Gm. Hawaiian shirts aren't just for Hawaii, you know.

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three funds that recently topped up their coffers.

AMERICAN DYNAMISM

Palmer Luckey Strikes Gold

Palmer Luckey, known for founding Oculus and owning way too many Hawaiian shirts, just raised another round for his defense tech startup Anduril. The $1.48 billion funding boost brought Anduril's valuation to $8.48 billion.

Investors included Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, a16z, General Catalyst, 8VC, Lux Capital, Elad Gil, Human Capital, the US Innovative Technology Fund, and more. Yes, they've got some famous investors. Well, their clients are pretty well-known too.

Anduril's most famous client is the U.S. Department of Defense so most of their work is top secret. What we do know is in January, Anduril won a $1 billion contract from U.S. Special Operations Command to lead its counter-drone systems work. They'll be using the money to create new autonomous defense capability and scale their current projects.

"Autonomous systems will enable the military to operate faster and at greater scale across both tactical and strategic operations," Anduril said.

American Dynamism

Andreessen Horowitz is investing heavily into a sector they call American Dynamism.

These are companies kickstarting American renewal across industries like defense, agriculture, space, education, energy, robotics, and more.

That's great and all. Seriously, really incredible. But I feel, I don't know, Americans need more than that. Here's 7 companies America needs ASAP.

1. Taco Bell that doesn't give me stomachaches

2. Water shops like coffee shops but they only sell different types of water

3. Home Depot with better signs and maps

4. Disney World for tech bros (wait that's Art Basel)

5. 2nd Best Buy. It's not the best buy, but it's a close 2nd.

6. Indexable, searchable folder for all my memes

7. Carrier pigeon lead gen biz for B2B SaaS companies

Hit me with your worst business idea.

— Jason Levin (@iamjasonlevin)

STARTUPS

Central and Eastern European Startups 🚀

Let's take a trip to Europe real quick.

Despite the catastrophic and tragic war in Ukraine now entering its 283rd day, the Central and Eastern European (CEE) startup scene has continued to thrive.

As the latest Google and Atomico CEE report makes clear, 2022 has, in many ways, been the best year yet for CEE startups.

Let’s dive into the report and highlight the key findings.

Key Takeaways

The report is 66 pages long and well worth a read in its entirety, but we understand you’re busy kicking ass and taking names, so we’ll briefly cover the main points here.

• CEE is on-pace to break its yearly venture capital investment record, despite all the uncertainties of 2022.

• The bulk of this VC funding is concentrated in Poland, Estonia, and Czechia.

• Transportation, Fintech, and Enterprise Software are the most popular VC investments.

• CEE is one of the fastest growing regions in Europe by enterprise value, 4xing since 2017.

• CEE startups are among the best in Europe for jobs created per Euro of venture capital invested.

• The number of Unicorns in the region has more than doubled since 2020.

• 22% of these Unicorns are bootstrapped, 15% more than the European average.

• Average funding per startup is decreasing globally but is increasing in CEE.

Clearly, it was a pretty good year for CEE startups and tech.

Eyes Toward The Future

It looks like the best is still to come for CEE, as CEE is really carving out a niche in enterprise software, web3, and gaming:

• Enterprise software is by far CEE’s largest sector right now, and the region is home to some of the most promising names in the business, such as Klaus and Zowie.

• VC-funding for CEE-based web3 startups has increased 5.6x since the beginning of 2021.

• There have been over $2 billion in gaming exits since 2020, and there is strong evidence that the region’s web3 and gaming industries are mutually-reinforcing.

It’s hard not to be bullish on CEE after such a strong performance in horrendous circumstances.

— Stephen Flanders (@SteveFlanders22)

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: 25: The number of Ukrainian startups that Google is writing equity-free checks to as part of their Google for Startups Ukraine Support Fund. This fund's first and second batches included successful startups Releaf Paper, VanOnGo, Mindly, and Esper Bionics, so this set of 25 startups is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Story we’re watching: The Middle East is in an IPO golden age, especially when compared with America and Europe’s IPO winter. Are we about to see a surge in Middle Eastern tech?

Rabbit hole: Choose Good Quests (Pirate Wires)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• Matt Taibbi released “The Twitter Files”. It sounds a lot cooler than it actually is.

• Lensa AI and its magic avatars have rocketed up to the top spot on the App Store. Can’t lie, those avatars are pretty damn cool.

• Tech CEOs are quietly tapping into their inner Elon, giving employees the choice to pick up the pace or get the boot.

• The Amazon layoffs are now expected to reach up to 20,000, with everyone from distribution center workers to executives fair game for the chopping block.

MONDAY MUSIC

If young Metro don't trust you then....

Artist: Dua Lipa (Spotify)

Album: HEROES & VILLAINS by Metro Boomin (Spotify)

Song: Bounce Back by Big Sean (Spotify)

LAYOFFS TRACKER

Notable layoffs this week

Bloom Tech: 88 people (50%)

Ula: 134 people (23%)

GlobalFoundries: 800 people (6%)

FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we came across this weekend that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

🛠 Jam Dev CEO Dani Grant writes about how to move fast and not break things as a remote company.

🗣 Indie hackers shares insights on how to engineer word of mouth campaigns.

🤝 Packy McCormick gives his thoughts on ChatGPT and more.