Know What's Happening in Venture Capital
Know What's Happening in Venture Capital
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EMAIL DIGESTS
Daily
Every morning
Weekly
Tuesday recap
Mistral secures $830M debt raise, the largest European generative‑AI financing
Mistral raised $830 million in debt financing to build its first AI data centre, marking the biggest single funding round for a European generative‑AI firm. The capital will fund the construction of a dedicated AI data centre to support its model‑training workloads.
Also developing:
By the numbers: St Barbara lands $333M strategic investment
Betaworks unveiled the ten startups graduating from its 13th Camp, a 13‑week biannual residency focused this year on "Interfaces" that shape how users experience AI. The cohort includes Nora, a browser extension that tracks shopping habits; Primitive, a voice‑driven idea‑to‑task web app; Patina, which creates scent photographs using protein‑folding and graph neural networks; My Place by Orange, a realistic life‑simulation gaming platform; and six additional ventures such as Putty (stealth), Telepath’s AI‑built computer, Feather’s workflow‑automation digital assistant, Nubrain’s EEG‑to‑speech/text/image translation, Presq’s influencer‑driven manufacturable footwear platform, and Intension’s desktop‑focus distraction‑blocking tool. Demo Day took place on Nov. 4, marking the latest batch of early‑stage companies poised to impact AI‑centric consumer and enterprise interfaces.
Starcloud (@Starcloud_Inc1) recently made history by launching a satellite with an NVIDIA H100 into orbit — the first time a GPU that powerful has ever operated in space. It's the first step toward building AI data centers in orbit, powered...
It’s near impossible to beat someone who just doesn’t give up. I learned that racing marathons: you hit a wall, you feel awful, you may think you're done—and then somehow you find another gear. The same thing happens as a founder. And...
The episode breaks down the massive scale of AI infrastructure spending, now at 1.6% of U.S. GDP and projected to approach $1 trillion annually by 2030, dwarfing historic economic mobilisations. It also highlights Europe’s narrowing valuation gap with the U.S. at...
We’re BACK and it’s GOOD TIMES folks!! And come see Harry Stebbings + me LIVE in London Dec 1-2 at SaaStr AI LDN!
Hiring used to break because companies moved too slowly. Now it breaks because candidates move too fast. AI gave every applicant the ability to look qualified before they have proved anything. Resumes are AI-polished. Writing samples are AI-written. Coding tests...
In this episode, a16z partner Martin Casado chats with AI pioneers Fei‑Fei Li and Justin Johnson about the evolution from early AI winters to deep learning breakthroughs like ImageNet, and how those advances paved the way for spatial intelligence and Large...
The episode dissects Michael Burry’s newly revealed 13F bet shorting Nvidia and Palantir, arguing it could signal an AI bubble as smart money like SoftBank pulls back, valuations soar, and spending outpaces profits. It outlines three warning signs Burry cites,...
Cronvall, a Helsinki‑based industrial procurement technology firm, closed a €3.9 million funding round led by Greencode Ventures, Stephen Industries and Innovestor. The capital will be used to speed up international expansion and further develop its digital procurement platform, which links construction...
In this Masters of Scale episode, Coinbase President and COO Emilie Choi discusses how the company navigated the crypto winter and the operating principles that enable hyper‑scaling in a volatile industry. She shares insights on the future of money, the...
In this episode, Patrick Odier, chairman of Lombard Odier and Building Bridges, outlines a pragmatic shift from risk‑avoidance to opportunity‑driven system redesign, highlighting circularity, energy electrification, nature‑based solutions, and materials as the core arenas for transition investing. He argues that private‑asset classes—especially...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
One of the things I love about these founders is how genuinely committed they are to discovering pesticides that are safer for farmers. Startups often talk about making the world better, but I can tell you this was their concern...
Congrats to @tylerarose0, @navvye and Bindwell on their $6M seed! Bindwell is developing safer, targeted pesticides in-house that actually work, using custom AI models that are 4x faster than AlphaFold and can screen billions of molecules. https://t.co/eEh3ZnMdSl
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...
Wondering how you stack up? Try the new SaaStr VC Pitch Deck Analyzer. We’ll share how you stack up against 4,000 other start-ups. And we’ll provide you honest and confidential feedback on how to do better. Try it here -> https://t.co/S5UFYzoN7a https://t.co/3M6fas5f2w
YC is a partnership of 15 GPs who have all these qualities It’s honestly a dream
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...
Rationalisation is a meat-grinder to innovation. It takes a breakthrough idea, applies yesterday’s thinking (market is too small, no one is asking for it, bigger existing opportunies), and in the end it dilutes, delays, and destroys innovation. So, yes, Burn the...
Scrappy startup founders beating overfunded incumbents head to head in bake-offs https://t.co/8BZoeKUjM6
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.
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.
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...
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
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.
If you want to know the values of a VC firm, look at the companies they choose to back.
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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
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
Gen Z founders are printing money in niches VCs can barely spell; early preseed backers are becoming legends quickly!
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
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
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
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
well there goes my new fund rebrand 🥹 https://t.co/cgCoBxAIQW
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
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+...
VCs beefing about other VCs on a VC podcast might just lead to recursive self-improvement
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
Thrilled + lucky to count @ScottWu46 founder CEO of @cognition as part of the growing Lux family...
