Today's Venture Capital Pulse
Clip raises $500M, pushes valuation past $2.5B
Mexican fintech Clip secured a $500M financing round, lifting its valuation to over $2.5B. The capital will fund a consumer‑focused wallet rollout and broaden its financial‑services platform. Investors were not disclosed and the round remains open.
Also developing:
By the numbers: OpenAI secures $122B private financing round
The $700 Billion AI Productivity Problem No One's Talking About
In this episode, Russ Fradin and a16z General Partner Alex Rampell argue that the $700 billion AI productivity gap stems from a lack of robust measurement infrastructure, similar to what drove the internet ad boom. They explain how companies struggle to gauge AI ROI, with employees often hiding usage and surveys failing to capture real behavioral impact, leading to misaligned metrics and Goodhart’s Law pitfalls. The discussion highlights the need for concrete, use‑case‑driven metrics and safe‑deployment tools to turn AI adoption into genuine productivity gains and competitive advantage.
AI Boom Spurs High-Paying Data Center Jobs
In the coming months and years, there will be more conversations about what the American workforce looks like in the age of AI. Instead of asking whether AI will eliminate ALL our jobs, we should be thinking about how to...
AI-Driven Custom Apps Will Eclipse Traditional SaaS
SaaS is Over: " SaaS apps were built at a time when software was relatively hard to build. Now many of these AI applications are easy to build on top of these LLMs. Most companies will start building custom software super easily." @jonsidd Love...
Building Cloudflare for the Next 50 Years | Co-Founder Cloudfare Michelle Zatlyn
In this episode, co‑founder and President Michelle Zatlyn discusses Cloudflare’s long‑term vision for securing the internet and supporting creators in an AI‑driven landscape. She highlights how the company balances rapid growth with staying close to customer realities, and outlines strategies...
Data Labeling Market Faces Revenue Concentration and Synthetic Threat
Data labelling is a fricking hard market and there are some core questions. 1. Why does no player want to be called a talent marketplace? 2. Is the proclaimed “revenue” real revenue or GMV? 3. What are the margins given the GMV structure...
Airstreet Backs Europe's Breakthrough Visual AI Startup Flux
new on the press: unveiling @airstreet's investment in the leading frontier ai company for visual intelligence, @bfl_ml from the black forest 🌲 @robrombach @andi_blatt and their team have shipped the world's most popular image generation and editing models, FLUX - and...
E660 | This Week in European Tech with Dan, Mads, Lomax & Robin
The episode dissects Europe’s tech climate, covering policy moves like EU child‑social‑media bans and UK startup‑friendly budget reforms, while highlighting regulatory friction exemplified by N26’s German battles and VAT compliance woes. Robin Haak provides insider perspective on Germany’s macro challenges—energy...
Founder CEOs Drive Most B2B IPO Wealth
The GOATs of B2B: The Founders That Delivered The Biggest IPO Returns of All How founder CEOs created generational wealth for investors who believed in their vision While Wall Street debates the next big IPO, some B2B software founders have...
When Founders Chase Imaginary Problems
Founders solving problems that doesn't exist: https://t.co/t3JMsUJYDs
20VC Newsletter - 30th November 2025
In this 20VC newsletter episode, Harry Stebbings interviews Base44 founder Maor Shlomo, who argues that traditional SaaS will fade as "vibe coding" enables companies to own their tools and data, and highlights Google as the real competitive threat while emphasizing...
AI's Ripple Effects: Energy Ambition Can Boost Jobs
Amidst doomerism, it's essential to consider the second-order effects of AI. Ex: Data center investment has been massively positive for blue-collar workers. If we matched that level of ambition in domestic energy (necessary), we’d unlock similar gains across the workforce. https://t.co/QhksSGZs04
Prioritize Distribution Before Perfecting Your Product
Focus your startup on distribution 1st then build the best product 2nd.
E658 | Martin Scherrer, Redstone VC: CVC Secondaries Without Burning Bridges
In this episode Martin Scherrer of Redstone VC explains how corporate venture arms can exit their investments through secondary sales or managed runoff without eroding value or relationships. He highlights the importance of treating CVCs as true portfolio managers—using proper...
Venture Valuations Are Speculative Bets on Future Worth
Most venture valuations aren’t real — per se They are bets They are bets you will be worth a lot, lot, lot more. Not tomorrow. But fairly quickly.
Fund Startup Ops with Bond Interest, Not Dilution
I talked to a startup today that had been forced to take so much from investors and whose expenses were so low that they could put the money in bonds and fund their operations off the interest. I told them...
How to Use Bridging Finance for Your Business
Bridging finance offers businesses rapid, short‑term funding to close property deals, acquisitions, or cash‑flow gaps. The loan typically spans a few weeks to months and hinges on a clearly defined exit strategy, such as asset sales or refinancing. While interest...
Hobby‑Driven F1 Gaming SaaS Hits $33K ARR
Love seeing founders turn their hobbies into profitable businesses. Live on @acquiredotcom: F1 gaming performance tracker SaaS. > $33K ARR > $26K TTM profit > 15% growth Full listing: https://t.co/k4yxWJv4Lx https://t.co/DaibGHHotW
Last Ten Seats for Angel Investors at SF Dim Sum
hosting dim sum in SF on Friday for 150 investors and my latest 10 investments... have ten seats left for active angel/seed investors. please email your angellist/linkedin profile to demoday@launch.co to apply for one going to be amazing networking!
Evidium Raises $22M in Funding
Evidium, a San Francisco‑based healthcare AI startup, announced a $22 million financing round. The round was led by Health2047 and WGG Partners, with participation from x.AI, Perplexity, Innovaccer, Interwoven Ventures, and Mindset Ventures. The capital will be deployed to speed product...
Swiss Voters Reject Initiative, Boosting Tech‑AI Appeal
Very smart to have squashed this Switzerland is in a great spot for tech + AI cycle and will probably attract more talent! “More than 80 per cent rejected the initiative, with about 42 per cent of the population participating by...
Scaling to $100M Is Getting Dramatically Faster
The pace from $1m to $100m keeps accelerating. Proud to be a supporting investor (and very early customer) at @saastrfund
Hebbia Financial Services Benchmark Reveals Critical Performance Gaps Across Leading AI Models
Hebbia’s Financial Services Benchmark evaluated leading large language models across core banking workflows, uncovering sizable performance gaps. The study found that many high‑priced, proprietary models underperformed cheaper or open‑source alternatives on domain‑specific accuracy and hallucination rates. Latency and compliance‑related errors...
Fundraising Slumps No Longer Mean Failure
I met with a startup in the current batch who seemed demoralized because fundraising was going badly. Later I learned they'd already raised a million dollars. Fundraising going badly is not what it used to be.
Investors Overlook That This Work Already Feels Automated
I was talking recently to a startup using AI to take over a certain kind of work. Apparently investors are skeptical that AI could do it. I told them they should point out that most of this work already seems...
BHub Raises US$ 10M; Acquires Agrocontar
Brazilian fintech BHub announced a $10 million funding round led by Next Billion Capital Partners, joining existing backers Valor Capital, Monashees and Hedosophia. The raise extends a prior investment led by the IFC, bringing the company's total capital to a still‑undisclosed...
Start Small, Focus on Core Questions, Avoid Overreach
Instead of getting carried away, it's nice to be carried back instead. What's the essence of this? What's the core? Where's the epicenter? Have we slipped away from that? Good questions to ask when making the first version of anything. If...
Profit Without Growth Halves PagerDuty’s Valuation
PagerDuty has fallen to $1.1 Billion market cap … at $500m ARR 2.1x ARR It’s profitable now, but it isn’t growing anymore. Revenue growth has slowed to 4% and new customer count is net 0. The markets reward growth. Efficient growth...
The Future Will Be Explained to You in Palo Alto
The StrictlyVC finale in Palo Alto brought together deep‑tech founders showcasing breakthroughs that remain largely unseen by mainstream markets. Nicholas Kelez presented particle‑accelerator‑based semiconductor tools that could break the $400 million laser monopoly, while Mina Fahmi unveiled the Stream Ring, a...
Support Kara Nortman's Next Big Venture
Go Kara Nortman https://lnkd.in/gpy3arfQ
Penang Emerges as Supply‑Chain Resiliency Hub
Honored to be part of history-in-making as I see Penang and its startups and founders emerging as a region to watch. Supply chain resiliency is a key top of mind consideration for governments and companies. Besides being faster, better, (more...
Future-Proofing Portfolios W/ Chris Rynning (AMYP Ventures) & Anulika Malomo (HarbourVest Global Private Equity)
Chris Rynning and Anulika Malomo discuss how LPs, family offices, and GPs can future‑proof portfolios for 2025 and beyond, focusing on AI risk, liquidity crunches, and the fallout from China’s DeepSeek shock. They highlight the growing reliance on secondaries, new...
Compressing Data for LLMs Equals Understanding and Innovation
I talked to a startup yesterday that had been forced to compress certain information to fit it into an LLM context window. But compression is understanding, and in the compressed form the information could be used for other, new things.
Startup Founders Trace Multi‑generational Tech Company Lineage
I met a startup today whose founders had previously worked at Coinbase and Scale. And Brian Armstrong of Coinbase had himself worked at Airbnb. I bet 3 "generations" is not the record though. Anyone know of a longer chain?
Lux Capital Revives Vintage Tech with Luxury‑Style Ads
1/ Introducing (in this 🧵 thread below) Lux Capital’s new luxury vintage technologies… (inspired by WSJ magazine fashion ads which ALL have the SAME algorithmic layout: 1 page has model modeling new luxury jewelry or watch; adjacent page has item by...
AI Voiceover App Delivers 90% Margins, $250K Revenue
90% margins on this app! AI text-to-speech app for generating voiceovers in seconds. > $250K TTM revenue > $180K TTM profit > 100% YoY growth Live on @acquiredotcom: https://t.co/HtzQVs42uS https://t.co/in7czbVTl1
Both Founders and Investors Envy Each Other's Roles
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I know so many founders who wish they were investors, and so many investors who wish they were founders again.
US Buyers Pay Premium for Software Thanks to Bigger TAM
In the international M&A/private equity markets, US buyers/investors tend to be the most aggressive in terms of valuation (specifically for software & internet companies). The primary reason is that TAM in the US represents a much larger opportunity compared to...
Founders Must Remain Hands‑On After Hiring First VP
The biggest mistake you can make as a founder when you hire your first VP of Sales is stepping out of sales I see this again, and again It only works with the very best VPs of Sales Every other first VP of...
AI Will Democratize Creation Like Anchor Did
Every major shift in consumer tech has a moment when it suddenly becomes accessible to millions. Michael Mignano (@mignano) helped spark one of those moments with Anchor, making podcast creation something anyone could do with a tap. Now at Lightspeed,...
Repeatable Vertical SaaS Exits: Build, Sell, Repeat
Stuart Faught has been acquired 18 times on @acquiredotcom. No plans to build a unicorn. Just trying to escape a corporate job that felt like Office Space. One tiny product at a time. Dentists. Orthodontists. HVAC. Med spas. Home care. Build vertical SaaS....
Remote-First, Transparent, Accountable Teams Drive Billion-Dollar Success
I love @Linear’s approach to life-work balance. I believe that high accountability, high transparency, remote-first environments can work to build multi-billion-dollar outcomes. It’s the kind of model we’re building at @sevensevensix. https://t.co/mvTRMkMu4I
Efficient Operations Teams Are the Hidden Winners
I think operations is one of the areas and startups that people talk the least about. But the most efficient teams are the ones that end up winning.
That Look When European Seed Funds Lose a Term Sheet
The face every European seed fund sees before they lose the term sheet 🤣 https://t.co/luEqQH95ly
Debt Joins AI Funding, Raising Bubble Risk
1/ AI has been amazing for all of us mostly EQUITY financed by risk-taking VC + growth equity + tech giants until now DEBT has entered the party (Which @andrewrsorkin in "1929" has shown is often the match 🔥that ignites bubbles📈 + eventually brings...
Seeking Your Top Picks for 2026 Founder Event Locations
In 2026, we will be doubling down on our events. Where is a location that you think we should bring one of our founder events to?
Use Thanksgiving Break to Plan 2026, Not Fundraise
Although in most cases, I would not recommend to my founders to fundraise between U.S. Thanksgiving and the year end, it is a really good time to reflect and think about 2026 plans. It's also a great time to plan...
Over 1,000 Employees Earn $1M+ From Equity
THIS is what startup success looks like - when the team wins too "According to Stewart Butterfield and Allen, 700 employees made $1M or more from their equity. This number would eventually climb to over 1000 people by 2021 as...
AI Funding Frenzy: Anthropic, NVIDIA, and $10B Valuations
The only podcast you have to listen to every week. No politics. Just tech. - Anthropic Raises $30BN from Microsoft and NVIDIA - NVIDIA Core Business Threatened by TPU - Sam Altman's "War Mode" Analysed - Sierra Hits $100M ARR: Justifies $10BN Price? Spotify 👉 https://t.co/6JKLLkgQVA Youtube...
AI Multiplies Startup Productivity, Saving Ten Hires
I talked to a startup that's not a software company but uses AI quite a lot. They currently have 6 employees. I asked how many more people they'd need to hire if they didn't use AI, and they said about...
Solve the Problem only You Can, Not Any Problem
Figuring out the problem that *you* are uniquely the person to solve as a founder is a big part of the battle in finding product-market fit. Don't force picking a problem to solve just because you want to start a...