STARTUP X
The F42 brief #003
Hello, Here’s your Monday dose of The F42 Brief, where we give you essential updates and innovations that are moving and shaping our startup space.
What’s inside »
📈 Trending Now
The one thing that’s making all the noise …. with a bit of fact checking.
💸 New Funds looking to give you cash
Who has launched a new fund to invest in startups last week.
💡Innovator Spotlight
Founders that are doing suff differently.
🛠️ Tool of the Week
Something useful to up your startups velocity.
📌 Note to Self
Stuff I constantly remind myself about, don’t want make the same mistakes again.
📈 Trending Now
Damn, there is even a website for it
🚀 Founders put so much on getting into Y Combinator, but now we are hearing the other side of the story. With a 1% acceptance rate, rejection is common, but it's part of the journey. Most founders are building successful businesses outside of YC's umbrella, with some even reporting revenues up to $200k in under a year. The industry’s rapid growth and competition make resilience essential for entrepreneurs, who often face rejection from multiple investors before landing success.
📈 One surprising takeaway is that rejection often highlights internal issues, like lack of preparation or weak conviction. A rejection can actually push founders to reassess their strategy, improve their product, and persevere.
🔍 How are you using setbacks to refine your approach and push forward in your entrepreneurial journey?
If you have not joined the Fusion42 Community on Telegram — A space for Founders, Framers, and Funders who show up to get **it done,
it is probably time to do so.
For the ❤️ of Startups
💸 New Funds looking to give you cash
Another week and another bunch of fresh capital, with 20 new funds announced—proof that there's plenty of capital out there ready to back startup founders. Whether it's transforming education, enhancing healthcare, or pushing the boundaries of space technology, these funds are geared up and ready to deploy.
The new venture capital fund, University of Utah Ventures, partners with EPIC Ventures to invest in startups led by students and faculty at the University. It focuses on life sciences, technology, and business sectors. The fund supports early-stage startups, providing financial resources to commercialise innovations developed at the University of Utah.
Grupo Integrado has launched a new corporate venture capital (CVC) fund in partnership with accelerator Founders Club. The fund aims to invest in startups that provide technologies to innovate Grupo Integrado’s teaching and research models. The first investment has been made in the open banking platform Baasic, although the size of this investment has not been disclosed. The fund plans to support two to three more startups by the end of the year.
Czech-based PurposeTech has launched its first pre-seed venture capital fund focused on supporting founders from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) working in health, sustainability, and education sectors. The fund targets early-stage startups with global ambitions and has already reviewed over 1,100 startups, making five initial investments. They plan to invest in 10 more startups over the next 12 to 18 months.
Fidelity Venture Capital Fund I is a new venture capital investment fund launched by Fidelity Investments. The fund has raised $250 million and aims to invest in mid- to late-stage private companies globally, with a focus on sectors like North American technology, media, and telecommunications. It has already invested $31 million in 10 companies, including SpaceX and CoreWeave.
Kurma Partners has launched a new venture capital fund called Biofund IV, with a first close of 140 million euros ($154 million) and a target of 250 million euros ($276 million). The fund aims to invest in innovative therapeutics companies across Europe, targeting between 16 and 20 biotech firms. Biofund IV will focus on both new company creation and established venture-stage companies, employing a balanced, risk-managed investment strategy.
BrightPath Ventures is a new venture capital investment fund that focuses on early-stage startups within the technology, healthcare, and sustainability sectors. The fund is sized at $100 million and aims to invest in innovative companies with high growth potential. BrightPath Ventures seeks to support entrepreneurs who are at the seed to Series A stage of funding, providing not only capital but also strategic guidance to help scale their businesses.
Avenue Capitals investment fund focuses on early-stage startups and aims to invest in tech-driven companies. The fund size is $150 million, and it seeks to provide seed and Series A funding to innovative businesses that demonstrate strong growth potential in sectors such as AI, fintech, and sustainable tech.
Activate Capital is a venture capital fund seeking its third fund, aiming to raise $500 million. The fund focuses on investing in climate-related initiatives.
Final Frontier is a new Nordic venture capital fund specialising in space and defence technologies. It aims to raise €150 million to invest in the commercial development of space and enhance the innovative capabilities of the European defence sector. The fund will focus on the Nordic region, where half of its investments are expected to be made, and it targets early-stage investments in aerospace and defence industries.
Summit Partners Growth Equity Fund XII is a venture capital investment fund that recently closed with $9.5 billion in capital. The fund focuses on investing in profitable, category-leading growth companies in the technology, healthcare, and growth products and services sectors. It targets majority and minority investments ranging from $75 to $500 million, primarily in companies that are at a profitable growth stage.
Pantera Capital's new venture capital investment fund, Pantera Fund V, is set to launch in 2025 with a target size of $1 billion. The fund aims to invest in a wide range of blockchain assets, focusing on venture equity, early-stage private tokens, and locked-up treasury tokens. It offers co-investment options to limited partners who commit $25 million or more, allowing them to participate in significant blockchain deals.
CRH Ventures is a venture capital unit of CRH, focusing on ConTech and ClimateTech start-ups across the construction value chain. It has access to a $250M Venturing and Innovation Fund.
Borderless Capital has launched a $100 million fund focused on investing in decentralised physical infrastructure networks (DePIN). They look to invest in projects based on commodity hardware, particularly those that can operate on smartphones, and emphasise token value accrual mechanisms such as buyback and burn. The fund targets early-stage startups in the DePIN space.
Headline has launched an ambitious growth strategy with its new $865 million fund, which is notably 2x oversubscribed. The fund, managed by a newly assembled growth team led by former TCV general partner Shalini Rao, includes alumni from Bessemer Venture Partners, EQT Group, Insight Partners, and Bond. This fund is geared towards investing in growth-stage companies across various sectors.
DCVC Bio is a new venture capital investment fund based in the Silicon Valley area. They focus on investing in biotech startups, with a particular interest in technology that intersects with biology and agriculture. The fund size is $400 million, raised ahead of their original $350 million target. They aim to invest in early-stage companies that have strong potential for quick returns and are wary of overhyped AI technologies.
Jet Ventures is a new venture capital fund launched by Prague-based Jet Investment, targeting €50 million. They focus on investing in industrial B2B startups located in Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Poland, and Slovakia, at the late-seed to Series A stages.
Pangaea Ventures has launched a new venture capital investment fund, closing at $85 million. The Canadian firm primarily invests in hard science startups, focusing on material science, biology, and chemistry, often referred to as "hardtech." The firm is expanding into Asia with a new office in Japan to capitalise on the growing deep tech ecosystem there. The fund aims to invest in startups involved in climate, sustainability, health, and semiconductor technologies. Pangaea Ventures typically collaborates with corporate partners, enhancing its investment impact and innovation reach.
Mito Tech Ventures is a new venture capital fund launched by Mito Technology, focusing on climate technology. The fund has an initial closing of EUR 50 million, targeting a total of EUR 90 million and a hard-cap of EUR 120 million. It plans to invest in 25-30 companies, primarily in early-stage startups (pre-seed, seed, series A) with technologies that reduce CO2 emissions and impact areas such as mobility, heavy industry, food production, and land use. Approximately 80% of the investments will be in Italian companies.
Avid Ventures has launched a new venture capital investment fund called Avid Fund II, which is an $87 million early-stage fund. They focus on investing in transformative software and fintech companies at the Seed through Series B stages.
💡Innovator Spotlight
This week I am gonna celebrate our very own Kurt Walker
First off, what does innovate mean:
”Make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.”
With the upcoming Raise Summit, Kurt has been deep in interviews with founders, framers, and funders, and trust us, he’s skipping the dull, textbook questions like:
How did you get into VC? 🥱
What’s a typical day like for you? 🥱
How do you support founders post-investment? 🥱
Kurt is cutting straight to the questions that matter—the Capital Macros every business needs to master. He’s focusing on Product Capital, asking how Founders and Funders validated their ideas and drove early revenue. He dives into Dollar Capital, exploring fundraising strategies and what they learned. And of course, he tackles Human Capital, asking how they built their dream teams (or not) and what qualities made them investment-worthy.
Get ready for insights that dig deep into what it really takes to smash it in the startup world!
🛠️ Tool of the Week
🔍 Pulse Hero is your SaaS co-pilot for gathering user feedback, reviews, and testimonials in one fell swoop, potentially reducing churn for your platform. By automating the collection process, it gives you insights into how users perceive your app. With AI choosing the optimal moment to engage users, it offers a tailored approach to tracking sentiments. Offering both free and paid plans, it's all about leveraging data to improve and refine your service. In today's competitive SaaS market, understanding and adapting to user needs is essential for sustained growth and development.
💡 One notable lesson from Pulse Hero is its strategic emphasis on user experience, ensuring engagement isn't intrusive. By offering the option to make ratings mandatory, it maximises feedback without alienating users. This highlights the importance of balancing information collection with a seamless user experience. As startup founders, prioritising user comfort while garnering meaningful insights can increase retention and build a positive brand image, turning occasional users into staunch advocates collaborating on improvements along the way.
💭 What strategies can you implement to achieve a similar balance in your data collection processes, ensuring both efficiency and user satisfaction? 🤔
📌 Note to Self
Thank you for reading. If you liked it, share it with your friends, colleagues and everyone interested in the startup Investor ecosystem.
If you've got suggestions, an article, research, your tech stack, or a job listing you want featured, just let me know! I'm keen to include it in the upcoming edition.
Please let me know what you think of it, love a feedback loop 🙏🏼
🛑 Get a different job.
Subscribe below and follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter to never miss an update.
For the ❤️ of startups
✌🏼 & 💙
Derek