A Woman-Led Venture Fund Taking Center Stage
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✨
Magrathea: A climate tech startup making waves by making carbon neutral magnesium metal from seawater and brine.
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.
Reach out with any questions! All 146 open job postings are listed here.
Market Stirrings 🚩
Here's what the week looked like in pre-seed:
$22.9M
Total Amount Raised
10
Total Funding Rounds
$2.3M
Average Dollars per Round
$11.4M-$22.9M
Estimated Valuation Range
Data aggregated from proprietary research and Crunchbase; valuation estimate based on 10-20% ownership stake.
Good Reads 📖
For the rushed reader …
Early-stage-focused firm Moderne Ventures held a final close on its third flagship fund raising over $230 million.
Project 2025, the policy outline for Trump’s potential second presidency, proposes trimming down the DOE, which would jeopardize carbon capture projects.
Luminate built a hair-saving helmet for patients going through chemotherapy, with the hopes of eventually powering at-home cancer care.
For the less rushed reader …
MORE FUND IN THE SUN: There’s a new VC fund in town to spice up the venture investing landscape after a slow couple years of dealmaking. Early-stage-focused firm Moderne Ventures held a final close on its third flagship fund raising over $230 million, making it the second largest women-led venture fund raised this year. Moderne Ventures invests in Seed to Series B rounds, primarily focusing on proptech, fintech, insurtech, and climatetech companies. What’s so modern about Moderne? The firm focuses on bringing the right customers to its portfolio companies through vertical specialization. Women in business bring way more to the table than just a trendy pantsuit.
SOMETHING THAT SUCKS: With a presidential removal comes questions about the fate of carbon removal. Project 2025, the policy outline for Trump’s potential second presidency, proposes trimming down the DOE, which would jeopardize carbon capture projects. Although direct air capture (DAC) is a global effort, the US has taken it to a whole new level, planning facilities in Louisiana and Texas that would suck millions of tons of carbon dioxide out of the air each year. For context, existing systems remove dozens of tons or less of carbon dioxide. The Louisiana and Texas projects are funded by up to $1.05 billion from the Department of Energy, as well as additional support through eligible tax credits. Project 2025 proposes eliminating those tax credits and the DOE’s Office for Clean Energy Demonstrations, which currently provides funds for carbon capture projects. Carbon capture initiatives might need to find a way to turn CO2 into dollar bills if they want to stay in business.
GOOD HAIR DAY: Forget Spiderman – a helmet with superpowers might be hitting the market soon. Luminate built a hair-saving helmet for patients going through chemotherapy, with the hopes of eventually powering at-home cancer care. The wearable device works by applying even pressure around the scalp, which prevents toxic chemicals from reaching the hair follicles. The tech might not look like a charm, but it sure works like one: it’s been proven in first tests to prevent 75% of people from losing their hair, even over 10-12 treatments. The next step for Luminate is a comprehensive study across the U.S. in order to gain FDA approval. Who knew the dreaded hat hair was the secret all along?
Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥
Check out details on the pre-seed raises from the past week:
CLIMATE tech
Greener Herd - Management moo-ving forward.
Greener Herd raised $120k from Techstars. Greener Herd is building a livestock management app to help farmers achieve more sustainable and efficient operations.
fintech
Aption - Strength in numbers.
Aption raised $2.4 million led by Motivate VC and Recursive Ventures. Aption is developing a financial platform for founders, employees, and equity holders to pool assets with other promising companies.
Gale - Retail therapy.
Gale raised $120k from Techstars. Gale is developing a payments platform that facilitates HSA and FSA payments to boost sales. 77% of shoppers abandon their carts; Gale is taking the burden out of hitting the purchase button.
artificial intelligence
Dobbie - Setting sale for the high seas.
Dobbie raised $120k from Techstars. Dobbie is building an AI-driven platform to put ecommerce on autopilot; it integrates with a business’ SaaS stack to ease along sales and operations.
Kuzko - A Large Language Model citizen.
Kuzko raised $500k from a16z. Built on the Solana blockchain, Kuzco is creating a system that facilitates LLM inferences, enabling users to access models through an OpenAI-compatible API.
PIN AI - Personal assistant in your pocket.
PIN AI raised $10 million from a long list of investors, including a16z and Hack VC. PIN AI is developing the world’s very first personal intelligence network, turning smartphones into personal assistants that leverage contextual data from your phone and AI models to manage tasks.
Outro🚪
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Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
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San Francisco, California