Startup Monday: Latest tech trends & news happening in the global startup ecosystem (Issue 124- March 16)

Welcome to Startup Monday, my weekly newsletter that recaps the week in the global startup ecosystem. To have this newsletter emailed to you, you can sign up here.

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Top startup news to follow this week:

1. Biopharma VC activity slipped last year—but 'buoyant' molecular glue market holds hope: PitchBook

Venture capital investment in biopharma underwent a significant correction?in 2023 from the “explosive growth”?during the pandemic, with $29.9 billion spent across 920 transactions compared to $36.7 billion in the previous year, according to a new analysis from PitchBook.

The trend continued into the final quarter of 2023, which saw venture funding slip to $6.3 billion from a third-quarter level of $7.8 billion, which PitchBook attributed to a “modest" decline in deal activity.

Despite the post-pandemic recalibration, biopharma exits—via?55 IPOs and 39 company acquisitions—still?totaled $18.3 billion in 2023, which the report's authors suggested?“illustrat[ed]?a strategic patience and selective investment ethos that pervaded the year.”

“Venture capital funding trends indicated a cautious yet discerning investment approach, with an increased median interval between funding rounds, underscoring a preference for companies showcasing mature clinical data,”?the authors added.

The analysis pointed to Roche's entry into the obesity market with its $2.9 billion acquisition of Carmot Therapeutics and Bristol Myers Squibb's $4.1 billion play for radiopharmaceutical company RayzeBio as proof of the “strategic pivot toward quality and clinical validation.”

By deal count, RA Capital Management was the top VC biopharma investor for 2023, closing 28 deals. Alexandria Investment Ventures received silver with 25 deals, followed by Arch Venture Partners at 22 deals.

2. Startup Alumis raises $259 million as it prepares for psoriasis trial

San Francisco startup Alumis Inc. has raised $259 million in a bid to best big pharma’s work in plaque psoriasis.

Alumis announced its Series C round Wednesday and plans to move its lead drug into Phase 3 trials. Venture firm Foresite Capital, whose sister company Foresite Labs incubated Alumis, co-led the financing with Samsara BioCapital and venBio Partners.

3. Pittsburgh biotech startup raises $2.25 million in seed funding

A Pittsburgh biotech startup that’s working to find cures for fatal neurodegenerative diseases has raised $2.25 million in investment capital as the company begins testing compounds that one day could be therapies.

Helexva Inc. has received $2.25 million from UPMC Enterprises, the health care giant’s investment arm, and the nonprofit Focused Ultrasound Foundation in Charlottesville, Va., said Helexva CEO Robert M. Friedlander, who also chairs the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Huntington’s disease, which is among the diseases Helexva is studying, has been a research focus for Dr. Friedlander, a UPMC neurosurgeon, for more than 25 years.

“This is a very, very powerful technology to cure incurable diseases,” said Dr. Friedlander, a native of Caracas, Venezuela and former Harvard Medical School professor. “At this point, all the wheels are in motion.”

Huntington’s disease affects about 30,000 people in the U.S. with another 200,000 at risk of becoming sick with the disorder. Current treatments can only manage symptoms, which include depression and uncontrolled movement of the arms, legs, face and upper body. There is no cure.

Treatments that Helexva is working on target genetic mutations that cause Huntington’s and at least eight other similar conditions, then inactivate the responsible genes. The compounds being tested as therapies are being made by a contract laboratory, Dr. Friedlander said, which is “fickle chemistry to make.”

Helexva was founded in 2023 and employs five to six part-timers. Helexva has no corporate address and is operated out of Dr. Friedlander’s lab, he said. The company has not generated revenue.

Biotech startups are notoriously cash-hungry and high-risk ventures that often take years to bring a product to market. The Pittsburgh market may make it harder still for entrepreneurs because of a dearth of venture capital in the city.

Helexva, for example, is using technology that was licensed from NeuBase Therapeutics Inc., a publicly held South Oakland outfit whose board voted in January to dissolve the company. A market freeze in investment capital ultimately forced the company out of business, said former CEO Dietrich A. Stephan, who believes the city still has the bones to become a hub for life science startups, much like Silicon Valley or Boston.

4. Fluidra launches its €20 million venture capital fund, the first to specialize in pool and wellness startups

Fluidra, a global leader in connected equipment and solutions for the pool and wellness sector, is launching Fluidra Ventures, a €20 million corporate venture capital fund (CVC) investment to lead innovation in the sector.

The CVC will invest in each startup with the potential to revolutionize the industry on a global scale through their solutions, with a special focus on the United States and Europe. The goal of this first three-year phase is to build a solid portfolio of startups through investing in innovative companies.

The CVC will target startup initiatives that enhance efficiency, connectivity, sustainability and safety in the swimming pool and wellness business, leveraging IoT, computer vision and robotic solutions. It is looking for startups that add value to the pool and wellness sector with innovative business models, fostering direct customer interaction through sales, subscriptions and other channels. The CVC has already invested in Coral Smart Pool, a technology company aiming to transform the pool experience through Artificial Intelligence (AI) with an initial focus on pool safety. ?

Fluidra Ventures will also invest in companies that innovate in engineering and science to advance materials and products that deal with swimming pool manufacturing, efficiency and maintenance.

5. Apple buys startup DarwinAI, adds staff to its AI division, Bloomberg reports

Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab has bought artificial intelligence (AI) startup DarwinAI and added dozens of the Canadian company's staffers to its AI division, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday .

The iPhone maker purchased the business earlier this year, the report stated, citing people familiar with the matter. The report did not mention the deal value.

The companies did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Apple has been slower in rolling out generative AI, which can generate human-like responses to written prompts, than rivals such as Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab and Alphabet's Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab , which are weaving them into products.

Alexander Wong, an AI researcher at the University of Waterloo who helped build DarwinAI's business, has joined Apple as a director in its AI group as part of the deal, the report added.

DarwinAI has developed AI technology for visually inspecting components during the manufacturing process and serves customers in a range of industries, Bloomberg said.

6. Ted Schlein’s 2-year-old Ballistic Ventures has already raised a second $360 million fund

Some years after a shakeup at venture capital fund Kleiner Perkins,?one of its star B2B investors, Ted Schlein, sort of left to start his own firm. Two years ago, he launched Ballistic Ventures with an inaugural $300 million fund , a laser focus on cybersecurity, an interesting business model and a who’s-who of co-founders as general partners.?

Now Ballistic has already closed a second fund, even bigger than the first.?

“We set out to raise a second $300 million fund and stopped at $360 million,” Schlein told TechCrunch.

The last few months involved many calls with prospective limited partners (LPs) who asked them about everything ranging from their backgrounds to “if you were a cat, what kind of cat would it be?” But they hit their goal surprisingly fast given the current VC bear market. Ballistic formally registered its plans for a second fund just four months ago, in November, TechCrunch was first to report.

Hands-on with their startups

In an age when some VCs say that being “founder-friendly” means keeping their VC claws out of operations, Ballistic has the polar opposite philosophy.

For instance, Founders Fund partner and Anduril co-founder Trae Stephens told the crowd at TechCrunch’s Strictly VC LA event in February: “The more that a VC says, ‘I’m going to add value,’ the more you should hear them say, ‘I’m going to annoy the ever-living crap out of you for the rest of the time that I’m on the cap table.’”

The Ballistic crew scoff at the thought. They always take board seats. They talk to their founders “many times a week,” Schlein says. Because all of them have run cybersecurity businesses — and they only invest in security — their secret sauce is their involvement coupled with their massive network of contacts, they say.

“I’ve been at this for almost 30 years, and I almost always helped deliver the first 10 customers to every company that I have ever been on the board of,” Schlein said.?

7. ShopMy lands $18.5M to help influencers earn more money from promoting products

?ShopMy , a marketing platform for content creators to connect with brands and monetize their content, announced that it raised $18.5 million.

The company will use the money to help scale its network of 40,000 creators, including Alix Earle , the latest “It Girl” on the internet with more than 10 million followers on TikTok and Instagram.

ShopMy’s marketing platform equips creators with the tools they need to earn from their product recommendations, like building digital storefronts, accessing a catalog of millions of products, making commissionable links and chatting directly with companies via mobile app.

To date, creators have earned “tens of millions in commissions” on the platform, the company tells TechCrunch.

For brands, the platform is a talent discovery hub and campaign builder rolled into one. More than 1,000 companies — such as Nike, NET-A-PORTER, Chanel, Drunk Elephant and Tatcha — have joined ShopMy’s network.

ShopMy was founded in 2020 by Harry Rein (CEO), a former Oracle software developer who founded an e-tutoring startup when attending MIT; Chris Tinsley, an MIT Sloan graduate; and Tiffany Lopinsky (COO), a Harvard graduate and food blogger.

The idea for ShopMy came about while Tinsley was studying the creator economy in college.

“He observed a significant disconnect in the social media ecosystem: Influencers struggled to monetize their product recommendations effectively, and their followers didn’t have an easy path to purchase. Chris viewed ShopMy as the solution, a bridge that transformed how influencers share and monetize their product recommendations,” Rein explains.

The sizable round means investors continue to take the influencer marketing space seriously. And they’re probably right to do so — the creator marketing industry is expected to grow to around $24 billion by the end of 2024, and the overall creator economy is estimated to be worth $480 billion in the next three years. As venture capitalists have told us in the past, influencer marketing platforms are considered one of the most investible categories in the creator economy because they consistently help creators earn money.

Image Credits: ShopMy

Several startups have emerged in recent years to launch platforms that connect creators and brands. Even Instagram has embraced creator marketing, launching a marketplace tool for paid partnerships in 2022. The marketplace has attracted thousands of creators and brands, and, this past month, Instagram rolled it out to eight more countries.

ShopMy says its direct competitors are LTK and GRIN , and its main differentiators are its unique features. For instance, a “Social Mentions” feed lets brands see all organic mentions across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram (including expired Stories) so they can get an idea of their online presence and discover posts from new creators. ShopMy is exploring integrations for other social platforms like Substack and Pinterest.

The company recently introduced “Lookbooks,” which enables brands to send gifting requests and allows creators to choose the products that fit their aesthetic. Since launching four months ago, Lookbooks has facilitated the distribution of over $2 million worth of gifted items, ShopMy touts.

ShopMy takes a commission on creator sales. The company isn’t disclosing the exact fee but says it’s “small.” Meanwhile, brands pay a subscription starting at $999. The cost increases depending on how many advanced features a brand wants.

8. ?Amsterdam-based TheyDo raises €31.1 million to lead the journey management movement at scale

TheyDo , a leading journey management platform, announced an additional €31.1 million in funding led by Blossom Capital, and joined by global customer experience evangelist Steven van Belleghem, Highsage Ventures and 20Sales. The round will enable TheyDo to continue leading the journey management movement at scale; increase R&D, focus on AI and data ingestion, and build out its customer-facing team in the United States.

TheyDo was founded in 2019 out of the need for a solution to move beyond mapping customer journeys in large static documents to a live platform that enables a bias for action. Today, TheyDo has an impressive roster of customers on a path to making the journey the most powerful business tool. With TheyDo businesses are able to do journey strategy, planning and execution all in one place and align the silo’s with the one thing that they all understand: the customer journey. TheyDo’s customers are embarking on their last transformation, moving from management by dashboard to management by journeys.?

“What’s most exciting about our growth is we’re not just building a company or a product – we’re fostering a movement of journey-centric companies. We’ve simplified the biggest business problem of the last century: working customer-centric at scale. With journeys at the heart, we’re bringing an operating model that is agile and customer-centric,” said TheyDo CEO and Co-Founder Jochem van der Veer. “Executive teams are feeling the pressure to deliver more value for customers with less, especially in this economic climate, and what we’re seeing is a growing recognition that journey is the most powerful business tool that they have at their disposal to do that. ”

The new funding round brings the total investment to just under $50 million. It follows another year of triple-digit year-on-year growth that is seeing TheyDo beat the established A16Z ‘triple twice, double three times’ model for SaaS growth. The growing list of enterprise customers includes Cisco, Ford, Johnson&Johnson, Home Depot, and Polestar.?

Ophelia Brown, from Blossom Capital, commented: “TheyDo’s acceleration has been very impressive. Since our initial investment, there’s been very clear acceleration in market demand by large enterprises. TheyDo has pioneered this category and its product only compounds in value as they are fast adding new features. Given the clear opportunity ahead, we were keen to double down on our investment and continue supporting the team in their ambitious plans. We are proud to champion this trailblazing European startup as it continues its expansion locally and across the Atlantic.”

Notable new investors are Highsage Ventures, renowned for strong enterprise expertise, and 20Sales, a new VC comprised of eight go-to-market leaders with experience in cloud-100 companies. With experience at Amplitude, OpenAI, and Notion, the 20Sales team has lived and breathed the problem TheyDo solves and is well-equipped to help take its growth strategy to the next level.

Steven van Belleghem, customer experience evangelist and investor, added: “Every business wants to be customer-centric, but for most, it’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow they can’t quite reach. The challenge for most businesses is not ‘what do we need to do?’, but rather ‘how are we actually going to achieve it?’.? I look forward to partnering with TheyDo with its go-to-market strategy, expanding into North America and creating the enabler of customer-centric growth for companies of all sizes.”

Over the last year, TheyDo has launched several new features and accelerated partnerships with leading experience management platforms like Qualtrics, deepening integration capabilities to deliver more value for customers. The Netherlands-based firm now boasts a team of 70 worldwide and is expected to reach 100 before the end of the year as it prioritises quality hires to help drive its growth, especially in the United States.

9. German restaurant discovery app NeoTaste snaps €15.1 million to go international

Osnabrück-based NeoTaste , Germany’s fastest-growing GastroTech app, announced a €15.1 million Series A extension . The funding round is led by Earlybird, a leading European venture capital investor, with participation from returning investor Burda Principal Investments (BPI), the independent investment arm of Hubert Burda Media. NeoTaste has raised a total of €21 million, adding to the €5.9 million raised six months prior.

CEO Hendrik Sander said: “We are proud to have Earlybird, one of Europe’s leading venture capital funds, join us on our exciting journey with NeoTaste, and we greatly appreciate BPI’s continued trust. With €21 million in Series A funding, we are perfectly positioned to take NeoTaste to the next level on all fronts and realize our vision that has been kept behind closed doors until now.”

The capital from this funding round will support NeoTaste’s ambitious expansion initiatives, including further penetration into European markets following its recent entry into Amsterdam. By the end of the year, the app is expected to be available in numerous additional German and European cities.

NeoTaste developed a win-win situation for the restaurant world and its customers, redefining the interaction between restaurants and customers with its platform. By offering exclusive introductory offers through its app, NeoTaste provides customers with new culinary experiences while giving restaurants the opportunity to expand their customer base. Users gain access to exclusive deals, typically in a 2-for-1 format, while restaurants leverage this opportunity for customer acquisition. Users can take advantage of these deals by subscribing for €4.99 per month (or €2.99 if paying annually). NeoTaste is the first platform to offer such a new customer acquisition opportunity to restaurants free of charge. In addition, the team is already developing additional features to enrich digital interactions between restaurants and customers, including direct reservation capabilities.

Since its launch in September 2021, NeoTaste has experienced rapid growth, attracting over 750,000 users and partnering with more than 3,000 restaurants across 27 cities in Germany.

Currently, the startup is expanding into a new city every week. Moreover, NeoTaste made its international debut in Amsterdam in early February, marking the start of its global expansion efforts

Partner Dr. Christian Nagel and Principal Dr. Maresa Buttlar from Earlybird shared: “Restaurant discovery is broken and no platform has yet combined unbiased searches, attractive discounts, and an efficient booking system. Neotaste sets out to solve this. They have achieved impressive growth through a business model that provides a clear win-win situation, a viral product approach, and focused team execution. We look forward to shaping the future of gastronomy together with team NeoTaste.”

10. Vienna-based Necture raises €7 million Series A to accelerate electrification of corporate fleets

Necture , formerly known as Ubiq, a leading technology company accelerating the adoption of electric fleets, announced it has secured additional funding, bringing its total Series A raise to €7 million . The investment round was led by Smart Energy Innovationsfonds (Switzerland) and Verbund X Ventures (Austria), joining existing investors Speedinvest and smartworks innovation GmbH.

Founded in 2015, the company helps businesses optimize their fleets and transition seamlessly to electric vehicles (EVs) using a unique human-driven technology solution. Necture’s predictive SaaS-based platform provides data for fleet managers to make vehicle-specific recommendations for operational tasks such as rebalancing and charging. This increases the adoption of electric fleets, as uptime is optimized and costs are reduced. Necture’s StreetCrowd community with over 20.000 members executes the optimization potential on the ground, ensuring smooth operations and bridging the gap between data and action.

“The pace of climate change demands bold action,” said Christian Adelsberger, Necture Founder and CEO. “This investment reinforces our vision of a sustainable future powered by EVs, and it empowers us to reach more businesses and make a real difference. We are thrilled to tighten our relationship with Smart Energy Innovationsfonds and Verbund X Ventures, and we believe their deep understanding of the energy and mobility sectors will be invaluable.“

Necture already has a strong product-market-fit. Working together with shared mobility providers such as MILES (Germany), Eloop (Vienna) and Awto (Santiago, Chile), the company manages 15,000 vehicles across Europe and the Americas. This latest funding round fuels the company’s expansion into the corporate fleet market, enabling Necture to reach more companies worldwide and accelerate the electrification of fleets. Necture is currently forming a collaboration with a leading car manufacturer and mobility provider to be announced in the near future.

“Necture’s human-driven technology approach to EV fleet management is truly innovative and addresses a critical need in the market. Combining software with hardware infrastructure is crucial. Necture will make shared mobility and fleets more accessible and accelerate their roll-out. And we believe this can be also extended to other mobility offerings in the future. This also supports the strategic direction of our fund,” added Lars Hennersdorf, Investment Manager at Smart Energy Innovationsfonds.

Franz Z?chbauer, Managing Director of VERBUND X Ventures, commented: “Necture’s expertise in both car sharing and fleet management, combined with their data-driven platform, uniquely positions them to address the specific needs of businesses transitioning to EVs. The company has shown tremendous growth. Our investment will accelerate this even further. Necture’s will significantly impact the electrification of corporate fleets – we’re looking forward to being a part of this journey.”