E87: Circle (USDC) to IPO, Klarna replaces jobs with AI, Rabbit large action model hits, Discord lays off 17%, OpenAI GPT Store launches, Anthropic raises capital with VCs/SPVs vs investment bankers | Pre-IPO Stock Market Update – Jan 12, 2024

This Week in Pre-IPO Stocks

00:09 | Circle (USDC) to IPO
- Circle offers the USDC stablecoin with a $25b market cap
- company was to go public via SPAC in 2021 but deal fell apart
- last round was $9.0b in Feb 2022
- good timing for IPO with bitcoin ETFs launching this week
01:13 | Rabbit large action model hits
- Rabbit R1 is an AI first personal device that could replace your iPhone
- Rabbit sold out of R1’s on first day of offering; 10,000 units (goal was 500)
- the Rabbit OS leverages a large language model (LLM), similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and a large action model (LAM)
- LAM’s use AI to take action for you vs just give you information like a LLM does
- Rabbit Teach allows users to train the LAM to take actions on the internet or in apps, no coding required, similar to recording an Excel macro
- in the future, users will be able to sell their Teach models to other users and receive a fee
- Rabbit has raised $36m, Khosla Ventures led their Series A that closed in Dec 2023
03:27 | OpenAI GPT Store launches
- GPT Store is an app marketplace available to subscribers of ChatGPT Plus and higher-tier business plans
- platform enables developers and users to create and publish custom ChatGPT applications, or 'GPTs', similar to apps on you iPhone
- 3 million custom versions of ChatGPT have been created since Nov 2023
- OpenAI plans to share revenue with GPT app developers in the future
04:56 | Klarna replaces jobs with AI
- CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski announced Klarna is under a hiring freeze
- company is not hiring new employees but replacing them with AI
- Klarna has a $7.1b valuation in the secondary market up 5.2% from its last round
06:20 | Anthropic raises capital with VCs/SPVs vs investment bankers
- Menlo Partners, a Silicon Valley VC, is using a SPV to raise capital for Anthropic’s $750m capital raise
- VC-backed startups are using the VCs on their cap tables to go out and raise capital from the market vs using investment bankers like Goldman or Morgan in an increasingly frequent trend
- VCs stand up special purpose vehicles, or SPVs, raise capital for a specific company directly from pension, endowment, foundations, and individual wealth families.
- what’s interesting about this … instead of the company paying an investment bank a typical 6% fee on the raise the VCs charge their LPs a one-time upfront fee, annual management fee, carry or some combination of those
08:28 | Discord lays off 17%
- 170 employees impacted
- 40 employees were laid off in Aug 2023
- Discord has a $5b implied valuation in the secondary market down 65% from its last primary round in Sep 2021
09:23 | Pre-IPO -1.11% for week
- Week winners: Databricks +3.35%, Neuralink +3.12%, Discord +2.06%, SpaceX +1.33%, Brex +0.53%
- Week losers: Anthropic -14.60%, Hugging Face -7.71%, OpenAI -5.10%, Canva -4.60%, Klarna -4.22%
- Top valuations: ByteDance $191b (current buyback at $268b), SpaceX $176b (current tender at $180b), OpenAI $68b (current primary round at $95b), Stripe $54b, Databricks $48b lead in current valuation