Black Forest Labs: from $31M seed to a $3.25B image-AI licensor
Ex-Stability AI researchers launched open-weight FLUX in Aug 2024; within 16 months Meta, Adobe and Canva licensed it and BFL closed a $300M round at $3.25B.
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2,000 VERÖFFENTLICHTE FÄLLE · REGELMÄSSIG AKTUALISIERTSystem1 Biosciences bet robot-grown brain organoids beat traditional drug discovery
Two academics quit professorships to grow patient brain organoids on robots at scale, betting the data reveals targets old discovery methods missed.
Fall lesenCarbonChain bets CBAM makes importers pay for carbon data; covers 35% of EU steel imports
CarbonChain bet CBAM would force importers to prove embedded emissions; after a USV-led $10M Series A, it now supports 35–50% of key EU CBAM import volumes.
Fall lesenCazoo's $8B online-car-retail bet ended in 2024 administration
Alex Chesterman's online used-car retailer raised billions, went public at $8B, burned through £500M+ annual losses, and entered administration in May 2024.
Fall lesenTerraria's no-publisher bet: self-funded free updates to 58.7M sales, 8th best-seller ever
A tiny indie studio self-published Terraria in 2011 with no publisher or VC; 13 years of free updates took it to 58.7M copies, 8th best-selling ever.
Fall lesenMUSED bets browser tours of a scanned Great Pyramid can remake heritage education
Luke Hollis's MUSED scanned Khufu's pyramid interior for the Giza Project and shipped a free guided 3D web tour that drew 1,752 HN points.
Fall lesenAkulaku turned BNPL for the credit-card-less into a bank-backed HK IPO bid
Founded 2016, Akulaku built Indonesian BNPL on its own licensed bank, survived a regulatory suspension, and filed for a US$300–500M Hong Kong IPO in 2026.
Fall lesenThe Exploration Company bets Europe pays for a SpaceX rival; €150M Series B, $2B talks
Munich startup building Nyx, Europe's reusable cargo capsule; Europe's largest space-tech Series B, then $300M raise talks at a $2B+ valuation.
Fall lesendConstruct bets 3D-scanned worlds unlock robot autonomy; $125M Series A
Singapore's dConstruct scans buildings and transit into 3D worlds so robots navigate without GPS; $125M Series A, 2026
Fall lesenOlive AI's $4B automation bet: $900M raised, units sold off, gone by 2023
Olive raised $900M+ to automate healthcare admin at a $4B valuation, deployed at 900+ hospitals, then sold its units one by one and shut down in October 2023.
Fall lesenEcom Express's B2C logistics bet ends in fire sale: ₹7,000 Cr to ₹1,407 Cr
Ecom Express, once valued at over ₹7,000 crore, sold 99.4% to rival Delhivery for ₹1,407 crore in 2025 after Meesho built its own logistics.
Fall lesenPostiz bets AI agents need a social distribution layer; PH #1 and $1.3M ARR in two years
Nevo David's open-source scheduler for 30+ networks bet agents would need a publishing layer: PH #1 on 2026-05-01, 34.8k GitHub stars, $1.3M ARR in two years.
Fall lesenInner AI bets Brazilian SMEs will hire autonomous AI agents, not copilots: R$30M seed
Brazil's multi-model workspace with 1M users raises R$30M at R$500M to launch Squad.com — AI agents that run WhatsApp sales, marketing and finance
Fall lesenInnerPlant raised $5.65M betting engineered plant proteins beat physical sensors
InnerPlant bet a protein engineered into crop plants, readable by satellite or phone, beats physical sensors, and raised $5.65M seed to build it.
Fall lesenTreefera bets EUDR forces deforestation-free proof; $30M Series B led by Notion
UK startup Treefera monitors the opaque first mile of palm, cocoa and timber supply chains with satellites and AI; $30M lands June 2025 as EUDR applies
Fall lesenVinted's buyer-fee C2C bet: secondhand first, €813M revenue, €5B+ private
Vinted bet sellers list free while buyers pay fees; it scaled to €813.4M revenue, €76.7M profit and a €5B valuation without an IPO.
Fall lesenValve's no-VC Steam bet: 336 staff ran the PC gaming empire, ~$6.5B/yr
Self-funded since 1996, Valve owns PC distribution through Steam; 2021 court leaks: 336 employees (79 on Steam) for a business press estimates near $6.5B/yr.
Fall lesenAndela's Africa-coders bet: $100M D round, layoffs, then a $1.5B SoftBank-backed pivot
Andela trained Africa's top developers at physical campuses; when that proved costly it went remote-first and global, and SoftBank valued the pivot at $1.5B.
Fall lesenAkua's $13M bet: AI-native acquiring rails to break LatAm's processor duopoly
Founded in Bogotá in August 2024 by ex-Mastercard and PayU operators, Akua raised $13M in a year to sell cloud, AI-powered acquiring-as-a-service across LatAm.
Fall lesenQutwo raises €25M at €325M valuation
Silo AI founder Peter Sarlin launched Qutwo in 2026-02, signing €20M contracts within two months, then raised €25M at €325M.
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