Amazon spends $2.75 billion on AI startup Anthropic??, The Founders Guide to Optimizing Your Fundraise??, The Pulse of SaaS?? & more!

Welcome to The VC Corner, your weekly dose of Venture Capital and Startups to keep you up and running! ??

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Top Headlines ??

• Amazon spends $2.75 billion on AI startup Anthropic in its largest venture investment yet ?? [CNBC]
• Early-stage SaaS boasts best expected exit success rate for VCs ?? [Pitchbook]

• The U.S. Investors Caught in the Scrum Over TikTok . Susquehanna and Sequoia Capital own stakes in ByteDance, the parent of TikTok. Their investments are increasingly under fire ?? [The New York Times]
• Accenture’s Generative AI Revenue Surpasses All VC-Backed Startups Combined ?? [Analytics India Mag, Turner Novak , Chris Z. ]

• Avenzo Therapeutics, Inc. , a San Diego, CA-based clinical-stage biotechnology company developing next generation oncology therapeutics, closed a $150m Series A-1 financing ?? [FinSMEs]
• New Summit is raising a new $100 million fund to back climate tech and underrepresented fund managers ?? [TechCrunch]
• AI cloud startup Astera Labs rockets 72% in Nasdaq debut ?? [Pitchbook]

In-Depth Insights ??

• Why Microsoft’s surprise deal with $4 billion startup Inflection is the most important non-acquisition in AI ?? [Kylie Robison]
• How to Navigate Venture Debt ?? [Eclipse.vc]

• The Founders Guide to Optimizing Your Fundraise ?? [Mario Gabriele ]
• A New Framework: The Four W’s of Product-Led Sales ??? [Elena Verna ]

• Understanding Venture Math ?? [DC Palter ]
• Your ultimate guide to affiliate referrals for B2B SaaS ?? [Alexander Estner , Stefan Bader ]

• How Venture Capitalists Evaluate Successful Startup Founders ??? [The VC Factory]
• Two Roads Diverged: The Splitting of Venture Capital ?? [Rex Woodbury ]

• GTM strategies to reach $250M ARR at ActiveCampaign ?? [Kyle Poyar]

Interesting Reports ??

• Venture Capital Term Sheet Guide 2024 ?? [HSBC]

• 2024 Institutional Crypto Hedge Fund & Venture Report ?? [VisionTrack]

• The Pulse of SaaS , the future of sustainable growth ?? [Capchase, Norbert Gehrke ]
• The State of Fintech 2024 – Europe & US ?? [Dealroom, BN AMRO, Motive Ventures]

Useful Tools ??

• Prospectful.ai : Automates B2B sales for startups, focusing on lead generation and email outreach to ensure founders get qualified meetings
• Folk : A contact management platform that helps founders organize and leverage their network effectively
• Wise : A financial tool for cost-effective international money transfers, allowing startups to handle overseas payments to employees and vendors easily
• Beehiiv : An email platform focused on helping founders build, engage, and monetize their newsletter subscriber base, essential for community building
• SendPulse : A comprehensive marketing automation platform that enables founders to communicate with customers across emails, SMS, and chatbots
• PhotoAI : Help founders create engaging visual content for marketing, social media, and product development with efficiency
• Lasso : An affiliate marketing tool designed to optimize link performance and revenue, helping founders monetize their content and track recommendations
• tl;dv : Smart tool that generates concise summaries and action items from your meetings, helping founders capture crucial insights and decisions efficiently
• Freshsales : Sell smarter and close deals faster. Grow your pipeline, boost conversions, and power productivity with an AI-powered, easy-to-use sales CRM

Upcoming Events ??

• I want to shout out the first Data-Driven VC Summit , organized by Dr. Andre Retterath Retterath, Partner at Earlybird. It’s on May 5-8th, and 20+ speakers will be present from leading institutions like Lightspeed, ICONIQ, EQT, Moonfire, Stanford, UCL, and more. Details are here .

• Startup Competition - RAISE Summit 2024 | Paris | Apr 8
• GP/LP Roundtable: State of European VC Fundraising | Remote | Apr 10
• The AI Rabbit Hole | San Francisco | Apr 19
• SF Climate Week | San Francisco | Apr 21-27
• On building a $1B company with a small team | Toronto | Apr 29
• How To Run A Pilot : Skan.AI | Remote | Apr 16
• AI Conference for Founders and Business Leaders | Remote | Apr 19
• Want to start a startup? Meet all the YC partners | Boston | Apr 20
• AVPN Global Conference 2024 | Abu Dhabi | Apr 23-25
• VC Platform - Global Summit ‘24 | New York | Apr 24-26
• Investing in Tomorrow - Advancing Technology & Society | San Jose, California | Apr 25
• EU-Startups Summit | Malta | May 9-10
• 0100 Conference CEE 2024 | Prague | May 14-16
• Plug and Play Italy Summit 2024 | Milan | May 16
• Tech Fest 2024 | Toronto | May 20-24
• Global Fashion Summit | Copenhagen | May 21-23
• The LP/VC relations event | Vienna | Jun 1-6
• Silicon Valley Summit 2024 | Jun 11-13
• Super Climate | New York | Sep 24
• sifted summit | London | Oct 2-3