This arrangement lets Grammarly scale aggressively without compromising its valuation or control.

The investment comes from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund (CVF), a fund structured specifically for late-stage startups that already have stable revenue. CVF doesn’t behave like a typical venture capital arm, it doesn’t buy equity. 

It issues non-dilutive capital, secured against a company’s predictable income streams. For Grammarly, that’s an edge as it scales through the post-ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy) market.

Grammarly, founded 14 years ago, generates more than $700 million annually and claims 40 million daily users. But the firm is changing direction, beyond grammar checks, toward a full-scale AI productivity suite. 

The December 2024 acquisition of Coda, a productivity startup, marked a clear pivot. Shishir Mehrotra, Coda’s former CEO, now leads Grammarly’s next phase.

“Grammarly is evolving into an AI-powered productivity company,” Mehrotra said after the acquisition. The company is integrating third-party tools and moving into enterprise workflows, a strategy that demands aggressive go-to-market expansion and targeted acquisitions, both areas the new funding will support.

Again, the deal does not affect Grammarly’s valuation. Although it hit a $13 billion valuation during the height of the zero-interest boom in 2021, its current market value remains under wraps. An insider told us that today’s valuation is “significantly lower,” but didn’t offer figures. 

Regardless, the nondilutive nature of the CVF deal ensures Grammarly doesn’t have to renegotiate that number down.

General Catalyst, through CVF, has backed close to 50 firms, including insurtech startup Lemonade and telehealth company Ro. The fund operates independently from the firm’s recent $8 billion raise and has its own limited partners. 

In a past interview, CVF co-head Pranav Singhvi said the model is designed for “companies that are ready to grow, not experiment.”

The absence of equity transfer in the Grammarly deal is deliberate. “It’s capital that’s deeply aligned with business growth,” Singhvi explained.

Per TechCrunch, Grammarly didn’t respond to requests for comment on future IPO plans, though Mehrotra has hinted at it before. There’s no timeline yet, but if the firm continues scaling at this pace, a public offering could follow sooner rather than later.

Initially aiming for $2 billion, the company has now secured greater backing from investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX. 

This latest investment will bring Anthropic’s total funding to approximately $18 billion.

Even with its growing revenue, which now stands at around $1.2 billion annually, Anthropic is not yet profitable. The company plans to use the funds to further its AI research and development efforts, particularly in creating more advanced models.

Anthropic has also launched Claude 3.7 Sonnet, a new AI model that allows users to choose between instant responses and deeper, more complex reasoning. Unlike traditional AI chatbots that force users to pick between models with varying capabilities, Claude 3.7 Sonnet integrates both functionalities in a single system.

According to Anthropic, the model’s unique feature is its ability to “think” for as long as needed. This approach is just like human reasoning, where some questions require quick answers while others demand more thoughtful consideration. 

“Similar to how humans don’t have two separate brains for questions that can be answered immediately versus those that require thought,” the company stated in a blog post, “we regard reasoning as simply one of the capabilities a frontier model should have, to be smoothly integrated with other capabilities, rather than something to be provided in a separate model.”

Pricing and Performance

The Claude 3.7 Sonnet model is priced at $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens, making it more expensive than some competitors, such as OpenAI’s o3-mini and DeepSeek’s R1. However, Anthropic says that its hybrid nature—combining standard chatbot functions with deep reasoning—justifies the cost.

Performance tests show Claude 3.7 Sonnet surpassing previous versions. On SWE-Bench, a benchmark for real-world coding tasks, it achieved an accuracy of 62.3%, outperforming OpenAI’s o3-mini model, which scored 49.3%. 

Another test, TAU-Bench, measured AI interaction with users in a simulated retail environment, where Claude 3.7 Sonnet scored 81.2%, ahead of OpenAI’s o1 model at 73.5%.

Again, Anthropic claims to have greatly improved the model’s ability to distinguish between harmful and harmless prompts, reducing unnecessary refusals by 45% compared to its predecessor, Claude 3.5 Sonnet.

Alongside Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Anthropic is launching a research preview of Claude Code, an AI-powered coding assistant. This tool allows developers to execute tasks directly from their terminal, such as modifying codebases, debugging errors, and even pushing updates to GitHub.

Illustrating its abilities, an Anthropic representative showed how Claude Code could break down a project’s structure and suggest improvements using plain English commands. Initially, access to Claude Code will be limited and granted on a first-come, first-served basis.

While Anthropic has taken a measured, safety-focused approach in the past, this launch seems to be a more aggressive innovation. However, OpenAI is reportedly preparing to release its own hybrid AI model in the coming months, bringing even fiercer competition in the space.

The funding was co-led by U.S.-based venture capital firms Lightspeed Ventures and General Catalyst, with participation from prominent investors including Reddit COO Jen Wong and former U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin. 

Berry Health aims to provide judgment-free healthcare services through its technology platform, offering remote diagnosis and treatment for conditions such as anxiety, depression, sexual health, dermatology, and hair loss.

The health tech startup was founded by Fredua Akosa and emphasizes the need to address the deep-rooted stigma surrounding healthcare in Africa. Akosa previously worked as a general practitioner in Ghana and pursued studies in public health and business. 

Through his experience, he has directed the company’s focus to build on the identified significant rise in mental health conditions and stigmatized healthcare during the pandemic. Berry Health seeks to leverage technology to make healthcare more accessible and comfortable for individuals, breaking down barriers and facilitating remote consultations and medication delivery.

With Africa facing challenges such as a high prevalence of mental health issues, limited doctor-to-patient ratios, and inadequate access to quality care, the emergence of health tech startups like Berry Health presents an opportunity for positive change. 

The utilization of telemedicine, virtual care, and drug-delivery platforms has gained momentum, addressing the need for affordable and convenient healthcare services. Berry Health aims to democratize access to healthcare by offering subscription-based services, charging users $26 per year for unlimited access to its offerings and $5 per consultation with clinicians.

Berry Health’s executive team comprises professionals with extensive experience in the healthcare and technology sectors, including individuals from WPP, Instacart, and Babylon Health. The startup plans to launch its services publicly next month and has already assembled a team of licensed doctors and clinicians. The recent funding round and investor support reflect the potential impact of Berry Health in transforming healthcare delivery in Africa.

Investors, including Lightspeed Ventures and General Catalyst, expressed their enthusiasm for Berry Health’s mission and team structure. They recognized the unique opportunity to address healthcare challenges in Africa by combining the expertise of professionals with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Lightspeed Ventures, in particular, viewed Berry Health as a groundbreaking venture, marking its first investment in Africa.

As Berry Health prepares to emerge from stealth mode, the funding received will play a crucial role in further developing its platform, expanding its network of medical professionals, and reaching more individuals across Ghana and beyond. 

The startup’s innovative approach to healthcare delivery holds the promise of making a significant impact in improving access, reducing stigma, and enhancing the overall well-being of individuals in Africa.

Moment offers expanded payment infrastructure for businesses across Africa to help them collect and make payments easier, quicker, and more affordable in any manner that their buyers or suppliers prefer. Moment will also offer additional options for consumers to spend and save money more wisely. 

The aim is to transform the African payments landscape by making digital payments more accessible and reliable for domestic, cross-border and global payments.

“We are excited about our venture with Rapyd and General Catalyst. It will address the need for an accessible and reliable payment platform for many small businesses and millions of consumers in Africa. Investing in this venture is a logical progression for us, as we already process payments every month from 22 million households across 50 countries in Africa. Moment fulfills our strategy to expand our ecosystem, by investing in adjacent businesses that provide scalable services, underpinned by technology”, said Calvo Mawela, MultiChoice Group CEO.

Moment will consolidate the $3.5 billion in payments that the MultiChoice Group processes annually to expand options for subscribers and make payment processes efficiently, as well as extend Africa’s most complete payment network to African and global businesses.

“We are thrilled to be able to partner with MultiChoice and our network partners to provide Africa’s most complete payment platform for businesses through Moment. Africa is one of the most exciting markets in the world – with tremendous opportunities to expand the use of digital payments, drive cash payments to real-time digital payments, and to capitalise on the tremendous entrepreneurial drive of African businesses,” says Arik Shtilman, CEO of Rapyd.

“Africa represents one of the most exciting investment opportunities for global investors. Over the next 20 years, most of the population growth of the world will be happening in Africa, along with increasing urbanisation. African consumers and businesses are not only moving business online, but will be the labour force for the world across the next 20 years,” adds Adam Valkin, Managing Director at General Catalyst Partners.

The long-term plan is to provide the infrastructure for pan-African payments for the 44 million small businesses operating on the continent. It is also to turn the 90% of retail transactions that are currently taking place in cash, into digital payments. Moment aims to make digital transactions more accessible to the 350 million consumers that are underbanked or not banked at all.

Some of Moment’s long term service offering include:

• Payments across 40+ countries in Africa through 200+ locally preferred payment methods to collect, disburse and manage risk.
• Drive adoption of PayShap, TCIB, NQR, and other real-time payment methods across all markets.
• Global-Africa trade for importers and exporters with  virtual accounts in 40+ currencies and local payments in 130+ countries.
• Payment tools, deep inventory to sell and financial services for micro-entrepreneurs and SMEs.
• Offering consumers payments, savings and rewards.

“Moment gives MultiChoice another opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to the economic development of the African continent. It will play a key role in accelerating cash-to-digital payments for all consumers and businesses and making the continent more investment ready for global players, by connecting payments from Africa to the world,” Mawela concluded.

 inDrive will benefit from increased financial flexibility thanks to this new funding, which will also help the business to continue its rapid expansion. Earlier, in the year 2021, General Catalyst took part in inDrive’s $150 million Series C investment round, which was headed by Insight Partners.

Arsen Tomsky, inDrive founder and CEO, said: “We are pleased that General Catalyst has again invested in inDrive, enabling us to maintain our high double-digit growth rates, improve the quality of our offering, and develop new business verticals. inDrive is in a strong financial position and has a choice of financing instruments that best suit its requirements. I believe that this financing reflects General Catalyst’s conviction in our ability to continue to successfully expand into new communities and new business verticals in the coming years.”

General Catalyst said in a statement: “General Catalyst is optimistic inDrive is set for sustained growth, and we are excited to back a business that we believe has a strong mission and benefits so many communities around the world. It’s important to us that the investments we make have a positive impact, and inDrive is well placed to do so.”

inDrive continued its rapid growth in 2022, despite a challenging global macro environment, with an 88% year-on-year increase in gross revenue serving as solid evidence of the business’s resilience. 

The number of countries where the company operates reached 47, up from 37 in 2021. inDrive expanded its team to 2,700 employees spread across 17 offices worldwide, with 1,000 newcomers in 2022.

inDrive was the world’s fastest growing international ride-hailing app in 2022, according to data.ai (formerly App Annie).

The app saw a 45% increase in downloads year-on-year, climbing from 42.6 million in 2021 to 61.8 million in 2022 to become the 2nd most downloaded ride-hailing app worldwide based on Google Play and App Store data (China is App Store only).

In 2022, the company launched several new verticals, expanding its offering from passenger and cargo transportation, delivery, and handymen services to include job classifieds and group buying services.

The company recently rebranded from inDriver (Independent Drivers) to inDrive (Inner Drive) to reflect its ambitious mission of Challenging Injustice.