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- Alcon's $1.5B Acquisition, Firefly's Massive IPO, & A Brand New GPT! 🚀
Alcon's $1.5B Acquisition, Firefly's Massive IPO, & A Brand New GPT! 🚀
Seed Radar
August 08, 2025
Issue #24 • August 8, 2025
Hi Seedradar Squad! This week's innovation scene is dominated by seismic shifts in funding and corporate growth. Firefly Aerospace made a powerful public debut on the Nasdaq, raising a massive IPO and surging over 50% on its first day of trading. Meanwhile, medtech giant Alcon is making a strategic move to dominate the myopia treatment market with a billion-dollar acquisition of STAAR Surgical.
In parallel, significant capital is flowing into AI platforms, with Clay securing a massive Series C round for GTM engineering and Strand Therapeutics raising a Series B to advance a self-replicating mRNA therapy. Besides, we now have a brand new GPT model: GPT-5.
Image courtesy of Firefly Aerospace
🚀 Firefly Aerospace Soars in Nasdaq Debut After Upsized $868M IPO
Spacetech firm Firefly Aerospace raised $868 million after pricing its upsized IPO at $45 per share, above its projected range.
The stock began trading on the Nasdaq on August 7 under the ticker "FLY" and surged over 50% on its first day, signaling strong public market appetite for capital-intensive defense and space technology companies.
👁️ Alcon to Acquire STAAR Surgical in $1.5B Deal to Dominate Myopia Treatment Market
Medtech giant Alcon announced its definitive agreement to acquire STAAR Surgical for approximately $1.5 billion in cash.
The deal brings STAAR's innovative EVO Implantable Collamer Lens (ICL) portfolio under Alcon's control, significantly expanding its offerings in the growing surgical vision correction market for myopia.
💰 Snapshots: What Else Is Happening?
• OpenAI announced the highly anticipated launch of GPT-5, its next-generation foundational model, making it available to all ChatGPT users. Described as a significant leap in intelligence, GPT-5 unifies the company's various specialized models—including its advanced reasoning engines—into a single, adaptive system that automatically selects the best approach for a given task. - Read More
• Clay has raised $100 million in a Series C round led by CapitalG, Alphabet's independent growth fund. The funding more than doubles the company's valuation to $3.1 billion just six months after its last raise, fueling its mission to define a new "GTM (go-to-market) Engineering" profession. - Read More
• Strand Therapeutics closed a $153 million Series B round, led by Swedish investment firm Kinnevik. The financing, which included the venture arms of Big Pharma players Regeneron and Amgen, will advance the clinical development of its lead candidate, STX-001, a self-replicating mRNA therapy that delivers IL-12 directly into solid tumors. - Read More
• Joby Aviation announced its acquisition of the helicopter ride-sharing business of Blade Air Mobility. The $125 million deal signals Joby's aggressive push to integrate traditional helicopter routes into its future air taxi network. - Read More
💰 Sharks of the Week!
️🔥 Menlo Ventures- Led a $70 million Series A round for Chai Discovery, an AI company building foundation models to accelerate the design of therapeutic drugs. - Read More
️🔥 Coatue- Led a combined $38 million seed and Series A funding round for Legion, an AI-driven Security Operations Center (SOC) automation platform that emerged from stealth. - Read More
️🔥 QED Investors- Led a $35 million Series A round for Lorikeet, a startup building "universal AI concierges" to automate complex customer service resolutions. - Read More
️🔥 Norwest Venture Partners - Led a $24 million Series A funding round for Kustomer, an AI-native customer experience platform, to help the company scale its AI product development. - Read More
🚀 Startup Radar: Movers, Shakers & Future Makers
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🛠️ Trending AI Tools to Supercharge Your Workflow!
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💼 Join the Revolution: Hot Startup Jobs!
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💼 Resource of the Week: AI Marketing Tools!
🛠️ MarketerMilk's "26 Best AI Marketing Tools" Guide
A curated and continuously updated (June 2025) list of the best AI-powered tools for modern marketing teams. It covers everything from AI automation (Gumloop) and SEO (Surfer SEO) to copywriting (Jasper) and video creation (Crayo), providing startups with the essential stack to execute a lean and effective GTM strategy.
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