Yildiz Ventures Newsletter | 01-15 Apr’24
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🔍 Let's take a look at the highlights of the 01-15 April 2024! ⤵️
🛒 Online grocery / Food Delivery:
📣 UK grocery delivery firm Modern Milkman has announced its strategic acquisition of the US based Modern Milkman. They both deliver milk & soft drinks in reusable glass bottles, as well as eggs, baked goods- 🔗
❗Grocery delivery giant Getir in talks about radical restructuring. Once-valued at £9.5bn, Getir is working with advisers on plans that could see it broken up or resort to an emergency restructuring mechanism- 🔗
🚴 Deliveroo has signed a “landmark” charter with the GMB Union, “pledging respect” between restaurants & riders. The food delivery service’s agreement follows suit from other restaurants & retailers who have already signed the new charter, inc. Morrisons, The Co-op, and Whole Foods- 🔗
🚀 Turkish Startups / VC & CVC News :
🎮 Yerli oyun şirketi Mixer Games, Diffusion Capital Partners, WePlay Ventures ve stratejik melek yatırımcılardan 5 milyon dolar değerleme üzerinden yatırım aldı- 🔗
🌎 Paribu, Web3 ve blokzincir medya şirketi Kriptomeda'yı satın aldı- 🔗
💸 Vispera, APY Ventures Bilişim Vadisi GSYF’den 500 bin dolar yatırım aldı- 🔗
🧑💼 Yeni nesil çalışan esenliği platformu Wellbees, Sabancı Ventures liderliğinde yatırım aldı- 🔗
🛍️ Enhencer, DCP liderliğinde 1 milyon dolar yatırım aldı. SaaS platformu Enhencer, her hacimden e-ticaret işletmesine verimli reklamcılık çözümleri sunuyor ve optimum yatırım getirisi sunuyor- 🔗
♻️ Tekstil atıklarının izlenebilirliğini ve geri dönüşüm süreçlerinin yönetimini sağlayan Yerli atık yönetim platformu Swatchloop, Founder One'dan yatırım aldı- 🔗
📣 Kybele's Garden, 250 bin dolar tohum öncesi yatırım aldı. Yatırım turuna Singapur merkezli Hatcher+ ve ABD merkezli Sente Ventures da katıldı- 🔗
💰 Sosyal medya içeriklerinin AI desteğiyle hızlı ve kolay oluşturulmasını sağlayan Postuby, Alesta Yatırım liderliğinde köprü turunda 900 bin dolar değerleme üzerinden yatırım aldı- 🔗
🆕 Self servis sigorta çözümleri sunan Tamamliyo, Komplet adıyla Avrupa pazarına açılıyor- 🔗
💸 Bağlantılı mobilite teknolojileri girişimi Comodif, 7mn dolar değerleme üzerinden yatırım aldı- 🔗
👉🏼 Yapay zeka destekli interaktif hikaye oluşturma platformu: MidReal- 🔗
🚀 Global Startups / VC News :
🔥 Pigment, a business forecasting platform that handles business strategy in real-time, raises $145M Series D to enhance strategic decision-making in business- 🔗
🦄 Focus Group, a provider of business tech to SMEs, becomes a unicorn with new investment from Hg- 🔗
📈 Shein posts over 2x profit growth to $2b ahead of IPO- 🔗
🚀 Spotify-backer Lakestar raises $600m for early stage and growth stage fund- 🔗
✅ Senoptica's food-waste-busting sensor technology gets FDA approval. Senoptica measures oxygen level inside packaged foods to predict spoilage before it happens- 🔗
📣 Digital payment terms solution provider Hokodo announced a new €100 million debt facility from Viola Credit- 🔗
🏠 Guesty snaps up $130M at $900M valuation to help property managers list on Airbnb and beyond- 🔗
💰 Easop acquired by Remote to supercharge its HR SaaS- 🔗
🔥 Noname Security, a cybersecurity startup that protects APIs, is in advanced talks with Akamai Technologies to sell itself for $500 million- 🔗
🚘 Southeast Asia’s used-car marketplace Carro is raising about $100 million as it gears up for a stock-market debut. Startups seeks valuation of over $1.5B- 🔗
📣 Cendana Capital, a fund of funds that invests in seed-stage, & partner Kline Hill Partners, a firm focused on buying small previously owned private assets, announced a new $105mn fund to buy stakes in seed VC funds from LPs looking to sell- 🔗
🧑💼 Barcelona-based HR unicorn Factorial has raised $80M go-to-market investment from General Catalyst- 🔗
🆕 Scayl comes out of stealth with its “fintech for fintech lenders” and €100M funding- 🔗
📉 Tiger Global VC Fund Closes 63% Below Target With $2.2 Billion. Firm told investors in 2022 that it aimed to raise $6 billion- 🔗
🚘 BlaBlaCar secures €100M credit facility for growth ambitions- 🔗
🔥 Rubrik, a cloud and data security startup backed by Microsoft, will seek to raise as much as $713 million in an initial public offering- 🔗
🚀 Aerospike raises $109M for its real-time database platform to capitalize on the AI boom- 🔗
🛍️🛒 E-commerce / Grocery:
🛒 Amazon is pulling its Just Walk Out cashierless technology large-format grocery store, Amazon Fresh, instead opting for its Dash smart shopping carts, which use computer vision to scan products as consumers put them in the cart- 🔗
🚀 Five international retailers, Tesco, Ahold Delhaize, Woolworths Group, Empire Company /Sobeys & Shoprite, have teamed up to create W23 Global, a venture fund looking to invest $125 million over the next five years into innovative startups across retail- 🔗
🤝 Asda has extended its omnichannel payment solution partnership with payment service company Worldline for another five years- 🔗
🤖 Walmart will deploy robotic forklifts in its distribution centers- 🔗
🛍️ eBay enters trading card commercial agreement with Collectors, acquires Goldin- 🔗
❌ Co-op Food MD dismisses removal of self-checkouts as it uses AI to tackle retail crime- 🔗
♻️Tesco has implemented AI technology to slash its energy costs by 10% and save over 385 tonnes of CO2e across its refrigerated distribution network- 🔗
🤖 Morrisons has become the first UK supermarket to roll out AI-powered cameras across its stores as it aims to boost availability and staff efficiency- 🔗
🍫 Waitrose has partnered with Tony’s Open Chain to launch nine own-brand chocolate bars to support more sustainable cocoa sourcing throughout the industry- 🔗
🥛 M&S is investing £1m in tackling cows’ carbon footprint by changing the diet of the herds that provide its milk- 🔗
👉🏼 Alibaba will struggle to knock Temu off ecommerce top spot. Low operational costs and lower spending on warehousing and inventory give PDD-owned group an edge- 🔗
🥗 Morrisons has invested £1.4m in opening a new on-site innovation centre to support the growth of its Greenside fresh food manufacturing operation- 🔗
🆕 Asda has become the first UK supermarket to launch an online prescription service as it partners with online pharmacy Pharmacy2U- 🔗
🍲 FoodTech / Food Companies:
📣 Pladis has added Godiva into its portfolio as it plans to accelerate the chocolate brand’s sales by 2026. The £3bn company started the integration of Godiva last year and said the move brings additional scale, luxury capabilities and consumer demand to the growing business- 🔗
🌾🍬 Researchers at the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute have mapped out sugar cane’s genetic code, which could lead to more resilient crops and increased sugar production- 🔗
🥗♻️ Copenhagen-based Reduced secured €6 million to convert food and agriculture side streams into useful ingredients using fermentation technology- 🔗
🍫 US confectionery brand Macalat partnered with MycoTechnology to create a vegan, organic, zero-sugar, sweet dark chocolate bar made with mycelium-derived flavour modulator ClearIQ- 🔗
🤝 Cargill is partnering with Voyage Foods, which produces spreads and chocolates free from cocoa, nuts, and dairy, to offer sustainable alternatives to popular sweet treats- 🔗
👀 RipeLocker claims it can “double the shelf life” of high-value crops, including blueberries, cherries, & walnuts. Producers can switch from air to ocean freight, saving costs as well as cutting waste- 🔗
🍫 UK-based Plamil Foods debuted the ‘world’s first’ chocolate bar made from whole coffee beans, aimed at capturing some of the billion-pound global coffee market- 🔗
💰 Serenity Kids secured $52 million Series B funding for its baby food products with extra protein, whole foods, and less sugar and carbohydrates- 🔗
🥛 The Live Green Co. launched a breast milk fat analogue and a post-biotic for gut health, both derived from yeast and produced via precision fermentation- 🔗
✅ Brazil’s Aqua Capital closed its third flagship fund with $450 million, to support sustainable agrifood solutions- 🔗
💰 Onego Bio, based in Finland, secured $40 million Series A funding to commercialize its precision fermentation animal-free egg protein, Bioalbumen- 🔗
📣 Givaudan, MISTA and Bühler announced the opening of a state-of-the-art extrusion hub at the MISTA Innovation Center in San Francisco, which will offer companies the opportunity to conduct product development trials for their extruded products- 🔗
💸 Windfall Bio raised $28 million Series A, to scale its solution, which helps to address methane emissions across various industries such as agriculture, oil and gas, and waste management- 🔗
🆕 Israeli molecular farming startup Finally Foods emerged from stealth w/ a pre-seed inv. from The Kitchen FoodTech Hub, with which it will develop protein from potatoes, starting with casein- 🔗
🍬❌ Blue Tree Technologies—an Israeli startup using a patented process to selectively remove sugars from juice, milk, and beer—has secured self-GRAS status for its approach and has successfully scaled its solution with Israeli juice manufacturer Priniv- 🔗
💸 Ironic Biotech, a Swedish startup, has raised €1M Pre-Seed for its plant-derived proteins that allow iron to be easily absorbed into the blood- 🔗
🏆 The Canadian Space Agency and Impact Canada awarded C$380k grand prize to Ecoation & Maia Farms for their CANGrow food system, it can grow more than 700 kg of food annually- 🔗
🆕 A student at the University of Texcoco has developed 3D-printed bee hives to help boost honey production- 🔗
📈 A new report from the Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment shows that grocery retailers on the west coast of the US decreased their number of tons of unsold food by 25% from 2019 – 2022- 🔗
🤖 🎮 🌎 AI / Web3 / Metaverse / Blockchain / Gaming:
🔥 Microsoft and OpenAI are working on plans for a data center project that could cost as much as $100 billion and include an AI supercomputer called "Stargate" set to launch in 2028- 🔗
💰 Elon Musk’s xAI Seeks Up to $4 Billion to Compete With OpenAI. Fundraising deal could value Musk venture at $18 billion- 🔗
🆕 Microsoft will unveil new Windows and cloud AI features in May- 🔗
🌎 OpenAI to open doors to first Asia office in Tokyo. OpenAI will likely hire local talent for the Japan-based office, which will offer customer support to companies using its technology - 🔗
🎧 Spotify launches personalized AI playlists that you can build using prompts- 🔗
✅ Apple has licensed millions of Shutterstock images to train its AI- 🔗
💰 Luminance's Generative AI-for-law raises $40M Series B- 🔗
♻️ Sustainability:
♻️ Cargill has signed five deals that expand the global agriculture firm’s contracted renewable energy capacity by 42% as part of its overall goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions- 🔗
🆕 Walkers is rolling out new paper outer bags for all Snack A Jacks multipacks to reduce the brand’s use of virgin plastic by 65 tonnes per year- 🔗
🤝 Nordic Bioproducts Group enters partnership to kickstart biodegradable plastic adoption- 🔗
🔖 Worth Reading ✨
🛍️ The future of e-commerce is video: 5 undeniable consumer stats- 🔗
🧑💼 The rise of the chief AI officer. More companies are appointing staff to oversee the tech- 🔗
👉🏼 Why chipmakers are investing billions into ‘advanced packaging’- 🔗
🤖 Shoplifting, self-checkout and the limits of AI. A shortlived retail crime wave is a warning about the unintended consequences of automation- 🔗
⭐ News from Yıldız Ventures’ Portfolio Companies
🔥 Revo portföy şirketi, KOBİ’lere e-ticaret ve e-ihracat çözümleri sağlayan ikas, Seri A yatırım turunda Dünya Bankası kuruluşu olan IFC ve Re-Pie Portföy liderliğinde 20 milyon dolar bir yatırım aldı- 🔗
🤝 Revo portföy şirketi ve Yapay zeka destekli kodsuz yazılım platformu Builder.ai, Komünite ile kurduğu ortaklık neticesinde Türkiye pazarına giriş yapıyor- 🔗