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No-code unicorns, YouTube’s AI plans, and the TWiST500

Author

Alex Wilhelm
June 26, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

Top News

  • Creatio raises $200M: No code software provider Creatio has raised $200 million at a $1.2 billion valuation, TechCrunch reports. The company offers automation and CRM tools that customers can customize to their own needs. It raised $68 million back in 2021. How did the company manage to raise so much at a unicorn valuation when software multiples are low? Growth over 50% and a history of net retention of around 130%.

  • OpenAI makes a play for the OS: While Apple and Microsoft are baking AI-powered tools into their operating systems, OpenAI is trying to worm its way into the most basic layer of computing interfaces. By making its ChatGPT app for MacOS generally available today, it’s offering an OpenAI-flavored compute experience that puts its own tech at the center of the OS experience. This is something to keep an eye on, especially among startups that want to bring mass-consumer AI products to market.

  • YouTube working with labels on AI music: While Udio and Suno face legal fire for allegedly training their music-generation AI tools on copyright-protected tunes, YouTube is wooing rights holders in advance of launching a similar tool. YouTube has Google money, so it can afford the negotiations. The bummer here is that YouTube can afford to pony up cash in advance to get a deal. Something that startups might not be able to do; we need a better, simpler, and fairer way to license content for AI training.

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Today, we’re taking a look at recent unicorns that earned their horn in the last few months. In more prosaic terms, we want to ensure that all private companies that reach the $1 billion valuation milestone are on our radar. While unicorn creation has slowed in recent years, it’s hardly stopped altogether.

Here’s the list of companies that will be discussed on the show later today; we’ll go deeper into the companies that make the cut tomorrow:

  • Huntress: Cybersecurity for SMBs. Recently raised $150 million at a $1.5 billion valuation. Its Series D was led by Kleiner Perkins and Meritech Capital, Crunchbase News reports.

  • Creatio: CRM and automation software with a low-code twist is big business, Creatio implies with its recent $200 million round that gave it a $1.2 billion valuation.

  • Farcaster: The Web3 social network closed $150 million at an $850 million pre-money valuation in May. It’s not hard to see both sides of the company’s latest fundraise. On one hand, if it can create the blockchain Facebook, it’s going to look like a cheap stock in retrospect. But if its user base fails to scale, it could look like another big venture bet into a small crypto company.

  • WEKA: This startup raised a $140 million Series E a few weeks back that affixed a $1.6 billion valuation on its future. The company had previously raised $135 million at a valuation of $750 million. WEKA does fast data movement for high-performance computing jobs across hybrid environments (cloud and on-premises).

  • Altruist: Selling software to RIAs — registered investment advisors — is a great place to do business, Altruist’s success tells us. Its recent $169 million round values the company at $1.5 billion, FinTech Magazine reports. How did it buck the fintech downturn? 550% revenue growth last year, and the potential to reach cash flow breakeven this year.

  • QI Tech: Hailing from Brazil, QI Tech added $50 million to its nine-figure Series B, pushing it into unicorn territory. The company offers banking-as-a-service tools as well as anti-fraud technology.

  • Cognition: AI code writing is a big industry now. GitHub’s Copilot service produces huge revenues, and everyone wants cheaper, faster, and better code. Cognition, now worth $2 billion, is working on just that problem.

  • Monad Labs: This startup wants to make Ethereum smart contract throughput super fast. This is good because the movement to L2 chains that sit atop Ethereum could deprive some oxygen to the underlying chain. Monad is now worth $2 billion despite its youth.

  • Cyera: I won’t pretend to understand what “Data Security Posture Management” is fully, but that work helped lift Cyera to a $1.4 billion valuation recently. Cybersecurity has been a growth hot spot in tech-land for some time now.

  • Clear Street: Akin to Altruist serving RIAs, Clear Street is building software for brokerages. And that work has lifted its valuation to $1.7 billion recently, off the back of a $165 million Series B.

Can’t wait to debate these on the show!

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