Startup Monday: Latest tech trends & news happening in the global startup ecosystem (Issue 96- July 15)

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.

Top startups news to follow this week:

1. AI Startup Hugging Face Is Raising Fresh VC Funds At $4 Billion

The AI model startup is reviewing competing term sheets for a Series D round that could raise at least $200 million at a valuation of $4 billion, per sources.

Hugging Face is raising a new funding round that is expected to value the high-flying AI startup at $4 billion, multiple sources with knowledge of the matter tell?Forbes.

The Series D funding round is expected to raise at least $200 million, two sources said, with Ashton Kutcher’s venture capital firm, Sound Ventures, currently leading an investor scrum. But cofounder and CEO Clément Delangue is shopping around as the company has received multiple offers this week, four sources added.

Delangue was expected to pick a preferred offer as soon as Friday, according to another source, who noted that the situation was still fluid, meaning no agreement has been reached, and the numbers involved could change. Several other sources, who asked to remain anonymous as they weren’t authorized to talk about the deal, said that Hugging Face could seek to raise more, as much as $300 million, while existing investors could still attempt to take the round in a last-minute bid. GV, the venture firm backed by Alphabet, and DFJ were said to be looking at the round, one source added.

Hugging Face didn’t respond to requests for comment. GV declined to comment. Coatue, DFJ, Kutcher, and Lux also didn’t respond.

2. Causaly, an AI platform for drug discovery and biomedical research, raises $60M

Artificial intelligence has been a big theme in the world of health and medical research, and specifically in the area of drug discovery. Today, another hopeful in the space is announcing a funding round to expand its own contribution to the field.?Causaly, a London startup that has built an AI platform to help researchers accelerate the development and testing of drugs, has raised $60 million, a Series B that will be going toward R&D and to continue building out its team.

ICONIQ Growth — the growth-stage fund affiliated with the?iconic investment firm?of the same name — is leading the round, with previous backers Index Ventures, Marathon Venture Capital, EBRD, Pentech Ventures and Visionaries Club also participating. The company has now raised $93 million in total and is not disclosing valuation.

Causaly is just over six years old, and Yiannis Kiachopoulos, the CEO who co-founded the company with CTO Artur Saudabayev, said that it already works with 12 of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies and some of the biggest names in medical research, including Gilead, Novo Nordisk, Regeneron, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

3. SoftBank backs Japanese robotics startup Telexistence in $170M funding round

SoftBank is backing Japanese?robotics startup?Telexistence, making good on?the tech giant’s?recent pledge to go back on the investment offensive in light of the current AI hype.

Tokyo-based Telexistence said Thursday that it has raised $170 million (23 billion yen) in a Series B round of funding from SoftBank, Airbus Ventures, Monoful Partners, KDDI Open Innovation Fund, a fund set up by Foxconn and CTBC Financial Holdings, and Globis Capital Partners. With the latest round, Telexistence has raised a total of approximately $193.5 million (27.5 billion yen) since its inception.

Founded in 2017, Telexistence develops AI-powered robotic arms for the retail and logistics industry. Last year, the company?said it would deploy?its robots in 300 FamilyMart convenience stores across Japan.

The company will use its fresh capital to bolster its workforce globally, CEO Jin Tomioka said in a statement. But aside from the funding, Telexistence is also announcing a strategic partnership with SoftBank Robotics Group, a unit of SoftBank Group, to ramp up its commercialization in North America. Telexistence is currently in talks with major convenience store chains in North America to conduct proof of concept in the near future, according to the company. Moreover, the startup said it will work with Foxconn to produce its next-generation robot, called “Ghost.”

4. Simbe Robotics raises $28M as it aims to bring its aisle-scanning tech to more retailers

Companies that have signed on to use Simbe’s robot, known as Tally, include?Schnuck Markets,?SpartanNash,?Wakefern Food?and?BJ’s Wholesale Club. Simbe has also supplied its artificial intelligence-based technology to international retailer?Carrefour, which is using the robots at stores in the United Arab Emirates.

“The selection of those types of partners .. were really critical in bringing the solution to fruition. And now this is really about us just attacking the domestic and global interests that we have on our doorstep,” Bogolea said.?

The fundraising round Simbe announced Thursday follows a Series A round the company completed in September 2019 and brings the total amount of money the company has brought in from investors to $54 million. In addition to Eclipse, participants in the company’s Series B round included all of the company’s major existing investors, including Venrock, Pathbreaker Ventures and Valo Ventures, Bogolea said.

Simbe has increased its annual recurring revenue by a factor of 10 since 2020, according to the company.

Tally works by traversing store aisles and using computer vision to determine which products are on shelves and alert workers when items are out of stock. The robots typically scan stores three to five times per day and can operate when shoppers are present, Bogolea said.?

Bogolea said Simbe is looking to expand the types of products Tally is able to identify.

5. Azolla Ventures hopes its new $239M climate fund will help founders take bigger risks

Who would have?thought that venture capital just needed a little help from its friends in philanthropy to get its mojo back.

For much of the past decade, the lion’s share of venture funding has gone toward relatively conservative investments. Think: fast-followers, rehashes of existing business models updated with some new tech or buzzword and a preference for software above all else. The common thread was low capital expenditures, small headcount and shorter timeline to profitability.

All that might make for good returns, but when it comes to taking big swings on challenging problems like climate change, the transitional venture model can come up short. Not always, of course — there are plenty of firms focused on the sector that have come up with ways of both delivering returns while also queuing up firms that have the potential to eliminate massive amounts of carbon pollution.

But for every company that gets funded, there are dozens of others with?viable concepts?that are short on funding because they’re still too early-stage.

That’s where?Azolla Ventures?hopes to step in. On Thursday, the climate tech-focused firm is announcing a $239 million blended fund — meaning it’s not just drawing on traditional investors. Rather, the fund pairs investors with philanthropic partners who are hoping to maximize the impact of their dollars.

The result is a fund that will be focused on investing in early-stage companies — mostly pre-seed and seed with some Series A — that would otherwise be overlooked by other VCs.

6. London-based Secure Code Warrior raises €45 million Series C to double down on AI-driven security

Secure Code Warrior, a leading agile learning platform for developer-driven security leaders, announced it closed its Series C funding round, led by Paladin Capital Group. At €45 million, this marks the largest investment since the company’s inception, bringing its total funding to date to over €90 million.

The new funding will accelerate Secure Code Warrior’s product innovation through its platform and go-to-market efforts, with a focus on increasing market share and further empowering developer and engineering teams to gain the skills needed to identify vulnerabilities and fix?code faster using the latest AI technology.?

Existing investors Goldman Sachs and ForgePoint Capital participated in the Series C round alongside cyber and advanced technologies investor Paladin Capital Group, reaffirming their strong commitment and understanding of Secure Code Warrior’s vision to enable developers and engineers to be their?organizations’ first line of defense for secure code.

“Secure Code Warrior has proven they are at the forefront of enabling developers to remain agile while learning secure coding,”?said Mourad Yesayan, Managing Director, Paladin Capital Group and Secure Code Warrior Board member.?“The value they deliver to 600 enterprises and counting has never been more important in this dynamic, AI-influenced global economy where secure-aware developers and engineering teams are a massive asset. It is a privilege to be on this journey with Pieter, Matias, and the entire Secure Code Warrior organization, and we are excited about new innovations the company will bring to bear to make secure coding even more accessible to the broader market.”?

“Vulnerable code continues to be a risk with commercial and reputational impact on enterprises. While traditional tools help with application security, hands-on cybersecurity education adds the differentiated ability to build secure software,”?said David Campbell, Managing Director,?Goldman Sachs.?“From its inception, Secure Code Warrior’s singular mission has been to help developers build more secure code in enterprises across financial services, technology, manufacturing, and so many other industry sectors.”

7. Global Smart Life Sciences Manufacturing Market Forecast to 2033 - Use of Artificial Intelligence in Cancer Research Presents Opportunities

Dublin, July 11, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The?"Smart Life Sciences Manufacturing Market Forecast to 2033 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis by Component, Technology, and Application"?report has been added to?ResearchAndMarkets.com's?offering.

The smart life sciences manufacturing market is projected to reach US$ 78,974.61 million by 2033, registering a CAGR of 14.4% from 2023 to 2033.

Technology has been playing a major role in the healthcare sector, wherein the biotechnology industry is the most benefited segment by recent technological advancements in data analytics, compared to other domains such as oncology, neurology, and immunology.

Emerging data sciences technologies assist in the growth of the biotechnology industry. Analysis of living organisms, research for novel drugs, etc. are major roles played by biotechnology laboratories.

Modern data analytics tools have allowed biotechnology researchers to create predictive analytics models and understand the most effective ways to achieve desired goals and objectives. Big data, AI, virtual reality, data visualization, and data security are among the common technologies used in biotech laboratories. Novozymes, a leading global biotechnology company headquartered in Bagsvard, just outside of Copenhagen, Denmark, has adopted Tableau, a data visualization tool, which revolutionized its approach to data analysis and collaboration.

AstraZeneca, plc, a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company, uses data and technology to minimize the time to discovery and delivery of potential new medicines. The company has data science and AI capabilities embedded in its R&D departments, which allows scientists to push the boundaries of science to deliver life-changing medicines. Such adoptions are expected to boost the smart life sciences manufacturing market growth during the forecast period.

8. AR and VR Smart Glasses Market To Grow 13.5% by 2028 | Size, Top Companies Analysis and Forecast

IMARC Group, a leading market research company, has recently released report titled "AR and VR Smart Glasses Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2023-2028" the global AR and VR smart glasses?market size reached US$ 14.6 Billion in 2022. Looking forward, IMARC Group expects the market to reach?US$ 30.7 Billion by 2028, exhibiting a growth rate (CAGR) of 13.5% during 2023-2028.

Augmented reality (AR) smart glasses overlay digital information onto the real world surroundings of the user, which allows them to interact with virtual objects while maintaining awareness of their physical environment. They feature transparent or semi-transparent displays that project digital content, such as text, images, or 3D models, onto the lenses or directly in front of an individuals eyes. On the other hand, virtual reality (VR) smart glasses create a fully immersive virtual reality experience by completely blocking out the physical surroundings of the user and replacing them with a simulated digital environment.??

9. NIH, CDC, and FDA for Small Business Innovation Research Grant Applications Are Open for Startups

?National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) invite eligible United States small business concerns (SBCs) to submit Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I, Phase II, Direct to Phase II (NIH Only), Fast-Track (NIH only), and Phase IIB (NIH only) grant applications.

SBIR and STTR are phased programs. The main objective in SBIR and STTR Phase I is to establish the technical merit and feasibility of the proposed research and development efforts. An SBIR and STTR Phase II continues the R&D efforts to advance the technology toward ultimate commercialization. At the conclusion of an SBIR/STTR Phase II, it is expected that the small business will fully commercialize their product or technology using non-SBIR/STTR funds (either federal or non-federal). Small businesses that are eligible to submit Phase II applications for projects that were supported with a Phase I SBIR or STTR award are expected to submit the regular Phase II application as a "Renewal" application based on the awarded Phase I SBIR or STTR project. Only one Phase II application may be awarded for a specific project supported by a Phase I award.

10. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) SBIR Phase I is Open

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as part of its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, is seeking proposals from the small businesses to develop novel environmental technologies in the following topics areas. See the official solicitation posted on FedConnect to learn more about the topic areas and view full topic descriptions.?

2023-2024 EPA SBIR Topics

Clean and Safe Water

• Zero-liquid discharge and brine concentrate minimization
• Treatment and destruction of PFAS in wastewater and other waste streams
• HABs sensors that can monitor cyanobacteria and toxins

Air Quality & Climate

• Innovative technologies to clean indoor air during wildfire smoke events and other high pollution days
• Air pollution control technologies for urban small sources

Land

• Innovations in slurry injection technology for complex waste treatment and disposal

Homeland Security

• AI-based indoor mapping and localization using smartphone sensor data

Circular Economy/Sustainable Materials

• Innovative technologies that help consumers prevent food waste in the acquisition, preparation, and storage of food
• Innovative technologies or materials that will improve the U.S. recycling system
• Innovative material reduction and reuse solutions to lower embodied carbon in the built environment

Safer Chemicals

• Rubber anti-degradant technologies for tires and other rubber products that are?lower concern?for human health and the environment
• Innovative enhanced efficiency fertilizers

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