“No Bad Ideas, Just Bad Timing” — Matrix Partner Matt Brown on Fintech’s Next Decade of Runway
Matrix Capital, a 50‑year‑old VC with $800 million raised, has a track record of early bets on Apple, FedEx and Canva and now focuses on pre‑seed to Series A fintech startups. Partner Matt Brown says the firm prioritizes quality over volume, backing only two to three companies per partner each year and stressing timing and founder depth. He highlights traits such as market‑history knowledge, personality fit, and leveraging existing relationships, especially in vertical SaaS, proptech and student‑finance niches. Brown warns that AI‑driven code is compressing margins, meaning the next wave of neobanks must solve harder problems to succeed.
SWARM Engineering Raises $10M Series A to Scale Decision Intelligence for Agrifood and Manufacturing
SWARM Engineering announced an oversubscribed $10 million Series A round led by S2G Investments and AgRogue Growth Partners. The funding will accelerate its decision‑intelligence platform that embeds industry‑specific ontologies for agrifood and manufacturing. SWARM’s AI agents can ingest real‑time data, preserve institutional...
Forage Raises a $40M Series B to Scale Its SNAP and Government-Benefits Payments Infrastructure and New Consumer App
Forage, a payments‑infrastructure firm that enables retailers to accept SNAP, WIC and HSA/FSA dollars, closed a $40 million Series B round led by Mouro Capital. Its platform now operates in more than 100,000 stores across all 50 states, with partners such as...
In-House Legal Workflow Platform Sandstone Raises $30M in Series A Funding
Sandstone, a cloud‑based workflow platform for in‑house legal teams, announced a $30 million Series A round. The capital will be directed toward accelerating product development and building a community of legal professionals. The financing comes just six months after the company’s public...
Lassie’s $47M A16z Round And The Bet That Autonomous AI Can Replace The Dental Front Desk: Why Sitting In A...
Lassie, a startup automating dental billing with AI agents, raised a $35 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, bringing total funding to $47 million. The platform now serves over 700 dental practices in 49 states, handling payer portal logins, payment reconciliation, and...
Optura Closes Series A for ROAI Platform
Optura announced a $17.5 million Series A round led by Salesforce Ventures and Echo Health Ventures to scale its ROAI platform, which quantifies the return on AI investments for healthcare organizations. The platform now oversees roughly $2 billion of AI initiatives, has generated...
Texas Weekly Deal Highlights
Allen Control Systems announced a $200 million Series B round, valuing the Austin‑based defense tech firm at $2.2 billion. The funding, led by Smash Capital with participation from Rally Ventures, Craft Ventures and Inspired Capital, will expand production of Bullfrog, its autonomous counter‑drone...
Funding Friday: Helion Just Tripled Its Valuation
Helion closed a $465 million Series G round, pushing its valuation to $15.5 billion—almost three‑times its prior worth—and cementing its goal to power the grid with commercial fusion by 2025. The funding round was led by Thrive Capital and included Lux Capital and...
Crypto VC Firm Variant Raises $222M for a New Fund Built on an “AI, Crypto, and Autonomy” Thesis
Crypto venture firm Variant announced a $222 million close for its fourth early‑stage fund, Variant 4, which expands the firm’s original blockchain focus to include artificial intelligence. Founder Jesse Walden, a former Andreessen Horowitz partner, argues that Web 3’s decentralization principles have migrated...
Anthropic Raises $65B in Series H Funding at $965B Post-Money Valuation
Anthropic announced a $65 billion Series H round that lifts its post‑money valuation to $965 billion. The funding, led by Altimeter Capital and a slate of blue‑chip investors, follows a run‑rate revenue surge past $47 billion as enterprises embed its Claude model into core...
ZutaCore Raises $100M Series C to Scale Waterless Cooling for AI and HPC Data Centers
ZutaCore announced a $100 million Series C round backed by Mitsubishi Electric, Carrier Ventures and Samsung Ventures. The capital will accelerate global commercialization of its waterless, direct‑to‑chip two‑phase liquid‑cooling platform, which can handle AI and HPC processors exceeding 4,000 watts. The company, now...
Last Week in ConTech - 1 June 2026
Shadow Ventures announced an investment in Western Chemicals, a California startup that converts wastewater into low‑cost biofuel using duckweed. The move highlights a growing construction‑focused vertical as data centers, EV gigafactories and other private‑campus projects demand massive on‑site water treatment....
Last Week Ignite: 5.31.2026
Anthropic announced a $65 billion equity raise that pushed its post‑money valuation to $965 billion, the largest single AI funding round on record. At the same time, private‑credit giants Apollo and Blackstone committed roughly $36 billion in loans to lease Google’s AI chips...
You Bought a SAFE. Who's Protecting Your QSBS?
Angel investors using SAFEs often chase the Section 1202 tax break, assuming their investment will qualify as qualified small‑business stock (QSBS). However, a SAFE is a hybrid instrument that the IRS has never definitively classified as stock, leaving the holding‑period...
Digital Care Startup Garner Secures US$100m Funding
Garner Health announced a $100 million Series E round that lifts its valuation to roughly $2.74 billion. The capital, led by Index Ventures and backed by Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, Founders Fund and Kaiser Permanente Ventures, will be used to broaden its AI‑powered provider‑quality...