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| Here's your Startups briefing: - 🤝 Element Fleet Management acquired Autofleet for $110M to cement its market dominance
- 📈 Seed and Series B median valuations increased in Q2 while Series A valuations remained steady
- 🏭 Cleantech startup Heimdal is building a carbon capture facility in Oklahoma to capture 5,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually
Thank you! Karan
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| 1 | | Canadian automotive fleet management leader Element Fleet Management acquired Israeli startup Autofleet for $110M to leverage its innovative AI-powered fleet optimization platform. Element Fleet believes the acquisition will help it sustain its market dominance by using Autofleet’s technology to modernize its digital capabilities and enhance its core business scalability. More: - The synergy between the two companies is expected to accelerate growth and deliver increased value to clients and shareholders.
- Autofleet, founded in 2018, has rapidly grown to serve over 20 countries across 5 continents.
- The startup's solution enables businesses to launch and manage sustainable fleet operations globally, addressing a critical need in the evolving transportation sector.
- The deal represents a significant return for Autofleet's investors, who had invested $28M in the company.
- Autofleet will remain an independent entity post-acquisition, focusing on further developing its platform.
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| 2 | | The venture capital landscape has seen significant shifts in valuations and deal volumes across funding stages from Q1 2020 to Q2 2024, per Carta. 
What the numbers say: Seed stage median valuations increased to $15M in Q2 2024, nearly double compared to Q1 2020’s tally of $8M. Valuation surged despite a drop in deal volume. Series A primary valuations have stabilized at $40.0M for three consecutive quarters, while bridge valuations rose by 22% YoY, reaching $54.8M in Q2. Series B primary valuations have increased for three straight quarters, reaching $116.3M in Q2. However, bridge valuations at this stage have dropped 34% QoQ to $66.3M, the lowest in recent years. Relevance: Since Q1 2022, valuations have generally been more resilient than deal volumes, particularly at seed and Series A stages. Seed valuations have surpassed Q1 2022 levels, while later stages are trending upward but haven't fully recovered. Round sizes have not rebounded as strongly as valuations, indicating a more cautious approach to capital deployment by investors in the current market environment. | | |
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| 3 | | Automated debt management startup Tally has ceased operations after failing to secure additional funding. The company has raised $172M since its founding in 2015, including a $80M Series D in October 2022 at an $855M post-money valuation. Tally's shutdown underscores the difficulties fintech startups face in the current market, even those with substantial previous funding and high valuations. More: - Founder and CEO Jason Brown took the “difficult decision” after exploring all options to keep the company afloat.
- Earlier this April, the fintech startup shuttered its consumer app and pivoted to a B2B model.
- It claimed to have an undisclosed large-publicly traded consumer company with 50M users lined up as a launch partner, with a launch date set for July.
- The business did not release any more information since, raising the possibility that the agreement was canceled.
Zoom out: - The financial services sector has experienced a significant slowdown in VC funding, with Q2 2024 investments reaching only $9.7B, a 75% decrease from the Q2 2021 peak of over $40B.
- For five consecutive quarters, funding in this sector has remained below the $10B mark.
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| 4 | | Heimdal has built a direct air capture (DAC) facility in Shidler, Oklahoma. The plant can capture 5,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually from the atmosphere, making it the largest in the U.S. The company has managed to bring down the cost of carbon capture to under $200 per ton using a novel approach of capturing carbon from the air with heated quarried limestone and reheating it later to extract the captured CO2. More: - Heimdal, a startup backed by Sam Altman, Y Combinator, and Marc Benioff, has partnered with CapturePoint to use the captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR).
- This approach aligns with oil company Occidental Petroleum's strategy but contrasts with other DAC startups like Heirloom Carbon Technologies and Climeworks AG, who avoid EOR.
- Heimdal's decision to engage in EOR highlights a controversial aspect of carbon capture technology – its potential to extend the life of fossil fuel industries.
- The company's CEO, Marcus Lima, openly supports the EOR industry, stating that the fossil fuel industry should not disappear entirely.
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| 5 | | PayZen, a startup offering interest-free medical payment plans, has secured $32M in Series B funding and a $200M debt facility to further expand its "care now, pay later" model. The company reported a sixfold increase in revenue in each of the past two years and claims to increase healthcare providers' collection rates by an average of 35%. More: - PayZen's product integrates directly with medical record portals like Epic's MyChart and has now partnered with over 60 health systems and large physician groups.
- NEA led the equity tranche with additional support from 7WireVentures, Signal Fire, and Viola Ventures.
- Credit facility Viola Credit provided the debt facility along with a syndicate of insurance companies.
- This capital injection values the company at over $200M.
Zoom out: - The company's growth is driven by the escalating burden of healthcare costs on U.S. patients, with patient fees now accounting for 35% of healthcare revenue, up from 5% two decades ago.
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| 6 | | The Indian Supreme Court has put a stay on a tribunal ruling that had halted insolvency proceedings against Byju's, allowing U.S. creditors to pursue recovery of $1B from edtech startup. The company failed to pay $19M to the Indian cricket board BCCI, leading to insolvency proceedings which Byju’s averted after the CEO’s brother Riju Raveendran agreed to pay the indebted sum to BCCI. Glas Trust, a firm representing the group’s lenders, opposed the tribunal’s decision, alleging that Raveendran used the lender’s capital to pay the BCCI. More: - Byju's, once India's most valuable startup at $22B, is facing a series of crises, including missing financial reporting deadlines, abrupt resignation of board members and auditor, falling short of revenue projections, and allegations of governance issues from major investors like Prosus and Peak XV.
- The edtech startup has raised over $2.5B to date from investors to fuel its rapid expansion.
- Due to the recent challenges, some investors, including Prosus and BlackRock, have written down the value of their stake in Byju’s to zero.
- Attempts to raise funds through rights issues have been met with investor backlash and legal restrictions.
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 | Analyst | | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | This newsletter was edited by Karan Chafekar |
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 | JobsOhio exists to help companies and their people thrive and make Ohio your competitive advantage. |
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