, however let’s not get forward of ourselves; for now, we principally have IPOs in India, M&As, and not-so-great information.
IPO later: European scale-up Klarna confidentially filed IPO paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Trade Fee (SEC). After ups and downs, the purchase now, pay later (BNPL) firm reportedly noticed its valuation rise again to $14.6 billion earlier this yr.
IPO envy: Naspers-owned Prosus goals to take Indian fintech PayU public in 2025. The Dutch investor seems to be to shift extra focus to India, the place quick-commerce firm Swiggy simply made a stellar IPO debut.
Darkish net monitoring: Cybersecurity unicorn Bitsight purchased darkish net safety specialist Cybersixgill for $115 million.
Shifting the cursor: Anysphere, the startup behind standard AI-enabled code editor Cursor, acquired competitor Supermaven, which had raised $12 million. Anysphere reportedly acquired unsolicited funding provides at valuations of as much as $2.5 billion.
Out of energy: Beleaguered battery producer Northvolt is promoting some property to Lyten, a Silicon Valley battery startup, however it’s unclear whether or not deal proceeds and different cost-cutting measures can be sufficient for the Swedish firm to get by the approaching yr.
Most attention-grabbing fundraises this week
Startups could merely be dashing to publicize their newest information earlier than Thanksgiving, however there have been fairly a number of rounds introduced this week, together with some large ones.
Writing checks: Author raised a $200 million Sequence C spherical at a $1.9 billion valuation to increase its enterprise-focused generative AI platform.
Quiet funding: British AI startup Tessl opened up a waitlist and disclosed it raised $125 million so far. This features a beforehand undisclosed seed spherical and a Sequence A. The latter was led by Index Ventures — at a $750 million post-money valuation, in keeping with sources.
Scaling up: ScaleOps, a New York-based cloud spend administration firm, closed a $58 million Sequence B funding spherical led by Lightspeed Enterprise Companions that may assist it develop its present 60-person headcount to greater than 200 by 2026.
Money circulate: French fintech firm Agicap secured $48 million in Sequence C funding for its cash-flow administration platform. The startup targets midsized corporations and has 8,000 clients with round half of them in France.
Satellite tv for pc service: U.S. startup Starfish Area raised a $29 million spherical of funding led by main protection tech investor Protect Capital. Its objective is to launch three full-size satellite tv for pc servicing and inspection spacecraft in 2026.
Most attention-grabbing VC and fund information this week
New heights: VC agency Altos Ventures raised $500 million for its newest fund, in keeping with SEC filings. The Silicon Valley-based investor was an early backer of Coupang and Roblox.
Stepping down: The co-CEO of SoftBank Imaginative and prescient Fund, Rajeev Misra, will step down from his management roles after a 10-year tenure and can now not have an official function at SoftBank, the corporate stated.
Final however not least
Station F, the long-lasting startup campus in Paris, disclosed its prime 40 startups of the yr, and nearly all of them — 34, to be exact — use AI. Therefore Romain Dillet’s prediction: “It’s clear that every new startup going forward will incorporate AI in some way.”
