How the Iran War Could Scramble the Climate Tech Capital Stack
The Iran‑Iran war’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz is choking oil exports, slashing revenues for Gulf sovereign wealth funds and oil‑backed venture arms. Those investors have been a major source of early‑stage climate‑tech capital, funding electric mobility, clean hydrogen, carbon capture and other emerging solutions. With billions of dollars at risk, firms such as Azolla Ventures warn of a slowdown in risk‑embracing venture dollars and pauses on pilot projects in the region. The disruption also threatens ambitious green‑hydrogen and carbon‑capture targets announced by Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Billy Madison Approach to Fundraising
Startup founders often rush to raise larger rounds, inflating post‑money valuations that can later trigger down‑rounds and founder dilution. Scott Hartley proposes the “Billy Madison” approach: stay in the current seed or pre‑seed stage longer, raise only enough capital to...
Geely-Backed eVTOL Maker Aerofugia Begins Pre-IPO Tutoring for China's A-Share Listing
Aerofugia Technology, the Geely‑backed eVTOL developer, has signed a tutoring agreement with CSC Financial to prepare for a Shanghai STAR Market IPO. The move follows a February funding round that raised nearly 1 billion yuan (≈ $146 million). The company recently rolled out the...
SCOOP: Y Combinator Startups Land Checks, Gather Hype as Neo & Others Vie for Talent
Y Combinator’s Winter 2026 demo day drew vigorous venture‑capital interest despite lingering criticism of the accelerator’s valuation. The cohort showed a marked shift away from generic ChatGPT‑wrapper concepts toward enterprise‑grade AI infrastructure, industry‑specific tooling for law and finance, and robotics...
B.P. Marsh Buys Additional 2% Equity Stake in Pantheon
B.P. Marsh has increased its ownership in London‑based wholesale insurer Pantheon to 41% by buying an additional 2% stake, valuing the broker at roughly $352 million. The investment was funded from existing cash reserves and follows an initial 25% purchase in...
West African Fund of Funds Reaches First Close
Savannah Impact Advisory announced the first close of its Ci Gaba fund of funds, securing GHS 383 million (approximately $35 million). The fund targets a total size of GHS 1 billion (about $91 million) to channel domestic institutional capital into private equity, venture capital...
Lynx Digest - Bi-Weekly Mar 19 - Apr 2
The latest Lynx Digest highlights two dominant NYC VC themes: the reality of deploying AI at scale and the mechanics of venture returns. Prominent investors debate whether the AI market is in a bubble, citing inflated valuations and poor unit...
Latitude Raises $8M to Help U.S. Businesses Make Fast International Payments Using Stablecoin Rails
Latitude, a fintech founded by alumni of Stripe, Coinbase, Uber and Meta, closed an $8 million Series A led by NEA with participation from Lightspeed Faction, Coinbase, Paxos and the Solana Foundation. Its flagship offering, Global Payouts, converts U.S. dollars into stablecoins...
Inside The Chernin Group’s Bet on Creator-Led Empires
The Chernin Group (TCG) is doubling down on creator‑led media, channeling $40 million into UK podcast powerhouse Goalhanger and expanding its stake in audio‑first brands like Audiochuck. The firm’s thesis treats community audiences as the core asset, favoring multi‑revenue models that...
Why We Invested in Fanon
Kalaari Capital co‑led Fanon’s pre‑seed round, backing a platform that consolidates fragmented fan‑generated storytelling across text, comics, and video. The fan economy now exceeds $7 billion, with $2.7 billion in merchandise and $4 billion in advertising value, growing faster than the traditional studio...
Coatue Projected $1.995 Trillion Valuation for Anthropic in 2030
Coatue Management disclosed a projection that AI safety startup Anthropic could reach a $1.995 trillion valuation by 2030. The firm’s model shows a $14 billion EBITDA loss on $18 billion revenue in 2026, rising to $48 billion EBITDA on $200 billion revenue by 2031. Recent...
Beta Update (Mar 30) Beta Fund Hackathon Rewind & Raising Capital at AI Era without Getting Destroyes
Beta University’s latest update recaps a high‑energy Beta Fund hackathon that gathered 200 builders who shipped 68 projects in a 24‑hour sprint. The event featured a heavyweight judging panel with investors from a16z, Y Combinator, Nvidia and OpenAI, and awarded...
The Performance of Small Business Investment Companies
The Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program, created in 1958, lets private funds invest in U.S. small firms with SBA‑backed leverage. A 2026 Financial Analyst Journal study finds SBIC funds from 2000‑2020 generated an average net IRR of 15.9% and...
4G Capital Raises $2m From GIF Growth
4G Capital, an East African fintech serving micro and small enterprises, secured a $2 million growth‑stage investment from GIF Growth, the Global Innovation Fund’s dedicated vehicle. The company has already disbursed over $800 million in loans to more than 755,000 clients across...
Amethis Buys Majority Stake in Côte D’Ivoire’s Ademat
Amethis has acquired a majority stake in Côte d’Ivoire‑based power security provider Ademat, buying out SPE Capital’s controlling position. Founded in 1983, Ademat now offers the full value chain from generation to maintenance, including gas‑powered generators and solar panels. Under...
Investor Panel @BTS | Investing in the AI Era | 10th April 2026
The Builders Club hosted an Investor Panel at the Bangalore Tech Symposium on April 10, 2026, focusing on where capital is flowing in the AI era. Panelists from Bessemer Venture Partners, Together, 3one4 Capital, and Ideaspring Capital discussed AI‑first business...
🦾 Robotics Funding Rounds by Month - February 2026
February 2026 saw robust robotics venture activity, with 113 equity rounds totaling $4.39 billion. The month’s headline deals included Wayve’s $1.2 billion Series D, Apptronik’s $520 million Series A, and Bedrock Robotics’ $270 million Series B. Smaller but notable raises such as RLWRLD’s $26 million seed round and...
The M&A Accretion/Dilution Model Every Founder and Investor Should Run Before Any Deal
The VC Corner blog post unveils a free seven‑sheet Excel model that lets founders and investors run a full accretion/dilution analysis on any M&A transaction. The tool calculates whether the acquiring company’s earnings per share (EPS) will rise or fall...
How to Stand Out to Your Startup Investors
Early-stage founders can differentiate themselves by instituting a regular investor update cadence, typically quarterly. Investors repeatedly say they favor startups that keep them in the loop, noting that consistent communication builds trust and makes future funding easier. The article outlines...
Requiem for Daydream
Julie Bornstein, veteran of Stitch Fix and Sephora, has launched Daydream, an AI‑driven fashion shopping app positioned as the industry’s answer to ChatGPT. After raising $30 million for The Yes and $50 million from Google and other VCs, Daydream entered beta in...
FUNDED: Highlight AI Raises $40M to Fix the Coordination Mess AI Created
Highlight AI announced a $40 million Series A led by Khosla Ventures to build a shared intelligence layer that links disparate work tools and AI agents. The platform acts as a memory and coordination hub, automatically capturing decisions, tracking changes, and assigning...
Every Resource a Founder Needs to Raise and Build. In One Place
The VC Corner has compiled a one‑stop library of fundraising resources for founders, ranging from curated investor lists and financial‑model templates to real pitch decks and due‑diligence checklists. The collection targets every stage of a raise, from pre‑seed to late‑stage,...
Qdrant Raised $50M to Build Composable Vector Search as Core Infrastructure
Qdrant announced a $50 million Series B round led by AVP, with participation from Bosch Ventures, Unusual Ventures, Spark Capital, and 42CAP. The company positions its Rust‑built vector database as low‑latency, billion‑scale infrastructure for AI retrieval, emphasizing composable primitives over fixed pipelines....
Zymtrace Secures $12.2M to Recover Billions in Wasted GPU Spend Through Autonomous Optimization
Zymtrace announced a $12.2 million funding round, including an $8.5 million seed led by Venture Guides, to scale its autonomous AI‑infrastructure optimization platform. The company’s eBPF‑based solution continuously profiles GPU and CPU workloads, automatically generating pull‑requests that fix bottlenecks without code changes....
Court Reporting Services Provider Steno Amasses $49M in Series C Funding
Steno, a cloud‑based court reporting provider, closed a $49 million Series C round led by The Legal Tech Fund. The capital will fuel a U.S. market expansion, accelerate development of its AI‑driven transcription engine, and support the launch of new workflow tools...
$125M and a Cap Table That Reads Like a Who’s Who of Healthcare VC: What Qualified Health’s Series B Actually...
Qualified Health announced a $125 million Series B round, bringing its total funding to $155 million and led by NEA alongside a slate of top health‑tech investors. The company offers an enterprise‑wide AI infrastructure platform that replaces fragmented point‑solution approaches. Early adopters such...
Adonis Raises $40M Series C to Strengthen Healthcare Revenue Cycle
Adonis announced a $40 million Series C round to accelerate its revenue‑cycle platform for healthcare providers. The funding, led by a mix of existing and new investors, will support product expansion and deeper market penetration. CEO Akash Magoon highlighted persistent challenges such as...
VC Returns Revealed: Bessemer India’s Slow-Build Strategy Put to the Test
Bessemer Venture Partners has shifted from a modest, global‑fund‑backed approach in India to launching dedicated funds—a $220 million vehicle in 2021 and a $350 million fund slated for 2025. Over 15 years the firm committed $774 million to Indian startups, generating $683 million in cash...
Switzerland’s PAVE Space Closes $40 Million Seed Funding Round
Swiss startup PAVE Space announced a $40 million seed round led by Visionaries Club and Creandum, accelerating its LYOBA heavy‑lift kick stage development. The company, a 2024 spin‑off from the Gruyère Space Programme, targets rapid satellite transport between orbits and plans...
The Smarter Way To Bet On Anthropic And OpenAI
Investors are flocking to VCX, the Fundrise Growth Tech Fund, paying roughly 15 times its net asset value solely for exposure to Anthropic. The author argues that this premium is unjustified given the availability of superior, lower‑cost avenues to invest in...
Frore Systems Becomes $1.64B Unicorn as the “Thermal Stack” Emerges as Foundational Infrastructure for the AI Era
Frore Systems announced a $143 million Series D round that pushes its valuation to $1.64 billion, officially making it a unicorn and bringing total funding to $340 million. The capital will fund global rollout of its AI‑focused thermal stack, including LiquidJet, LiquidJet Nexus and AirJet...
Xscape Photonics Announces $37 Million in New Funding, Launches Eight-Wavelength Laser for AI Data Center Networks
Xscape Photonics announced an additional $37 million funding round, raising its total Series A to $81 million and doubling the company’s valuation. The new capital backs the launch of FalconX, the industry’s first fully redundant ELSFP laser module that delivers eight wavelengths and...
Dealflow.es #505: Bluetile Gaming Studio Acquired for $100M+. Freepik's Journey.
Indian gaming leader Nazara Technologies announced the acquisition of a 50% stake in Barcelona‑based Bluetile Bestplay for roughly $100 million. Bluetile, founded in 2019, boasts over 350 million lifetime installs and generates more than $150 million in annual revenue from its social casino...
Texas Weekly Deal Highlights
Texas’ startup ecosystem continued its post‑SXSW momentum, with Austin companies securing more than $60 million across sectors ranging from 3D printing to carbon removal and tokenized securities. Notably, drone‑swarm platform Swarmer completed a $15 million IPO on NASDAQ, while fintech Ironlight raised...
Should We Raise Capital?
Chenmark’s founders reflect on why they never took a $20 million external fund between 2015 and 2019, opting instead to bootstrap their hold‑co model. The lack of capital forced disciplined cash‑flow reinvestment, lean talent acquisition and a culture of shared risk....
Beautiful.ai Lands $45M to Turn Prompts Into Polished Decks
Beautiful.ai announced a $45 million non‑dilutive capital raise from General Catalyst’s CVF fund to accelerate its AI‑driven presentation platform. The tool transforms prompts, outlines or documents into on‑brand slide decks and now offers a conversational editing interface, 15‑language localization, a developer...
Bluesky Raised $100M a Year Ago but for Some Reason Only Disclosed It Now
Bluesky closed a $100 million Series B round in April 2025, but only disclosed the financing in March 2026. The round was led by Bain Capital Crypto with participation from Alumni Ventures, Anthos Capital, Bloomberg Beta, Knight Foundation and True Ventures. Founder Jay Graber...
Potomac Tech Wire - March 19
Virginia‑based tech firms announced a wave of capital raises in March, highlighted by Sands Capital closing a $1.1 billion Global Innovation Fund III and Cape securing a $100 million Series C for its privacy‑first mobile carrier. Other notable rounds include Claros’ $30 million seed...
Why We Invest in Volume
Team Ignite Ventures argues that investing in a large number of pre‑seed and seed deals improves venture fund performance. AngelList data shows portfolios with more than 50 companies achieve a median IRR of about 12%, versus roughly 3% for smaller...
Kenya: Swedfund Backs Jacaranda Maternity
Swedfund has pledged $600,000 to Jacaranda Maternity, a Kenyan provider of low‑cost maternal care, to accelerate its network expansion. The funding will finance new hospital openings, upgrade neonatal units, and improve existing facilities serving Nairobi’s low‑ and middle‑income neighborhoods. Jacaranda...
Adenia Partners Fund Reaches $180m Hard Cap
Adenia Partners announced the first close of its Adenia Entrepreneurial Fund I at a hard cap of $180 million, surpassing the original $150 million target in under a year. The fund targets control investments in small and lower mid‑cap African companies, the...
Fund Analysis: Glade Brook Capital Partners
Glade Brook Capital Partners announced the closing of its Gondola Fund at over $1 billion in March 2026, marking the firm’s largest publicly disclosed vehicle to date. A concurrent Form D filing for Strategic Growth V LP on February 5, 2026 showed zero commitments, so...
VC RETURNS REVEALED: Recent Thrive & Notable Funds in a League of Their Own at UTIMCO
UTIMCO’s latest disclosures reveal that several recent venture funds have generated extraordinary internal rates of return, driven largely by AI‑focused investments. Thrive Capital’s 2022 fund posted an IRR above 126% thanks to stakes in OpenAI, Cursor, Ramp and Base Power,...
What's Your SaaS Company Worth in 2026?
Private B2B SaaS valuations in 2026 are now anchored to a regression‑derived formula based on 63 cash transactions. The baseline multiple ranges from 4.8x ARR for bootstrapped firms to 5.3x for equity‑backed ones, while companies with Rule of 40 above...
Issue #28: The New New "Learn to Code"
EdTech firms are leveraging AI to reshape learning and upskilling, with UK‑based Calibr securing equity financing to train businesses in artificial intelligence and Kyiv‑based Kodree raising $10 million to offer AI‑powered, low‑cost skill courses. Replit launched Agent 4, a multi‑agent coding assistant...
As Flat as the Top of Table Mountain 🚠
The Big Deal analysis shows African startup funding has settled into a steady “cruising speed” of about $3.1 b over the past year, a level maintained since August 2025. This plateau follows a volatile cycle that peaked at $6.3 b in mid‑2022,...
Ironlight Group Raises $21M for Crypto Tokenized Securities:
Ironlight Group announced a $21 million Series A round to build blockchain infrastructure for tokenized securities. The round was led by former TD Bank CEO Greg Braca and other senior fintech investors. Ironlight aims to enable digital issuance, trading, and settlement of...
Letter #322: Doug Leone and Assaf Rappaport (2021)
In a candid conversation, Sequoia partner Doug Leone and Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport discuss Sequoia’s new permanent‑capital fund, its “spiky” founder ethos, and the firm’s expanding European presence. They highlight Wiz’s meteoric rise—from $1 million to $500 million ARR in 18 months—to...
What Top-Tier VCs Actually Look For in 2026
Fundraising in 2026 has slowed dramatically, with deals now taking six to nine months versus three to four in 2021. Seed investors expect the same unit‑economics and go‑to‑market rigor that once belonged at Series A, and AI startups command roughly 42%...
Who Will Be the "OpenEvidence of Europe"? Market Map and Critical Questions
OpenEvidence’s $150 million ARR and $12 billion valuation have sparked a debate about a European equivalent. Europe boasts over 2.3 million licensed physicians—roughly twice the U.S. pool—but linguistic and regulatory fragmentation hampers continent‑wide scaling. A crowded field of startups, incumbents like UpToDate, and...
