Lume Weekly Private Market News & Notes 6.25.2022

Covers news about startups, private deals, technology, and innovation in the private market

📊 Stats of the Week 📊

Estimated percentage of startups that became unicorns from Accelerator

💰 Fundraising 💰

Car-secured credit card startup Yendo raises $24M (June 20)

• Yendo, a startup that created the vehicle-secured credit card, announced the closing of its $24M in Series A financing. The company claims that it has grown its customer base by 15% week-over-week since launching last year.

Cleareye.AI secures funding from JPMorgan (June 20)

• Cleareye.AI, a digital trading fintech platform, announced that it received a strategic investment from JP Morgan. The financial terms were not disclosed. Established in 2019, Cleareye’s main offering is the ClearTrade platform, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to streamline processes in collections and documentary credits.

DeFi infrastructure startup Maverick Protocol bags $9M raise (June 21)

• Maverick Protocol, a project focused on DeFi infrastructure, raised $9M in a round led by Founders Fund. Maverick launched its own decentralized exchange in March — which has amassed $37M in total value locked.

AI video creation app Captions bags $25M (June 22)

• Captions, an AI-powered video creation app, announced $25M in Series B funding led by Kleiner Perkins, with additional funding provided by Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), and SV Angel. The startup was launched in 2021 and has more than 3 million users to date.

Kibsi raises $9.3M for its no-code computer vision platform (June 22)

• Kibsi is building a no-code computer vision platform that allows businesses to build and deploy computer vision applications. The company announced that it has raised a total of $9.3M in pre-seed and seed funding.

SpaceX may raise $750M at $150B valuation (June 24)

• SpaceX is considering a new fundraising effort through a sale of employee stock shares, which would value the company at about $150B. The round of share sales would reportedly be at about $80 or $81 per share.

🗞 Others 🗞

Republic buys stake in crypto broker-dealer INX at $50M valuation (June 19)

• Republic will acquire around a 9.5% stake in INX following the initial investment, with a commitment to acquire of 100% of equity at a valuation of $120M as early as Q3 this year.

Robinhood agrees to acquire credit card startup X1 (June 22)

• Robinhood announced that it is acquiring X1, a no-fee credit card startup, for $95M in cash. X1, which offers an income-based credit card with rewards, raised a total of $62M in venture-backed funding.

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