This Week In Startups

Healthcare is having a huge moment, Databricks raised at $190B, and Thumbtack CEO Marco Zappacosta joins the podcast.

NEWSLETTER | PODCAST | NEW MEDIA

Hey readers

Welcome back to your regular tech digest, a quick snapshot of the most recent tech news worth paying attention to.

This week was a mighty one for tech: Databricks raised $5B at a $190B valuation, Lovable raised $400M at a $13.3B valuation, and OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap departed as the company’s leadership exodus continues. Apollo Global Management agreed to acquire easyJet for $7.6B (which has plans to make it upmarket), and Anthropic announced it will watermark all AI-generated text to bring better transparency to the ecosystem.

We also explore why healthcare is having its biggest moment yet, alongside the week’s biggest startup funding news, acquisitions, new VC funds, and our latest conversation with Thumbtack co-founder and CEO Marco Zappacosta on why AI search is becoming a powerful new customer acquisition channel for marketplaces.

This edition covers:

• 🗝️ Trend of the week: Healthcare is having a moment

• 🔍 Top startup tech news

• 💰 Startup funding highlights easily sourced by using Harmonic

• 🤝 Acquisitions

• 👀 New VC funds launched

• 🎤 Must-watch interviews from our podcast show

and much more.

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🗝️ Trend of the week: Healthcare is having a moment

Healthcare is having an incredible moment across gut, personal and physical health. This explainer video breaks down why the sector has reached this inflection point, plus 3 companies to watch.

🔍 This week in startups: Top startup tech news

• Lovable raised $400M at a $13.3B valuation.

• Databricks raised $5B at a $190B valuation.

• OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap departs, one of OpenAI’s most senior and longest serving execs left to “start something new,” continuing a months-long leadership exodus (Fidji Simo, Bill Peebles, Kevin Weil, Johannes Heidecke all left this year).

• Anthropic announces it will watermark all text generated by its AI models - a significant move toward AI transparency and provenance tracking.

💰 Startup funding highlights easily sourced by using Harmonic

• Vaderis Therapeutics raised $152.5M Series B to advance its rare vascular disease pipeline and AKT inhibition therapies into late-stage clinical trials.

• CodeRabbit raised $143M Series C at a $1.5B valuation, co-led by Atomico and Smash Capital - the AI code review pioneer grew from $15M to $40M ARR in nine months.

• Boulevard Bio launched from stealth with $65M from founding investor Deerfield Management to develop a new class of biologics.

• Skan AI raised $63M co-led by Cathay Innovation and Dell Technologies Capital to map how enterprise work actually gets done - now trusted by a quarter of the Fortune 50.

• Flagler Health raised $50M Series B led by Bessemer Venture Partners for its AI-native musculoskeletal healthcare platform, bringing total funding to $63M.

• Blacksmith raised $45M Series B led by Peak XV at a $550M valuation, nearly 10x its valuation from less than a year ago - to test and validate the flood of AI-generated code.

• Remepy raised $36M Series A led by O.G. Venture Partners and M Ventures to advance Hybridopa, its hybrid drug for Parkinson’s disease, into Phase III trials.

• Mindgard raised $30M Series A led by Album VC to scale its AI security platform that protects models from adversarial attacks.

• Discovered Materials raised $9M Seed led by Lightspeed India Partners to develop next-gen sustainable materials.

• Yulu raised $93M Series C to expand its electric micro-mobility fleet across India.

• Bakingo raised $10.5M Series B led by Faering Capital to scale its online bakery and delivery platform.

• Volta raised $300M to tackle the soaring cost of building AI infrastructure.

🤝 Acquisitions

• OpenAI acquired presentation startup NextSlide.

• Manus AI is unwinding from Meta’s $2B acquisition after Beijing blocked the deal.

• Apollo Global Management agreed to acquire budget airline easyJet for $7.6B.

👀 New VC funds launched

• Accel raised $3.5B to invest in emerging global AI startups.

• Thrive holdings raised $2B to bring AI to the enterprise.

• South Park Commons raised $575M to double down on their best bets.

🎤 Must-watch interviews from our podcast show

Marco Zappacosta, co-founder and CEO of Thumbtack, joins NEW ECONOMIES to explain why Google search volume has reaccelerated to an all-time high post-ChatGPT, why the customers now converting through AI chat are more qualified and further into their decision than any channel Thumbtack has seen before, and why marketplaces for hiring humans, unlike commodity marketplaces such as Uber or food delivery, are mediated by certainty and confidence rather than speed and price.

Previous episodes include

• $2 Billion Founder: The Secret to Building a High-Growth Startup in 24 Months | Tanay Kothari

• Canva Co-Founder: AI Is Useless Without This 1 Skill | Cam Adams

• Hollywood is Secretly Replacing Films With AI | Justine Moore.

• Why most people are underusing AI and why the winners won’t just be OpenAI and Anthropic | Reid Hoffman.

• Base44 Founder: The Strategy Behind Building a Million Dollar Company Solo | Maor Shlomo (Base44) & Mark Tluszcz (Wix).

• AI is a Better Writer Than You But Here’s What it Can’t Replace | Mark Manson.

• The Couple That Bootstrapped a Billion Dollar Company | Julia & Kevin Hartz.

• Email Never Died | Rahul Vohra founder at Superhuman.

• Replit’s President & Head of AI | Michele Catasta.

Watch and subscribe now!

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