Startups Weekly: VCs celebrate the new year the only way they know how

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Venture capitalists declared in the new year that the only way they know how… by distributing SEC paperwork for new funding! Insert party hat/confetti emoji here.

As many of us brainstormed our New Year’s resolutions and allow our hangovers wear off, many firms began this week exactly what for some is a long and arduous process of increasing a VC fund and others is as straightforward as a few telephone calls to LPs. What else happened today? Pokémon GO founder Niantic procured $190 million, Mary Meeker declared the name of her finance along with also a whole group of folks played with Popsugar’s somewhat suspicious twinning program .

Fresh capital:

Mary Meeker will raise around $1.5 billion for Bond, her new VC fund. Union Square Ventures raised $429 million across two new capital.  Lightspeed Venture partners declared a $560 million China fund. And biotech firm Atlas Venture earned $250 million.

AR startups are failing:

TechCrunch’s Lucas Matney requires a look at fighting augmented reality startups and queries a number of the bigger players, even from Magic Leap to Snap and Niantic. And talking of Niantic, that the Pokémon GO developer closed a $190 million financing around this week at a $3.9 billion valuation.

Indian startups begin off the year strong:

Startups established in India raised over $10 billion in 2018, a Venture Beat, a set quantity of funds for the nation. Already this year one firm has closed a round bigger than $100 million.  CarDekho, an online market for auto sales in India, has attracted in a new $110 million Series C funding round this week to push deeper into financial services and insurance.

Future technology:

Boom Supersonic, which is designing and building exactly what it requires the “planet ’s first economically viable supersonic airliner,” announced a $100 million Series B funding round led by Emerson Capital. Other investors include Y Combinator’therefore Continuity Fund, Caffeinated Capital, SV Angel, Sam Altman, Paul Graham, Ron Conway, Michael Marks along with Greg McAdoo.

A startup interrupting the … bottled water business:

FloWater has raised $15 million because of its reusable water bottle refilling stations to make purified water. Bluewatera Swedish firm that sells water heaters, among other things, led the round.

VC subsidized vending machines:

Vengo makes wall-mounted mini-vending machines the size of large picture frames which it sells to vending machine vendors, requesting for a small fee a month in exchange for access to its applications. Now it has $7 million to build out its company.

A VC gets a second chance:

After SpaceX filed more SEC paperwork as part of its $500 million upcoming fundraise, TechCrunch’s Connie Loizos noticed a familiar name on the document: Steve Jurvetson.  Jurvetson is a longtime board member of Tesla and SpaceX, but afterwards he abandoned DFJ, the venture capital firm he co-founded, in 2017 amid questions about his personal behavior, there was uncertainty around whether he would keep those manager positions. Well, it appears like Elon Musk is standing by Jurvetson.

And finally, are you smarter than the usual TechCrunch reporter?

Let this test decide.

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