July's Top Ten:

1. The biggest news of the month was Google’s bid to acquire Wiz for $23B, and their ultimate rejection of that deal. It was a huge number to turn down, especially given that it would have been the most lucrative deal ever proposed for a startup. The company has indicated they are going to be instead pursuing the milestones of $1 billion in ARR and an IPO.
2. Cohere, a generative AI startup, has raised $500M this past month at a $5.5B valuation. The round was led by PSP Investments, a Canada-based pension investment manager.
3. Groq, a leader in fast AI inference,  just announced that they have secured a $640 million Series D round at a $2.8 billion valuation led by Blackrock. The deal is a major win for the company as they were originally looking to raise $300 million at a slightly lower ($2.5 billion) valuation. The money will help the company challenge its competitor, Nvidia.
4. AI-video maker Runway is in talks with investors including General Atlantic to raise $450 million at a valuation of $4 billion valuation. The company was last valued at $1.5 billion after it raised $141 million from investors last year.
5. Andreessen is reportedly  building a stash of more than 20,000 GPUs to win AI deals. This program is highlighting A16z’s aggressive moves into generative AI investing in the last two years.
6. Sequoia has offered to buy $861 million worth of Stripe shares from some of the venture firm’s investors. The price implies a $70 billion valuation for the payments provider.
7. AI startups have been the hot commodity the past two years, with investors clamoring to invest. This is good news for these companies as it has been taking some serious cash burn to keep them running. Anthropic, an OpenAI rival, is projected to burn more than $2.7 billion in cash this year as it developed new conversational artificial intelligence.
8. Canva acquired Leonardo.ai this past month to boost its generative AI efforts. The move comes as the company is increasingly making strides to keep up with Adobe.
9. Skims is reportedly preparing to interview banks to lead an initial public offering that could come as soon as the first half of 2025. The company last raised at a $4 billion valuation last year.
10. Stubhub is dragging its feet on its IPO however. The company had been initially aiming for an IPO this summer in line with the $16.5 billion valuation it raised at 3 years ago, but investors have had some questions about the companies growth forecast. The listing likely now won’t happen until next year.

Why this matters: Even though the Google’s Wiz deal didn’t go through, the increased acquisition interest is a great sign for an industry that hasn’t seen a ton of activity in the past couple of years. We expect to see a continued uptick in activity as the economy improves and the Fed decreases interest rates.

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