Not Another Fucking Newsletter

👋 We here!

TradedVC Fam,

Apologies for the late newsletter (we were in the trenches, building). But now, we are bringing you the real deal in VC!

Check back in every Tuesday and Friday to stay in-the-know about all things VC.

We’ll keep it dope & digestible so you can keep grinding.

See you on the other side ✌️

🧠 Dopamine Dealflow

Small Dopamine

• No-code AR
  Shader raised $580,000 from Betaworks, Greycroft, Differential Ventures, On Deck (where my alumns at?) & Mozilla Ventures 🦊 LFG @daryasesitskaya 🔥 read more

• The world's fastest spreadsheet 👀
  Analysts, this is for you: Row Zero raised $3M! The startup is building the dopest spreadsheet to compete with Excel and you now have another software return #N/A for you 🔢 read more

• Personalized news 🗞️

  Former Twitter engineers raised $4.4M for Particle, an AI-powered news reader 📖 Huuuge Congrats @pandemona 👏 read more

• Marketing made simple 📊

  SpaceX & Microsoft vets raised $5.4M for Gradial, a startup using generative AI for marketing 💸 You can basically build websites and campaigns by simply typing sentences ✍ read more

• FTX + Alameda 😗

  Alums from FTX & Alameda Research raised $17M for their crypto exchange startup, Backpack 🎒 They're joining the ranks of startups trying to fill the gap left by SBF. Investors include Wintermute, Placeholder VC, and Selini, valuing the startup at a whopping $120M 💰 read more

High Dopamine

• Cap table 👀
  Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, & Lightspeed Venture Partners participate in the $200M round of Glean, an AI-powered work assistant 🤯. The company is now valued at $2.2B 😬 read more

• Klarna..again.
  Klarna just made waves with its ChatGPT integration, but they're back and getting ready for an IPO 🤑 Potential valuation? $20B 🥶 read more

• Purple Money 💳
  Stripe's valuation just soared to $65B in employee share-sale deal. They'll let employees cash out over $1B of stocks 📈 read more

New VCs In Town

• Chipotle on your cap table 🥑

  Chipotle announced a $50M new VC fund "Cultivate Next” 🤝 They'll invest in early-stage startups focused in the F&B industry (think restaurants, foodtech, etc.) TradedVC fun fact: Chipotle is testing AI to cook its tortilla chips rn. We think they should focus on getting their portions right 🌯 read more

• News to VC Pipeline 📰
  The Financial Times (the lads that unveiled Litquidity's ID), announced their own VC arm. FT Ventures will invest in high-growth companies in the global information industry (media, data & intelligence) 🧠 read more

🎯 Let’s get to know YOU

🐬 Deep Dive - The Perfect Strawberry Doesn’t Exi– 🍓

Oishii, an indoor vertical grower of organic strawberries and tomatoes using Japanese-rooted farming methods, has just raised a sweet series B round. The round, which is almost as sweet as their strawberries, totals $134M and is led by Japanese telecommunications company NTT. The brand plans to use funding to open a solar-powered facility, expand distribution and invest in advanced robotics.

It’s worthy to mention that Oshii is an outlier in the space, as indoor farming startups have taken a big hit in the last year with VC funding dropping from $3B in 2021 to $200M in 2023. 

One could say, the berries are in a bit of a jam. 🍓🍓🍓

Back to Oishii. They are taking the Tesla launch approach and only targeting the highest end of the market. Their logic is that for a better berry they can charge more bucks. And it seems to be working, as Oishii’s revenue has grown 10x since 2021, according to co-founder and CEO Hiroki Koga.

Currently, Oishii is being sold only in expensive grocers such as Whole Foods, so they are able to get away with charging a hefty $10-15 per tray. Thus, allowing them to focus on taste over timelines and profitability over proliferation. To put that into perspective, the average price per strawberry in the US is 10 cents. Oishii, on the other hand, is charging 25 times that. Another cool thing is that Oishii centers its vertical farms around the pollinators that strawberries need to fertilize their plants.

In layman's terms: they are built around a massive f*cking beehive, allowing Oishii to be the only US vertical farm that produces strawberries year-round. Their berries are also pesticide-free, and bear the Non-GMO Project Verified seal. 

Compared to other vertical farms, Oishii is very technologically advanced. They are using state-of-the-art harvesting robots, developed in partnership with investor Yaskawa, as well as optimizing the AI models that power bee pollination, environmental controls, and farm output to grow more with less energy and water. So, a lot of high tech stuff goes into the production of these sweet berries.

Their current product offerings include the Omakase Berry, the flagship Koyo Berry and their new Rubī Tomato. BUT if you are on the edge of your seat waiting for an even sweeter berry to drop, do not worry as they will unveil a new berry later this year… 

‘Til next time! 👋

💌