The Great Investment Wall

White House Looks to Lock Out China's Tech With New Order, A VCs Mission for a Greener Future, and a Startup Gets its time in the Spotlight.

Author

Adam from VC Brags
February 10, 2023

Welcome Shareholders,   

In this daily edition of the Brags Newsletter, we'll cover how an escalation in US-China trade tensions could impact VCs, a look at a new European VCs green fund, and a TimeSeries Data startup getting an influx of cash to stay ahead of its competitors. 

So sit back, grab a snack, and enjoy!

Venture Today 👏

  • The White House could restrict foreign investments in advanced technologies in China through a new executive order due to growing concerns about the country's military and economic ambitions. 

In addition to the executive order, the treasury department has also been reaching out to other governments, including the European Union, to cut similar funding. The limitations in investments will come in key technological areas, including quantum computing, advanced semiconductors, and artificial intelligence technologies focused on military and surveillance applications.

Other areas that are of concern include China's use of biotechnology, but the report says that the administration plans to exclude the sector initially. There are around 3,000 investments in China annually where US investors participate both through venture fund investments and foreign direct investments. Prominent VCs like GGV Capital, GSR Ventures, and Tiger Global have collectively invested in over 250 early-stage startups  in the past year. The new restrictions could come as a major blow and shut down any direct access for Chinese investments. 

Who's Raising?

  • Berlin-based venture fund Plant A whose LPS include BMW, the Danish pension fund, and the founders of HelloFresh and Zalando, has just raised $172 million to invest in climate tech. 

Planet A will primarily focus on investing in startups across Europe and Israel, writing cheque sizes of between $530,000 and $3.2 million. The venture firm wants to use a 'science-based' approach, with an in-house science team empowered to veto investment decisions based on the results of "life cycle assessments" during due diligence of potential startups.

The Fund, which has already made fourteen investments, including in bio-based materials, e-bikes, and an environmental metrics platform for businesses, plans to only support startups with a significant positive impact on the environment. 

Startup of the Day

  • InfluxData, a time-series database provider, has raised $81 million through debt and equity funding to advance its InfluxDB IOx database engine.

The funding includes $51 million in Series E ledgy Princeville Capital and Citi Ventures, and $30 million in debt funding, helping the company develop its new engine and accelerate its rollout. Founded in 2012, InfluxData is a specialist in time-series data, offering enterprises its purpose-built InfluxDB platform for analyzing time-stamped information to produce business insights.

Once a 'niche' market, there are now several competitors in the space, including Imply, Timescale, Druid, Amazon Timestream, Microsoft Azure Data Explorer, and others. InfluxDB says that its different from its competitors, since it supports high-volume ingestion of all types of time-series data while delivering sub-second responses to queries. 

Memes and Other Things

How was today's newsletter?

Give us your honest opinion. We really don't mind.