Amazon pays Trump his due, ServiceTitan’s IPO shoots the moon, and screen time takes over completely
StrictlyVC Briefing Doc - December 13, 2024 Top News: Amazon Donates to Trump Inauguration: Amazon donated $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration ahead of Jeff Bezos' visit to Mar-a-Lago. This follows Meta's identical donation, raising questions about competitive philanthropy. Texas Investigates Tech Platforms for Minor Safety: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched investigations into over a dozen tech platforms, including Character.AI, Reddit, Instagram, Meta, and Discord, over concerns about privacy and safety practices for minors. Founder Frustrations with Carta: Startup founders are expressing frustration with Carta's subscription cancellation process, claiming it's deliberately difficult. "I’m speechless at how anti-founder @cartainc is. They make it impossible to cancel your subscription or speak to a human support agent." - Sudarshan Sridharan, Founder of Pipeline. Founders report being forced to schedule "cancellation request" meetings with customer success managers, with available slots often far beyond their renewal dates. Funding Highlights: Massive Fundings: Several companies raised significant rounds, including: Crusoe Energy: $600M Series D for clean energy-powered data centers supporting AI workloads. Anybotics: $60M for autonomous, four-legged robots designed for industrial inspections. Rebel Foods: $210M Series G for its network of cloud kitchens specializing in delivery. Fleet Space Technologies: $100M Series D for its platform enabling real-time mineral prospecting from space. Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings: Notable rounds in this category include: Cartesia: $22M for its voice API that converts text to natural-sounding speech. SolarSquare: $40M Series B for its rooftop solar system design, installation, and financing services. Smaller Fundings: Numerous companies secured early-stage funding, highlighting diverse sectors and innovative solutions. New Fund: Topology Ventures: Launches a $75 million fund focused on "frontier tech" investments in areas like AI, decentralized networks, neuro-technology, aerospace, and robotics. IPO Success: ServiceTitan: Shares of the trade business management software provider surged 42% on their debut, resulting in a nearly $9 billion valuation. People: Elon Musk's Wealth Soars: Musk's net worth surpasses $400 billion. Musk Foundation Under Scrutiny: Tax filings reveal the Musk Foundation has failed to meet minimum donation requirements for the past three years. Silicon Valley Courts Trump: Reports highlight efforts by tech leaders like Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Benioff to build relationships with President-elect Trump. Data & Trends: Venture Funding Gap: A new report reveals a significant disparity in venture funding between states won by the Trump-Vance ticket and those won by Harris-Walz, with the latter receiving 84% of the $170 billion deployed. Teen Screen Time Soars: A Pew Research Center study finds that one-third of teens use social media "almost constantly." Essential Reads: Harvard Releases LLM Training Dataset: Harvard releases a dataset of nearly one million high-quality books for large language model training. Crypto's Anti-Establishment Appeal: The Atlantic explores the appeal of cryptocurrency in an "anti-establishment age." Advancements in AI: ChatGPT gains real-time video understanding capabilities. Autonomous Driving Challenges: A video showcasing a Waymo robotaxi struggling with a roundabout highlights the ongoing challenges in autonomous driving technology.