🗽 The Unicorn CTO #129 - New York, New York

Daniel Jarjoura -

Hello friend,

Last week, one reader asked why there were so few Canadian developer-first startups in my weekly roundups. I explained that the Canadian ecosystem has relatively few developer-first startups, but I also realised that many market themselves as U.S. companies. This practice is not unique to Canada; many European startups follow the same path, establishing a U.S. presence—or at least giving the appearance of one—even when most of their team is based overseas.

This week alone, two European companies announcing fundraising rounds, Symbiotic Security and Dash0, both listed New York as their headquarters, despite having most of their workforce in Europe (France and Germany, respectively).

There are several reasons why non-U.S. startups choose to brand themselves as American. For one, the U.S. market offers greater access to venture capital, with many investors more inclined to fund companies they perceive as U.S.-based. This “American address” effect often opens doors to funding and partnerships that might otherwise be inaccessible.

The advantages extend beyond investment, too. The U.S. remains the world’s largest and most dynamic tech market, particularly for B2B SaaS and developer-focused companies. Positioning themselves as U.S.-based can help startups access this market more easily, navigating the scepticism and budget constraints often encountered in Europe. As recently shared by Alberto Rizzoli on LinkedIn, Cleo became one of the UK's fastest-growing startups by focusing solely on the U.S. market.

Incorporating or listing an office in the U.S. is often a strategic choice. By appearing American, these startups leverage the perception of being “closer” to the market, gaining credibility with U.S. customers and investors. And in today’s globalised tech ecosystem, sometimes all it takes is one U.S.-based executive—often the CEO—to create that impression, even if most of the team remains overseas.

P.S.: if you're in Paris this Thursday, November 14th, I'm throwing a developer-first startup breakfast designed for founders, tech/product leaders, and investors who are driving the future of developer-first companies. This gathering will provide a unique opportunity to network, exchange insights, and explore trends shaping developer-focused startups. Jean-Patrice Anciaux, General Partner at ISAI, will share invaluable advice on VC expectations for seed and Series A rounds, covering critical metrics, team dynamics, community building, and industry benchmarks. Frank Bitoun, former sales executive (Crayon, SoftwareOne, Insight, Dell) will also share his enterprise sales playbook for the US market. 

Seats are limited, but if you're around, don’t miss this chance to connect with key players in the developer-first space and learn from our speakers. Click here to apply.

Now, let's dive into last week's developer-first transactions.

💰 Market Summary - Week of November 4th, 2024

  • 6 companies raised $416.1 million across 5 product categories in 3 countries.
  • Europe-based companies attracted 3% of the total funding vs 97% for US-based companies.
  • Robotics is the category that attracted the highest funding.
  • 0 companies provide or contribute to an open-source product.
  • 0 companies were acquired this week.

🧩 Funding by Product Category

🌎 Funding by Region

🏢 Funding By Company

Physical Intelligence, based in San Francisco 🇺🇸, came out of stealth and announced a$400M Series A led by Jeff Bezos and Thrive Capital. Physical Intelligence is developing foundation models and learning algorithms to power robots and physically-actuated devices, aiming to bring general-purpose AI into the physical world. (more)

Dash0, located in Solingen 🇩🇪 (with an official HQ in New York 🇺🇸), secured $9.5M in Seed funding from Accel and Dig Venture. Dash0 enhances observability for developers by fully embracing OpenTelemetry and open standards, focusing on correlating and contextualising issues beyond telemetry silos. (more)

Symbiotic Security, from Paris 🇫🇷 (with also an official HQ in New York 🇺🇸), garnered $3M in Seed funding led by Lerer Hippeau and Axeleo Capital. Symbiotic Security integrates an AI-driven security coach directly within developers’ IDEs, revolutionising code security and Secure by Design methodologies. (more)

Corgea, based in San Francisco 🇺🇸, raised $2.6M in Seed funding from Shorooq Partners and Y Combinator. Corgea uses AI to automatically secure vulnerable source code, significantly reducing development efforts by enabling security teams to issue pull requests for fixes. (more)

Cloudsquid, located in Berlin 🇩🇪, secured $1M in Pre-Seed funding from High-Tech Gründerfonds and Backbone Ventures. Cloudsquid deploys AI agents to extract and transform unstructured data from PDFs, images, and text files with high accuracy. (more)

Augment, from Palo Alto 🇺🇸, received an undisclosed investment from Evolution Equity Partners. Augment enhances developers’ experiences by understanding codebases and dependencies, removing daily toils and enabling joyful coding. (more)

🤝 Mergers & Acquisitions

No transactions last week

DS4SD / docling (5,268 stars this week) - Get your documents ready for gen AI.

dockur / windows (2,261 stars this week) - Windows inside a Docker container.

getmaxun / maxun (2,238 stars this week) - Free, open-source no-code web data extraction platform. [In Beta]

Thanks for reading this far! I'm excited to make this newsletter as helpful as possible and I would appreciate if you could share feedback or anything you want to find here.

Farewell,

Daniel