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Several startups announced new rounds this week without disclosing their valuation. This doesn’t mean these were bearish rounds, but rather it confirms that our collective focus has shifted far away from unicorns: These days, $1 billion can be the ARR (annual recurring revenue) figure a company wants to reach before going public .

The most interesting startup stories from the week

IPOs are making their way back into the conversation, but not everyone is lamenting their absence.

Second hand: Vinted was valued at 5 billion euros in a secondary share sale. The Lithuanian used marketplace joins the growing number of European scale-ups that have followed this path to unlock liquidity for their stakeholders in the absence of IPOs on their roadmap.

Bright side: Ros CEO Zachariah Reitano would “never say never” to taking the telehealth company public, but he believes the benefits of being a private company are growing, he said in a recent interview.

Check boxes: Check boxes: Wiz hopes 2025 will be the year of its ARR reaches 1 billion dollarsa number its co-founders see as a prerequisite for the cybersecurity company to go public after it declined to be acquired by Google for $23 billion.

Big features: Fintech company Groww is one of several Indian startups that are moves its headquarters to India to better comply with local laws and potentially go public more easily, TechCrunch’s Manish Singh reported.

Tailwinds: US federal regulators have cleared the way for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to share US airspace with airplanes and helicoptersa big win for startups in this category.

Most interesting collections this week

Only a handful of AI-related funding rounds this week, but AI will be central to some really big ones that could be around the corner.

Counter-Stripe: One year after becoming a payment processor, fintech Finix starts raised a $75 million Series C funding round which will help it grow in the US and expand to more countries.

Money circle: Recent concentric AI raised a $45 million Series B round. The San Mateo-based startup operates in the data security management space, which has seen several M&As in recent years.

Open checks: Socket raised another $40 million detect security flaws in open source, which software companies increasingly rely on.

Reinforced: Fix closed a $25 million Series A round to help IT teams manage ticket overload through a combination of automation and human analysts.

The rumours: AI search engine Perplexity is reportedly trying to raise $500 million. Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati is also said to be fundraising for a new AI startup.

Most interesting VC and fund news this week

Ducks in a row: Privacy-focused company DuckDuckGo to invest to like-minded early-stage startups and consider acquisitions. Its previous investments include AI model training platform EverArt, TechCrunch learned.

Breathing room: Andreessen Horowitz makes a private GPU cluster available to AI startups in its portfolio through a program called OxygenThe VC firm confirmed this week.

Partners only: Filings revealed that Benchmark is increasing $170 million for a new fund. TechCrunch understands that this will be a partner-only fund, with most of the funding coming from the company’s historical and current partners.

Old and new: Veteran US VC firm General Catalyst raises $8 billion in new funds. In the case of new VC firm Chemistry, it was raised $350 million for its debut fund.

Last but not least

The race for AI foundational models has just begun, and smaller startups still have a chanceAccel partner Philippe Botteri told TechCrunch. This includes European, despite the fundraising gap with their American peers.