Morning VC Brief丨2024.09.18

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/ Defense Tech Startup Second Front raises $70M Series C

2/ Estate Planning Startup Wealth raises $30M Series A

3/ AI SDR Startup 11x raises $24M Series A

4/ HR Startup Every raises $22.5M Series A

5/ Sales and Marketing Agent Bounti raises $16M Seed Round

6/ Coding Assistant Supermaven raises $12M Series A

7/ Social Calendar Startup Howbout raises $8M Series A

8/ Personalized Video Outreach Startup VidLab7 raises $3.7M Seed Round

9/ BP Seek to Sell U.S. Wind Business

10/ Pentagon Doles Out $269 Million for Military Chip Research

01. Venture News

1/ Defense Tech Startup Second Front raises $70M Series C

Second Front equips defense and national security professionals for long-term, continuous competition for access to emerging technologies. This round was led by Salesforce Ventures, Battery Ventures with participation from NEA, Moore Strategic Ventures, and Artis. Link

2/ Estate Planning Startup Wealth raises $30M Series A

Wealth is mission to break down the long-standing barriers that have made estate planning a daunting and complex endeavor for so many. This round was led by Google Ventures with participation from Citi Ventures, Outpost Ventures, 53 Stations, and Firebolt Ventures. Link

3/ AI SDR Startup 11x raises $24M Series A

11x provides AI-powered digital workers that autonomously execute workflows traditionally performed by employees in GTM teams. This round was led by Benchmark with participation from Quiet Capital, SV Angel, Abstract Ventures, Lux Capital, Operator Partners, and more. Link

4/ HR Startup Every raises $22.5M Series A

Every is currently geared toward startups with fewer than 200 employees, not the growth-stage, deeper pocketed customers where his bigger competitors dominate. This round was led by Redpoint Ventures with participation from Y Combinator, Okta Ventures, and Base10 Partners. Link

5/ Sales and Marketing Agent Bounti raises $16M Seed Round

Bounti build a full-funnel AI teammate platform designed to help go-to-market teams – sales, marketing, and customer success – work more efficiently without losing that human touch. This round was led by Google Ventures with participation from Floodgate, Bloomberg Beta, Haystack, Octave Ventures, and MS&AD. Link

6/ Coding Assistant Supermaven raises $12M Series A

Supermaven aims to accelerate day-to-day tasks and help experienced developers navigate and edit large codebases. This round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from OpenAI co-founder John Schulman, Perplexity co-founder Denis Yarats, and Intercom founder Eoghan McCabe. Link

7/ Social Calendar Startup Howbout raises $8M Series A

Howbout is building a social product centered around time. The company has over 4 million monthly active users, with more than 50 million events created on the app. This round was led by Goodwater Capital with participation from FJ Labs, Sequel, and more. Link

8/ Personalized Video Outreach Startup VidLab7 raises $3.7M Seed Round

VidLab7 enables the creation of personalized videos at scale, a game-changer for sales, outreach, up-selling, cross-selling, and customer success. This round was led by EQT Ventures. Link

02. Tech News & Updates

1/ BP Seek to Sell U.S. Wind Business

BP plans to sell its U.S. onshore wind business, which could fetch around $2B, as it refocuses its U.S. renewables business on solar. This reflects how solar capacity is quickly catching up to wind in the U.S., and may eventually surpass it, thanks to lower costs and installation complexity.

2/ Pentagon Doles Out $269 Million for Military Chip Research

The Pentagon will award $269M to 33 chip research projects across the US, marking the second disbursement of funds from a program designed to bolster semiconductor efforts for the military. Link