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Welcome to Startups Weekly – your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. I’m Anna Heim from TechCrunch’s international team, and I’ll be writing this newsletter moving forward.
This week, we’re looking at some companies being created, funded, shut down, and acquired – the circle of startup life.
### Most interesting startup stories from the week
While one company made a splash out of stealth, a few others faded from the radar this week.
– **Out of the woods**: Black Forest Labs is the name of the startup behind Grok’s AI image-generation feature, with backers like a16z and Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan.
– **Sad tally**: Fintech company Tally shut down after running out of cash, despite its efforts to help consumers manage credit card debt.
– **Scored goal**: Score, a dating app for people with good credit, shut down while its parent company, Neon Money Club, focuses on financial literacy.
### Most interesting fundraises this week
In the world of fundraising, some startups saw success:
– **New crown**: Indian instant delivery startup Zepto is now valued at $5 billion following a $340 million round.
– **New winds**: U.S. cybersecurity startup Kiteworks is now valued at over $1 billion after raising a $456 million round.
– **New scoops**: World Labs, led by Fei-Fei Li, raised over $1 billion in its latest funding round.
– **More bots**: EliseAI raised a $75 million Series D round at a $1 billion valuation for its chatbots for landlords.
– **More copilots**: Anysphere, behind GitHub Copilot rival Cursor, raised over $60 million in a Series A round.
– **Care now, pay later**: PayZen secured $32 million in Series B funding for its BNPL solution for healthcare.
### Most interesting VC and fund news this week
European VC firm Balderton Capital raised $615 million for its latest early-stage fund and $685 million for its second growth fund, signaling optimism in the European startup ecosystem.
Fighting the slump: Singapore VC Antler raised $72 million for its second Southeast Asia fund, Antler SEA Fund II, which will focus on the pre-launch, pre-seed and seed money stages and which it already started deploying.
Last but not least
As defense tech keeps heating up, Hadrian acquired Datum Source, a company founded by SpaceX alums that uses AI to help hardware companies find manufacturing partners, which is particularly helpful for startups going after DoD contracts. CEO Chris Power put this acquisition into context, while stating that this will be the “first of many” acquisitions for Hadrian.
