Startup Monday: Latest tech trends & news happening in the global startup ecosystem (Issue 140- September 28)

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.

Narine Emdjian, MBA

Top startup news to follow this week:

1. Arch closes $3B-plus fund as biotech investment environment shows more signs of a revival

On the heels of a $3 billion fund from Bain Capital Life Sciences, Arch Venture Partners is proving it can go toe-to-toe with the other investor, closing a VC fund of "more than $3 billion."

The venture fund is Arch's 13th and will support the founding and buildup of early-stage biotech companies, according to a Sept. 26 announcement.? ?

Though Arch didn’t get into detail about its goals for the new tranche of cash, the venture firm noted that beneficiaries of “Fund XIII” already include programmable cell therapy company ArsenalBio , inflammatory and fibrotic disease specialist Mirador Therapeutics , artificial intelligence drug discovery startup Xaira Therapeutics and Metsera , which just this week unveiled data on a new GLP-1 receptor agonist.?

AI and data-driven insights into biology will be key for the future of healthcare, Robert Nelsen, Arch co-founder and managing director, stressed in a statement.?

"Arch is first and foremost a company builder; we foster innovation at scale to develop new technologies and medicines as rapidly as possible,"?Keith Crandell, managing director and Arch’s other co-founder, added in the firm’s release. "We remain incredibly excited by the pace of innovation and efforts to understand disease at a deeper level."

Arch’s latest venture fund tops 2022’s “Fund XII,” which capped out at around $2.98 billion.

Several of 2024’s largest private biotech financing rounds have come thanks in part to Arch’s investments in ArsenalBio, Xaira, Mirador and Metsera.

2.Spanish VC closes $200M fund with plan to broaden investments worldwide

Spain-based Asabys Partners has closed a fund of 180 million euros ($200 million) , money that will go toward 12 to 15 companies in biopharma or medtech.

The fund is Asabys’ second and will be funneled toward life science companies, with money already invested in five companies, including Barcelona-based cytokine biotech Orikine Bio and Belgian neuro biotech Augustine Therapeutics.

Asabys announced the first closing of the fund—dubbed Sabadell Asabys Health Innovation Investments II (SAHII II)—in January 2023. That allowed the company to bring on new global and U.S. investors since its initial 117 million euro fund closed in 2022.??

The firm's strategy is to finance biopharma, medical device and digital health companies working to create new solutions for unmet medical needs.?

“The successful and oversubscribed close of our SAHII II fund allows us to continue investing in the Spanish life sciences ecosystem, while strategically broadening our focus to Europe and other global markets,” Clara Campàs, Ph.D., founding and managing partner at Asabys, said in a Sept. 26 release.

Since launching in 2018, Asabys has invested in 17 companies, including Fierce 15 winners Agomab Therapeutics in 2022 and Ona Therapeutics in 2020 .?

Though the biotech investment scene in Europe slowed somewhat following a COVID-19 funding sugar high back in 2021, an August report from PitchBook suggested venture capital firms across the pond could soon have more cash to spare.

The report focused on valuations in Europe broadly—not just in the life sciences—and found that VC trends seemed to be heading north.?

Median deal sizes “continued to tick higher across all stages” in the first half of 2024, according to the report. In particular, AI is “buoying the dispersion in early and late stages,” though that did leave the question of how much other areas of the market were rebounding without the help of the “AI effect.”

3. Israeli AI startup forges $18m partnership with AstraZeneca for cancer drug trials

Israeli-American biotech unicorn Immunai on Thursday secured a $18 million partnership to help the Anglo-Swedish pharma giant AstraZeneca improve the effectiveness and potential success rates of certain clinical cancer trials.

Immunai, founded in 2018, has developed an AI platform to comprehensively map and decode the human immune system with single-cell biology, machine learning capabilities, and big data computation in order to fuel discoveries of new therapeutics and accelerate drug development.

“Artificial Intelligence is transforming cancer drug discovery and clinical development,” said AstraZeneca chief data scientist IkerHuerga.

Huerga said the drugmaker will collaborate with Immunai to deploy its AI platform for its data-driven R&D strategy and to “glean potential new insights into mechanisms of action of immunotherapies.”

As part of the partnership, AstraZeneca said it will use Immunai’s AI model of the immune system and machine learning capabilities for clinical decision-making, including dose selection, elucidating mechanisms of action, patient responder analysis, and biomarker identification.

“Bringing a drug to market is incredibly challenging, time-consuming and expensive,” said Immunai CEO Noam Solomon. “Through this collaboration with AstraZeneca, we’re excited to leverage our AI-based engine to help make this process more efficient in bringing potential new therapies to patients.”

On average, developing a new drug or finding a potential blockbuster medicine takes billions of dollars over almost a decade because of the lengthy trials and lab work involved in the process. Despite these investments and efforts, over 90 percent of drug candidates in clinical trials fail to gain regulatory approval and make it to market primarily due to lack of efficacy and safety.

Immunai said it has been growing its staff in recent years to 170 employees made up of 85 experts in genomics, machine learning, bioinformatics, immunology, and software engineering. Headquartered in New York City, Immunai has offices in Tel Aviv, Zurich, and Prague.

4. Startup aiming to bring robotics into interventional radiology raises $73M

Mendaera, a startup aiming to bring robotics into interventional radiology, has raised $73 million in financing, the company announced Thursday.?

VC firm Threshold Ventures led the Series B funding round with participation from?Lux Capital, PFM Health Sciences, and Fred Moll (founder of Intuitive Surgical and Auris Health). Silicon Valley-based Mendaera is working to commercialize a handheld interventional platform that incorporates robotics, artificial intelligence, imaging and virtual connectivity.?

Leaders said the product is designed to be used across different medical specialties and sites of service as the company works to improve access to needle-based interventional care.?

“Traditional surgical robots have established footing in the operating room,” Mendaera Founder and CEO Josh DeFonzo said in a Sept. 26 announcement . “But robotics and AI have evolved to a point where we can deliver broader benefits across all parts of the healthcare system and enable higher standards of care for more patients.”

DeFonzo and colleagues highlighted the increasing demand for interventional procedures amid healthcare provider shortages. They hope utilizing this emerging technology will bolster the availability of commonplace procedures such as biopsies, organ and vascular access, and pain management interventions.?

Mendaera will use the funding to complete the development of its robotic technology (yet to be FDA cleared), accelerate AI and connectivity capabilities and begin clinical introduction of the platform. The company in December inked a partnership with ultrasound-maker Butterfly Network to integrate the two technologies and closed its Series A funding round in August 2023 . ?

5. AI startup Scribenote raises $8.2 mln in Andreessen Horowitz-led funding round

Scribenote, a startup that uses AI to generate medical records for veterinarians, said on Monday it has raised $8.2 million in an early-stage funding round led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

The fundraise also saw participation from venture capital firm Inovia Capital and Velocity Fund, which invests in early-stage startups.

It wasn't immediately clear at what valuation the funds were raised.

Startups deploying artificial intelligence have seen strong investor interest this year, with five such companies raising more than $1 billion in 2024. Generative AI heavyweight OpenAI is also in talks to raise $6.5 billion in a funding round that would value the company at $150 billion .

Scribenote, founded in 2019, uses artificial intelligence to automate documentation of medical records for veterinarians. It has automated more than 1.5 million medical records in less than a year, the company said.

In March this year, Reuters reported Andreessen Horowitz was nearing a $7 billion fund that would target startups in multiple industries, including AI. It participated in the $6-billion series B funding of Elon Musk's AI startup xAI in May.

6. Amazon’s $4 billion partnership with AI startup Anthropic gets UK competition clearance

Britain’s competition watchdog said Friday that it’s clearing Amazon’s partnership with artificial intelligence company Anthropic because the $4 billion deal didn’t qualify for further scrutiny.

The Competition and Markets Authority approval comes after it started looking into the deal , part of wider global scrutiny for the wave of investment from Big Tech companies into leading startups working on generative AI technology.

The watchdog found that San Francisco-based Anthropic’s revenue and its combined market share with Amazon in Britain were not big enough to require an in-depth investigation under the country’s merger rules.

“We welcome the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority decision acknowledging its lack of jurisdiction regarding this collaboration,” Amazon said in a statement. “By investing in Anthropic, we’re helping to spur entry and competition in generative AI.”

Under the deal, Anthropic is using Amazon Web Services as its primary cloud provider and Amazon’s custom chips to build, train and deploy its AI models.

The British regulator has previously cleared Microsoft’s partnership with French startup Mistral AI as well as its hiring of key staff from another startup, Inflection AI.

7. Prepared, which wants to ‘revolutionize’ emergency 911 calls, raises $27M

A company that claims its tech can “revolutionize” emergency calls has raised $27 million in a Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz.

The company, Prepared , enables 911 dispatchers to get a caller’s real-time GPS location if their phone supports it. Via Prepared, dispatchers can also receive and respond to texts and images, and — on iPhones with Apple’s Emergency SOS Live Video feature — answer a video call.

Prepared co-founder and CEO Michael Chime claims that the platform can give operators valuable context they wouldn’t otherwise have.

“The goal of our technology is to reduce the burden of each individual call so that emergency response can move faster,” Chime told TechCrunch. “If we can save even a few seconds on a given 911 call, we want to do that.”

Nationwide, a number of 911 centers are landline-bound, struggle to locate callers, and can’t process SMS or photos. That’s despite a two-decades-old effort, Next Generation 911 (NG911), to modernize the more than 5,500 emergency call centers in the U.S.

NG911 is internet-based, and capable of receiving multimedia and more accurate caller info. However, deployments have only reached about 56.2% of the U.S., according to consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.

Launched by Chime, Dylan Gleicher, and Neal Soni in 2019, Prepared initially focused on a single type of emergency response: school shootings. The trio, who grew up near the sites of devastating school shootings, including Sandy Hook Elementary, dropped out of Yale together to build a public safety app for school administrators.

8. French startup SURGAR raises €11 million to deploy AR for minimally invasive surgery

Clermont-Ferrand-based SURGAR , a startup developing augmented reality solutions for minimally invasive surgery, is thrilled to announce the closing of an €11 million funding? round. The round was led by Mutuelles Impact, managed by XAnge, along with Elaia Partners? in partnership with MH Innov’, the corporate fund of Malakoff Humanis, Bpifrance through its? Digital Venture fund, and several business angels (including Jacques Gardette, Founder of? Biocorp).?

The company also benefited from the renewed support of its historical investors (UI? Investissement and Crédit Agricole Capital Innovation). BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole Centre? France, and Banque Populaire Auvergne Rh?ne-Alpes completed the financing.

SURGAR’s augmented reality software combines the best of computer vision and artificial? intelligence. By merging the patient’s digital twin (obtained through MRI or CT scans) with the? minimally invasive (laparoscopic) view in real-time, SURGAR makes the invisible visible: the? surgeon can visualize internal organ structures (tumors, vessels, ducts). This technology makes? surgeries safer, faster, and more efficient. The goal is to halve surgical complications and increase precision by 20 times! The benefits for patients are significant (minimally invasive? surgery rates, cancer recurrence rates, complication rates) with substantial cost savings for? healthcare providers (hospital stay duration, surgical efficiency).?

This cutting-edge technology is the result of over 12 years of collaboration between the? Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital and the EnCoV team of the Pascal Institute (Université? Clermont-Auvergne, CNRS, INP Clermont-Auvergne). SURGAR combines artificial intelligence,? computer vision, and clinical expertise, thanks to the synergy of Professors Bourdel, Bartoli,? Canis, and Le Roy, co-founders of the startup.

Nicolas Bourdel, CEO and founder of SURGAR, stated: “SURGAR is above all a human? adventure and the result of long-standing collaboration. By addressing a critical need for? surgeons, we are serving patients. We have just reached a decisive milestone with the CE? marking of our first solution. With this funding, we are set to introduce the first-ever? augmented reality solution for abdominal surgery! The challenges are significant, but the? potential impact is even greater.”

The funding will enable SURGAR to launch U-SURGAR, a software dedicated to female? patients suffering from fibroids and adenomyosis (a form of endometriosis within the uterus),? and to finalize and commercialize L-SURGAR and K-SURGAR, aimed at treating liver and? kidney cancers respectively. Other AI-driven applications, including those for endometriosis,? are in development, and numerous collaboration agreements have already been signed with? hospitals both in France and internationally.

Nadja Bresous, Partner at XAnge, added: “The technology developed by SURGAR is a true? demonstration of AI serving patients. The solution improves the preparation of laparoscopic? surgeries, makes them more efficient, and reduces post-operative complications for patients,? including limiting reoperations.”

According to Céline Passedouet, Investment Director at Elaia: “This strategic investment marks? a key step in transforming surgery in France. By integrating technological innovations, we aim? to significantly improve patient comfort and safety in the operating room. At MH Innov’ and? Elaia, we strongly believe in supporting technological advancements that will have a tangible? impact on the quality of healthcare in France, addressing current and future health challenges.”

9. London-based Raycast raises €27 million Series B to help iOS and Windows enhance productivity

Raycast , a software company redefining productivity, has raised a €27 million Series B funding round to reduce workplace context switching and improve focus. European investor Atomico led the round, alongside participation from Accel, Coatue, Y Combinator, Atlassian Ventures, World Innovation Lab and notable angels Guillermo Rauch (CEO of Vercel), Thomas Dohmke (CEO of GitHub) and Tobi Lütke (CEO of Shopify). As part of this round, Atomico Partner Luca Eisenstecken will join Raycast’s board.?

As the Information Age transforms the way people live and work, the proliferation of software tools – which are meant to increase productivity and simplify lives –? is in fact making work increasingly complex and fragmented. Knowledge? workers are now constantly switching contexts between workflows and tools, leading to mental overload and significant? productivity loss. A 2022 Harvard Business Review (HBR) study of mid and back-office workers at Fortune 500 companies found that the “cost” of each context switch is about two seconds, with the average user toggling between different apps and websites nearly 1,200 times each day. Over a year, this “toggle tax” added up to five working weeks or 9% of annual time – lost time which damages productivity and makes it hard to keep focus.?

Raycast has been built to combat this digital fragmentation and help people achieve ‘Flow’ – a concept central to its mission to help knowledge workers achieve a perfect state of productivity. Acting as the ultimate shortcut to everything, its platform allows users to interact with different apps without fully switching contexts, enabling them to maintain a state of productive flow. Over 1500 open-source extensions are available to users to make the most of apps like GitHub, Zoom and Notion without losing track of their thoughts.?

Thomas Paul Mann, CEO and co-founder of Raycast, said: “Our mission in founding Raycast was to redefine how people interact with their computers. We believe that achieving a state of ‘flow’ is key to productivity and job satisfaction. Raycast isn’t just about saving time – it’s about never wasting it. By allowing users to? perform actions like sending Slack messages, checking notifications, or anything else without even opening the app, we’re helping people stay focused and in control of their digital environment.”

Since its launch in 2020, Raycast has become the go-to tool for software engineers, product developers and designers, building a 22k-strong community of developers who use and build on the tool. In total, Raycast has hundreds of thousands of daily active users for its Mac capabilities, and after significant demand the company is also today announcing that they will be launching upcoming iOS and Windows versions soon with users able to register their interest from today here.

Luca Eisenstecken, Partner at Atomico, added: “Thomas and Petr have built an incredible product that solves a crucial problem not only beautifully, but also effectively with a thriving open-source community of developers at its heart. Raycast provides users with virtually limitless opportunities to build a highly personalised productivity platform tailored to their unique workflows. I personally find it indispensable for my daily work. This is further underscored by the remarkable results of our in-depth user research during due diligence, where a staggering 98% of respondents reported a significant increase in their Raycast usage over the past six months.”

10. German company Enginsight gets €6 million to strengthen cybersecurity for SMEs

Jena-based Enginsight , a seasoned German provider of an all-in-one cybersecurity platform for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has successfully closed a €6 million n ew funding round led by UVC Partners. Among the co-investors is Carsten Maschmeyer, again investing in the startup with his seed+speed fund. The fresh capital will enable the company to further its mission of protecting the German small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) sector from the growing threat of cyberattacks.?

Also joined as co-investors bm-t beteiligungsmanagement thüringen GmbH, Talanx AG, Smart Infrastructure Ventures, and Brandenburg VENTURES GmbH.

SMEs comprise 99.4% of the German economy and are particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks due to their lack of resources and expertise to defend against increasingly sophisticated threats. Such cyberattacks caused damages of €203 billion in Germany in 2022, according to the annual IT security report by the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).?

Unsurprisingly, various reports call for increased cybersecurity engagement from policymakers and organizations. Enginsight focuses its solutions on those most affected by this danger. The company’s innovative platform aims to shield SMEs from the financial damage these attacks can cause. Businesses of all sizes and industries – from small accounting firms to companies with 10,000 employees – can benefit from this offering.

“Our goal is to ease the burden on IT managers in SMEs and provide them with the transparency and control they need over their networks,” said Mario Jandeck, co-founder and CEO of Enginsight. “Every day, about 70 new vulnerabilities are discovered in software products – a massive threat, especially considering the sensitivity and importance of business data. With our holistic approach, which focuses on threat detection, prevention, and automated vulnerability management, companies can act proactively to protect themselves.”

Despite the growing threat, too few SMEs have stepped up their security efforts. A 2019 empirical study revealed that 53% of respondents took up to seven days to detect a cyberattack. This slow response is as concerning as the fact that only 62% of small businesses regularly install security updates, and just 18% have an emergency response plan in place.

“These well-known deficits increase the risk, as cybercriminals even more frequently target SMEs. With our automated, all-in-one solution, we’re fighting against attackers and empowering SMEs to restructure their IT infrastructure and prepare for the future,” explained Max Tarantik, co-founder and COO of Enginsight.

Enginsight offers a solution developed entirely in Germany, specifically tailored to meet? the needs of the German SME sector. Andreas Unseld, General Partner at UVC Partners, noted: “From our perspective, the biggest challenge for many SMEs is the lack of comprehensive solutions that are both affordable and quick to implement. Enginsight’s customers benefit from a pre-configured platform that can typically be deployed and operational within a day. The company combines threat detection, monitoring, and response in a single system without requiring multiple isolated tools. That’s why we believe Enginsight’s offering perfectly aligns with the needs of today’s market.”