Personalized AI

An AI Startup Looking to Personalise Chatbots Gets a Big Funding Boost, European Crypto Startups Thrive in 2022 and Deerpath Raises $1.5 Billion for Sixth Fund.

Author

Adam from VC Brags
March 23, 2023

Welcome Shareholders,

In this daily edition of the Brags Newsletter, we'll cover how a startup looks to scale its personalized AI companion with new funding, European crypto startups continue to raise money despite the funding winter, and Deerpath Capital's Sixth Fund Raises $1.5 Billion to Boost North American Markets.

So sit back, grab a snack, and enjoy!

Startup of the Day

  • Character.AI, an AI chatbot startup, has secured $150 million in a new funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the company at $1 billion.

The company, which last raised $43 million through a Seed funding round in December 2021, is also currently in talks with cloud providers for additional strategic investment. Character.AI, which launched its service in September 2022, allows users to create personalized AI companions.

The Menlo Park-based startup will use the new funding to train its self-built models, expand its team of 22, and launch a new model that includes productivity capabilities such as drafting emails and assisting with test prep in addition to its current entertainment, roleplay, and emotional support use cases. Character.AI also said that it plans to launch a paid subscription tier in the not-too-distant future while retaining its free version.

Venture Today 👏

  • Despite the global slowdown in venture capital investments in cryptocurrency and blockchain companies due to a number of headline-grabbing scandals, European startups defied the funding winter by raising record funding.

European crypto startups broke the record by raising $5.7 billion in VC funding in 2022, surpassing 2021's $5 billion. The investment cycle mirrored the global trend of peaking in Q2 and declining sharply in Q1 2023. Web3 continued to be a popular sector of interest, while infrastructure, such as developer tooling, blockchain scalability products, and layer one blockchains, saw the most rapid growth.

2023 has proved to be challenging for crypto investments worldwide, with venture capital and other investments declining by 91% YoY in January. Investors have shifted their focus from centralized-finance projects, like the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX, to supporting earlier-stage infrastructure, Web3, and decentralized-finance projects.

Who's Raising?

  • Deerpath Capital Management, which specializes in senior debt financing for lower-middle markets in North America, just announced that it closed its sixth fund, Deerpath Fund VI, with $1.5 billion in commitments.

The fund received commitments from over 50 limited partners across the US, Canada, Germany, Japan, Lebanon, and Panama. Deerpath plans to deploy the funds targeting companies that have an enterprise value of between $50 and $150 million. Including the commitments for its levered investment vehicles, Deerpath has set a new fundraising record by raising over $2.8 billion.

Deerpath said that it has already allocated 65% of the fund’s capital to a diverse portfolio of companies in terms of industry, geography, and private equity sponsor. Since 2007, Deerpath has invested nearly $9 billion across 800-plus investment opportunities. As of March 2023, the firm manages around $6 billion in capital.

Memes and Other Things

How Was Today's Newsletter?

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