Here's a look at today's Startups briefing.

• 👥 Fintech startup Brex laid off 20% of its workforce as it gears up for profitability. 
• 📈 Kallyope is exploring public listing as pent-up demand for IPOs surges. 
• 🧠 Google DeepMind executives launched a new AI startup and plan to raise €200M from investors. 

Thank you.

Karan
p/karan-chafekar

Expense management fintech startup Brex laid off 282 employees or 20% of its workforce. Brex, valued at $12.3B two years ago, decided to make the company more agile and chart a path toward profitability. Co-founder and co-CEO Pedro Franceschi emphasized the need for "long-term thinking and ownership over short-term gains."

More:

• SVP of global operations Camilla Morais is being promoted to the COO role, succeeding Michael Tannenbaum, who will transition into a board member role. 
• CTO Cosmin Nicolaescu is transitioning into an advisory role. 
• This is Brex's second round of layoffs after it laid off 136 employees, or 11% of its staff, in October 2022. 
• Per a recent article published by The Information, Brex was reportedly burning $17M a month in the last quarter of 2023. 
  • The company had an annualized net revenue of $279M in the fourth quarter, up 32%. 
• The same article noted that Brex had "enough cash to last through March 2026." 
  • A Brex spokesperson dismissed the claim, noting that the firm had about four years of cash runway. 

Google's AI subsidiary DeepMind's executives, Laurent Sifre and Karl Tuyls, launched a new AI startup, tentatively named Holistic. The startup is reportedly in talks with investors to raise €200M ($220M) in funding.  

More:

• Holistic is planning to develop AI technology for enterprise software businesses. 
• Sifre co-authored DeepMind's 2016 research paper on AI systems capabilities in the game of Go. 
• On the other hand, Tuyls has researched game theory and multi-agent reinforcement learning. 

Zoom out:

• Three more researchers have left DeepMind to establish their AI startup, Uncharted Labs AI, two sources informed The Information. 
  • Uncharted has already raised $8.5M in funding against a target of $10M, per filing documents. 
• A former DeepMind researcher established Mistral AI in France in 2023, which went on to raise €385M ($419M) through its second funding round within just seven months of its launch. 

Enterprise-focused AI solutions maker Fusemachines is set to debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker name FUSE after a SPAC merger with blank check company CSLM Acquisition Corp. The transaction is valued at $200M. The firm will use the proceeds to widen its product portfolio and accelerate product development. 

More:

• The company was founded by Sameer Maskey in 2013 and had previously raised a $10M seed round led by Future Perfect Ventures and Dolma Impact Fund. 
• Fusemachines employs about 500 employees in Nepal and North America. 
• Some of its most prominent clients are media company Time, airport concession operator OTG, and luxury goods firm Tapestry.

Zoom out:

• The blank cheque firm CSLM is affiliated with Consilium Investment Management. 
• The merger transaction is expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter.

Global energy and technology group Octopus Energy's technology arm Kraken acquired German tech startup Kwest for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition will help Kraken open its first development hub in Berlin. Additionally, Kraken will leverage Kwest's workflow platform to streamline installations of clean technologies across Germany, the U.K., and other markets. 

More:

• The German startup develops software to streamline renewable energy installation projects, monitor and optimize energy devices, and automate operational processes. 
• Kwest's platform manages 54M accounts for global energy giants, including Octopus Energy, EDF, EON, and Tokyo Gas. 
• All of the firm's seven employees will join Kraken's global team. 

Zoom out:

• Germany is Octopus Energy's second-largest market after the U.K. and caters to about 300,000 households in the nation after acquiring Shell Energy Retail. 

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• Swedish fintech startup Klarna Bank's CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski hinted at a possible stock market listing in the U.S. "It's very likely that this is going to happen quite soon, but there are no official dates," he said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg.  
• Ride-hailing startup HUM launched a crowdfunding campaign on the EquityVest platform to raise at least $500,000. The bootstrapped firm is raising fresh capital to invest in marketing and improve its technology. 
• Commercial orbital imagery startup Albedo closed its Series A-1 funding round at $35M. The up round was led by Standard Investments and supported by Booz Allen Ventures, Cubit Capital, Y Combinator, Initialized Capital, Republic Capital, and others. 
• British nuclear startup Newcleo has opted to build its first power plant in France instead of the U.K. French president Emmanuel Macron convinced Newcleo's CEO Stefano Buono to build the reactor in the nation. 
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