🎯Today's Venture Capital Pulse
Updated 39m agoWhat's happening: AI fuels record $119.5B venture fundraising despite fewer rounds
Venture capital fundraising jumped 16.9% to $119.5 billion in 2025, the strongest recovery since the 2022 market reset. The total number of rounds fell 41% to 4,859, concentrating capital in larger AI‑focused financings, with AI startups capturing 58% of Series D cash and median valuations rising across all stages.
Also developing:
By the numbers: OpenAI raises $110B in corporate funding
Podcast•Nov 13, 2025•1h 15m
20VC: Sequoia's Leadership Transition | Michael Burry Shorts NVIDIA and Palantir | Gamma Raises $100M at $2BN | Has Defensibility...
The episode walks through Sequoia’s leadership transition and its strategic implications, then examines Michael Burry’s contrarian short on Nvidia and Palantir, highlighting his view that AI‑related valuations are overheated. It covers Gamma’s $100 million raise at a $2 billion valuation as a sign of confidence in AI infrastructure, and debates whether product defensibility still exists in a world where copying is easy, prompting calls for broader fund diversification. Listeners also get practical advice on running a fundraising process and common missteps, followed by a market recap of Datadog’s 20% surge versus Duolingo’s sharp decline. Throughout, Burry’s perspective provides a skeptical lens on hype‑driven AI stocks while the hosts synthesize broader venture‑capital trends.
By The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)
Social•Nov 13, 2025
AI Momentum Rounds Thrive on Early Revenue-Driven Usage Growth
One conversation I keep having with founders is about how and why these AI momentum rounds keep happening. A few of them have asked me why Company X was able to raise a big round based on a short window...
By Charles Hudson
Podcast•Nov 13, 2025•32 min
Inside India’s $1 Trillion Venture Revolution W/ Kalaari Capital, General Catalyst, DM Gupta & Lightspeed India
The episode examines India’s rapidly evolving venture ecosystem, highlighting how women investors and family offices are driving a shift toward a $1 trillion wealth era and reshaping where capital flows. Panelists Vani Kola, Priya Mohan, Aarti Gupta, and Shruvi Shrivastava discuss...
By Billion Dollar Moves
Social•Nov 13, 2025
Sim's Visual Agent Builder Powers the New AI Era
Sim (@simdotai) is building the visual, end-to-end agent builder — a platform where developers can design, test, and deploy real AI agents that work in production. Founded earlier this year, Sim grew from a small San Francisco apartment to a community...
By YCombinator
Social•Nov 13, 2025
AI-Powered Sales Automation at SaaStr London 2024
Want to learn how to get AI SDRs to really work? Really automate inbound with AI? Automate RevOps with AI? Join 2,500 of us and founders and leaders from Clay, Wiz, Intercom, OpenAI and more at SaaStrLondon.com Dec 1-2 to...
By Jason Lemkin
News•Nov 12, 2025
Arrived Bags $27 Million
Seattle‑based Arrived, a platform that lets investors buy fractional shares of real‑estate assets, announced it has closed a $27 million financing round. The new capital, raised from a group of venture investors, will be used to broaden its property inventory, enhance...
By VC News Daily
Social•Nov 13, 2025
Scrappy Startups Outperform Overfunded Incumbents in Bake‑offs
Scrappy startup founders beating overfunded incumbents head to head in bake-offs https://t.co/8BZoeKUjM6
By Garry Tan
Social•Nov 13, 2025
Tighten Feedback Loops, Not Features, to Unlock Growth
Most companies try to grow by adding more things. The real unlock usually comes from tightening the loop that already exists. When the feedback gets sharp enough, even old products feel new again.
By Hiten Shah
News•Nov 12, 2025
NextSense Receives Investment From Corundum Neuroscience
NextSense, a Mountain View‑based developer of in‑ear EEG wearables called Smartbuds, announced it has secured an undisclosed investment from Corundum Neuroscience. The funding will fuel the company’s next growth phase as it prepares to launch its clinically‑accurate EEG earbuds to...
By FinSMEs
Social•Nov 13, 2025
YC Targets 5x+ DPI, Promising Thousands of Happy Founders
YC’s goal: make all the mega funds 5x+ net DPI (And all the other funds small and medium sized too) If that happens there are a lot of happy founders. Thousands. Tens of thousands.
By Garry Tan
Social•Nov 13, 2025
Startup Grind: Early Lessons, Endless Work, Rookie Mistakes
Here’s a fun artifact: @Jason grilling me (age 28) about my startup, convertible notes, and working 7 days a week along with @arrington A prequel to YC Garry, pre-15 years of hard knocks, didn’t figure out yet I shouldn’t get...
By Garry Tan
News•Nov 12, 2025
The Best Business Credit Monitoring Tools
The article reviews five leading business credit monitoring solutions, highlighting their features, pricing, and target users. FairFigure offers a $35‑monthly plan with four bureau scores, AI podcasts, darknet scanning, and credit‑building reporting to five bureaus, plus financing options. Lili’s BusinessBuild...
By FinSMEs
Social•Nov 13, 2025
Low‑Cost Intelligent Robots Lower Business Autonomy Barriers
Parametric (@parametricpbc) is deploying intelligent, low-cost robots that do work how you want it, lowering the barrier to entry for businesses to leverage autonomy. Congrats on the launch, @c0dyswain & @jnewsom98! https://t.co/AlQH6MWksW https://t.co/3AcMt6uAg0
By YCombinator
Social•Nov 13, 2025
Great Founders Keep Asking Why; Quitters Go Corporate
Every successful founder I know is still asking why like a toddler who just discovered speech. The ones who stopped? They are in bd or corp dev right now.
By Niko Bonatsos
Podcast•Nov 12, 2025•55 min
Rocket Mortgage CEO: Here’s How to Fix the Housing Crisis
In this episode, Alex Rampell and Rocket Mortgage CEO Varun Krishna dissect how asset inflation has turned homeownership into a wealth‑transfer mechanism, pushing the median first‑time buyer’s age from 30 to 38. They explain Rocket’s strategy of owning the entire...
By a16z Podcast
Social•Nov 13, 2025
VC Values Revealed by the Startups They Fund
If you want to know the values of a VC firm, look at the companies they choose to back.
By Seth Bannon
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Instant Trading Simplicity Fueled Robinhood’s Explosive Early Growth
In this TWiST Flashback from 2017, Vlad Tenev regales Jason with the early history of Robinhood, and explains the secret to their immediate runaway success. The key to Robinhood's early success was simplifying the experience. Financial transactions were always subject to...
By Jason Calacanis
Podcast•Nov 12, 2025•40 min
#174 Investrio: QuickBooks for the People
In this episode, founders Joyce and Laura pitch Investrio, an AI‑driven bookkeeping platform designed to replace clunky finance tools like QuickBooks for solopreneurs. They explain how the product automates expense tracking, tax prep, and cash‑flow insights, and discuss early traction...
By The Pitch
Social•Nov 12, 2025
From Gaming GPUs to AI Powerhouses
Companies like NVIDIA were creating increasingly powerful chips known as GPUs mainly to power up video games with more lifelike immersive graphics and performance. Little did they know, these same chips would one day power the trillion dollar data centers...
By Jason Calacanis
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Cryogenic Propellants Unlock Efficient LEO-to-High Orbit Transfers
Here's why extremely cold liquids are the key to taking us deeper into space. Meet Ben Schleuniger of Orbital Operations a startup building a new kind of space vehicle, designed to tow objects from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) into an higher-up...
By Jason Calacanis
News•Nov 12, 2025
The Global Race for the AI App Layer Is Still On
The 2025 Accel Globalscape report finds that while the U.S. still leads in large AI models, Europe and Israel are closing the gap in the AI application layer, attracting 66% of U.S. private funding this year. Emerging European AI‑native app...
By TechCrunch Venture Feed
Social•Nov 12, 2025
CEO‑CTO Alignment Is the Hidden Key to Billion‑dollar Growth
My biggest heartbreak ever as a founder: if my CTO and I could have gotten along better. Because we'd both be billionaires, running a great public company together. I tried. I know so much more today than I did then....
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Avoid Common SaaS Gross Margin Miscalculations Before Funding
A SaaS company's gross margin is a key point of discussion in any M&A or capital raise transaction. As such, any SaaS founder looking to engage with potential buyers should ensure that they've properly classified costs related to the calculation of...
By Michael Lyon
Podcast•Nov 11, 2025•1h
Lee Edwards of Root VC: "Let's Get Technical!" -- An Engineer Becomes a VC
In this episode, Lee Edwards, a former CTO and mechanical/software engineer turned General Partner at Root VC, shares how his hands‑on engineering background informs his seed‑stage investing in deep‑tech, AI, and devtools. He dives into the value of pair programming,...
By Something Ventured
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Home Robots Are Near: Kyle Vogt’s Billion‑Dollar Play
This week's episode is mostly about robots. Kyle Vogt is one of very few entrepreneurs to found 3 business valued at over a billion dollars - Twitch in 2006, Cruise in 2013, and The Bot Company in 2024. If you've caught any...
By Jack Altman
Social•Nov 12, 2025
I’m Unable to View External Links, so I Can
https://cnb.cx/47Q6g5l
By Brad Feld
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Donna Boyer Joins as Venture Partner, Boosting Healthcare Startups
Excited Donna Boyer has joined us as a venture partner She's been part of the 鸞 posse for a long time, so it's cool to make it more official. Donna is focused on meeting early stage healthcare startups, plus has...
By Aileen Lee
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Higher SaaS Growth = Dramatically Higher ARR Multiples
📊 Live B2B/SaaS Market Multiples - Tue, Nov 11 Growth drives valuations in today's market 💰 📊 LIVE B2B MULTIPLES BY GROWTH: 🚀 High Growth (30%+) 27.8x ARR ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 🔥 Moderate (20-30%) 13.3x ARR ▓▓▓ 📈 Lower (<20%) ...
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Groww's 5‑Year Sprint to India's Top Brokerage
Today we celebrate Team @_groww often called the Charles Schwab or Robinhood of India — now the largest stock brokerage platform in the country, built in just 5 short years. 🇮🇳📈 Lalit, Harsh, Ishan, and Neeraj started Groww after leaving Flipkart in 2016 with one...
By Anu Hariharan
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Top VCs Can't Guarantee 5x Net Returns to LPs
Why a16z, Lightspeed and General Catalyst Cannot Go To LPs and Be Confident of a 5X Net: "@ravi_lsvp, @pmarca @bhorowitz cannot go to LPs and say with a straight face that they can do 5x net. If you look at the...
By Harry Stebbings
Social•Nov 12, 2025
AI IDE Gives Front‑End Agents Full Browser Context
Inspector (@tryinspector) is an AI IDE for front-end that connects browser and codebase. It lets you select elements visually and prompt changes, giving coding agents access to the same runtime context developers have: visuals, elements, and logs. https://t.co/QnTISmnc24
By YCombinator
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Speak Hits $100M ARR, Drives 5‑10× practiceSpeak Hits $100M ARR
With 15M downloads and 500+ enterprise clients, @Speak has passed $100M in annualized revenue. Users practice speaking 5-10x more on Speak than on other language apps, through AI-powered roleplays & real-world scenarios. https://t.co/j8PQ8Hmxdb
By YCombinator
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Gen Z Founders Profit in Obscure Niches, Early Backers
Gen Z founders are printing money in niches VCs can barely spell; early preseed backers are becoming legends quickly!
By Niko Bonatsos
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Digital Co‑Workers Slash Billions of Labor Hours in 3PLs
Prox (@try_prox) builds digital co-workers for 3PLs and fulfillment centers - companies that store, pack, and ship for brands. They automate the back-office operations layer that burns billions of labor hours across the industry. https://t.co/RDHVJfPXpV
By YCombinator
Social•Nov 12, 2025
LogosGuard Launches AI Risk Management Platform for Enterprises
LogosGuard (@logos_guard) is building the risk management software for enterprises adopting AI. Stress-test your AI products, continuously monitor compliance with your controls, and gain the confidence to deploy AI responsibly. Congrats on the launch, @abelpjohn & @sukrut_oak! https://t.co/R5ubFkgSGn
By YCombinator
Social•Nov 12, 2025
AI Writes and Sends On‑brand Emails Across Your Tools
Proxis (@proxis_ai) writes and sends emails in your voice. It connects to your inbox + CRM + Notion + Drive + Slack so replies are accurate, on-brand, and auto-sent when confident. Congrats on the launch, @liam_a_collins! https://t.co/7cRpUrXgic https://t.co/9UgGreMPgq
By YCombinator
Social•Nov 12, 2025
AI Ad Agency Generates $620K Profit, 35% Growth
I love seeing agencies print profits. Live on @acquiredotcom: AI-powered performance ad agency helping brands grow with media buying, creative, and funnel optimization. > $1.7M TTM revenue > $620K TTM profit > 35% YoY growth Full listing: https://t.co/WAfvxsRcZs https://t.co/9BpLwk8kmq
By Andrew Gazdecki
Social•Nov 12, 2025
New Fund Rebrand Collapses, Creator Expresses Disappointment
well there goes my new fund rebrand 🥹 https://t.co/cgCoBxAIQW
By Ben Tossell
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Zero‑Trust Access for Humans and AI via Shareable Links
Multifactor (@MultifactorCOM) is building the future of zero-trust authentication, authorization, and auditing for AI agents. Their platform lets users securely and revocably share any online account with humans and AI agents alike, just by sending a link. https://t.co/V313zcyCFo
By YCombinator
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Relixir Secures $
Congrats to @joinrelixir on their $2M seed! Relixir is an inbound engine for AI search, helping brands drive ChatGPT traffic into inbound pipelines that are 5x more likely to convert. It's already used by 200+ B2B companies and has delivered $10M+...
By YCombinator
Social•Nov 12, 2025
VC Feuds on Podcasts Spark Recursive Self‑Improvement
VCs beefing about other VCs on a VC podcast might just lead to recursive self-improvement
By Nathan Benaich
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Manage and Sell Multiple Startups From One Account
Now live on @acquiredotcom! You can now manage multiple and sell multiple startups from one account. Just click "manage startups" and then the "+" sign to create a new listing. Check it out and share any feedback! https://t.co/eWLANLahNZ
By Andrew Gazdecki
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Cognition CEO Scott Wu Joins Growing Lux Family
Thrilled + lucky to count @ScottWu46 founder CEO of @cognition as part of the growing Lux family...
By Josh Wolfe
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Leadership Means Enabling AI Responsibly, Not Restricting It
People need to feel a benefit from AI. That benefit must be enabled, not blocked, by the government. The real test of leadership in this moment isn’t whether governments can regulate AI, but whether they can enable it responsibly.
By Reid Hoffman
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Inactive Boards Risk Delaware Lawsuits and Unlimited Claims
I’ll say it again - boards that don’t move could be sued in Delaware for staying - and exposing shareholders to uncapped securities claims.
By Bill Gurley
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Consider Sharing Anduril’s Behind‑Scenes Development Learnings
yes
By Nathan Benaich
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Tech IPOs Rebound, yet Remain Far Below 2019‑2021 Levels
Tech IPOs are back, but still a fraction of what they were in 2019-2021 So far at least Per @Accel https://t.co/X03zYIBDyp
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Kravis Shares Secrets on Talent, Deals, and Philanthropy
Enjoyed fireside chat w Henry Kravis, founder of @KKR_Co at @stripe Discussed spotting and hiring talent, buying and running companies, and philanthropy We will post full video on YouTube shortly https://t.co/8AxIEhDCCX
By Elad Gil
Social•Nov 12, 2025
Groww Officially Listed on Stock Exchange
Groww is now officially listed https://t.co/ZrNGYCTIaJ
By Anu Hariharan
Social•Nov 11, 2025
AI Labs Threaten App Companies by Setting Low Baseline
Why AI Labs are the Biggest Risk to App Layer Companies: "The biggest risk for app layer companies is AI labs. The labs are creating apps, they're creating more value via the models and they're giving them directly to users. As an...
By Harry Stebbings