Anup Deshmukh’s Post

🥹 Don’t mind us as we get emotional over here for a moment. 🎉 Today, we are elated to announce that Kong Inc. has raised $175 million in a Series E funding round, bringing our valuation to $2 billion!!! 🎉 From humble beginnings of a small garage in Milan to a thriving San Francisco tech startup, see the dream of our founders and partners coming to life is simply unreal.  APIs are the backbone of today’s most innovative technology—from connecting enterprise software to fueling GenAI advancements–and Kong is at the center of this transformative digital era.  🗣️ “As we continue to see a worldwide surge in demand for API calls – propelled most recently by the rise of LLMs – Kong is uniquely positioned to help our customers consolidate desperate API systems and enable “the software assembly line” of the AI era.” - Augusto Marietti, Kong CEO and Co-founder “We’re helping customers across industries — from startups to Fortune 500® enterprises — accelerate their time to market, scale AI capabilities and reduce operational risks.” - Marco Palladino, Kong CTO and Co-founder This is just the beginning. Onward and upward! 🦍🚀 #KongPin #APIs #AI TechNews #BusinessMilestone #SeriesE #TechStartup

🥹 Don’t mind us as we get emotional over here for a moment. 🎉 Today, we are elated to announce that Kong Inc. has raised $175 million in a Series E funding round, bringing our valuation to $2 billion!!! 🎉 From humble beginnings of a small garage in Milan to a thriving San Francisco tech startup, see the dream of our founders and partners coming to life is simply unreal.  APIs are the backbone of today’s most innovative technology—from connecting enterprise software to fueling GenAI advancements–and Kong is at the center of this transformative digital era.  🗣️ “As we continue to see a worldwide surge in demand for API calls – propelled most recently by the rise of LLMs – Kong is uniquely positioned to help our customers consolidate desperate API systems and enable “the software assembly line” of the AI era.” - Augusto Marietti, Kong CEO and Co-founder “We’re helping customers across industries — from startups to Fortune 500® enterprises — accelerate their time to market, scale AI capabilities and reduce operational risks.” - Marco Palladino, Kong CTO and Co-founder This is just the beginning. Onward and upward! 🦍🚀 #KongPin #APIs #AI TechNews #BusinessMilestone #SeriesE #TechStartup

Congrats to all my fellow Kongers and to each of our loyal customers who have made a massive contribution to our ongoing success! 🎉 Today, we are elated to announce that Kong Inc. has raised $175 million in a Series E funding round, bringing our valuation to $2 billion!!! 🎉 From humble beginnings of a small garage in Milan to a thriving San Francisco tech startup, see the dream of our founders and partners coming to life is simply unreal.  APIs are the backbone of today’s most innovative technology—from connecting enterprise software to fueling GenAI advancements–and Kong is at the center of this transformative digital era.  🗣️ “As we continue to see a worldwide surge in demand for API calls – propelled most recently by the rise of LLMs – Kong is uniquely positioned to help our customers consolidate desperate API systems and enable “the software assembly line” of the AI era.” - Augusto Marietti, Kong CEO and Co-founder “We’re helping customers across industries — from startups to Fortune 500® enterprises — accelerate their time to market, scale AI capabilities and reduce operational risks.” - Marco Palladino, Kong CTO and Co-founder This is just the beginning. Onward and upward! 🦍🚀 #KongPin #APIs #AI TechNews #BusinessMilestone #SeriesE #TechStartup

🥹 Don’t mind us as we get emotional over here for a moment. 🎉 Today, we are elated to announce that Kong has raised $175 million in a Series E funding round, bringing our valuation to $2 billion!!! 🎉 From humble beginnings of a small garage in Milan to a thriving San Francisco tech startup, see the dream of our founders and partners coming to life is simply unreal. APIs are the backbone of today’s most innovative technology—from connecting enterprise software to fueling GenAI advancements–and Kong is at the center of this transformative digital era. 🗣️ “As we continue to see a worldwide surge in demand for API calls – propelled most recently by the rise of LLMs – Kong is uniquely positioned to help our customers consolidate desperate API systems and enable “the software assembly line” of the AI era.” - Augusto Marietti, Kong CEO and Co-founder “We’re helping customers across industries — from startups to Fortune 500® enterprises — accelerate their time to market, scale AI capabilities and reduce operational risks.” - Marco Palladino, Kong CTO and Co-founder This is just the beginning. Onward and upward! 🦍🚀https://lnkd.in/gFQBT6ig #APIs #AI TechNews #BusinessMilestone #SeriesE #TechStartup

Today Kong Inc. is elated to announce our oversubscribed Series E financing! Many thanks to our customers and partners as we continue to build the state of the art API and AI infrastructure. No AI without APIs. This is just the beginning. Onward and Upward! 🦍🚀 #KongPin #API #AI

It’s great to see European AI startups bouncing back, with investment on pace to surpass last year by 20%. With mega-rounds like Wayve’s $1.05B and Mistral AI’s $640M, it’s easy to get swept up in the excitement. But here’s the thing: valuation is not something you can game by timing the market. As investment heats up, so do expectations. For founders in AI, it’s critical to build a case for your valuation that investors can trust. The sentiment will shift at some point, as the market realigns with the reality of financial performance and exit potential, and startups that raised on market hype will be left stranded. Full write-up from Pitchbook below.

Nurix, Mukesh Bansal's latest venture, just bagged $27.5 million in seed and Series A funding! Co-led by General Catalyst and Accel, the startup is focused on building custom AI agents for enterprises, tackling challenges like AI hallucinations and security. With AI-driven customer service and regional language support, Nurix AI aims to boost enterprise efficiency by 30-50%—starting with fintech and retail. Backed by Meraki Labs, Bansal will lead the charge as CEO until a permanent leader steps in. Curious about how Nurix AI plans to scale and compete with industry giants like Google? Link in the comments below 👇

xAI secures $6 Billion funding. xAI is focused on building artificial intelligence to accelerate human scientific discovery. Their mission is to advance our collective understanding of the universe, with their first product being Grok, a conversational AI. xAI's recent $6 billion funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, significantly boosts its valuation to $18-24 billion. This substantial investment indicates strong investor confidence in xAI's potential for growth and innovation in artificial intelligence. It also highlights the trend of leading VCs preferring substantial stakes in promising start-ups, aiming for around 20% per funding round. #TechNews #xAI #BusinessFunding

New Post: Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6B from Valor, a16z, and Sequoia - https://lnkd.in/gnu8S3wi - Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, has raised $6 billion in a new funding round, it said today, in one of the largest deals in the red-hot nascent space, as he shores up capital to aggressively compete with rivals including OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Fidelity, Prince Alwaleed © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. - #news #business #world -------------------------------------------------- Download: Stupid Simple CMS - https://lnkd.in/g4y9XFgR -------------------------------------------------- or download at SourceForge - https://lnkd.in/gNqB7dnp

friend.com costs $1.8M Friend , an AI companion company announced today, spent $1.8 million out of a total of $2.5 million it raised to start the company on its domain name, friend.com, according to its founder Avi Schiffmann. Internet folks are going crazy on him to spend so much on a domain. Here are some reasons why it might not be a bad purchase: 1️⃣ In the subsequent rounds, the domain will tend to increase the valuation so a win-win for investor. 2️⃣ People everywhere talk about your domain (on the initial launch days, visit your website - something every startup wants). 3️⃣ the domain, even if they pivot years later down the line - is a good asset. Also, incase you're wondering these don't translate into real-world investor sentiments. Please scroll through the posts talking about it, you'll find investors talking about how bullish of a step it is. Read this 9 year old PG essay explaining the importance of such a move here: https://lnkd.in/gW8j2jbE (Image credits - friend.com)