| Hi, Agen. In case it wasn’t clear, it’s not just unicorn startups being hit by the funding pullback. The latest Crunchbase numbers show that seed- and early-stage funding recorded their lowest amounts in a single month since we began tracking the downturn. We dive into why that’s a scary sign for the startup ecosystem as a whole. It increasingly looks like the startup ecosystem is undergoing a top-to-bottom reset, from seed- through late-stage startups and all the way to the investors that back them. All funding stages — seed, early and late — in July 2023 were down about a third compared to a year ago. Two years ago, when we started profiling Alex Alvarado and his startup, Daybreak Health, for our Something Ventured series, the youth mental health platform had just raised its seed round. But it was clear even then that Daybreak, which works with schools around the country, was moving fast. Now, roughly 17 months after raising its Series A, the company has closed on a $13 million Series B. A total of 14 tech startups joined our Layoffs Tracker last week. Four of them laid off all their workers and shut down. At the top of the shut-down list was a hot indoor farming startup that raised nearly $700 million from venture investors before going public via SPAC. At some point, you may be approached by a strategic buyer or a private equity fund interested in buying your company. How should you consider an unsolicited offer? Guest author and startup adviser Gaurav Bhasin walks us through a list of questions to ask if a buyer comes knocking. A handful of funding deals caught our eye in July: a couple of startups applying AI in interesting ways, one looking to preserve your privacy, another fighting wildfires with AI, and one in spacetech. | 
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