Jan 24, 2025

10:08 AM PST · January 24, 2025 Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here . This week was supposed to be a short one in the U.S., as it started with a holiday. But Inauguration Day kept some founders busy , and the following days brought us more than their fair share of startup news. Most interesting startup stories from the week Image Credits:David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty This week reminded us that not all sales are created equal, and that it is often worth looking beyond the price tag. Plus, there were legal troubles for an AI decacorn. Beauty for sale: Consumer goods giant Hindustan Unilever agreed to acquire Peak XV-backed Indian skincare startup Minimalist for about $342 million — more than the $300 million valuation it reportedly sought in a fundraising attempt last year. Big markdown: AI-powered parking platform Metropolis acquired computer vision company Oosto for a fraction of what the startup had raised to date. Formerly known as AnyVision, it had lost backers over its technology being used in controversial surveillance applications. Legal clash: Valued at $13.8 billion last year, Scale AI is facing its ​​third worker lawsuit of 2025, with contractors claiming they suffered psychological harm from writing prompts about disturbing content. A spokesperson for Scale AI said it had “numerous safeguards in place.” Most interesting VC and funding news this week Image Credits:Ati Motors Series B rounds announced this week varied greatly in size, with some of these exceeding other Series C rounds. And for companies that don’t quite feel like going public yet, there are still more letters in the alphabet. Pre-IPO letters: Data analytics platform Databricks  closed a $10 billion Series J equity funding round  at a $62 billion valuation, with an additional $5.25 billion in debt financing. Meta is backing the company as a strategic investor. From cat to unicorn: Neko Health, the Swedish body-scanning startup co-founded by Spotify’s Daniel Ek, and whose name means “cat” in Japanese, raised a $260 million Series B round of funding at $1.8 billion post-money. Money to move: Lindus Health, a startup backed by Peter Thiel and Creandum that is currently moving its HQ from the U.K. to the U.S., secured a $55 million Series B round to “fix the broken clinical trial industry.” Spending less: AI-powered SaaS spend management platform Vertice raised a $50 million Series C round of funding led by Lakestar, at a valuation close to $500 million, according to sources. Indian robotics: Indian-based autonomous mobile robots startup Ati Motors raised a $20 million Series B to grow internationally. The U.S. already dominates Ati’s revenues, and the company hopes to further benefit from demand for robotics manufactured outside of China. Crypto crypto crypto: Capitalizing on crypto’s comeback, AngelList and CoinList teamed up to launch crypto special purpose vehicles and crypto roll-up vehicles that will let crypto founders raise capital using crypto coins. Last but not least Image Credits:Getty Images AI is still red hot, but there are always subsectors that VCs are more interested in. To figure out which types of AI startups they’d most like to back this year, TechCrunch rounded up some findings from our recent survey of 20 enterprise VCs. In short: Think companies, not features. Topics