📶 $100b for OpenAI?

OpenAI is rumored to be valued at $100b with new financing, Carta's secondaries business finds a buyer, and Coatue looks to distance itself from ByteDance

September 03, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

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Good morning 👋

And welcome back to work after the long Labor Day Weekend. I hope each of you made the most of it.

It’s been a few days since we shared what’s going on in the news, so we have a good amount of ground to cover in today’s piece.

Let’s get right into it.

TL;DR:

HEADLINES
$100b for OpenAI? 💲💲💲

  • OpenAI in talks to raise funding that would value it at more than $100 billion (CNBC)

  • Carta’s ill-fated secondaries business finally found a buyer (TechCrunch)

  • After Two Sigma shakeup, will its VC brand suffer? (Pitchbook)

  • FDA Wants Safer Cancer Drugs, but Some Startups Fear Unintended Consequences (WSJ)

  • Coatue Founder Laffont Leaves Board of TikTok Parent ByteDance (The Information)

  • Menlo Ventures Looks To Add To Growing AI Portfolio With New Anthropic Partnership (Crunchbase)

  • Crypto VC Firm Robot Ventures Secures $75M in Latest Funding Round (Cryptonews)

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FUNDS

Name

Fund Size

Fund Number

Earlybird VC

$242m

I

Radical Ventures

$800m

I

HighPost Capital

$100m

I

Antler

$72m

II

Balderton Capital

$615m

IX

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RESULTS

Here are the results from our poll question in Friday’s piece:

If you were raising a first-time $12m venture fund, how many LPs would you plan for to hit your fundraise?

 

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ <20: Big checks only (8)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 20-50: A good mix of institutions and HNWIs (12)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 50-100: Mostly smaller checks (8)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 100+: Almost entirely backed by smaller checks (7)

35 Votes

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