Edith's Weekly Update - 19 Startups Raised $1B in Funding Last Week, VCs Pick Winners Only 2.5% of the Time and OpenAI Startup Fund Wasn't (and isn't)

Happy Monday!? If you are in Hong Kong at the end of March, don't forget to join me at FoundersHK 's Week.

Here are a few great things to read/watch this week:

• ?? OpenAI Startup Fund Wasn't (and isn't) Owned by OpenAI - Sam Altman is the sole owner of this?fund, which he himself?called?a corporate venture fund. Can you imagine?M12 (Microsoft Venture) solely owned by?Satya Nadella or Qualcomm Venture solely owned by Cristiano Amon?? Where is the governance of this company? (Read more by Axios ' Dan Primack )
• ?? Sora is Magical - An AI model that can create video from text.? Watch here?and read more about it here.? Meanwhile, a startup made a?video of my Web Summit talk utilizing stock video stitched together based on the keywords I used during the speech.?Not perfect, but still quite cool.
• ???VCs Pick Winners Only 2.5% of the Time?- Out of more than 4,000 VC investment rounds annually, the top 100 generate between 70 and 100% of industry profits.?In short, VCs cannot reliably pick winners. They can, however, construct portfolios that consistently generate great returns. Portfolio construction requires weighing the benefits of diversification against a VC’s ability to generate and support high-quality investments. Striking the right balance separates great VCs from the rest.? An old article but a great reminder by Ulu Ventures ' Clint Korver .
• ???66% of Venture Firms Have Slowed Their Investment Pace - Based on a seed investment study by TrueBridge,?most investors believe it is harder and taking longer to secure follow-on financing for their portfolio companies. Path to Series A is murky and the biggest risk to the seed market. 44% of all investors also believe there will be fewer funds in 5 years. If you are an early stage startup founder, please be prepared that it will take much longer (3-6 months) and higher revenue ($1M for B2B business)/traction (50-100% YoY growth)?expectation for your Series A.?Read more.
• ?? Nvidia is Now Worth More than Alphabet - This week, Nvidia’s market capitalization rose to $1.79 trillion, nudging past Alphabet’s $1.75 trillion market cap. Meanwhile, Nvidia also launched RTX, a consumer-facing AI Chat. It’s a demo app (currently available for certain Windows machines) that lets you build a custom GPT LLM that’s connected to your docs, notes, videos, and other data sources.?

This?week a total?of?19?startups?raised?$1B?in funding,?0?M&As:

• $442M?goes to?10 Enterprise?startups
• $7.6M?goes to?1 FinTech?startup
• $264M?goes to?2 BioTech?startups
• $155M?goes to?2 Renewable Energy?startups
• $6.2M?goes to?1 Climate Tech?startup
• $21M?goes to?1 AgTech?startup
• $52M?goes to?1 Aerospace?startup
• $37M?goes to?1 Telecommunications?startup

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Funding (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley) Enterprise

• Lambda (GPU cloud for AI) raised $320M Series C?led by US Innovative Technology Fund
• Rasa (generative conversational AI) raised $30M Series C?led by PayPal Ventures, StepStone Group
• Scribe (internal knowledge management) raised $25M Series B?led by Redpoint
• LangChain (LLM app development) raised $25M Series A?led by Sequoia Capital
• Alembic (marketing attribution platform) raised $14M Series A?led by WndrCo
• Guardrails AI (AI risk management) raised $7.5M Seed?led by Zetta Venture Partners
• Mindy (email-based AI assistant) raised $6M Seed?led by Sequoia Capital
• Motif Analytics (sequence analytics) raised $5.7M Seed?led by Amplify Partners, Felicis
• Zocks (AI note taking assistant) raised $5.5M Seed?led by Lightspeed Venture Partners
• Artie (real-time database replication platform) raised $3.3M Seed?led by Exponent Founders Capital

FinTech

• Anatomy Financial (financial automation for healthcare) raised $7.6M Seed?from??from Lightspeed, Meridian Street Capital, Live Oak Ventures, Cambrian Ventures, Peterson Ventures

BioTech

• BioAge Labs (obesity and metabolic disease therapeutics) raised $170M Series D?led by Sofinnova Investments
• Firefly Bio (degrader antibody conjugates cancer treatment platform) raised $94M Series A?led by MPM BioImpact, Versant Ventures

Renewable Energy

• Lilac Solutions (lithium extraction technology) raised $145M Series C?led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Lowcarbon Capital, Mercuria
• Camus Energy (grid orchestration platform) raised $26M Series A?led by Congruent Ventures, Wave Capital

Climate Tech

• Arch (HVAC data intelligence platform) raised $6.2M Seed?from Gigascale Capital, Coatue, Floodgate, ReGen Ventures, and MCJ Collective

AgTech

• Hippo Harvest (advanced greenhouse systems) raised $21M Series B?led by Standard Investments

Aerospace

• Kairos Aerospace (aerial methane detection) raised $52M Series D?led by BlackRock

Telecommunications

• Skylo (direct-to-device satellite connectivity) raised $37M Series C?led by Innovation Endeavors, Intel Capital

IPO & M&A (300 miles radius from Silicon Valley) ?

• N/A

?? Startup Jobs

• By Company: Databricks, GoodNotes, Zeet, Polysign, Opaque, Lightning Labs, OtterTune, and more
• By Role: Engineering, Data Science, Product, Design, Operations, Finance, Legal, and more
• By Location: SF Bay Area, New York, London, and Remote

Browse more open roles across our portfolio at Race Capital's Portfolio Job Board.