Colossal

I was in the middle of writing today’s memo before the news hit my desk

Ripped the pages out of my pad and started from scratch

On Wednesday, Colossal raised $200M at a $10.2B valuation

Colossal is the first company in Texas history to raise money at a $10B valuation

And their goal is to bring the woolly mammoth back to life in 2028

As of now, no revenue has been generated.

But Colossal commands a valuation higher than Perplexity ($2.8B on ~$50M ARR), Hugging Face ($4.5B on ~$100M ARR) and Groq ($2.8B on unknown revenue)… combined

They did OpenAI numbers with this raise

Three potential revenue streams have been mapped out by the founding team:

The technology being used to “de-extinct” animals uses artificial womb technology that could be applied to fertility treatment, which has the potential to be a standalone business

Colossal’s value lies in the hard science challenge of using CRISPR to edit the cells of a mammoth’s closest living relative (Asian elephant), placing those cells into an egg cell, and then implanting the embryo into an elephant, which will then birth a woolly mammoth

Another future revenue stream is government collaboration; the company will offer its technology and services to help governments conduct de-extinction projects.

The third potential cash cow is biodiversity credits - if Colossal succeeds in de-extinction, they anticipate biodiversity credit sales, a similar concept to carbon credits.

TWG Global was the sole institutional investor in this round, forking over $200M at a price 7x higher than the last round.

In 2023, investors poured $150M into a Series B that valued Colossal at $1.45B

In 2022, investors poured $60M into a Series A.

In 2021, investors poured $15M into a seed round.

Early investors include Draper Associates, the CIA (In-Q-Tel), Breyer Capital, Animal Capital, Jazz Ventures, and Paris Hilton.

Sidebar: I’m curious as to how many investors are taking risk off the table and looking for liquidity through secondaries.

Now let’s take a look at the founders

George Church and Ben Lamm are a pair of serial entrepreneurs with gargantuan visions.

Last year, they partnered with Charles Hoskinson (founder of Cardano and Colossal investor) to create Ghostfire

Ghostfire hasn’t been launched yet, but here’s a video of Charles talking about it on a podcast.

The plan is to create plants that naturally glow in the dark and can serve commercial + residential purposes.

Investors include Hoskinson, one of the most famous American athletes of all time, and a handful of venture capital funds.

Headlines

• Insight Partners secure $12.5B in new funds. Techcrunch article here

• Legal AI startup Harvey set to double valuation to $3B. Bloomberg article here

• Former OpenAI exec Mira Murati makes first hires for new startup. WIRED article here

• Maverick Carter and investors pitch international basketball league that offers equity to players. CNBC article here

• Jersey Victor Wembanyama gave to child up for auction just weeks later. FOS article here

• Anduril picks Ohio for weapons mega-factory Arsenal-1. Axios article here

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