What lies ahead for the tech industry? đź”®
Necessary Nuggets
Happy New Year! We’re back after a short break and ready to serve up all the nuggets you need in 2025.
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✨
Copper: Rethinking the induction stove and making kitchen electrification more accessible than ever. Picture a fossil-free future, without sacrificing aesthetics.
| Senior Embedded Systems Engineer |
Infinite Machine: Envisioning the future of transportation beyond cars and into the realm of personal electric vehicles. Its first product, P1, is the ultimate tool for city navigation.
Reach out with any questions! All 184 open job postings are listed here.
Market Stirrings đźš©
Here's what the week looked like in pre-seed:
$18.9M
Total Amount Raised
10
Total Funding Rounds
$1.9M
Average Dollars per Round
$9.5M-$18.9M
Estimated Valuation Range
Data aggregated from proprietary research and Crunchbase; valuation estimate based on 10-20% ownership stake.
ALL THAT’S DEAL-BLESSED AND BRIGHT
According to Crunchbase data, AI and data startups took the cake (most deals) for December, ringing in at a grand total of 57 deals compared to healthcare and life sciences with the second most at 15. This should come as no surprise given how many dollars AI raked in throughout all of 2024, raising the most amount of any industry every month except for March.
Good Reads đź“–
For the rushed reader …
As the U.S. federal election puts the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) at risk, the race for clean energy solutions is heating up.
After shocking customers with a sudden shutdown that locked thousands out of their accounts, Bench Accounting is now being acquired by Employer.com.
Observer compiled a list of the top 5 trends that are currently shaping the AI landscape, from AI agents and 3D models to synthetic data and beyond.
For the less rushed reader …
A TEMPERATURE CHECK ON 2025’S CLIMATE FOR CLIMATE: With AI’s growing energy demands, 2025 could spark a breakthrough year for climate tech. As the U.S. federal election puts the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) at risk, the race for clean energy solutions is heating up. Advanced nuclear startups are fission for attention, promising smaller, more scalable reactors. Meanwhile, fusion power is still two decades away from being grid-ready, but new startups are securing funding and building prototypes, providing renewed hope of turning the trillion-dollar energy sector upside down. Less optimism surrounds hydrogen, which faces a potentially explosive setback, with IRA subsidies at risk and geologic hydrogen still trying to prove it’s more than hot air. It’s shaping up to be a shocking year for energy innovation, with big bets on the power lines.
ACCOUNTING FOR THE CHAOS AFTER SMBS GOT BENCHED: Talk about a bookkeeping blunder. After shocking customers with a sudden shutdown that locked thousands out of their accounts, Bench Accounting is now being acquired by Employer.com. The acquisition, announced today, promises to keep the platform running “seamlessly,” but with a recent track record of abrupt decisions, including layoffs and a hasty shutdown, it’s anyone’s guess how many customers will stick around. Bench, which raised over $100 million in venture funding since its 2012 launch, was once the “largest bookkeeping service for small businesses,” but it seems a combination of poor management and sudden leadership exits may have led to this swift merger. As Employer.com expands its offerings to include accounting alongside payroll and compliance, one can only hope they g-audit.
NEW YEAR, NEW AI TRENDS: If you’re wondering which A.I. trends to keep an A-eye on in 2025, look no further. Observer compiled a list of the top 5 trends that are currently shaping the AI landscape, from AI agents and 3D models to synthetic data and beyond. The race to scale is on, with Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon collectively pouring a staggering $125 billion into AI this year, while OpenAI and Anthropic are raising billions of their own. A key trend is the rise of agentic AI, where autonomous assistants take over repetitive tasks without human intervention. AI companies are also exploring creative ways to solve their data problem, such as test-time compute, which has models thinking longer for better results, and synthetic data, where AI generates its own training material. The 3D revolution is also underway, with startups like World Labs creating “large world models” that could transform gaming and simulations. With all these trends, who says AI models can’t be on the cover of vogue?
Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥
Highlights from this week’s pre-seed raises:
fintech
Juicyway - Pay days just got juicier.
Juicyway raised $3 million led by P1 Ventures. Juicyway is leading the way in global payments with a platform that supports both fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies.
Skynet - Pulling all the resources in the world out of one hat.
Skynet raised $1.2 million from angel investors from GitHub, Polygon, Veracode, and Monotype. Skynet is creating a platform that enables AI agents to access and pay for products and services globally, calling itself “The World’s Resource blockchain.”
SaaS
Bugster - An automatic exterminator for your code.
Bugster raised $224k from Aussie Angels, Galileo Ventures, and Mike Baukes. Bugster is creating an AI-powered platform that automatically generates and maintains tests for developers based on actual user interactions.
Simulation Theory - Less heads in the clouds.
Simulation Theory raised $2 million led by Larry Russ, managing partner at Russ August and Kabat. Simulation Theory is helping businesses manage their hardware more efficiently and avoid overspending with an innovative software development kit that optimizes existing resources.
artificial intelligence
Fraction AI - High quality in, high quality out.
Fraction AI raised $6 million co-led by The Spartan Group and Symbolic Capital. Fraction AI is pioneering a new method of data labelling by leveraging human insights and AI agents to help produce high-quality data at scale.
Outro🚪
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