|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Menlo Hires New Partner for AI Infrastructure, Cybersecurity
|
|
By Yuliya Chernova, WSJ Pro
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Good day. Menlo Ventures brought on Rama Sekhar as its new partner in anticipation of making more mid-stage investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure and cybersecurity startups.
Sekhar, who was previously in the same role at Norwest Venture Partners, will be investing out of Menlo’s third Inflection fund, sized at about $800 million.
The fund makes investments of between $20 million and $40 million, backing startups that are generating roughly $3 million to $10 million in annual recurring revenue.
This year “presents a prime opportunity for Series B and Series C investments,” Sekhar said, saying that’s true especially for the generative AI sector where promising companies are growing fast.
Generally, in the market boom a couple of years ago, startups at that stage could command very high valuations and raise mega rounds, but activity contracted last year.
Matt Murphy, partner at Menlo Ventures, said that by now many startups have grown into their prior valuations and became more cash-efficient.
Sekhar said he is interested in companies providing the infrastructure layer for AI applications, as well as those at the intersection of cybersecurity and AI. At Norwest, Sekhar invested in companies including Harness, a developer-tools company where he was on the board with Murphy; data management company Dremio; and data security startup Veza. Sekhar is based out of Menlo’s office in Menlo Park, Calif.
Menlo has been pushing aggressively into the generative AI sector. It’s in the process of leading a roughly $750 million investment at a $15 billion pre-money valuation into its existing portfolio company Anthropic. The firm previously backed generative AI startups Pinecone and Typeface.
|
|
|
And now on to the news...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sion Power CEO Tracy Kelley said the deal includes a strategic partnership with LG Energy Solution. PHOTO: SION POWER
|
|
|
|
|
|
Battery company Sion Power raises. Many would-be electric-vehicle buyers say they are stuck on range. If only that EV at the dealership could ferry them on a single charge for, say, a day’s drive home for the holidays. Good news for those shoppers—Sion Power is addressing this bottleneck. The company got a slug of capital to push forward with technology that would allow EVs to travel more miles on a single charge, WSJ Pro's Marc Vartabedian reports.
-
Lithium-metal battery developer Sion raised $75 million from battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution, investor Jim Simons’ Euclidean Capital and former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt’s family office management company Hillspire LLC.
-
Sion Power plans to use the capital to continue developing the compression technology that it says will boost the range efficiency of EVs. The funding will also allow the company to scale up the business so it can begin commercially supplying batteries in 2027.
|
|
|
|
|
10%
|
|
The fall in Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index, which includes the shares of many big Chinese companies, so far this year, making it the worst-performing major stock index in Asia.
|
|
|
|
|
Strong Second Half Drives 2023 Secondary Deals to $112 Billion
|
|
|
The market for secondhand stakes in private funds bounced back in 2023 after a significant year-over-year decline in 2022, WSJ Pro reports. Global secondary deals reached roughly $112 billion in 2023, up 4% from $108 billion recorded in 2022, yet still short of a record $132 billion achieved in 2021, according to newly released data from Jefferies, one of the largest brokers of such deals. The modest overall annual improvement belies a noticeable acceleration of activity in the second half of 2023, Jefferies said.
|
|
Grayscale Led the Fight for Bitcoin ETFs. Now Its Fund Is Bleeding Billions.
|
|
|
The crypto asset manager that forced U.S. regulators’ hand in approving bitcoin exchange-traded funds has lost billions from their launch, The Wall Street Journal reports.
-
Investors cashed out $2.8 billion from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust after it converted into an ETF on Jan. 11, according to Bloomberg Intelligence data through Friday.
-
In contrast, nine newly launched spot-bitcoin ETFs have drawn about $4 billion in inflows within their first six trading days, with funds from BlackRock and Fidelity Investments each attracting more than $1 billion in inflows.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Funds
Myriad Venture Partners, based in New York, launched with $100 million in initial capital commitments, including from anchor investor Xerox. Myriad is targeting $200 million for Fund I. It invests in early-stage startups in AI, cleantech, and business software.
Material Impact, a venture capital firm focused on deep tech companies powered by material science, launched a deep tech accelerator in partnership with Columbia Technology Ventures, New York University, and The City University of New York. The five-month-long program aims to move technologies from the academic lab towards start-up formation, culminating in a pitch day with one team receiving a term sheet from Material Impact at the end of the program.
|
|
|
|
|
Silverfort, an identity-protection company, said it has raised $116 million in Series D financing, bringing its total amount raised to $222 million. Silverfort says its platform unifies identity security across on-premise and cloud environments. The company said it plans to expand its team, now spread across more than 15 countries, expand its platform with new product modules and accelerate go-to-market strategy.
San Jose, Calif.-based AiDash raised $50 million in a Series C round led by global impact investment firm Lightrock. AiDash uses satellite imagery to provide information on the condition of critical infrastructure.
Cybersecurity company Torq, of New York, raised $42 million in a Series B extension round that brings its total funding to $120 million. Its investors include Bessemer Venture Partners and Evolution Equity Partners.
Clerk, a San Francisco-based developer tools company, raised $30 million in Series B financing led by CRV with participation from Stripe, Andreessen Horowitz and Madrona.
UnSkript, a tech-infrastructure health-intelligence company, said it has raised a $3.75 million pre-seed financing. UnSkript said it uses large language models to streamline processes of cloud-operations teams. It said its technology can reduce troubleshooting time and improve operational efficiency.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Something Navy has become a cautionary tale for influencer brands. ILLUSTRATION: CHANTAL JAHCHAN; GETTY (7)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
