NVTC Newsletter No. 11
Nov 15, 2022
Kaley Ubellacker
Market Stirrings đ©
Here's what the week looked like in pre-seed:
Data aggregated from proprietary research and Crunchbase; valuation estimate based on 10-20% ownership stake.
Happy Tech Tuesday! For those new here, welcome to the NVTC weekly newsletter. Here youâll find recent updates from the tech world, insightful articles related to startups and highlights from NV portfolio companies.
THIS WEEKâS FEATURES âĄ
â Catch a Waveform â An AI-powered, deep-data medical platform.
â Oldies but Goodies â Hold onto your old flip phones; theyâre going places.
â No Tumor-row â CRISPR says itâs time for tumors to say their goodbyes.
đź Startup Savvy â Startups making headway (yes, even in a recession).
đ Twitter â Jeff Bezos? Jeff Be-almost poor.
NV Portfolio Highlight đą
Perhaps the largest trend in healthcare tech is the use of AI to analyze medical data. AI is understood by many to be an essential catalyst for next generation healthcare, notably for medical imaging, remote patient monitoring, and early stage intervention, to name a few use cases. Ensodata takes millions of data points floating around the medical world, think heartbeats, breathing patterns, and glycemic index dynamics, and applies AI to find clinical value.
All of those attributes have one thing in common: they can be measured in waveforms. Traditionally, clinicians analyzing waveforms put in thousands of hours to manually mark each complex event. Ensodataâs technology replaces that workflow, delivering a diagnosis in a matter of minutes.
Ensodataâs technology addresses some of the toughest pain points in healthcare, notably clinician burnout and access and affordability for patients. EnsoData launched its first product, an FDA-approved sleep study analysis platform called EnsoSleep. EnsoSleep integrates with sleep labs, automatically analyzing and scoring sleep studies. EnsoData is currently looking for a front-end engineer and quality assurance engineer, and you can see more details on that here.
Good Reads đ
For the rushed reader âŠ
For the less rushed reader âŠ
The lawsuit that could rewrite the rules of AI copyright
Lawsuits, software, and big tech, oh my! Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI might be facing a class action lawsuit for the companiesâ creation of an AI coding assistant that allegedly relies on large-scale software piracy. GitHub Copilot, like many other programs, was trained using copyright-protected data, and itâs been found by users to regurgitate sections of license-protected code without any credit. Yikes.
Your old phone's battery could power your next car
Mining is out; recycling is in. Audi dealers are leading the charge for a domestic battery supply chain by collecting household electronics to be recycled into electric car batteries. This consumer recycling program is a partnership between Volkswagen Group and Redwood Materials, and itâs the first time household lithium-ion batteries are being put to use in EV. Aside from increasing sustainability, itâs also predicted to make EVs cheaper.
CRISPR cancer trial success paves the way for personalized treatments
A Phase I clinical trial revealed that CRISPR gene editing can be used to alter immune cells and specifically target solid tumors, including in the breast and colon. The complicated therapy creates an army of T cells from a patientâs natural biology. Much work remains to speed up the therapiesâ development, but itâs an encouraging first attempt to combine gene editing and T cell engineering.
Fire Up the Pre-Seedsđ„
Highlights from this weekâs pre-seed raises:
STARTUP SNIPPETS đź
Maven: a women and family health startup with unicorn status
The raise: $90 million in Series E funding
Lead investor: General Catalyst
Quix: a company dedicated high-speed data processing to empower better real-time decisions
The raise: $12.9 million in Series A funding
Lead investor: MMC Ventures
Owl Labs: a startup developing AI-powered meeting hardware
The raise: $25 million in Series C funding
Lead investor: HP Tech Ventures
Traction: a strategic partnership with HP
Lentra: Indian embedded finance startup expanding its digital loan services
The raise: $60 million in Series B funding
Lead investors: Bessemer Venture Partners and Susquehanna International Group
Obralink: Chilean startup developing specialized technology for the outdated construction sector
The raise: $2 million in seed funding
Lead investors: GrĂșas M10 and CEMEX Ventures
TWITTER HIGHLIGHT đ
This week on Twitter, one trending post poked fun at Jeff Bezos, after he pledged during an interview with CNN to give away the majority of his wealth.
Is this actually a holiday miracle? Itâs uncertain to say for sure, but it seems like Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard started a trend.
Which ultra wealthy person will be the next to cut their fortunes for the greater good? And who will emerge on top as the recipients of these charitable acts?
OutrođȘ
Have any questions, feedback, or comments? Just reply here. We iterate and curate the newsletter according to your interests!
Some last matters of business:
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Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
