Wow. We so thoroughly enjoyed tonight's event. We loved seeing a bunch of you. The speakers were *phenomenal*. Massive thanks to Forerunner for hosting all of us and to Citizen's Bank and FinStrat Management for their support. Lots of pics and content coming soon . . .!
Top News
Tech stocks plummeted today in the first full day of trading since the Trump administration announced worldwide tariffs, with the Nasdaq Composite falling 6%, its worst result since 2020. Apple was the hardest hit: its shares tumbled more than 9%. CNBC has more here.
The New York Times is reporting that the European Union could be planning to fine X more than $1 billion and require changes to its product that would prevent it from violating the EU's laws against illicit content and disinformation. More here.
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Find out why your firm might need a new approach to due diligence in Affinity’s upcoming webinar with Vanessa Larco, a former Partner at NEA. Register for today's webinar to learn how due diligence is evolving, ways to combine investor instinct with AI-driven tools, and tips to help your firm strengthen its diligence practices. Don’t miss out on insights from a seasoned investor who is applying a new way of thinking to her new fund! Don't miss it!
Teen with 4.0 GPA Who Built the Viral Cal AI App Was Rejected by 15 Top Universities
By Julie Bort
Zach Yadegari, the high school teen co-founder of Cal AI, is being hammered with comments on X after he revealed that out of 18 top colleges he applied to, he was rejected by 15.
Yadegari says that he got a 4.0 GPA and nailed a 34 score on his ACT (above 31 is considered a top score). His problem, he’s sure — as are tens of thousands of commenters on X — was his essay.
As TechCrunch reported last month, Yadegari is the co-founder of the viral AI calorie-tracking app Cal AI, which Yadegari says is generating millions in revenue, on a $30 million annual recurring revenue track. While we can’t verify that revenue claim, the app stores do say the app was downloaded over 1 million times and has tens of thousands of positive reviews.
Cal AI was actually his second success. He sold his previous web gaming company for $100,000, he said.
Yadegari hadn’t intended on going to college. He and his co-founder had already spent a summer at a hacker house in San Francisco building their prototype, and he thought he would become a classic (if not cliché) college-dropout tech entrepreneur.
But the time in the hacker house taught him that if he didn’t go to college, he would be forgoing a big part of his young adult life. So he opted for more school.
And his essay said about as much.
Massive Fundings
Hydrolix, a seven-year-old startup based in Portland, OR, that provides a streaming data lake platform enabling companies to store, compress, and analyze massive volumes of log data in real-time, raised an $80 million Series C round led by QED, with Blumberg Capital, Frontline Ventures, Pruven Capital, Sozo Ventures, Akamai, AV8 Ventures, Ericsson Ventures, Nava Ventures, Oregon Venture Fund, S3 Ventures, Uncorrelated Ventures, and Wing Venture Capital also piling on. The company has raised a total of $148 million. GeekWire has more here.
Runway, a seven-year-old New York startup that develops generative AI models for media creation, including video-generation tools used in filmmaking and animation, raised a $308 million Series D round led by General Atlantic, with Fidelity, Baillie Gifford, Nvidia, and SoftBank also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $536.5 million. TechCrunch has more here.
Unframe, a one-year-old startup based in Cupertino, CA, that provides a customizable enterprise AI platform allowing businesses to quickly deploy tailored AI tools for any use case and only pay once results are delivered, raised a $50 million round. Investors included Bessemer Venture Partners, TLV Partners, Craft Ventures, Third Point Ventures, SentinelOne Ventures, and Cerca Partners. SiliconANGLE has more here.
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Actively AI, a three-year-old New York startup that builds “reasoning-powered” AI tools to help go-to-market teams prioritize sales outreach and drive growth, raised a $17.5 million round led by Bain Capital Ventures, with First Round Capital also stepping up. TechCrunch has more here.
Djamo, a five-year-old startup based in Abidjan, Senegal, that provides digital banking tools to individuals and small businesses in Francophone West Africa - including savings, investments, and salary-linked accounts - for users underserved by traditional banks, raised a $17 million round led by Janngo Capital, with additional participation from SANAD Fund for MSMEs, Partech, and Oikocredit. TechCrunch has more here.
Fairly Made, a seven-year-old Paris startup that offers a SaaS platform to help fashion brands measure and disclose the environmental and social impact of their products throughout the supply chain, raised a $16.3 million round. Investors included BNP Paribas Solar Impulse Venture Fund, GET Fund, ETF Partners, and Frenchfounders. EU-Startups has more here.
Fourier, a three-year-old Boston startup that designs modular hydrogen electrolyzers to produce cheaper and cleaner hydrogen for industrial customers like pharmaceutical and petrochemical companies, raised an $18.5 million round co-led by General Catalyst and Paramark Ventures, with Airbus Ventures, Borusan Ventures, GSBackers, MCJ Collective, and Positive Ventures also taking part. TechCrunch has more here.
Maverick Metals, a three-year-old San Antonio startup that develops advanced chemical processes for extracting lithium and copper from hard rock deposits, raised a $19 million round led by Olive Tree Capital, with Y Combinator, Hanwha Group, Liquid 2 Ventures, Nomadic Venture Partners, Soma Capital, and TechNexus Venture Collaborative also partaking. Mining.com has more here.
Merama, a four-year-old Mexico City startup that acquires and helps scale Latin American ecommerce brands through shared technology, logistics, and operations, raised a $45 million equity round. Investors included Advent International, SoftBank, Valor Capital, Balderton Capital, Monashees Capital, and Marcel Telles. Bloomberg has more here.
SchoolAI, a three-year-old startup based in Lehi, Utah, that offers an AI platform for teachers and schools that includes personalized student learning tools, classroom preparation assistants, and real-time dashboards to help educators deliver targeted support, raised a $25 million round led by Insight Partners and including previous investors NextView Ventures, The General Partnership, and Peterson Ventures. More here.
Smaller Fundings
Acuity Behavioral Health, a five-year-old startup based in Atlanta, Georgia, whose tools help inpatient behavioral health facilities make better staffing decisions by collecting input from nurses to generate real-time acuity scores reflecting patient condition severity across a ward, raised a $1.5 million seed round. Valor Ventures was the deal lead. More here.
Fuse, a one-year-old Dubai startup that provides a cross-border payments API and virtual IBANs to help global companies easily operate and move money in the MENA region, raised a $7.3 million round led by Northzone, with additional participation from Flourish Ventures and Alter Global. TechCrunch has more here.
Grace, a two-year-old Paris startup that helps high-end insurance firms offer instant digital claims reporting and customer service through its AI-powered luxury goods protection platform, raised a $6.4 million seed round co-led by FinTechCollective and Speedinvest, with FirstMinute Capital, Purple, Kima, and Bpifrance also joining in. TechCrunch has more here.
Lumai, a three-year-old startup based in Oxford, England, that is developing an optical computing platform to replace traditional silicon chips for AI workloads, offering higher performance and lower power consumption, raised a $10 million round led by Constructor Capital, with PhotonVentures, Journey Ventures, LIFTT, Qubits Ventures, and State Farm Ventures also investing. DataCenterDynamics has more here.
Northwind Climate, a one-year-old Boston startup whose platform provides business intelligence to help companies maximize returns on their climate technology and sustainability investments, raised a $1.1 million pre-seed round. Investors included Tom Steyer, Deval Patrick, and Alexander Hoffmann. More here.
Parallel, a one-year-old French startup that builds AI agents to automate administrative tasks for hospitals, such as eligibility checks and prior authorizations, raised a $3.5 million seed round led by FRST, with Y Combinator, Bpifrance, Kima Ventures, and Better Angle also participating. Tech Funding News has more here.
Swedish Algae Factory, an 11-year-old company based in Gothenburg, Sweden, that produces a material derived from microscopic algae that is used in personal care products, energy storage, and green chemistry applications, raised a $3.3 million round. The deal lead was previous investor Chalmers Ventures. Tech.eu has more here.
TrialKit, a two-year-old startup based in Clifton, NJ, that provides an AI-powered legal discovery platform for criminal defense attorneys to manage and search large volumes of digital evidence like body cam footage, emails, and PDFs, raised a $4.25 million round led by UpWest, with 97212 Ventures, Kaedan Capital, and NYU Law’s Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital Program also contributing. Reuters has more here.
Sponsored By ...
Join Affinity to dive into how, at a time when traditional due diligence approaches are being tested, Vanessa Larco is taking a different approach. Previously a Partner at NEA, Larco is on the cusp of launching a new fund and rethinking how investors assess the deals in their pipeline. Join Affinity on April 3 to hear a new perspective on due diligence in early-stage investing.
New Funds
Ballistic Ventures, a four-year-old San Francisco venture capital firm focused on cybersecurity startups, is raising a third fund in the amount of $100 million, according to a regulatory filing. It raised a $360 million fund a little more than a year ago. TechCrunch has more here.
Going Public
Perennial IPO candidate Plaid, a twelve-year-old San Francisco company that offers a platform enabling applications to connect with users' bank accounts, facilitating services like payments and financial management, is clearly in no hurry to go public. The company raised a $575 million secondary round at a $6.1 billion valuation, down from over $13 billion in 2021. The deal was co-led by Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, and BlackRock, with previous investors NEA and Ribbit Capital also opting in. CNBC has more here.
People
It seems like Mark Zuckerberg's lobbying efforts have only just begun: Meta's co-founder and CEO just paid $23 million in cash for a 15,000-square-foot mansion in Washington's Woodland Normanstone neighborhood. The Independent has more here.
Essential Reads
The White House may have used an AI chatbot like ChatGPT to determine tariff amounts, an approach that one economist terms "extraordinary nonsense." The Verge has more here.
Speaking of President Trump's tariffs, Fast Company digs into why they could prove to be especially harmful to the EV industry. More here.
Google DeepMind has issued a 145-page paper on AGI Safety that seems to raise more questions than it answers. TechCrunch has more here.
Detours
A new trailer for director James Gunn's Superman just dropped.
Why The White Lotus might sound different next season.
