Today's Venture Capital Pulse
Slash Financial lands $100M Series C, valuation hits $1.4B
Slash Financial announced a $100M Series C round that lifts its valuation to $1.4B. The AI‑powered banking platform now serves over 5,000 online businesses and saw card volume jump from $1B in 2024 to $3B in 2025.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Beeline Medicines raises $300M Series A led by Bain Capital
Handl Health Raises $14.2M to Optimize Employer-Sponsored Health Plans
Handl Health announced a $14.2 million Series A round led by Arthur Ventures, aimed at scaling its unified health‑plan platform for brokers, carriers, and TPAs. The solution aggregates pricing, utilization, benefit, and quality data to let employers model and continuously refine dynamic health plans. Over the past two years the company reports $113 million in savings on roughly $1 billion of spend, while its alternative plans have lowered consumer costs by 22 percent on shoppable procedures. The new capital will deepen analytics and expand the platform’s reach.
OpenAI Secures $110B Funding, Targets $600B Compute
With backing from Amazon, Nvidia, Softbank -> OpenAI raised $110B at a $730B pre-money valuation, up from $500B in a secondary financing in Oct.; Amazon invested $50B, Nvidia and SoftBank invested $30B each $600B -> "OpenAI has been telling investors that...
Deepinder Goyal’s New Startup Temple Raises $54 Mn at a $190 Mn Valuation
Deepinder Goyal’s new venture Temple closed a $54 million friends‑and‑family round, valuing the stealth‑mode startup at roughly $190 million post‑money. Goyal contributed ₹104.07 crore, while Steadview Capital, Dharana Fund, Peak XV Partners and Aaroh Fund led the institutional side. More than 30 Temple employees...
Dash0 Targets $1bn Valuation with Balderton-Led Funding Round, Reports Say
Dash0, an AI‑native cloud‑monitoring platform founded in 2023, is in talks with Balderton Capital to lead a new funding round that would value the company at $1 billion, elevating it to unicorn status. The New‑York‑based startup, which retains a strong operational...
Venture Fraud | NBER
The NBER study compiled the first large‑scale dataset of 614 U.S. venture‑capital‑backed startups that faced fraud charges since 2000. It shows VC‑backed firms are 54% more likely to be charged with fraud than comparable non‑VC firms in a public‑company subsample....
Old Well Labs Raises Funding
Old Well Labs, a Charlotte‑based AI fintech, announced it has closed a new funding round. The round was led by Nellore Capital and included TFJ Capital, Capital Allocators, Teamworthy Ventures and Hammoud Ventures, though the amount remains undisclosed. The capital...
E703 | Max Bray and Juliet Bailin, Kindred Capital VC: LP Conviction, $15B Funds & The Venture Barbell
In this episode Max Bray and Juliet Bailin of Kindred Capital discuss the current state of venture capital, focusing on LP conviction, the challenges of fundraising in a tough macro environment, and the emerging split between large, secure funds and...
Handpickd Expands Into Flour and Spices Category, Plans New Cities Entry
Handpickd, the farm‑to‑home fresh food platform, is extending its product line into freshly milled flours and pounded spices, aiming for the segment to generate 20% of its revenue by the end of the next fiscal year. The company currently operates...
Investment in UK Legal Tech Soars to Record High, Report Finds
The UK legal‑tech sector secured a record £188.8 million in 2025, a 35% increase over the prior year, according to LawtechUK’s Investment Snapshot. Twenty home‑grown firms raised £42 million in the second half of the year, with an average raise of £2.1 million,...
Voice AI Startup Origa Raises $450K Led by Antler Singapore
Origa, a voice‑AI startup focused on consultative pre‑sales conversations, closed a $450,000 funding round led by Antler Singapore, bringing its total capital to $1 million. The company will use the capital to grow its engineering team, enhance product capabilities, and scale...
Spintly Raises $8 Mn From Accel, ENRISSION India and Others
Proptech startup Spintly announced an $8 million Series A round, led by Accel with participation from ENRISSION India, Chakra Growth Fund, Alumni Ventures and Spyre VC. The financing follows a Rs 3.5 crore seed extension last year and an earlier $5.36 million round, underscoring investor confidence...
Defence-Tech Startup Constelli Raises $20 Mn Led by General Catalyst
Defence‑tech startup Constelli announced a $20 million Series A round led by General Catalyst, with participation from 360 One Asset Management and existing backer Pravega Ventures. The capital will fund R&D for next‑generation electronic warfare and communication payloads across drones, ground systems, naval...
Third Way Health Receives $15M Series A
Third Way Health announced an oversubscribed $15 million Series A round led by Health Velocity Capital, with Kristin Torres Mowat as the lead investor. The new capital lifts the company’s total funding to $22.5 million, earmarked for product development and scaling operations. The...
Emerging Opportunities in Venture Capital Ecosystem Analyzed in New Report
PitchBook’s new VC Emerging Opportunities report analyzes over 25,000 early‑stage firms across 12 technology verticals, combining machine‑learning exit predictions with macro indicators. Deal value rose 17.5% year‑over‑year while median pre‑money valuations jumped 28.8%, though first‑time financings fell 19%. SaaS leads...
Podcast: ADP’s Usman Khan on How Big Companies Use Investment to Enhance Product Lines
In a recent podcast, Usman "Oz" Khan, senior vice president of ADP Ventures, explained how the unit operates as both an incubation lab and a venture‑investment arm to surface emerging workplace technologies. ADP Ventures runs recurring ideation cycles that align...
Bluprynt Secures $4.25M Seed, Bridges Compliance to On‑Chain
Truly big news today: I’m delighted to share that my startup @blupryntco has completed its oversubscribed $4.25m seed raise. Thanks to an all star roster of investors including @valorcapgroup @CultivationCap @RobinhoodApp @cbventures @QuonaCapital @FlourishVC @SelahVentures and Kazea for joining...
NODA AI Raises $25M Series A for Defense AI
Defense AI startup NODA AI announced a $25 million Series A round, led by Bessemer Venture Partners and joined by Booz Allen Ventures, Draper Associates, Bloomberg Beta and Alumni Ventures. The Austin‑based company builds AI software that orchestrates mixed fleets of autonomous...
From $187M Ecommerce to $5M ARR SaaS: Spresso's Post-Bankruptcy Pivot to Enterprise Software | Jared Yaman
In this episode, Jared Gaiman, co‑founder of Boxed and current CEO of Spresso, recounts the rise of Boxed from a $187 M e‑commerce business to its Chapter 11 filing and subsequent pivot to a $5 M ARR SaaS model focused on enterprise software...
A VC and some Big-Name Programmers Are Trying to Solve Open Source’s Funding Problem, Permanently
Prominent open‑source developers and venture investor Konstantin Vinogradov have launched the Open Source Endowment, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) aimed at creating a permanent funding source for critical open‑source projects. The initiative has secured over $750,000 in commitments from more than 50...
SHINE Raises $240 Million in Funding to Advance Commercial Fusion Technology
SHINE Technologies announced a $240 million equity raise led by NantWorks, bringing its total funding above $1 billion. The round adds Dr. Patrick Soon‑Shiong to the board, linking the fusion firm with a serial biotech entrepreneur. SHINE will use the capital to...
Our Portfolio Is 80% B2B, Not Consumer.
Recent convo with a founder: "Weekend Fund primarily invests in consumer, right?" I've heard this before. I love weird consumer, but in reality 80% of our investments are B2B or prosumer. Examples: American Operator (big boring b2b), Certn (enterprise infra), Deel (fintech), Extropic (deeptech...
YOU(th) Closes US$4.5m Health Screening Round
YOU(th) has secured US$4.5 million to scale its AI‑driven smartphone health‑screening platform, which evaluates over 50 digital biomarkers in under two minutes. The round was led by Callisto Health with participation from caesar., adesso Ventures, Antler, Moonstone, 1024 Ventures and notable...
Trace Raises $3M to Solve the AI Agent Adoption Problem in Enterprise
Trace, a Boston-based workflow orchestration startup, announced a $3 million seed round led by Y Combinator and several venture firms. The company builds a knowledge graph from enterprise tools such as email, Slack and Airtable to give AI agents the contextual...
Latino-Founded Applevel Reports $40M Valuation, Integrating WhatsApp Into GoHighLevel CRM and OpenAI
Latino‑founded startup Applevel announced a $40 million valuation after scaling its platform that syncs WhatsApp conversations into the GoHighLevel CRM and adds OpenAI‑driven response automation. The solution now serves over 4,500 active users in more than 36 countries and has recruited...
Single-Speciality Hospitals and Clinics Surge, Driven by Patient Demand and Investor Interest
India’s healthcare landscape is rapidly pivoting from multi‑speciality hospitals to single‑speciality providers such as eye‑care, fertility and dialysis clinics. The shift is fueled by rising health‑insurance coverage, an ageing population and strong private‑capital appetite. While the overall market is projected...
AI Forces VCs to Rethink Sourcing: People Remain Moat
Venture capital is not immune to AI disruption. So we asked ourselves the hard question: If we were starting Harlem Capital today, what would we do differently? We spent three days in a house rebuilding our sourcing strategy from scratch. We walked away...
How This GV Investor Looks For The Next Stripe And Other ‘Compounding’ Startups In Fintech And AI
Elena Sakach, partner at GV, leverages her fintech background to back growth‑stage, “compounding” startups such as Stripe, Ramp and emerging AI‑driven firms. She emphasizes that successful fintechs build trust‑based relationships, expansion economics, and core infrastructure roles, while AI is reshaping...
NationGraph Raises $18M to Expand AI Public Sector Platform
NationGraph announced an $18 million Series A round, led by Menlo Ventures, to scale its AI‑native platform that helps companies navigate the fragmented U.S. government procurement market. The solution aggregates data from roughly 110,000 state, local and education agencies across four million...
When Giants Don’t Go Public: Inside the $5 Trillion Private Tech Market
In this episode, Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway interview David George, head of growth at Andreessen Horowitz, about the massive $5 trillion private tech market and why the most high‑growth companies are staying private longer. George explains that deeper, more liquid...
Prayaan Capital Raises Rs 110 Cr in Series A Round Led by Peak XV
Prayaan Capital announced a Rs 110 crore Series A round led by Peak XV Partners. The funding will fuel the build‑out of a technology‑enabled lending platform, expand its team and deepen presence in key Indian MSME markets. Founder Rangarajan Krishnan, who recently took a controlling...
Space Tech Investor Exceeds $100m for Close of Its Latest Fund
Seraphim Space, a UK‑based venture capital firm dedicated to space technology, closed its latest early‑stage fund at over $100 million, backing 17 companies that blend advanced space tech with artificial intelligence. The portfolio targets sectors such as defence, climate mitigation, life‑science...
Nail Care Brand Nailinit Raises Pre-Seed Round
Nailinit, an Indian nail‑care brand, secured a pre‑seed round of Rs 2.5‑3 crore. The round was co‑led by Gruhas Collective Consumer Fund and Marsshot VC, with participation from several angel investors including Razorpay co‑founder Shashank Kumar. The capital will fund expansion across...
Tassie Cybersecurity Scaleup Upguard Pockets $105 Million Series C
UpGuard, the Hobart‑based cybersecurity firm, closed a $75 million Series C round led by Springcoast Capital, with participation from August Capital, Square Peg and Pelion Venture Partners. The capital will accelerate development of its AI‑powered cyber‑risk posture management (CRPM) platform, expand go‑to‑market operations,...
SaaS Apocalypse? Market Hype Meets Skeptical Reality
Is the SaaSpocalypse upon us?! Markets went bananas after this Citrini article was published — but is this legit? Deedy Das isn’t so sure… Which businesses do you think are going away?
Big Seed Rounds Aren’t Irrational, They Reflect
A mini rant about seed VC models and pricing. Seed VC's lament that rounds have gotten so big and varied and there is no definition of a seed round anymore. They tend to suggest this is a signal of irrational...
What VCs Actually Mean when They Say Your Startup Is “Too Early”
Venture capitalists increasingly label pitches as “too early,” a phrase that often masks deeper concerns about product validation, market readiness, or fit rather than pure timing. At a Melbourne Growth Summit, Rampersand’s Paul Naphtali explained that the comment can be a...
Tencent Pulls Funding as Highguard Misses Launch Targets
Bloomberg reports that Highguard devs thought they had more runway but Tencent seemingly pulled funding when it failed to hit launch goals.
Bill Gurley Missed Google’s 10,000x Gain, Shares Lessons
the amazing story how Bill Gurley @bgurley passed on Google––and missed a 10,000x return🤯 i think he'll be all right. And you will too if you read his new book 🔖"Runnin' Down a Dream"... https://t.co/fiRcxsWair
Gushwork Bets on AI Search for Customer Leads — and Early Results Are Emerging
Gushwork, an India‑founded startup, closed a $9 million seed round that values it at $33 million post‑money. The company’s AI‑driven platform creates search‑optimized content, builds backlinks, and tracks leads to help businesses appear in AI‑powered search results such as ChatGPT and Gemini....
Encord Secures $60M Series C to Power Physical AI
Congrats to @encord_team on their $60M Series C! Encord is building the AI-native data layer powering physical AI, helping 300+ teams manage and align massive volumes of multimodal data as robots and autonomous systems move into real-world deployment. https://t.co/qfx0F6vHQh
Einride Secures $113M PIPE Ahead of IPO Debut
NEW: Self-driving truck startup Einride raises $113M PIPE ahead of public debut The fun thing about having covered so much of the tech landscape is jumping in on story coverage outside your beat for your colleagues when they're OOO https://t.co/YpkUAlfdhU via...
SambaNova Skips Intel Acquisition, Secures Funding and Partnership
.@SambaNovaAI cancelled plans to be acquired by Intel, instead raising an oversubscribed Series E. SN's CEO and chief architect told me about a new multi-year tech and go-to-market partnership with Intel, and SN's new silicon for multi-agent workflows: https://t.co/JLMl9PIUGk
Biotech VC Webinar Launches with Top Experts, Thousands Registered
We'll be gearing up today's webinar on biotech venture capital at the top of the hour. Great guests, great topics. If this is a central issue in your life, tune in. Thousands have signed up already. https://t.co/c16y04mFsD
Seed Pursues the New, Avoids Over‑Specializing in Trends
"Seed is not small venture. Its sole purpose is to navigate the new." This is one of the reasons why we've never over-indexed into any single category or trend. Our goal is to catch the "new".
Sequoia India Unit Torn Apart by Power, Profit Dispute
Another great piece from @followthemani for @NewcomerMedia Sequoia’s Former India Unit Rocked by a Bitter Split Over Power & Profit Shares https://t.co/gl1dPgdIm3
OrbiMed Leads Top Five Biotech VC Dealmakers
Always fun to look over @JohnCendpts annual list of the top 100 most active VCs in biotech for the past year Top 5, by # of rounds: 1. OrbiMed 2. RA Capital 3. GV 4. General Catalyst 5. Catalio Full list & analysis is live...
Revolut IPO Sparks Unprecedented Fintech VC Liquidity
We are going to see previously unheard of liquidity in fintech VC following the @Revolut IPO. "The firm is targeting a valuation of at least $150 billion through any listing." https://t.co/mos6kPJDYO
Success Attracts Talent; Failure Repels Potential Partners
In this case, the founders achieved something pretty remarkable. So imagine what he would do if the founders actually failed. Who would want to work with someone like that? https://t.co/mCAucKKUoo
Handshake's Pivot Targets $1B Revenue in 2024
Incredible founding story and astonishing pivot into a new business at Handshake. A conversation in Dec 2024 led to a new business that will do $1B+ this year. CEO @GarrettLord with Upfront’s @nickbkim https://t.co/MRUtbjzcA1
CFO Guide: Guardrails for Secondary Tender Offers
How much money is too much money for employees to take out in a secondary? What are the appropriate guard rails to run a tender offer as a CFO? And is the rise of SPVs helping or hurting the reputation...