Anthropic Is Now Raising Money at a $350B Valuation

Our chat with Jon Callaghan of True Ventures “dropped” yesterday. You can find that latest StrictlyVC Download here.

Top News

Anthropic is reportedly raising $10 billion at a $350 billion valuation, nearly doubling its price tag in four months. GIC and Coatue are the leads, according to The Wall Street Journal, which has more here.

Character.AI and Google have agreed to settle lawsuits with families of teenagers who died or harmed themselves after using the AI chatbot. The parties are now negotiating the terms of the settlements, which will be among the first in cases accusing AI companies of damaging users. The WSJ has more here.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s board unanimously rejected Paramount’s $108 billion debt-heavy bid as “illusory” and reaffirmed support for Netflix’s $82.7 billion offer. TechCrunch has more here.

By Julie Bort

Over the past few days, several posts on LinkedIn and Twitter/X went viral after one of the most talked about AI companies in San Francisco suddenly vanished from LinkedIn: Artisan AI.

The company’s LinkedIn page, individual employee profiles, and posts from executives all displayed a “This post cannot be displayed” message.

The startup had been banned from the site, Artisan CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack confirmed to TechCrunch. However, after working with LinkedIn over the past two weeks — and addressing the social network’s concerns — Artisan is now being reinstated.

“Every startup inevitably has some kind of thing that comes back to bite them [from things] that they do early on,” Carmichael-Jack said.

Contrary to what the rumors in the viral posts said, LinkedIn did not ban the company because its AI agents were spamming users. LinkedIn did, however, object to the startup using LinkedIn’s name on its website and also alleged that the company was using data brokers who had scraped the site without permission, Carmichael-Jack said. Data scraping is a violation of LinkedIn’s terms of service.

Artisan AI is a graduate of startup accelerator Y Combinator and became one of San Francisco’s buzziest startups via its “Stop hiring humans” billboards posted around town. Artisan offers an AI agent it calls Ava that does outbound sales by finding and contacting potential customers. LinkedIn is famously precious turf for outbound marketing salespeople — both human and, increasingly, AI.

While a couple of LinkedIn users seemed to notice Artisan’s ban about a week ago, the posts and tweets about it really picked up steam this week.

Massive Fundings

Corsera Health, a three-year-old Boston startup that develops preventive RNAi medicines and predictive tools for cardiovascular disease, raised an $80 million Series A round co-led by Forbion and Population Health Partners. More here.

Soley Therapeutics, an eight-year-old South San Francisco startup that develops oncology drugs using cell stress sensing to discover first-in-class compounds, raised a $200 million Series C round led by Surveyor Capital, with HRTG Partners and RWN Management as well as previous investors Doug Leone Family Fund, Breyer Capital, and GordonMD Global Investment also digging in. More here.

Spiro Medical, a one-year-old startup based in Irvine, CA, that is developing a pulmonary neuromodulation system to treat asthma, raised a $67 million Series A round co-led by Andera Partners, Omega Funds, and Sherpa Healthcare Partners, with HSG, Supernova Invest, Northern Light Venture Capital, and Hero also investing. MassDevice has more here.

Swap, a four-year-old London startup that builds software to unify global e-commerce operations across shipping, returns, inventory, tax, and compliance, raised a $100 million Series C round co-led by DST Global and ICONIQ Capital, with Cherry Ventures, QED Investors, 9900 Capital, and Portfolio Ventures also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $149 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Babylon Labs, a four-year-old Palo Alto startup that develops infrastructure to let native bitcoin be used as on-chain collateral, raised a $15 million round from Andreessen Horowitz. CoinDesk has more here.

Blackbird.AI, an eight-year-old New York startup that protects organizations and executives from narrative-based disinformation attacks, raised a $28 million round. Investors included Ten Eleven Ventures and Dorilton Ventures. The startup has raised a total of $58 million. More here.

GS Microelectronics, a five-year-old startup based in San Jose, CA, that provides semiconductor design, packaging, and supply chain services, raised a $35 million Series B round. Maverick Silicon was the deal lead. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Qualinx, an 11-year-old Dutch company that designs ultra-low-power satellite positioning chips, raised a $23.4 million round led by Invest-NL, with previous investors FORWARD.one, InnovationQuarter Capital, and Waterman Ventures also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $46.7 million. More here.

Semafor, a three-year-old New York startup that publishes global business and political journalism and hosts live events for executives and policymakers, raised a $30 million round at a $330 million post-money valuation. Investors included PSP Partners, Thomas Leysen, and Antenna Group as well as previous investors Henry Kravis and David Rubenstein. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Vitrealab, an eight-year-old startup that develops photonic chips for augmented reality displays, raised an $11 million Series A round co-led by LIFTT Italian Venture Capital and LIFTT EuroInvest, with Constructor Capital, aws Gründungsfonds, Gateway Ventures, PhotonVentures, xista Science Ventures, Moveon Technologies, and Hermann Hauser Investment also participating. Tech Funding News has more here.

Smaller Fundings

Biographica, a four-year-old London startup that uses machine learning to identify gene-editing targets for crops, raised a $9.5 million seed round led by Faber VC, with SuperSeed, Cardumen Capital, and The Helm as well as previous investors Chalfen Ventures and Entrepreneurs First also taking part. AgFunderNews has more here.

Oasys, a two-year-old New York startup that helps mental health providers manage operations and integrate clinical and physiological data into care, raised a $4 million seed round led by Pathlight Ventures, with Twine Ventures and Better Ventures also participating. The startup has raised a total of $4.6 million. More here.

Pluto Financial Technologies, a one-year-old New York startup that lets investors borrow against private market assets without selling, raised an $8.6 million seed round. Investors included Motive Ventures, Portage, Apollo, Hamilton Lane, Tectonic Ventures, and Broadhaven Ventures. More here.

Tesoro XP, a one-year-old Austin startup that lets retailers fund in-game currency for free-to-play gamers through verified real-world purchases, raised a $5.4 million seed round co-led by Treasury and TK MediaTech Ventures. Pulse 2.0 has more here.