Not all startups mourn IPOs, but liquidity still must flow

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Several startups announced new rounds this week without disclosing their valuation. This doesn’t mean that these were down rounds, but rather it confirms that our collective focus has shifted far away from unicorns: These days, $1 billion can be the ARR (annual recurring revenue) figure a company wants to hit before going public.

Most interesting startup stories from the week

IPOs are making their way back into the conversation, but not everyone is lamenting their absence.

Secondhand: Vinted was valued at €5 billion in a secondary share sale. The Lithuanian secondhand marketplace joins the growing number of European scale-ups that have followed this route to unlock liquidity for their stakeholders in the absence of IPOs on their roadmap.

Bright side: Ro CEO Zachariah Reitano would “never say never” to taking the telehealth company public, but he thinks the benefits of being a private company are growing, he said in a recent interview.

Checking boxes: Checking boxes: Wiz hopes that 2025 will be the year its ARR reaches $1 billion, a number its co-founders see as a prerequisite for the cybersecurity company to go public after it declined to get acquired by Google for $23 billion.

Big moves: Fintech company Groww is one of several Indian startups that are relocating their headquarters to India to better comply with local legislation and potentially go public more easily, TechCrunch’s Manish Singh reported.

Tailwinds: U.S. federal regulators have cleared the way for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to share U.S. airspace with planes and helicopters, a big win for startups in this category.

Most interesting fundraises this week

Just a handful of AI-related funding rounds this week, but AI will be central to some really big ones that may be around the corner.

Counter-Stripe: One year after becoming a payment processor, fintech startup Finix raised a $75 million Series C round of funding that will help it grow in the U.S. and expand into more countries. 

Money circle: Concentric AI recently raised a $45 million Series B round. The San Mateo-based startup operates in the data security posture management space, which had several M&As in recent years.

Open checks: Socket raised $40 million to detect security vulnerabilities in open source code, which software companies are increasingly relying on. 

Augmented: Fixify closed a $25 million Series A round to help IT teams deal with ticket overload thanks to a combination of automation and human analysts.

Rumors: AI search engine Perplexity is reportedly seeking to raise $500 million. Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati is also said to be fundraising for a new AI startup. 

Most interesting VC and fund news this week

Ducks in a row: Privacy-focused company DuckDuckGo will invest into similarly minded early-stage startups and consider acquisitions. Its past investments include AI model training platform EverArt, TechCrunch learned.

Breathing room: Andreessen Horowitz is making a private GPU cluster available to AI startups in its portfolio through a program called Oxygen, the VC firm confirmed this week.

Partners only: Filings revealed that Benchmark is raising $170 million for a new fund. TechCrunch understands this will be a partners-only fund, where most of the funding will come from the firm’s historical and current partners.

Old and new: U.S. VC veteran firm General Catalyst raised $8 billion in fresh funds. As for new VC firm Chemistry, it raised $350 million for its debut fund.

Last but not least

The race for AI foundational models is only beginning, and smaller startups still stand a chance, Accel partner Philippe Botteri told TechCrunch. This includes European ones, despite the fundraising gap with their U.S. peers.