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Indian startups gut valuations ahead of IPO push

Ola Electric and FirstCry are set to test investor appetite with public listing, both pricing their shares below their previous valuation asks.

Indian startups gut valuations ahead of IPO push

This week, Google is in discussions to pay $23 billion for cloud security startup Wiz, SoftBank acquires Graphcore, and more.

M&A activity heats up with Wiz, Graphcore, etc.

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SoftBank acquires UK AI chipmaker Graphcore

While the figure of $500 million has been bandied around in various reports for months, in a press briefing early Thursday morning, Graphcore co-founder and CEO Nigel Toon remained coy on the details.

SoftBank acquires UK AI chipmaker Graphcore

German investment management firm DTCP held the final close of its third growth fund and an initial closing of its new early-stage fund.

Backed by Deutsche Telekom and SoftBank, DTCP raises $450M for its growth and early-stage funds

After announcing a strategic partnership with SoftBank in April, Perplexity — the AI search engine that has ambitions to take on Google — is now using the deal to expand…

Perplexity AI searches for users in Japan, via SoftBank deal

Oyo, the Indian budget-hotel chain startup, is finalizing a fresh fundraise of about $100 million to $125 million that slashes its valuation to $2.5 billion, two people familiar with the…

India’s Oyo, once valued at $10B, finalizes new funding at $2.5B valuation

Meesho, a leading e-commerce startup in India, has secured $275 million in a new funding round.

Meesho, an Indian social commerce platform with 150M transacting users, raises $275M

Paris-based Mistral AI, a startup working on open source large language models — the building block for generative AI services — has been raising money at a $6 billion valuation,…

Sources: Mistral AI raising at a $6B valuation, SoftBank ‘not in’ but DST is
AI

Arm’s gains are SoftBank’s gains

Not so long ago, things were looking bleak for SoftBank, the investment holding company headed by eclectic — and controversial — tech mogul Masayoshi Son. The Vision Fund, SoftBank’s venture…

Arm’s gains are SoftBank’s gains

TravelPerk, a business travel management platform targeted at SMEs, has raised $104 million in a fresh equity-based round of financing led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. Existing investors, including Kinnevik…

Business travel management platform TravelPerk raises $104M

FirstCry, India’s biggest e-commerce platform for mother and baby products, is aiming to raise $218 million through the sale of new shares in its initial public offering, almost a third…

SoftBank-backed FirstCry seeks to raise nearly $220 million in India IPO

The Japanese conglomerate is selling the Open Opportunity Fund to its chairman Paul Judge, and Marcelo Claure, who’s being appointed as vice chairman and general partner.

SoftBank sells Open Opportunity Fund to Black and Latino executives

The founders of IRL, Abraham Shafi and Genrikh Khachatryan, are suing their investors, claiming that they intentionally sabotaged the company. At its peak, IRL was poised to become an event…

IRL founders allege investors sabotaged company with fake users claims

Flexible office-space firm WeWork has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, listing over $18.6 billion of debt in a remarkable collapse for the once high-flying startup co-founded by Adam Neumann…

WeWork, once valued at $47B, files for bankruptcy

Conditions appear to be shifting favorably for India’s Swiggy. The food delivery startup — backed by SoftBank, Prosus and Accel — saw its paper valuation slashed by more than half…

Invesco raises Swiggy’s valuation to nearly $8 billion

Welcome back to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point A to Point B. This week was packed…

SoftBank bets on ex-Argo AI founders, Flexport’s founder cleans house and Cruise digs in

This startup is betting on the downturn

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups. This is our Friday show, and we’re talking about the week’s biggest startup and tech news.

This startup is betting on the downturn

Arm this morning submitted an update to its SEC IPO filing proposing a $47 to $51 share pricing. The high end would put the British chip maker’s valuation north of…

Arm’s latest IPO filing eyes potential $52B valuation

Arm’s IPO could very well make or break investor and startups’ appetite for more IPOs this year. What does the company have going for it?

The bear and bull cases for Arm’s IPO

Arm, the U.K.-based chipmaker owned by Japan’s SoftBank since 2016, has filed for a Nasdaq listing five months after announcing it had filed confidential, preliminary IPO paperwork with U.S. regulators.…

Chip company Arm files for Nasdaq listing in IPO anticipated to be this year’s biggest

Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and…

Ladies and gentlemen: The dregs of the SPAC boom

WeWork is struggling to survive in a post-pandemic world. In announcing its earnings today, the flexible space provider said that “substantial doubt exists about the company’s ability to continue as…

WeWork goes from $47B valuation to ‘substantial doubts’ about its future

SoftBank once invested in social app IRL at a $1.1 billion valuation. Now, the Japanese investment firm is suing the defunct company for fraud, alleging $150 million in damages. IRL…

SoftBank sues IRL over ‘elaborate scheme’ that swallowed $150M

AI may have found a center of gravity in the Bay Area, but we’re seeing a lot of activity elsewhere among those who believe that there is a market opportunity…

SoftBank launches an OpenAI for Japan: SB Intuitions, building LLMs and generative AI in Japanese

When it comes to retail, it’s Amazon versus the world. That’s been true for a long time and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. Plenty of factors…

SoftBank and Symbotic team to offer automated warehouses as a service

Before we dive into this week’s biggest news within the robotics space, there’s an announcement of our own to highlight. We’ll be hosting a number of robotics industry experts at…

This week in robotics: Chinese startups net a series of fundraising successes

In the crowded enterprise robotics space, the ability to secure key clients is a crucial differentiator for companies. In the case of Hong Kong–based Rice Robotics, the important order has…

Rice Robotics picks up $7M, powers SoftBank’s office delivery

SoftBank is backing Japanese robotics startup Telexistence, making good on the tech giant’s recent pledge to go back on the investment offensive in light of the current AI hype. Tokyo-based Telexistence…

SoftBank backs Japanese robotics startup Telexistence in $170M funding round

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India’s startup funding slides 68% after Tiger and SoftBank make virtually no deals

Indian startups experienced a significant contraction in funding in the first half of 2023 as some kingmaker late-stage backers quelled new investments in the South Asian nation amid a slowdown in the broader public market. The first six months of 2023 saw Indian startups raise a mere $5.46 billion, a…

India’s startup funding slides 68% after Tiger and SoftBank make virtually no deals

Ironically, the social app IRL‘s users do not exist in real life. An internal investigation by IRL’s board of directors found that 95% of the app’s reported 20 million users…

Unicorn social app IRL to shut down after admitting 95% of its users were fake