VC's Most Wanted (Biotech Edition)
Feb 7, 2024
Kaley Ubellacker
Market Stirrings 🚩
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.
VC funding for 2023 went cliff jumping. According to Pitchbook, both capital raised and fund count dropped below 2018 levels at $67.3 billion and 488 respectively, which was a steep drop from 2022’s peak at $172.8 billion raised across 1,351 funds. We’ll see if these numbers are revised over time, and if so, how much.
This is part of a broader outlook where the market will likely remain volatile as long as higher inflation and rates persist, creating a more “risk-off” environment. We’ll all be olympic athletes after holding our breath this long for the mythical “soft landing.”
Good Reads 📖
For the rushed reader …
Niremia Collective is a new VC in town, launching its first pre-seed/seed fund focused on well-being tech with $22.5 million in commitments ready to run.
For the less rushed reader …
WHO RUNS THE WORLD?: Wellness kicks aren’t just for LA moms downing a ginger shot after pilates. Niremia Collective is the new VC in town, launching its first pre-seed/seed fund focused on well-being tech with $22.5 million in commitments ready to run. Better yet, Niremia Collective is women-led (*shots fired at the gender gap*). The VC was founded by Naoko Okumoto and Nichol Bradford, who have previous experiences at companies like Mistletoe Venture Partners, Amber Bridge Partners, Disney Interactive, and Transformative Tech. The karmic circle is finally in balance: VCs can work tirelessly on startups at the cost of sleep and wellness, and then they can turn to their newly built startups for a boost – it’s brilliant.
GUILT TRIP: “You’re toxic, [Tesla is] slippin’ under,” sang Britney Spears after hearing about Tesla’s facilities in California, probably. This past week, 25 counties in California sued Tesla for allegedly illegally disposing of hazardous waste. After just a couple days, Elon Musk settled and agreed to pay $1.5 million. The lawsuit claimed that Tesla tossed hazardous waste in dumpsters and compactors, which could then end up in landfills. Investigators had the glorious job of rifling through Tesla’s trash, which confirmed the unlawful disposals. It’s only a matter of time before the EPA is on the case, and it’s uncertain what regulatory ripples it might cause. Dial up all your favorite dumpster divers because Tesla needs a waste professional.
TOO-FAKED: “Fake it ‘til you make it” is all fun and games until you lose your equity stake in it. While it hasn’t gone that far for Meta yet, the company is under increased pressure to sort through deep fakes, especially as another tense election year approaches and with rising outrage about Taylor Swift’s deep fakes floating around the web. Over the coming months, Meta announced it will begin labeling AI-created images with invisible markers. The labels will only apply to images from Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Adobe, Midjourney and Shutterstock, which include technical metadata that can be used to watermark. That leaves a gap for other image generators like open-source models, where the deep fake dilemma will live on. We need to tell more elementary school kids to stop being copycats, so less people grow up to be AI con artists.
Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥
Highlights from this week’s pre-seed raises:
Healthtech
Izote Biosciences - Heavy breathing bacteria
The Problem: Precision manufacturing is used to create bioproducts like chemicals and medicines, but pumping oxygen into the systems is costly and complicated.
The Tech: Proprietary method that enables bacteria to breathe in a bioreactor without oxygen.
Recently Raised: $2.6 million in an oversubscribed round led by Embark Ventures and EGB Capital.
Also Note: Izote’s product enables 70% lower capital expenditures and 50-100% higher gross margins.
Fintech
Indemn - The chattiest insurance agents
The Problem: Insurance is an outdated business, and there’s a need for more accessible information to assist with product configuration and underwriting.
The Tech: AI agents that support every step of digital insurance from quoting through purchase.
Recently Raised: $1.9 million in funding led by Markd, with participation from Afterwork Ventures, Everywhere Ventures, and others.
Also Note: Indemn created a first-of-its-kind platform for people to interact with insurance through natural language.
Outro🚪
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Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
