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

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. 

Most interesting startup stories from the week

Shortly after Google parent Alphabet reportedly abandoned its ambitions to purchase online marketing software company HubSpot, the tech giant decided to pursue another big acquisition. This time, Google is in advanced discussions to pay $23 billion for Wiz, a cloud security startup with astronomically fast revenue growth. Wiz, a mere four-year-old business, has already achieved $500 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), TechCrunch learned exclusively this week.

Google’s offer is more than Wiz’s last valuation of $12 billion, but will this rocket ship agree to sell itself now and forgo its IPO dreams? A person close to the company told us that there’s a 50% chance the deal won’t happen. 

SoftBank eyeing AI: The Japanese giant has purchased Graphcore, a U.K.-based AI chipmaker once considered to be an Nvidia rival, for an undisclosed amount. While Graphcore’s processors’ popularity is nowhere near Nvidia’s, SoftBank hopes that the chipmaker will play a big role in its pursuit of AI riches.

Another deal for Deel: Payroll provider Deel is on an M&A streak. After buying two other companies this year, this week it scooped up Hofy, a startup that delivers and manages equipment for remote office workers. We understand that Deel paid over $100 million for Hofy, which raised $30.2 million from VCs.

Head-shaking sale: In 2018, investors touted HeadSpin as “one of the fastest-scaling software companies” ever. By 2020, it was valued at $1.1 billion. Then the startup’s founder pleaded guilty to overstating HeadSpin’s revenue and went to prison for fraud. HeadSpin was recently bought by private equity firm PartnerOne for a mere $28 million, TechCrunched has learned, while most former employees received nothing for their options.

Looking for a job is hard, but it can be especially difficult for people with disabilities. That’s why disability activist Keely Cat-Wells created Making Space, a talent acquisition platform for disabled workers. But finding investors for her startups wasn’t easy.

One prospective investor even advised Cat-Wells to find a male, non-disabled co-founder. She ignored that suggestion and grabbed a $2 million pre-seed round from Utah-based VC Beta Boom.

Search for AI: Google helps humans search the internet. AI platforms need to search the internet, too, but at a much larger scale. Exa, which raised $17 million from Lightspeed, Nvidia and YC, does just that.

Consecutive rounds: Back-to-back raises all but disappeared for non-AI startups post-2021 boom. But could Coast, which describes itself as “a financial services platform for the future of transportation,” bring the trend back? It just raised a $40 million Series B from ICONIQ Growth just four months after announcing a $25 million venture round.

AI talent: After six years of operating as a bootstrapped business, Tribe AI raised $3.2 million to help companies hire contractors who can implement AI strategies.  

Most interesting VC and fund news this week

While new fund news was sparse this week, VCs certainly stayed in the limelight.

a16z co-founders for Trump: Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz recorded a nearly two-hour podcast in which they explained why they are switching political parties. The pair admitted that they are single-issue voters and that the issue centers on the interest of startups (and potentially their own pocketbooks). In short, they say the Biden administration wants to overregulate AI, won’t provide clarity on crypto and is proposing a tax on unrealized capital gains that they can’t stomach. They think Trump will be more favorable for startups.   

VC at RNC: David Sacks, a Craft Ventures founder and an All-In podcast co-host, gave a speech at the Republican National Convention. Sacks may be a well-known figure in Silicon Valley, but his name recognition among average Republicans remains low, wrote TechCrunch reporterMargaux MacColl, who was at the RNC. “The applause was tepid throughout his speech.”

Menlo plus Anthropic fund: Menlo Ventures was one of the biggest investors in Anthropic’s Series D. This week the VC firm teamed up with the the LLM maker on a $100 million fund for backing pre-seed, seed and Series A AI startups.

Last but not least

AI fundraising is on a tear, but did you know that this year the number of AI companies that raised $100 million rounds or higher already stands at 28? We expect this list to keep growing in the coming months.