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Saudi PIF Invests in Three Dozen VCs, Kaszek Bets $975 Million on Latin America, and a Startup Looks to Challenge Google's Search Monopoly.
Adam from VC Brags
April 04, 2023
Welcome Shareholders,
In this daily edition of the Brags Newsletter, we'll cover how Saudi Arabia's Venture Unit is linked to several prominent Silicon Valley VCs, a Venture Capital firm bets big on Latin American Startups, and an AI Startup looks to scale its search engine to take on Google.
So sit back, grab a snack, and enjoy!
Venture Today 👏
Saudi PIF's Venture Unit, Sanabil Investments, recently disclosed multiple investments, including in dozens of venture funds in Silicon Valley.
The investments include previously unrevealed stakes in over 40 venture firms, including Andreessen Horowitz, Craft Ventures, TCV, Coatue, Polychain Capital, and the accelerator and venture fund Techstars. In addition, the firm has also made investments in private equity firms like Apollo, Silver Lake, Thoma Bravo, and a dozen others.
Sanabil has been investing $2 billion per year into these firms since its venture strategy was approved in 2019. Exact investment details, including amounts and dates, remain undisclosed. However, Sanabil's asset allocation broadly comprises 50% venture capital, 30% private equity, and 20% liquid portfolio.
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Who's Raising?
Venture capital firm Kaszek Ventures is raising $975 million across a pair of new funds targeting Latin American startups.
The funding will be allocated to two new funds: $540 million to Kaszek Ventures VI for early-stage startups and $435 million for later-stage companies in which Kaszek has existing stakes.
Kaszek has invested in over 120 companies that raised a combined $15.5 billion in capital, with significant activity across Brazil and Mexico. Notable portfolio companies include digital bank Nubank, financial services provider Creditas, and digital real estate broker QuintoAndar.
Startup of the Day
Perplexity AI has raised $26 million through a Series A to scale its AI Search Engine to compete with Google.
Perplexity, which was founded in 2022, reported it had 10 million monthly visits and 2 million unique visits in February. The Series A is being led by New Enterprise Associates, with participation from Databricks Ventures and angel investors, including former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Meta chief scientist Yann LeCun. The company plans to use the funds from the Series A for growth and expansion, including optimizing the app's knowledge database.
Perplexity, unlike conventional search engines, features a chatbot-like interface for users to ask questions in natural language. The AI cites web sources in its responses, allowing users to explore topics with follow-up questions. While similar to AI-powered ChatGPT and Bing Chat, Perplexity's founders assert its superior accuracy performance. Perplexity recently launched an iOS app featuring user sign-in for personalization, persistent search history, and social sharing.
Fresh Finds
Rask AI is a one-stop-shop localization tool allowing content creators to translate their videos into other languages effectively.
Rask works with 60+ languages, including English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Turkish.
With "Text-to-Voice" and "Voice Cloning" technologies, Rask enables creators to add human-like Voiceovers to videos without hiring a voice actor.
Memes and Other Things
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