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Necessary Nuggets

Happy Wednesday! If you’re new here, welcome to Necessary Nuggets, your one-stop pre-seed shop. We deliver updates from Necessary Ventures and helpful tidbits on our little corner of the world. Every edition is also on our blog

Jobortunities 🚨

✨NEW FEATURED ROLE✨

Nevoya: First fully-electric trucking fleet in the United States, helping truckers trade gas-guzzling for environment-protecting. Get involved and tackle unsolved problems in the trucking industry.

| Founding Backend Engineer |

Taro: Taro increases access to healthcare while reducing costs and physician burnout via direct primary care based health insurance. 

| Product Engineer |


Reach out with any questions! All 142 open job postings are listed here.

Market Stirrings 🚩

Here's what the week looked like in pre-seed:

Funding Information

$3.3M

Total Amount Raised

8

Total Funding Rounds

$412k

Average Dollars per Round

$1.4M-$4.1M

Estimated Valuation Range

Data aggregated from proprietary research and Crunchbase; valuation estimate based on 10-20% ownership stake.

HEADCOUNT HEADING DOWN?

At the date of seed fundraise, most industries are beginning to see a decline in average headcount for H1 2024 compared to H1 2020, with the exceptions of a sharp increase in health tech and slight increases in fintech and biotech. Consumer industries experienced the hardest drop among the sectors analyzed.

Good Reads 📖

For the rushed reader …

  • British and Canadian researchers at Oxford found that AI model collapse may be at risk when models learn from data produced by other models.

  • Avi Schiffmann, a former high school student known prior for creating a COVID-19 information tracking hub, built an AI friend you can wear around your neck.

  • Early stage startup Type One Energy is onto something powerful, aiming to complete a prototype fusion reactor by the end of 2028 and with $82.5 million in fresh funding. 

For the less rushed reader …

MODELS EATING MODELS: AI continues to rear its head … and in some cases, eat its own tail. British and Canadian researchers at Oxford found that AI model collapse may be at risk when models learn from data produced by other models. As AI models are trained on data, they match patterns to decide how best to connect the dots on future inputs. This also means they gravitate toward the most common input. With increasing amounts of generative AI data being added to the web, models run the risk of degenerating and, over time, forgetting the true underlying data distribution. This comes at a time where generative AI is still a money-magnet among VCs, with 2024 on track to match or exceed the $21.8 billion raised in 2023. Is there enough money for AI to eat instead of chomping its own tail?

A FRIENDLY F(AI)CE: Do you miss tamagotchis and what it was like to feel bonded to a beeping digital pal? Well, there's a new digital friend in town. Avi Schiffmann, a former high school student known prior for creating a COVID-19 information tracking hub, built an AI friend you can wear around your neck. Called Friend and spoken about publicly for the first time this week, the pendant costs $99, and its motto is "Always listening." Users can directly ask the Friend questions, or they can wait until it decides to pipe up about a conversation it listened to with its onboard microphone. The Friend isn't about optimizing anything or increasing productivity -- it's simply companionship. Hopefully the new gadget doesn't a-friend anyone.

FUSIN' ALONG: Here's one update Necessary Nuggets couldn't re-fuse. Early stage startup Type One Energy is onto something powerful, aiming to complete a prototype fusion reactor by the end of 2028 and with $82.5 million in fresh funding. The fusion industry raked in $2.3 billion over the last two years, with Type One's most recent round representing one of the largest seed financings in the history of energy according to its CEO. The round was an extension on the $29 million it raised in March of last year and was co-led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, New Zealand-based venture capital firm GD1, and Centaurus Capital. The cutting edge tech for their prototype uses a stellarator, which leverages high-powered magnets to confine superheated plasma, where the fusion reaction occurs. If all goes according to plan, fusion will be a commercialized energy source by the mid-2030s. There's no room for stellar-haters on this fast-paced project.

Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥

Check out details on the pre-seed raises from the past week:

legaltech

Flomoney - Flomoney got mo money. 
Flomoney raised $200k from Microsoft on July 27. Flomoney is making headway to automate document processing and legal analysis. The final goal is a universal bot that redefines human interaction with the web. 

Myriad AI - Compliance with cruise control. 
Myriad AI raised $2 million led by N1, alongside BD Partners, Plug and Play Tech Center, and Preston-Werner Ventures on July 25. Myriad AI is developing a platform to automate regulatory compliance for businesses, including insights that speed up decision making. 

other tech

Crave - Takeout minus the stress out. 
Crave raised $5k from CREATE-X, a Georgia Tech startup accelerator, on July 24. Operating in most major US cities, Crave is Tinder for takeout. Users swipe on meals at nearby restaurants that meet specific nutritional needs. 

ThreeV Technologies - Turning automation tech into a greater asset.  
ThreeV Technologies raised an undisclosed amount led by Looking Glass, alongside Watertower Ventures, Everywhere Ventures, Mission One Capital, Treeo VC, Gaia Ventures, and individual investors on July 24. ThreeV Technologies is building a platform to automate insights on assets like renewables and telecommunications. The tech is driven by computer vision and AI and aims to make inspections more efficient.

WeMove - A startup that's in for the long-haul.   
WeMove raised an undisclosed amount from Mucker Capital on July 25. Leveraging an AI model trained on 20,000 household items, WeMove is creating a platform that uses image recognition software to allow people to book moves without a peep from sales reps.

Outro🚪

Feel free to reply to this email with all questions, feedback, or comments. We’ll be iterating and curating the NVTC newsletter according to your interests. 

Some last matters of business: 

  • If you’re a technologist (engineer or product manager / designer with a technical background) join us on the NVTC LinkedIn group if you haven’t. We’d love to have you! 

  • Sign up here if you’re interested in co-investing with Necessary.

If you’re a startup founder, we’d love to help where we can! Brex provides full-stack finance solutions for startups. Sign up via Necessary and get bonus points.

Thanks for reading, and see you next week!


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