Morning VC Brief丨2025.03.14

Week11 Highlights丨Flock Safety, Ditto, Equilibrium Energy, Cartesia, Norm AI, Mesh, Anyware, Causal Labs, Podqi

Author

eric gu
March 14, 2025

Morning VC Brief is an expert daily curation of tech and venture news. Feel free to forward; the sign-up is here

TL;DR

01. Venture News

1/ Safety Tech Platform Flock Safety raised $275M at $7.5B

  • Product: AI-driven safety platform integrating license plate recognition, gunshot detection, drones, and real-time crime center software

  • Highlight:

    • Achieved $300M+ ARR, 70% YoY growth

    • Partners with 5,000+ U.S. communities, 4,800 law enforcement agencies, and major retailers/health systems

  • Investor: Andreessen Horowitz (Lead), Greenoaks Capital, Bedrock Capital

  • #AI #GovTech Source

2/ Edge-Native Database Provider Ditto raised $82M Series B at $462M

  • Product: Edge-native mobile database with resilient mesh connectivity for offline sync in industries like aviation and retail

  • Highlight:

    • 2x customer growth and 3x+ ARR surge in 2024

    • Key clients: Delta, Lufthansa, Chick-fil-A

    • Official MongoDB partner, replacing Atlas Device Sync

  • Investor: Top Tier Capital Partners(Lead), Acrew Capital(Lead), Friends & Family Capital, True Ventures

  • #SaaS #Data Infra Source

3/ Energy Portfolio Management Platform Equilibrium Energy raised $28M Series B

  • Product: EQ Mission Control™ – AI-powered software for real-time energy portfolio optimization across assets like battery storage and renewables

  • Highlight:

    • Unifies fragmented energy data systems via AI copilots and enterprise-wide insights

    • Partners include power industry giants GS Energy and NRG Energy

  • Investor: GS Energy (Lead), NRG Energy, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, DCVC

  • #SaaS #Energy Source

4/ Voice AI Startup Cartesia raised $64M Series A

  • Product: Sonic 2.0 – Ultra-fast voice generation model with 90ms latency & best-in-class cloning for accents/soundscapes

  • Highlight:

    • 1.5x user preference over rivals in blind tests; powers millions of calls

    • New features: Voice Changer (audio style editing) and Infill (content modification)

  • Investor: Kleiner Perkins (Lead), Index Ventures, Greycroft, Lightspeed Venture Partners

  • #AI #Voice Source

5/ Compliance AI Startup Norm AI raised $48M Series B

  • Product: Legal Engineering Automation Platform (LEAP) – Converts regulations into AI agents for real-time compliance checks in business workflows

  • Highlight:

    • Clients include financial giants like Citi and TIAA

    • Onboards ex-SEC Commissioner Troy Paredes as Senior Policy Advisor

  • Investor: Coatue (Lead), Craft Ventures, Blackstone

  • #AI #Legal # Compliance Source

6/ Crypto Payments Network Mesh raised $82M Series B

  • Product: Global crypto payment network enabling users to pay with any crypto (BTC/ETH/SOL) while merchants settle in stablecoins (PYUSD/USDC)

  • Highlight:

    • Historic use of PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin for 90% of funding settlement (instant, low-fee)

    • Partners: MetaMask, Revolut, Shift4 – serving 400M+ users across 100+ countries

  • Investor: Paradigm (Lead), Consensys, QuantumLight

  • #Crypto #Payment Source

7/ Multi-Purpose Robotics Startup Anyware raised $12M Seed

  • Product: Pixmo – Mobile manipulator robot for container/truck unloading, palletizing, and hazardous tasks via patent-pending conveyor tech

  • Highlight:

    • Deployed with major 3PLs; handles 45K+ containers annually

    • 3x faster unloading via "pull" motion vs. traditional methods

  • Investor: GFT Ventures (Lead), Foothill Ventures, Black Forest Ventures

  • #Robotics Source

8/ Weather AI Startup Causal Labs raised $6M Seed

  • Product: AI physics models to predict and control weather via causal reasoning, targeting extreme event mitigation (wildfires, hurricanes)

  • Highlight:

    • Combines multi-sensor data with physics-driven simulations

    • Team from Cruise/Waymo/Google Brain, applying autonomous vehicle safety frameworks

  • Investor: Kindred Ventures(Lead), Refactor, BoxGroup

  • #AI #Weather Source

9/ IP Protection Startup Podqi raised $3.2M Seed

  • Product: AI-driven platform detecting & removing counterfeit listings/websites via real-time scanning

  • Highlight:

    • Removed 7K+ counterfeit listings & 100+ fake sites for client Hellstar in 2 months ($4.5M+ revenue recovered)

    • Clients span luxury, sports, and entertainment (e.g., NFL/NBA partnerships)

  • Investor: General Catalyst (Lead), Soma Capital, Afore Capital

  • #AI #IP Protection Source