Not another fucking newsletter

Happy Friday from Traded VC! 

👋 Yoo, Joon here!

SBF received 25 years in prison and was ordered to forfeit $11B in assets for stealing $8B from FTX customers. I won’t bore you with details, but this meme sums it up lmao.

Don’t forget our latest startup meme (where my angel investors at?) 😁

Let’s get to the deals 👇

🧠 Dopamine Dealflow

Small Dopamine

• Football Startups 📈
  Gunners baller @zinchenko 🇺🇦 and Nwankwo Kanu 🇳🇬 invest into @victoryleague_io to create a new sports medium ⚽ The startup raised $4M and already had Arsenal legend @robbielyleofficial on the platform 🔴 read more

• Blockchain, Baby ⛓️

  0G Labs raised $35M to build a modular AI blockchain to alleviate the pain points of on-chain AI applications 💪 Huge congrats to @michael_heinrich & investor Dispersion Capital (@trickism) read more

• AI In Voice 💬

  Nat Friedman & @danielgross invest into Hume AI, a research lab building AI for human well-being 💆🏻 The $50M round was led by @eqtventures 🫡 You gotta check out Hume’s empathic voice interface EVI 👄 read more

• AI-Powered What? 😬

  No clue what "AI-powered dark web intelligence" is...but SG-based StealthMole raised $7M with 40 customers in 17 countries 🇸🇬 Korea Investment Partners led the Series A round 🇰🇷 read more

• Accelerator Incoming ⌛

  Google just unveiled a $20M gen-AI accelerator 🔥 It's called Google.org Accelerator and it will be a six-week programme where you have access to technical training and mentors read more

• Going Against Adobe 🥊
  Canva is buying Affinity to challenge Adobe's grip over digital design 💪Canva is currently at 170M users (Affinity is at 3M) 🤯 Huge congrats @melaniecanva 👏 read more

High Dopamine

• DEI Fund 💪
  New Summit is raising $100M to back climate tech and also underrepresented fund managers 🫡 read more

• Good Riddance 👋
  Bill Ackman arch-enemy, Axel Springer (BI owner), is trying to get rid of @finanzennet. The archaic trading platform could be valued at around $270M 💀 read more

• Google X Accelerator
  @eladgil, @bessemer.venture.partners & 8VC invest $30M into Fieldguide, a startup that will basically fix accountant shortage 🔥read more

• Tapping the Saudi Money 🚘 (check out our Deep Dive below)
  @lucidmotors raised $1B from Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 Lucid lost $2.8B last year and tbh have struggled to find buyers for its expensive AF Air sedans

• It's Finally Happening ⚾
  David Rubenstein is now officially the owner of @orioles, after the purchase was unanimously approved by the @mlb. Dude bought the club for around $1.72B 💰read more

• FTX after SBF

  FTX is selling 2/3 of its 8% stake in Anthropic (worth around $884M) 👀 Mubadala (giant sovereign wealth fund) will reportedly buy $500M read more

• Speaking of Anthropic

  Amazon just spent $2.75B on AI startup Anthropic 💸Crazy news coming after rumors of FTX selling its Anthropic stake read more

• MotoGP 🏎️

  F1 owner Liberty Media, is set to purchase @motogp for around $4.3B 🏁 I'm telling you rn, this deal will face heavy regulatory scrutiny lol read more
  

🐬 Deep Dive - The Billion Dollar Saudi Lucid Dream

EV startup Lucid Motors just got another massive $1 billion investment from the deep pockets of the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF). But get this - Lucid's CEO Peter Rawlinson is adamantly shutting down any "mindset that there is bottomless wealth from PIF."

Aka, Lucid Motors can’t treat the PIF like unlimited daddy’s-monopoly-money.

Hats off though, for this refreshingly cool take from the CEO, especially considering:

• The Saudis already control a 60% stake after investing $5.4 billion.

• This $1 billion is literally backed by oil money as part of Saudi's economic transformation.

You can’t make this stuff up. Lucid was supposed to be the Saudi’s star EV child, diversifying from oil into advanced manufacturing. But instead, Lucid is swallowing their petrodollars just to stay alive.

The $1 billion injection comes in the form of convertible preferred shares giving PIF's Ayar fund a fresh 9.8% stake in Lucid. It allows them to keep the lights on as they ramp up production of their luxury Air sedan and prepare for the new Gravity SUV launch later this year (Tbf, both cars look dope).

The clock is ticking.

Lucid has to drastically ramp up production from just 7,000 vehicles last year to 90,000+ to fill that massive Arizona factory. The Gravity SUV could be a game-changer to boost volume.

Lucid is burning around $1 billion per quarter and will "inevitably" need to raise funds again despite having $4.8 billion still in the coffers. Should sales still underwhelm, Lucid may be forced to go hat-in-hand to the PIF again…or look for other investors. 

Rawlinson seems hungry to avoid that "bottomless wealth" mindset, but it remains to be seen if his pride can actually overpower Lucid's financial realities.

Now, get back to the grind 💌