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Venture Capital Trends: Tuesday Morning Edition

Published 12 days ago • 3 min read

VC Update (April 8th)

Hello Reader,

Here is a summary of important Venture Capital developments from April 1st to April 8th, 2025 (focus areas fintech and insuretech):

Venture Capital Trends & Deals:

  • AI startups continued to command high valuations, as seen with Runway raising a $308M Series D (StrictlyVC, 04.04.2025; PitchBook News, 04.04.2025) and Unframe securing $50M (StrictlyVC, 04.04.2025).
  • The announcement of new tariffs by the Trump administration caused significant market volatility, leading to a sell-off in stocks (Theo Wayt, 04.04.2025; StrictlyVC, 04.04.2025; "CEO Daily | Fortune", 04.04.2025; Exec Sum - Litquidity, 04.04.2025; PitchBook News, 04.04.2025) and delaying planned IPOs such as Klarna and StubHub (Ken Brown, 04.04.2025; StrictlyVC, 05.04.2025).
  • Plaid, a FinTech infrastructure company, raised a significant $575M (Exec Sum - Litquidity, 04.04.2025; "Term Sheet | Fortune", 04.04.2025; PitchBook News, 04.04.2025) in what was reported as a down round (PitchBook News, 04.04.2025), highlighting potential valuation pressures in the FinTech sector.
  • Early-stage FinTech/Insurtech deals under $20M included:
    • Grace (France, Insurtech) raised €5.9M (approximately $6.4M) in seed funding for AI-powered luxury goods insurance (FinSMEs, 03.04.2025; Sifted Newsletter, 04.04.2025).
    • FurtherAI (USA, Insurtech) raised $5M for its AI-driven insurance operations assistant (FinSMEs, 03.04.2025).
    • Vivere Partners (USA, Specialty Insurance Platform) closed a $7.5M Series A (Exec Sum - Litquidity, 04.04.2025).
    • Turbine Finance (USA, Fintech for VC liquidity) raised a total of $21.8M ($13M Series A + $8.8M seed) ("Term Sheet | Fortune").
    • Sagittal AI (UK, AI adapting to human workflows) raised $2.2M pre-seed (FinSMEs, 07.04.2025).
    • Equal Parts (USA, Insurtech agency platform) raised $10M (Exec Sum - Litquidity, 07.04.2025).
  • A notable Insurtech exit was Munich Re's acquisition of Next Insurance for $2.6B ("GCV: Blueprint", 07.04.2025).
  • The German Insurtech Moojo reportedly experienced a shutdown (Coverager, 04.04.2025), with Swiss insurer Helvetia being an investor.

VC Ecosystem Updates:

  • Moneta Ventures (USA) raised a $250M fund focused on FinTech, AI, and enterprise software (The Founders Corner, 05.04.2025; Exec Sum - Litquidity, 04.04.2025).
  • Osney Capital (UK) held the first close of its debut seed-stage Cybersecurity VC fund at over £50M (Sifted Newsletter, 07.04.2025).
  • Runtime Ventures (USA) raised a $32M seed-stage fund focused on cybersecurity (The VC Corner, 06.04.2025).
  • EA Ventures partnered with Plug and Play to launch a €20M Europe-focused early-stage investment fund (FinSMEs, 03.04.2025).
  • Candice du Fretay, ex-Accel investor, is launching a new solo GP fund of $20M called Outlier Grove, focused on AI and high-growth startups (Sifted Newsletter, 08.04.2025).
  • Jungheinrich launched its CVC arm “Uplift Ventures” ("GCV: Blueprint", 07.04.2025).
  • There were several personnel moves in the VC space noted, including Daniel Gundel joining Funke, Venu Pemmaraju retiring from Wipro Ventures, Anke Gratz joining EnBW New Ventures, Karim Menn leaving Commerzbank’s VC unit, and Costantino Mariella departing Sony Innovation Fund ("GCV: Blueprint", 07.04.2025).
  • Craft Ventures experienced internal shifts with staff layoffs and a co-founder stepping back (Martin Peers, 08.04.2025).
  • Kickstart Innovation (Zurich) launched applications for its 10th annual startup program (FinSMEs, 07.04.2025), indicating continued support for early-stage ventures in Switzerland.

Sector-Specific Insights:

  • Insurance Carriers: The increasing threat of wildfires is a growing concern for insurance risk models and insurability. AXA completed its acquisition of Italian insurer Nobis ("Insurance Industry - April 2025 - 4", 01.04.2025). Swiss Re discussed the increasing importance of parametric insurance (HZ Insurance Daily, 04.04.2025).
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI remained a dominant theme in VC, with significant funding rounds for companies in areas like generative AI for video (Runway), enterprise AI (Unframe, Evolver), AI-powered robots (Generalist AI), and AI infrastructure (Redpanda, Hydrolix, Lumai). OpenAI received a record valuation of $300B (Handelsblatt KI-Briefing, 04.04.2025; Eric Newcomer, 04.04.2025; PitchBook News, 06.04.2025). Elon Musk’s AI venture xAI terminated its collaboration with German AI startup Black Forest Labs (Sifted Newsletter, 04.04.2025).
  • Cryptocurrency: The cryptocurrency market remained volatile but resilient despite macroeconomic stress (Exec Sum - Litquidity, 04.04.2025). Tether is reportedly exploring issuing a new stablecoin specifically for the U.S. market (Ken Brown, 04.04.2025). MicroStrategy reported a significant unrealized loss on its Bitcoin holdings under new accounting rules (Martin Peers, 08.04.2025). North Korean hackers were responsible for a vast majority of crypto theft in the past decade (StrictlyVC, 05.04.2025).

(Please note that the dates provided in the source summaries are based on the publication dates and might not reflect the exact date of the VC activity.)

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