Morning VC Brief丨2024.08.27

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

00. TL;DR

1/ Data Infra Startup Cribl raises $319M Series E at $3.5B

2/ Intelligent Sensor Platform Bultr raises $38M Series B

3/ 3D-video Model Developer Viggle AI raises CA$26M Series A

4/ Real Estate Platform HomeLight raises $20M Series D

5/ Three of Five Co-founders of H left the company

6/ G Squared raises $1B to invest in discounted start-up shares

01. Venture News

1/ Data Infra Startup Cribl raises $319M Series E at $3.5B

Cribl provides data management service for IT and Security. Cribl has become one of the fastest growing infrastructure companies in history, with ARR growing at a 163% CAGR over the last four years. This round was led by GV with participation from GIC, CapitalG, IVP and CRV. Link

2/ Intelligent Sensor Platform Bultr raises $38M Series B

Bultr has patented the combination of body heat sensing technology and machine learning in the form of sensors that magnetically mount to the wall or ceiling and provide insight into how a building’s interior space is used for working and living. The only raw data the Butlr platform captures is temperature, which is translated into body posture, indoor location, and occupancy. This round was led by Foundry with participation from Qualcomm Venture, DNX Ventures, Carrier, and more. Link

3/ 3D-video Model Developer Viggle AI raises CA$26M Series A

Viggle AI trained a 3D-video foundation model, JST-1, to have a “genuine understanding of physics”. Viggle allows users to specify the motion they want characters to take on. This round was led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Two Small Fish. Link

4/ Real Estate Platform HomeLight raises $20M Series D

HomeLight expand its bridge loan product ‘Buy Before You Sell’ that helps homebuyers unlock equity from their existing home. This round was led by Zeev Ventures with participation from Menlo Ventures, Stereo Capital, and more. Link

02. Tech News & Updates

1/ Three of Five Co-founders of H left the company

H, previously known as Holistic, was founded in Paris earlier this year and has quickly become one of French tech’s hottest companies. The founding team of five included four Google DeepMind alumni; three of them — Karl Tuyls, Julien Perolat and Daan Wierstra — are leaving because of “operational differences”.

It leaves ex-DeepMind scientist Laurent Sifre and former Stanford University computational mathematics researcher Charles Kantor, to lead the company. The company has raised a $220M seed round to build foundational models in May 2024. Link

2/ G Squared raises $1B to invest in discounted start-up shares

G Squared invests most of its funds in existing shares, bought directly from start-up employees and investors who want to sell some of their holdings. G Squared bought about $135M of shares in Amazon-backed Anthropic from FTX. G Squared has also backed businesses including sports merchandiser Fanatics and European ride-hailing group Bolt.

G Squared says it has a “concentrated” portfolio and has generated about double the cash that investors pay in. Other groups are also seeking to capitalise on the challenging market, such as Pinegrove Capital Partners, a new group backed by Brookfield Asset Management and Sequoia Heritage that was founded last year to target buying shares in cut-price start-ups. Link