Hopeful hearts and other startup news

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The week after Thanksgiving is usually full of announcements, and this year was no exception. Blame it on the end-of-year holidays, but we would even go so far as to say that several fundraising announcements were truly comforting.

Most interesting startup stories of the week

This week brought us a new company to watch, salary news, a group of new YC grads, and much more.

New page: Three members of the Google NotebookLM team left the company to create his own startupfollowing the footsteps of AI pioneer François Chollet.

Pay gaps: Kruze Consulting, a CPA firm specializing in venture-backed startups, shared its insights on the average salary of the first employees and confirmed that the Bay Area still shows higher numbers. There, highly experienced engineers enter start-ups with salaries ranging from $180,000 to $235,000, compared to $160,000 to $210,000 in other fields.

Arm wrestling: Fitness startup Ladder, which recently raised $105 million in Series B funding, pointed out similarities between its strength training app and Peloton's new Strength+ app, making it a marketing and advertising opportunity in its own right.

Return IRL: As announced, Y Combinator's final Demo Day for its fall 2024 startup class took place in person.

The most interesting fundraisers this week

This week we have funding news about several startups working on big problems – and one of them is reportedly making popcorn.

Clean atmosphere: Heritage Carbon secured $150 million in Series B funding to help develop its carbon capture technology.

Heart health: Cleerly, a cardiovascular imaging startup, uses AI to detect coronary heart disease early and raised a $106 million Series C expansion round continue working on this mission.

Fight cancer: Orakl Oncology, a French spin-off laboratory that combines data and biology to bring new drugs to cancer patients, has raised nearly 15 million euros to dateincluding non-dilutive financing from Bpifrance and more recently, a funding round led by the European venture capital fund Singular.

Fighting fires: Named after the Israeli Iron Dome missile defense system, FireDome, a startup that uses projectiles filled with fire retardants to stop wildfires, raised a $3 million pre-seed round led by Third Sphere and Gravity Climate.

Popcorn time: According to an SEC filing, Khloé Kardashian and Kris Jenner are looking to raise $10 million for Khlouda consumer startup that would be a protein popcorn brand.

Most interesting venture capital and fund news this week

Mark again: Former NBA athlete Omri Casspi raised $60 million for its new venture capital fund, Swish Ventureswhich will support cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure and AI startups. The Israeli actor previously launched the $36 million Sheva Capital fund, the investment period of which has ended.

Go public: Dutch investment group Prosus expects five potential IPOs of its Indian portfolio over the next 18 months. This would represent a significant part of the 20 Indian startups looking to go public in 2025.

Financing time: French venture capital firm Daphni joins forces with partners to launch Time4a fund with a target of 100 million euros and a mandate to invest in entrepreneurs with diverse backgrounds and high-impact projects.

Last but not least

Leonardo Banchik, chief investment officer of Voyager Ventures, and other climate technology investors are cautiously optimistic about policy changes planned by the second Trump administration. These won't be universally detrimental to the sector, and some could even benefit climate technology, TechCrunch has heard.