Spotlight on diversity-
“With the addition of LGBTQ+ tags, there are now a total of 20 Diversity Spotlight tags focused on race/ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity in the Crunchbase dataset that helps signal diversity within an organization’s leadership team.” – Crunchbase
To date, 3,084 contributors have added diversity data to Crunchbase, and 28,336 profiles have been updated with Diversity Spotlight tags including, but not limited to:
- 22,604 Women Founded tags;
- 1,540 Black Founded tags;
- 1,458 Hispanic/Latine Founded tags; and
- 566 South Asian Founded tags.
The diversity tags are a step toward raising awareness about founders in these unique groups seeking funding, assisting funders in identifying startups (and funding) with these tags, and enabling research and analysis on funding trends.
Some notable trends this week:
- Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Google AI have invested in this week’s #5, Meanwhile.
- This week’s #4, Taiko Labs from China, illustrates the growing trend of Seed and Pre-Series A awards early on.
- Most of this week’s awards were overseas, with U.S. startups taking the back seat.
Without further ado, here are this week’s Top 5 VC Deals
1Thunes
$60M, Series C, Capital| Equity| Singapore | Payments| Marshall Wace, Bessemer Venture Partners, 01FinTech | https://www.thunes.com/
LinkedIn Overview:
“Thunes is a B2B company that powers payments for the world’s fastest-growing businesses – from Gig Economy giants such as Uber and Deliveroo and Southeast Asia’s superapp Grab..”
2PayNearMe
$45M, Series D, Capital| Equity | CA | Payments | Queensland Investment Corporation, True Ventures, Costanoa Ventures, August Capital, DNS Capital, Invicta Management, H. Barton Asset Management | https://home.paynearme.com/
LinkedIn Overview:
“PayNearMe is the modern, reliable payments platform that facilitates cash, debit, credit, ACH and mobile-first payments, including PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay and Google Pay…”
3Mosaic
$26M, Series C, Capital | Equity | CA | FinTech | OMERS Ventures, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz, HV Capital | https://www.mosaic.tech/
LinkedIn Overview:
“Born from the needs of high-growth, data-driven companies, Mosaic fuels financial planning and business performance. The platform combines big data and machine learning to provide powerful…”
4Taiko Labs
$22M Seed and Pre-Series A| Equity |China | Blockchain | Sequoia China, Generative Ventures, BAI Capital, GGV Capital, GSR Markets, IOSG Ventures, Kucoin Ventures, Mirana Ventures, OKX Ventures, Skyland Ventures, Token Bay Capital, Yunqi Partners | https://taiko.mirror.xyz
LinkedIn Overview:
“Taiko is an Ethereum-equivalent ZK-Rollup, scaling back Ethereum by supporting all EVM opcodes in a layer-2 architecture that is decentralized, permissionless, and secure.”
5Meanwhile
$19M, Seed | Equity | Bermuda | Crypto | Sam Altman, Lachy Groom, Gradient Ventures, Google AI Fund | https://meanwhile.bm/
LinkedIn Overview:
“As the first and only life insurance company denominated in Bitcoin, Meanwhile helps you protect your family. Our life insurance allows you to leverage the value of your Bitcoin today and pass it to the next generation…”
