🏢 The Unicorn CTO #132 - Jumbo Seed Rounds

Daniel Jarjoura -

Hello friend,

The jumbo inception rounds keep coming! One of the companies mentioned in this week's transactions, /dev/agents, announced a $56M seed round to build the “operating system for AI agents.” Former Stripe CTO David Singleton and his three co-founders convinced Index Ventures, CapitalG ( Alphabet’s independent growth fund) and top-tier angels to invest at a staggering $500M valuation without a product.

Here’s why this is a massive signal for the AI and startup ecosystem as a whole:

1️⃣ Pedigree matters more than ever: The team behind /dev/agents reads like a “who’s who” of tech leadership—Android, Stripe, Meta, Figma. When you’re solving a generational problem like creating the infrastructure for autonomous AI agents, investors are betting big on proven operators. Startups with highly technical CEOs (especially former CTOs) command a considerable premium.

2️⃣ The war for talent is heating up: For a company with such ambition, attracting the best talent is critical. Raising $56M at seed sends a clear signal: “We’re playing to win.” In a world where signalling matters, especially to potential hires, the size of this round is as much a recruitment tool as it is funding for innovation.

3️⃣ Generational market opportunity: /dev/agents is tackling a massive technical gap—creating a unified platform for AI agents to collaborate and execute complex tasks autonomously. It’s akin to what Android did for mobile, and if successful, could redefine how generative AI integrates into enterprise and consumer applications.

While most seed rounds are still in the $3-5M range, it’s no longer extraordinary to see massive seed rounds like this when the equation includes a huge market opportunity and an exceptionally talented team. The bar is high, but so are the potential rewards when you combine world-class talent with generational ideas.

To the CTOs and tech leaders reading this—what are you waiting for? The market is hungry for bold, technical founders tackling massive problems. If you’ve been sitting on a big idea, now might be the perfect time to take the leap.

P.S.: if you're a CTO or tech leader, you can join the free Unicorn CTO Slack community. We're a small group of international CTOs and tech leaders, and we often meet for virtual (or not) coffees.

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

💰 Market Summary - Week of November 25th, 2024

  • 7 companies raised $1.52 billion across 5 product categories in 3 countries.
  • Europe-based companies attracted 1.1% of the total funding vs 0.4% for Asia-based companies (including Israël) and 98.5% for US-based companies.
  • Testing 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

Tricentis, based in Austin 🇺🇸, secured a significant $1.33 billion from GTCR. Tricentis specialises in AI-powered, continuous testing and quality engineering to accelerate digital transformation in enterprises. (more)

Eon, from New York 🇺🇸 (and initially founded in Tel Aviv 🇮🇱), raised $70 million in Series C funding led by Bond. Eon provides a cloud backup solution that introduces the first backup autopilot for cloud infrastructure, transforming how backups are managed. (more)

/dev/agents, located in San Francisco 🇺🇸, garnered $56 million in Seed funding led by Index Ventures and CapitalG. They are creating a next-gen operating system for AI agents, led by former tech leaders from Google and Meta. (more)

Wherobots, based in Phoenix 🇺🇸, secured $21.5 million in Series A funding co-led by 500 Startups and Kindred Ventures. Wherobots offers a scalable, cloud spatial intelligence platform that supports applications across various industries. (more)

PlayAI, from Palo Alto 🇺🇸, raised $21 million in Seed funding. PlayAI specialises in voice generation with Text-to-Speech models that clone and generate hyper-realistic speech across languages. (more)

Emma, located in Luxembourg 🇱🇺, garnered $17 million in Series A funding led by Smartfin. Emma provides a cloud management platform that enables users to choose the best cloud providers and environments without added complexity. (more)

Montara, based in Tel Aviv 🇮🇱, secured $5.4 million in Seed funding led by Norwest Venture Partners. Montara offers a comprehensive platform that enhances data team collaboration and accelerates data development with AI tools. (more)

🤝 Mergers & Acquisitions

No transactions last week

abi / screenshot-to-code (✩ 3,369 stars this week) - Drop in a screenshot and convert it to clean code (HTML/Tailwind/React/Vue).

gitroomhq / postiz-app (✩ 2,573 stars this week) - 📨 The ultimate social media scheduling tool, with a bunch of AI 🤖

mtdvio / every-programmer-should-know (✩ 1,679 stars this week) - A collection of (mostly) technical things every software developer should know about.

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