Hi there,
Welcome to the 109th edition of Heartcore Insights. Curated with 🖤 by the Heartcore Team.
If you missed the past newsletters, you can catch up here. Now, let’s dive in!
Building (on) the AI Orchestration Layer - Heartcore Capital
Last week, our very own Felix Becker published an article on the AI Orchestration Layer, so for this edition we wanted to share with you some of his insights:
First off, its not easy to navigate in which direction the AI stack is moving towards. Which products will stay features, and which ideas will ultimately become multi-billion dollar outcomes?
Similarly to the crypto hype cycle, there is a current trend of building tooling for the plethora of AI companies, but not all of them will become large companies themselves.
Looking at the recent YCombinator batches, we see that a significant part of YC AI companies are focusing on AI tooling (41% in S23 & 39% in W23). As we have also seen in the crypto space, this seems normal in nascent industries.
Crazy rounds have come to halt as we reached the trough of disillusionment. Investors and founders alike realized that building production-ready products is at the end of the day an engineering problem and not a science problem.
It’s clear that better tooling will likely accelerate the development but shallow features are likely bundled into dominant frameworks like Langchain.
While Langchain is being criticized for overcomplicating the prompt process, having poor documentation, and confusing source code, we do think that it will continue to become the framework of choice for LLMs. Langchain’s dominance pushes VC-backable projects to the edges.
So where shall founders build? At Heartcore we are particularly interested in: self-healing scrapers, Agent frameworks, and runtime management tools.
We are also interested in:
Real-world Copilots: AI assistants for physical tasks, like helping a handyman identify problems or suggest solutions.
Solving the Compiler/Hardware Stack: streamlining the process of deploying AI models across various hardware.
Better Controlnet for Video and Music: advanced AI-driven tools for media editing and generation (Runway et al aside).
Can open source be too open?
Category collapse - there’s no signal in ten million dollars anymore
The Next Trillion Dollar Marketplace Will Put SKUs on Services
Financial services are no stranger to automations - here’s the Next ‘Generation’ of Fintech Automation
Illumina: How one biotech company changed the arc of genomics
Breaking down the ARM IPO
🇪🇺 Notable European early-stage rounds
Opna, a UK-based financing platform for climate projects that reduce carbon emissions and protect ecosystems, raises $6.5M with Atomico - link
Stoïk, a France-based developer of a cyber security platform, raises $6.5M with Munich Re Ventures/a16z/Alven - link
Mammaly, a Germany-based pet health startup developing a range of snacks targeting and helping reduce the severity of aging dog issues, raises $14M with Five Seasons/Iris Ventures - link
Resourcify, a Germany-based leading digital waste management & recycling platform, raises $14M with Vorwekr/Speedinvest/High-Tech Grunderfonds - link
Apron, a UK-based platform allowing small businesses to pay their suppliers, raises $15M with Index/Bessemer - link
Plan A, a Germany-based greentech developing a carbon quantification platform to measure, monitor, and reduce environmental footprint, raises $27M with Lightspeed/HV Capital/Deutsche Bank - link
Swan, a France-based developer of an embedded finance platform that integrates banking services (Banking as a Service), raises $37M with Accel/Lakestar/Bpifrance/Creandum - link
🇺🇸 Notable US early-stage rounds
PartyKit, a US-based an open source deployment platform for AI agents, raises $2.5M with Sequoia/Tiny VC - link
Delphi, a US-based company crafting digital twins to help creators better engage their community, raises $2.7M with Initialized/Alumni - link
Meeno, a US-based offers an AI relationship mentoring app targeting young adults, raises $3.9M with Sequoia/New Enterprise Associates - link
Evvy, a US-based healthtech developing at-home vaginal microbiome tests, raises $14M with Left Lane/General Catalyst - link
Pahdo Labs, a US-based video game studio for anime-style action MMORPGs, raises $15M with a16z/GFC - link
Nx, a US-based startup developing tooling to make it simpler for software dev teams to work, raises $25M a16z/Nexus - link
Bastion, a US-based helping organizations of any size to seamlessly integrate web3 infrastructure into existing technologies, raises $25M a16z/Autograph/Laser Digital - link
Linear, a US-based software and product management platform, raises $35M with Accel/Sequoia - link
🔭 Notable later stage rounds
Corti, a Denmark-based machine learning company helping emergency departments to detect critical illnesses, raises $56M with Prosus/Atomico/Eurazeo - link (🖤 Heartcore Portfolio)
JOKR, a Germany-based grocery and delivery platform providing hyper-local product delivery services, raises $50M with Convivialite Ventures/Tiger/GGV/Greycroft/Balderton - link
Writer, a US-based generative AI platform helping businesses use large language models to generate written content, raises $100M with ICONIQ/Insight/Balderton - link
Appolo.io, a US-based market sales platform that helps accelerate companies’ growth, raises $100M with Bain Capital/Sequoia - link
Mapbox, a US-based company developing a location data platform for mobile and web applications, raises $280M with SoftBank - link
Butternut Box, a UK-based pet food company that offers fresh food and customized meals for dogs, raises $350M with General Atlantic/L Catterton - link
Verkor, a France-based manufacturer of low-carbon batteries, targeting the electric mobility markets, raises $2.1B with Macquarie/EQT/Bpifrance - link
🍭 Notable Exits
Klaviyo, a US-based an automation and email platform designed to help grow businesses, announces IPO at an $8.4B valuation - link
🖤 Heartcore News
As mentioned above, our portfolio company Corti raised a $60M Series B to develop an AI assistant designed to support healthcare clinicians with patient assessments in real time - link
After a successful integration with Oura, Natural Cycles launched a second wearable partnership, this time with Apple Watch - link
Our Managing Partner Jimmy Fussing Nielsen spoke on the Riding Unicorns podcast - listen here
Jimmy also spoke at the Nordic LP Forum in Copenhagen a few weeks ago, and at IPEM in Paris
Our own Christian Jepsen was on the Spotlight Stage at TechBBQ talking about his road into venture, and all its ups and downs
We hosted a great party at this year’s TechBBQ, which saw many founders, VCs and operators from the Nordic ecosystem come together under one roof (or rooftop!). If you’re coming to Slush this year, let us know!
