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The official channel of V3V Ventures. We share updates on our investments, portfolio companies, and fund activities. Buy Ads: @JamesCookTg (this is our only account).
🔔 Juniper Ventures spins out of Climate Capital to invest in synthetic biology for the climate
Juniper Ventures has spun out from Climate Capital to focus on investing in synthetic biology aimed at addressing climate challenges. Founding partners Michael Luciani and Jennifer Kan recognized a gap in climate tech funding, noting that many investments have been concentrated in energy and transportation, which contribute less than half of carbon emissions.
Juniper's first fund, totaling $10.6 million, is oversubscribed and will invest between $100,000 and $500,000 in early-stage companies, particularly those commercializing scientific research. Early investments include California Cultured, which produces sustainable coffee and chocolate through plant cell cultivation, and Cache DNA, focused on efficient DNA and RNA storage. The firm aims to position itself as a leader in climate biotechnology, addressing critical sectors like industrials, agriculture, and materials.
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🔺 Venture capitalists continue to play musical chairs
In 2024, there has been a notable trend of venture capitalists changing firms or starting their own ventures, a departure from the traditionally stable nature of the industry. Key movements include:
- Michelle Volz left Andreessen Horowitz to pursue new opportunities.
- Matt Miller, a longtime Sequoia partner, is launching his own firm focused on European startups.
- Bilal Zuberi departed from Lux Capital after a decade to partner with early-stage founders.
- Alex Taussig and Nicole Quinn transitioned from partner roles at Lightspeed Venture Partners to board positions.
- Sriram Krishnan left Andreessen Horowitz for a senior role in the incoming Trump administration.
This reshuffling reflects broader changes within the venture capital landscape, with many investors seeking new roles or launching their own firms, signaling a dynamic environment in venture funding. The article tracks these movements and their implications for the industry.
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❎ X jacks up Premium+ prices by 37.5%, hits some markets harder
X (formerly Twitter) has announced a 37.5% price increase for its Premium+ subscription service, raising the monthly fee from $16 to $22 for U.S. users, effective December 21. Annual subscriptions will increase from $168 to $229. Existing subscribers will maintain their current rates until January 20.
Internationally, users in the European Union will see prices rise from €16 to €21, while Canadian rates will increase from $20 to $29. Some markets will experience even steeper hikes; for example, in Nigeria, the monthly fee will jump from ₦7,300 to ₦34,000, and in Turkey, from ₺300 to ₺770.
X stated that the price adjustments are intended to support the quality of the service, which includes ad removal and additional features. The platform's basic subscription tier will remain at $3 a month.
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🔻 Energy Revolution Ventures’ $18M fund lays a bet on ‘new chemistry’ startups in energy and hydrogen
Energy Revolution Ventures (ERV) has launched an $18 million fund aimed at investing in "new chemistry" startups focused on energy and hydrogen technologies. The fund will support deep tech innovations, including energy storage and carbon capture.
Co-founder Marcus Clover, a former chemical engineer, emphasizes the need for innovative solutions in the energy sector, highlighting his background in building hydrogen-powered drones. ERV's portfolio includes nine companies, such as Green Li-ion and Anthro, focusing on lithium-ion battery recycling and safe batteries.
The fund collaborates with family offices and corporate venture capital, and it also operates a venture builder called Prosemino to develop new startups. ERV believes that significant advancements in chemistry will drive the future of energy technologies, particularly in electrification and decarbonization efforts.
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🚨 Swizzle Ventures raises $5M for inaugural fund addressing women’s health and wealth
Swizzle Ventures, founded by Jessica Kamada, has successfully raised over $5 million for its inaugural fund, focusing on women's health and wealth. The firm, which began operations quietly in 2023, aims to invest in early-stage companies addressing key issues such as caretaking and financial challenges faced by women.
So far, Swizzle has invested in Mavida Health, a mental healthcare platform. Kamada, a former COO at the marketing agency Bamboo, is entering a crucial time for innovations related to women's needs, particularly as the caregiving crisis and a significant wealth transfer are anticipated.
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🌐 Perplexity has reportedly closed a $500M funding round
Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine, has reportedly closed a $500 million funding round, bringing its valuation to $9 billion. Led by Institutional Venture Partners, this funding round closed earlier in December. Despite facing a class action lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement, Perplexity continues to grow; it recently acquired Carbon, a startup that connects AI systems to external data sources.
The funding comes amid increasing competition in the AI search space, with OpenAI launching ChatGPT Search and Google developing features to rival Perplexity, including AI-generated summaries and a potential chatbot-like mode in its search engine.
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🫶 With 25M users, Bluesky gets a $1M fund to take on social media and AI
Bluesky, the decentralized social media platform created by Jack Dorsey, has announced a new fund called Skyseed, which has an initial budget of $1 million.
This fund aims to support developers building on Bluesky's open-source AT Protocol and is looking to foster innovations in areas like data privacy for AI and applications for parents and local communities. Bluesky currently has 25 million users and is positioning itself as an alternative to Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter). Notably, the fund is independent of Bluesky itself.
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🔹 Salesforce plans to hire 2,000 people to sell its AI products
Salesforce plans to hire 2,000 new sales representatives to promote its AI products, doubling its previous hiring target. CEO Marc Benioff announced the initiative, noting that the company has already received 9,000 referrals for these positions.
This expansion comes ahead of the anticipated release of Salesforce's second-generation AI agent software in February. Benioff expressed great excitement about the potential of generative AI, predicting that Salesforce will have over a billion AI agents running within the next year.
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😄 Jay-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners merges with investment arm of Pendulum Holdings
Jay-Z's venture capital firm, Marcy Venture Partners, has merged with Pendulum Holdings’ investment arm, Pendulum Opportunities, to create MarcyPen Capital Partners. The new firm boasts $900 million in assets under management, as confirmed by PitchBook. The merger was finalized around September, although MarcyPen did not provide additional comments.
Pendulum Opportunities was previously raising a $250 million Fund II and will continue this effort under the new name, MarcyPen Opportunities Fund II, having already secured over $100 million.
Marcy Venture Partners, founded in 2018 by Jay-Z, Jay Brown, and Larry Marcus, has invested in various companies, including Partake Foods and Savage x Fenty. Pendulum, established in 2019 by Robbie Robinson and D’Rita, has backed firms like Greenwood Bank and Adwoa Beauty.
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🚨 Cohere is quietly working with Palantir to deploy its AI models
Cohere, a prominent AI startup co-founded by an author of the influential "Attention Is All You Need" paper, reached a valuation of $5.5 billion as of July. Based in Toronto and San Francisco, Cohere focuses on providing AI solutions to enterprise customers, without a consumer-facing chatbot. Recently, it was revealed that Palantir, known for its partnerships in the defense sector, is also working with Cohere.
During a presentation at Palantir's DevCon1 conference, Cohere engineer Billy Trend noted that Cohere's models are already deployed with various unnamed Palantir customers. One specific deployment involves a customer with stringent data storage constraints that requires inference in Arabic, an area where Cohere excels.
Palantir customers can access Cohere's AI models through "compute modules" integrated within Foundry, Palantir's commercial platform. While the exact customers using Cohere through Palantir are not disclosed, the partnership suggests potential corporate applications rather than strictly defense-related ones. Cohere has previously highlighted collaborations with major tech firms but has remained silent on its dealings with Palantir. When asked about military or intelligence-related use cases, Cohere declined to comment.
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🔻 Apple reportedly developing foldable iPhone and iPad
Reports suggest that Apple's next major upgrade for mobile devices may involve foldable technology. The Wall Street Journal indicates that Apple plans to launch two foldable devices: a larger 19-inch model that could compete with desktop monitors and a smaller foldable device resembling an iPhone, featuring a screen larger than the iPhone 16 Pro Max. The foldable iPhone is expected to be ready first, with a potential launch in 2026, though this timeline may be delayed by a year.
Bloomberg describes the larger device as akin to a giant iPad and notes that it has been the main focus of Apple's foldable development. The company is also working on creating a foldable screen that eliminates the visible crease seen in current models, making significant progress in this area.
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💬 Arlan Hamilton announces changes at Backstage Capital, will step into advisory role
Arlan Hamilton, founder of Backstage Capital, announced that she will transition from her role as managing partner to chairperson and advisor. This change will allow her to focus on amplifying the firm's mission, hosting office hours for founders and investors, and bringing new opportunities through her platform. Backstage Capital will also enter a strategic partnership with 360 Venture Collective, which will acquire a significant stake in the firm and help manage operations, capital, and scaling efforts. Together, they plan to launch a $200 million fund in 2025.
Backstage Capital has invested in over 200 companies, including Guava and Career Karma, and currently manages around $20 million in assets. However, the firm has faced challenges in recent years, including a slowdown in investments and a downsizing of its team. Hamilton expressed frustration with limited partners who believed the firm had adequate support, despite the difficulties it faced.
She emphasized that the partnership with 360 Ventures will enhance Backstage's sustainability and ability to support underestimated founders, stating her confidence in the firm's future growth and her commitment to its mission.
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🚨 Databricks is on track to raise a record $9.5+ billion round at $60B valuation
Databricks is nearing completion of a $9.5 billion funding round at a valuation of $60 billion, which includes a secondary sale for employees. This marks an increase from a previous report just 17 days ago, which noted an $8 billion deal and a $55 billion valuation. Thrive Capital is leading the investment, joined by returning investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Insight Partners, and GIC.
This funding round surpasses OpenAI's record $6.6 billion raise from October. Additionally, Databricks may take on $4.5 billion in debt as part of the deal. Despite the large figures, venture capitalists view the $92.50 per share price as a bargain, especially compared to Databricks' main competitor, Snowflake, which has a market cap of around $56 billion.
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🔸 UnitedHealth’s Optum left an AI chatbot, used by employees to ask questions about claims, exposed to the internet
Optum, a healthcare subsidiary of UnitedHealth, has restricted access to an internal AI chatbot after a security researcher discovered it was publicly accessible online without a password. The chatbot, intended to assist employees with patient health insurance claims according to standard operating procedures, did not contain sensitive personal information but raised concerns amid ongoing scrutiny of UnitedHealth's AI practices, which are accused of improperly denying patient claims.
The chatbot, called "SOP Chatbot," was meant as a demo tool and never went into production. It referenced internal documents and had been used hundreds of times since September. Following inquiries from TechCrunch, the chatbot was taken offline.
Optum emphasized that the chatbot was not designed to make decisions but to enhance access to existing SOPs. However, the incident highlights ongoing criticisms of UnitedHealth's use of AI in decision-making, particularly regarding alleged wrongful claim denials. The company is facing lawsuits related to its AI practices, which reportedly have a high error rate in denying care. UnitedHealth Group reported $22 billion in profit in 2023, amidst these controversies.
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🚨 Nearly half of US teens are online almost constantly, Pew study finds
A new Pew Research Center study reveals that nearly half of U.S. teens are online almost constantly, with YouTube being the most popular platform. About 46% of teens report being online regularly, and 90% use YouTube, with 73% accessing it daily. Other popular platforms include TikTok and Instagram, used by 60% of teens, while 55% use Snapchat.
The study highlights a significant decline in Facebook usage among teens, dropping from 71% a decade ago to just 32% today. Similarly, the use of X (formerly Twitter) has decreased, with only 17% of teens reporting usage, down from 33% ten years ago and 23% in 2022.
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📱 Pavel Durov says Telegram is now profitable
Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced that the messaging app is now profitable, with total revenue exceeding $1 billion in 2024. The platform has gained 12 million paid subscribers since launching its premium subscription service in 2022 and holds over $500 million in cash reserves, excluding crypto assets.
Durov noted that Telegram has repaid a significant portion of its $2 billion debt issued over the past four years. The company aims to go public in the future and has introduced various features for businesses, an ad revenue sharing service, and a mini app store to enhance monetization. With more than 950 million monthly active users, Telegram continues to expand its offerings while achieving financial stability.
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🔺 Elon Musk’s xAI lands $6B in new cash to fuel AI ambitions
Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, has secured $6 billion in new funding, bringing its total raised to $12 billion. This latest round attracted notable investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Blackrock, and Nvidia, and was restricted to previous backers. xAI aims to reach a valuation of $50 billion, double its earlier valuation.
Founded last year, xAI launched its generative AI model, Grok, which features a distinctive approach to answering questions and is integrated into X (formerly Twitter). Grok is designed to be less "politically correct" than competitors like ChatGPT.
xAI plans to utilize data from Musk’s various companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, to enhance its models, and is already providing customer support for Starlink. However, Musk faces criticism from Tesla shareholders over potential conflicts of interest. Despite these challenges, xAI is rapidly expanding, aiming to compete with major players in the AI space, and plans to raise more funds in the future.
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🚨 xAI is testing a standalone iOS app for its Grok chatbot
xAI, Elon Musk's AI company, is currently testing a standalone iOS app for its Grok chatbot, which was previously available only to X (formerly Twitter) users. The app is live in Australia and a few other countries in beta, featuring capabilities such as real-time web data access, text rewriting, summarization, Q&A, and image generation from text prompts.
Grok is designed as an AI assistant focused on being truthful, useful, and curious. xAI is also preparing a dedicated website, Grok .com, to provide web access to the chatbot. Initially, Grok was limited to paying subscribers of X, but a free version has recently been rolled out to all users. The chatbot's image generation model is noted for its ability to create photorealistic images without significant restrictions, including the use of public figures and copyrighted materials.
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🔸 Hollywood angels: Here are the celebrities who are also star VCs
There is a growing trend of celebrities in Hollywood becoming venture capitalists, often referred to as "Hollywood angels." Notable figures include:
1. Snoop Dogg - A prolific angel investor and co-founder of Casa Verde Capital, focused on cannabis investments. He has backed companies like Cameo and Robinhood.
2. Sara and Erin Foster - The sisters launched a venture firm in 2022, raising $20 million to invest in consumer companies, including Kudos and Juliet.
3. Kevin Hart - Co-founded HartBeat Ventures, focusing on supporting minority and underrepresented founders. The firm has invested in companies like Masterworks and Savage x Fenty.
4. Paris Hilton - Through her company 11:11 Media, she has invested in various sectors including crypto and biotech, with at least 22 investments.
5. Ashton Kutcher - Co-founder of A-Grade and Sound Ventures, with investments in companies like Airbnb and Duolingo. He is known for backing multiple AI companies.
6. Nas - Founded QueensBridge Venture Partners, making over 130 investments in various industries, including Robinhood and Coinbase.
7. Gwyneth Paltrow - Co-founder of Kinship Ventures, focusing on consumer and wellness investments, with notable investments in MoonPay and Kudos.
8. Emma Watson - Invested in sustainable manufacturing and women's health companies.
9. Olivia Wilde - Launched Proximity venture firm, focusing on consumer and enterprise tech.
10. Jay-Z - Co-founder of Roc Nation and MarcyPen Capital Partners, with investments in companies like Oatly and Impossible Foods.
The article emphasizes the influence these celebrities bring to startups, not just through funding, but also by enhancing visibility and credibility in the investment landscape.
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✅ VCs pledge not to take money from Russia or China, and Databricks raises a humongous round
Over 20 venture capital firms have signed the Clean Capital Certification, pledging not to accept funding from geopolitical adversaries like Russia and China.
This move reflects a growing concern among investors regarding the implications of foreign capital in the tech sector.
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🚨 Google releases its own ‘reasoning’ AI model
Google has introduced a new experimental AI model called Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental, designed for multimodal understanding, reasoning, and coding. This model is part of Google’s AI Studio and aims to tackle complex problems in fields like programming and math.
While the model is still in early stages and shows promise, it has room for improvement. It is trained to reason through problems, often fact-checking itself to avoid common AI pitfalls, but this process can be slower compared to traditional models. Early tests revealed some limitations, such as inaccuracies in counting letters.
The development of reasoning models like Gemini 2.0 follows a wave of similar releases from other AI labs, driven by the need for improved approaches in generative AI. However, there are concerns about the high computational costs and whether reasoning models can sustain their performance improvements over time.
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🔸 Menlo Ventures and Anthropic have picked the first 18 startups for their $100M fund
Menlo Ventures and Anthropic have selected the first 18 startups for their newly established $100 million Anthology Fund, which focuses on supporting innovative companies in the AI space. The selected startups were chosen from thousands of applicants and include those working on areas such as recruitment software, autonomous coding, fintech compliance, and radiology analysis.
The fund aims to combine elements of a corporate startup program and an incubator, offering investments of at least $100,000 along with $25,000 in credits for Anthropic’s AI models. This initiative reflects a broader strategy to explore new applications built on AI foundational models, positioning both Menlo Ventures and Anthropic at the forefront of upcoming trends in AI for 2025.
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🚨 Insight VC describes Databricks’ wild $10B deal and the bad advice the CEO ignored
Databricks recently completed a record-breaking $10 billion fundraising round, attracting significant interest from investors, including Insight Partners and Thrive. The deal's valuation quickly escalated from approximately $8 billion to $10 billion, reflecting strong institutional demand for Databricks' offerings, especially in the AI and data infrastructure space.
CEO Ali Ghodsi initially sought advice from Insight's George Mathew about entering the data warehousing market, to which Mathew responded negatively. However, Ghodsi's decision to launch Databricks SQL has proven successful, positioning the company as a major competitor to Snowflake. Databricks is now on track for a $3 billion revenue run rate, highlighting its growth and the increasing relevance of high-quality data in the age of large language models.
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🚨 Waymo robotaxis are coming to Tokyo in 2025
Waymo will start testing its autonomous vehicle technology in Tokyo in early 2025, marking the first time its robotaxis will operate on public roads outside the U.S. This initiative is part of Waymo's "road trips" program, which aims to adapt its technology to different urban environments, with Tokyo presenting unique challenges such as left-hand driving and high population density.
Waymo plans to collaborate with the taxi-hailing app GO and the taxi company Nihon Kotsu, which will manage and service the Waymo vehicles. Initially, Nihon Kotsu drivers will manually operate the vehicles to map key areas of Tokyo, including Minato, Shinjuku, and Shibuya, before transitioning to autonomous testing with a human operator present.
This announcement follows GM's recent decision to discontinue its Cruise robotaxi program, which included plans for a driverless ride-hailing service in Japan with Honda. In October 2023, GM, Cruise, and Honda had announced intentions to launch a robotaxi service in Tokyo by 2026.
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🚨 How 21-year-old Koko Xs became the new rising-star solo VC
Koko Xs, a 21-year-old venture capitalist, has secured $17.5 million for his first solo fund, backed by prominent investors like Marc Andreessen and Lux Capital. Despite initially considering a career in academia, Xs transitioned to venture capital after working as an investment analyst at Lux and briefly serving as head of growth at Mach Industries, a defense tech startup.
Born in Shenzhen, China, and raised in Massachusetts, Xs saved $140,000 from tuition and work to fund his investments. He is focused on funding deep tech and "deep infrastructure" companies, seeking high-potential investments rather than gimmicky ventures. While he acknowledges the challenges facing solo funds, he believes his boutique strategy can succeed in a tightening market.
Xs aims to aggressively deploy about a third of his fund by year's end, targeting 15 companies that will comprise 80% of the fund's capital. He seeks founders who have faced significant challenges and takes an activist approach to problem-solving. In the long term, Xs envisions expanding into venture index funds, venture credit, and a buy-and-build model.
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🚨 Klarna’s CEO says it stopped hiring thanks to AI but still advertises many open positions
Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski recently stated that the company has effectively halted hiring over the past year, attributing this to generative AI's role in reducing the workforce. He noted that Klarna's employee count has dropped from 4,500 to 3,500 due to natural attrition, as employees typically stay for about five years. Despite his confidence in AI's ability to replace human jobs, Klarna is still hiring for over 50 positions globally and has made several new hires in key areas like policy and software engineering.
Craske, Klarna's global press lead, indicated that Siemiatkowski's comments were simplified for the media, explaining that while the company is not actively expanding its workforce, it is backfilling essential roles. Overall, Klarna's employee count remains similar to 2021 levels, and like many tech firms, it has slowed hiring or made layoffs in recent years.
Siemiatkowski’s remarks may also be aimed at impressing potential investors ahead of an upcoming IPO, suggesting that Klarna is leveraging AI effectively. However, the pace of AI adoption across the industry generally remains slower than anticipated.
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⚡️ Why Marc Andreessen was ‘very scared’ after meeting with the Biden administration about AI
Investor Marc Andreessen expressed his fears after meeting with government officials about the future of technology, describing the discussions as "absolutely horrifying." He was particularly alarmed by comments regarding the government's potential control over AI, which he felt would negatively impact Silicon Valley and discourage investments in AI startups. He recalled that officials advised against funding AI ventures.
Andreessen's concerns are notable given his firm's backing of AI startups like Elon Musk’s xAI and Mistral AI. Prior to these meetings, he had published an AI manifesto warning against regulation. While the Biden administration has enacted less severe measures, such as a voluntary executive order for AI companies, responses from Silicon Valley have been mixed.
In contrast, the upcoming Trump administration seems poised to support AI startups, with Trump appointing VC David Sacks as an AI and crypto czar. Andreessen, who has spent significant time at Mar-a-Lago since the election, confirmed his involvement in various initiatives and expressed optimism about Trump's tech approach, noting that Trump encourages tech leaders to build and succeed.
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🚨 G2 Ventures Partners is raising $750 million for a third fund
G2 Venture Partners, which spun out from Kleiner Perkins, is raising a third fund with a target of $750 million, as disclosed in a regulatory filing. This move signals a strong confidence in climate and sustainability startups, even as other investors remain cautiously optimistic about the sector under the incoming Trump administration.
G2VP has invested in notable startups like Arcadia, 1Komma5, and Crusoe, focusing on founders aiming to decouple consumption from growth. Previous limited partners include Daimler, Mitsui, Shell Ventures, and The McKnight Foundation, with their second fund reaching $500 million in 2021. The new $750 million target indicates G2VP's belief in significant opportunities for climate and sustainability startups in the next decade.
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⚡ ServiceTitan’s IPO is a big winner that could inspire fintechs
ServiceTitan, a provider of financial and customer management software for the trades, made a strong debut on the stock market, with its shares rising from an IPO price of $71 to over $100 shortly after trading began. However, its decision to go public was driven more by the need to pay off venture investors than by favorable market conditions. ServiceTitan had agreed to increasing penalties for delaying its IPO, requiring it to raise funds quickly to avoid these penalties.
The company also allocated about $311 million of the IPO proceeds for buying back nonconvertible preferred stock and paying dividends to investors. Although the IPO price may not have fully shielded it from penalties, it still allowed ServiceTitan to raise approximately $625 million, which is crucial for its operations, as it remains unprofitable.
The positive response from retail investors could indicate a renewed interest in tech IPOs, particularly benefiting fintech companies looking to go public. Analysts suggest that ServiceTitan's successful debut could encourage other fintech firms in the IPO pipeline to follow suit.
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✨ Microsoft debuts Phi-4, a new generative AI model, in research preview
Microsoft has introduced Phi-4, the latest model in its Phi family of generative AI, claiming improvements particularly in math problem solving due to enhanced training data quality. Currently, Phi-4 is available in limited access on the Azure AI Foundry platform for research purposes only. This model features 14 billion parameters, competing with other small models like GPT-4o mini and Gemini 2.0 Flash.
The performance boost is attributed to the use of high-quality synthetic datasets and human-generated content, along with unspecified post-training enhancements. Many AI labs are exploring innovations in synthetic data and post-training techniques. Phi-4 is notable as the first model launched after the departure of Sébastien Bubeck, a key figure in its development, who left Microsoft for OpenAI in October.
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