The Berlin VC fund wants to drive growth in Europe and the USA. Also, Spotify is redesigning its app and Silvergate Bank is ceasing operations.
Good morning! While you slept, work continued elsewhere in the digital scene.
The top topics:
The family, a Berlin-based VC fund, has raised more than €250 million through its combined third seed fund and new co-investment growth fund. The Berliners want to use the funds to drive the growth of the best B2B tech companies in Europe and the USA. Investments in the seed fund amounted to 165 million euros, while the growth fund raised 90 million euros. The Zurich quality management platform Ethon.ai is the first investment of the third fund.
La Famiglia currently has more than 70 startups in its portfolio, including the payroll and HR platform Sharethe HR management software Person and the digital freight forwarder strength. Since its inception in 2017, the fund has raised more than €350 million. [Mehr bei Techcrunch]
On the founding scene: New lions, new deals: Coming soon “The lion’s den‘ back on the air. We tell you what is already known about the new season. [Mehr bei Gründerszene]
And here are the other headlines of the night:
Spotify Redesigns its app and makes it more like with a Home Feed Tiktok and Instagram look. The founder of the Swedish music streaming service Daniel Ek spoke of the biggest transformation since the launch of the app. This is currently mainly aimed at displaying playlists and the user’s music selection. Tried and tested functions should remain accessible via shortcuts at the top of the screen. Spotify recently had 489 million users. [Mehr bei Handelsblatt und Reuters]
The crypto focused bank Silvergate has announced that it will cease operations and liquidate the bank. Silvergate had to after the crypto exchange collapse FTX take heavy losses. The move by the California-based company shows the broad implications of the FTX meltdown for the digital asset industry. [Mehr bei CNCB, The Information und Reuters]
The Tesla-Rival BYD plans a big push in its commercial vehicles, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. According to an insider, the Chinese EV maker plans to launch new commercial vehicle models in China, Europe and Japan in the next three years. BYD has set a budget of more than $20 billion for its commercial vehicle division through 2025, it said. Large expenditures for research, product development and the expansion of production capacity are planned. [Mehr bei Wall Street Journal]
Investment: humanean artificial intelligence (AI) startup founded in 2018 by former Apple-Employees has raised an additional $100 million. The Series-C attracted a long list of notable investors, including Kindred Ventures, which led the round, LG Technology Ventures, Microsoft, and OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman. Humane currently has 200 employees. The new funds will be used to build the company’s AI platform. [Mehr bei Techcrunch]
Apple is reorganizing the management of its international operations to put a stronger focus on India, Bloomberg reports. This means that India will be Apple’s own sales region for the first time. The iPhone maker is making the change after its vice president in charge of India, the Middle East, Mediterranean, Eastern Europe and Africa – Hugues Asseman – recently retired. With his departure, Apple promoted India boss Ashish Chowdhary, who reported to Asseman. He will now report directly to Michael Fenger, Head of Product Sales. [Mehr bei Bloomberg und Reuters]
Our reading tip on Gründerszene: A former Outfittery– Intern co-founds Grass a clean energy start-up and receives 2.4 million euros – among other things from his ex-boss. [Mehr bei Gründerszene]
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A nice Thursday!
Your Gründerszene editors
Source: https://www.businessinsider.de/gruenderszene/la-famiglia-sammelt-250-millionen-euro/
