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

impressive, very nice… now let's see the tyrannosaurus

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