UK Government-Backed Cyber Security Programme Alumni Raise £47.4m in Follow-On Investment
Innovate UK’s Cyber Security Academic Startup Accelerator (CyberASAP) alumni have attracted £47.4 million in post‑programme funding over the past nine years, with private capital accounting for 68% of that amount. The accelerator, funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, has helped launch 42 companies, secured three acquisitions and generated multiple industry licences. DSIT announced a further £10 million commitment to the programme for the next four years, underscoring its role in converting university research into commercial cyber‑security solutions. The initiative supports a £13.2 billion UK cyber‑security market and emphasizes regional diversity, with 76% of projects from non‑Russell Group institutions.
Tom Hayes – USC Marshall School of Business Talk – 2/11/26
Tom Hayes, chairman of Great Hill Capital, delivered a keynote at USC Marshall School of Business on February 11, 2026. He outlined the firm’s recent $5 billion assets‑under‑management expansion and its disciplined risk‑management framework. Hayes highlighted macro opportunities in emerging markets...
Bloomberg Reports: Quantum Startup Pasqal Seeks €200 Million to Fuel Growth
French quantum computing startup Pasqal announced it is in talks to raise €200 million, valuing the company at over $1 billion pre‑money. The round, led by undisclosed investors, would fund the expansion of its neutral‑atom quantum processors and full‑stack hardware‑software platform. Co‑founder...
Guest Post: Venture Capital, Startup Liability, and D&O Insurance
When a startup secures venture capital, its liability profile shifts dramatically as cash, fiduciary duties, and litigation exposure rise overnight. Without directors and officers (D&O) coverage, founders and executives can face personal financial loss from employment, equity, or disclosure disputes....
Matresa Secures £315,000 for Preventative Maternal Health Platform
London‑based startup Matresa has closed a £315,000 pre‑seed round led by SFC Capital to develop a clinical‑grade preventative maternal‑health platform. The service will deliver continuous screening and diagnostics from pregnancy through early parenthood, offering personalised support for mothers, partners, and...
🦾 Robotics Funding Rounds by Month - December 2025
The episode reviews December 2025 robotics funding, highlighting 127 rounds that raised $2.74 billion, bringing the year’s total to roughly $35 billion. It notes a healthy volume of deals despite lower individual round sizes, with notable activity among humanoid, biotech‑robotics, construction, and...
Aliro Raises $15M to Advance Physics-Based Network Security
Aliro announced a $15 million oversubscribed funding round led by Gutbrain Ventures, with participation from Cisco Investments, Argon Ventures, and Wonderstone Ventures. The Boston‑based startup is commercializing a physics‑based network security platform that uses quantum entanglement to replace cryptographic assumptions with...
Take2 Raises $14M to Power AI Healthcare Hiring
Sphinx Raises $7M Seed Round for AI Compliance Agents
Sphinx announced a $7 million seed round, led by Cherry Ventures with participation from Y Combinator, Rebel Fund, Deel Ventures and Singularity Capital. The San Francisco‑based startup builds browser‑native AI agents that embed directly into existing case‑management systems, third‑party portals and internal dashboards...
Orthofuse Raises £2.2m for 3D-Printed Implants
Orthofuse announced a £2.2 million seed round to accelerate its 3D‑printed orthopaedic implant platform. The company targets trauma and spinal‑degenerative surgeries, where poor bone quality and time‑sensitive procedures demand more adaptable solutions. Using additive manufacturing and novel implant architectures, Orthofuse aims...
Ando Secures New Funding to Make Hourly Work More Predictable
The $800B Open Secret: What the New Medicaid Spending Dataset Means for Health Tech Builders and Investors
The episode breaks down the release of the largest publicly available Medicaid claims dataset, detailing its composition, gaps, and immediate utility for health‑tech builders and investors. It quantifies the scale of Medicaid spending (~$849 B) and improper payments (over $30 B annually),...
PROPTECH-X : Why Proptechs Fail to Raise Funding
Proptech startups face a steep funding gap, with 96% failing to secure Series A capital. The article attributes this to market oversaturation, weak unit economics, and regulatory hurdles that impede scaling. Investors are increasingly demanding clear revenue traction and defensible...
Earth Observation Data Provider Constellr Closes €37 Million Series A
Munich‑based Constellr closed a €37 million Series A round, bringing total capital to €75 million. The funding, led by Alpine Space Ventures and Lakestar, will accelerate its HiVE microsatellite constellation toward defence‑grade thermal imaging. Constellr plans to upgrade resolution from 30 m to sub‑5 m...
Hypersonic Systems Startup Emerges From Stealth with Series A and Test Launch
Munich‑based Hypersonica has emerged from stealth, announcing a €23.3 million Series A round led by Plural and backed by Germany’s Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation, General Catalyst and 201 Ventures. The startup also reported its first successful hypersonic missile test on 3 February from...
Kyle Samani’s Hyperliquid Critique Sparks Speculation After Multicoin Exit
Kyle Samani departed Multicoin Capital and immediately launched a harsh critique of the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, calling it “everything wrong with crypto.” On‑chain analytics revealed Multicoin‑associated wallets buying more than $40 million of Hyperliquid’s HYPE token around the same time. Samani’s...
How Markets Price AI Risk
The post highlights a stark valuation split in software stocks as vertical SaaS companies plunge 43% YTD while dev‑tools decline only 21%, reflecting market pricing of AI risk. It argues that despite strong moats, vertical firms’ slower 8% growth triggers...
Indian Fashion Quick Commerce Startup ZILO Raises $15.3M
Indian fashion quick‑commerce startup ZILO secured $15.3 million in a Series A round led by Peak XV Partners. The capital will fund scaling of its 60‑minute delivery model that includes home trials and instant returns. ZILO, founded by former Flipkart and Myntra executives,...
CommerceX Raises ¥17.3B Series A for Retail Tec
CommerceX Holdings, a Japanese retail‑tech firm, raised ¥17.3 billion in a Series A round that combines equity and debt financing. The capital will fund an aggressive M&A strategy and upgrades to RECORE, its cloud‑based POS system for the reuse industry. Management targets...
Google's 52x AI Growth
Google’s Q4 2025 earnings call highlighted a dramatic AI surge, with Gemini processing over 10 billion tokens per minute—a 52‑fold year‑over‑year rise to an annualized 430 trillion tokens. Serving costs fell 78%, delivering a 4.5× efficiency gain per GPU hour. Cloud revenue...
Interview With Guy Kawasaki
Brad Feld sat down with veteran entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki for the "Building What Lasts" podcast, exploring trust, mentorship, and long‑term thinking. The conversation quickly delved into personal stories, including Kawasaki’s early dating life and connections with industry figures like Heidi...
I Wrote Off $4M to $0. My Co-Investor Marked Up the Same Deal to $30M. Here’s What Founders Need to...
The author wrote off a $4 million SaaStr Fund investment to zero, while a co‑investor marked the same deal up to $30 million. The divergence stems from the co‑investor’s need to showcase a strong TVPI while fundraising for a new fund, prompting...
Yozo.ai Raises $1.7M to Build AI Revenue Engine
Yozo.ai, a UAE‑based e‑commerce AI startup, secured $1.7 million in pre‑seed funding. The round was co‑led by Access Bridge Ventures and Disruptech Ventures, with participation from Arzan VC and Suhail Ventures. The capital will fund engineering expansion and international market entry...
What Helped Wild Rye Land 100+ Retailers and Raise $1 Million
In this episode, founder Cassie Abel discusses how Wild Rye transformed the outdoor apparel market by designing high‑performance gear specifically for women and embedding purpose into every decision, from sustainability certifications to social advocacy. She shares how building long‑term, trust‑based...
Unbox Robotics Raises $28M to Scale Modular Warehouse Robots
Unbox Robotics announced a $28 million Series B round led by ICICI Venture, with participation from F‑Prime and other investors. The funding will fuel expansion of its engineering and leadership teams, accelerate development of its modular, swarm‑intelligence warehouse robots, and...
Gotham Growth
Gotham announced the Gotham Growth Project, a cohort‑based accelerator aimed at Black‑owned cannabis consumer‑product businesses operating in New York. The program provides structured mentorship, peer learning, and strategic guidance to help founders move from early traction to scalable, sustainable operations....
A Coxswain on Your Shoulder
Tom Tunguz created an AI meeting‑review agent that acts like a coxswain, silently analyzing recordings of pitch meetings, one‑on‑ones and investor calls. The system scores each conversation on a five‑point rubric—active listening, empathy, questioning, clarity and technical depth—providing concrete feedback...
The Model T Comes to Silicon Valley
The early 20th‑century assembly line slashed Model T production time by 90%, triggering a wave of consolidation that left only 44 automakers by 1929. Today, AI‑driven coding assistants are delivering comparable productivity gains—55‑81% faster development—in roughly five years. The auto boom...
AI Managing AI
Recent advances have pushed tool‑calling accuracy for large language models past the 90% mark, a dramatic leap from the sub‑50% success rates seen two years ago. This improvement is driven by trillion‑parameter models that excel at context‑rich orchestration, while smaller...
Ecommerce Startups and the New Funding Landscape in Europe
The episode explains how European Shopify ecommerce founders must first secure strong unit economics and cross‑border readiness before seeking capital, as investors favor scalable, profitable models. It maps a funding roadmap—from bootstrapping through revenue‑based financing to EU public programs—highlighting the...
Discovery-Driven Planning: A Better Way to Evaluate Venture Investments
The episode explains how Discovery‑Driven Planning (DDP) transforms venture evaluation by treating every business plan as a set of testable hypotheses rather than a fixed forecast. It outlines the three core tenets of DDP—only validated assumptions receive capital, funding is...
Illegitimi Non Carborundum: Don’t Let Investors Control Your Meeting
Founders, especially women and underrepresented entrepreneurs, are disproportionately asked downside‑focused questions by investors, while their white male peers receive more upside‑oriented inquiries. This bias can steer pitch conversations away from a company’s growth potential. The article advises founders to pre‑write...
CIS News
Recent weeks have seen a flurry of activity in the surgical robotics sector, highlighted by multiple regulatory clearances, sizable funding rounds, and strategic leadership moves. CMR Surgical secured a CE mark for its Versius platform in pediatric procedures, while Distalmotion...
NATSEC Roundtable No. 9: Capital, Cloud, and Commerce
The defense ecosystem is evolving into a three‑layer stack of venture capital, cloud infrastructure, and digital commerce. Mandate‑driven VC firms such as In‑QTel, a16z’s American Dynamism and Shield Capital are financing AI, autonomous and cyber startups that resemble Silicon Valley...
Meritech’s Look at 2025 Exits: M&A at $587B Hits a Decade+ High … But IPOs Were a Whimper
Meritech reports that 2025 delivered a muted IPO market, with only six pure‑play software listings, while merger‑and‑acquisition activity surged to $587 billion—the highest in a decade. Leading private firms such as SpaceX, OpenAI and Stripe continued to stay private, limiting public‑market...
Switching Venture Firms Is Not a Job Search
Transitioning between venture capital firms differs fundamentally from a typical job search. Because the senior VC talent pool is small, moves depend on existing relationships and how peers rank you, not on open listings. The article outlines a mental ranking...
Open APIs Are Over
After two decades of thriving on open APIs, major software platforms are erecting barriers. Salesforce limited Slack’s API calls, Datadog disabled a rival observability startup, and Epic faces a lawsuit over restricting patient‑record access. The acceleration of AI‑driven development enables...
Gross Profit per Token
Meta announced a $2 billion acquisition of Singapore‑based AI agent firm Manus, which reported $100 million annual recurring revenue and 147 trillion tokens processed since its March 2025 launch. The deal underscores the relevance of gross profit per token as a valuation lens,...
Y-Combinator’s Framework for Building a Successful MVP.
The episode breaks down Y‑Combinator’s MVP framework, emphasizing that a Minimum Viable Product must be both minimal and viable—enough to let real users test the core solution. It contrasts founder mindsets, shows how Airbnb, Twitch, and Stripe launched ultra‑simple versions...
12 Predictions for 2026
Tom Tunguz outlines twelve 2026 forecasts, from AI agents commanding higher fees than human workers to a record‑breaking liquidity wave driven by IPOs from SpaceX, OpenAI and others. He predicts vector databases becoming essential AI infrastructure and agents autonomously handling...
How Big Is AI Spending, Really? | Using ChatGPT for Competitive Analysis. | Measuring Real Efficiency in Venture Exits.
The episode breaks down three major trends: AI infrastructure spending is already 1.6% of U.S. GDP and could near 3% by 2030, dwarfing past tech booms but still far from wartime mobilisations; female‑founder funding in Europe is rising in absolute...
Elad Gil’s Framework for Spotting Billion-Dollar Markets Before They Look Big.
Elad Gil explains how to uncover billion‑dollar markets that appear small or unappealing by prioritizing market size over ideas, using first‑principles analysis, solving personal pain points, and validating demand through paying customers. He outlines four spotting principles and three market...
The Bifurcation in the AI Market
The AI market is splitting into two distinct camps: open‑source models, which remain roughly 22‑25% of usage despite being 10‑100× cheaper, and proprietary providers that retain pricing power for high‑value workloads. Open‑source share held steady, briefly spiking to 35% during...
The Average Founder Ages 6 Months Each Year
The median age of founders raising venture capital is climbing about six months each year, a shift driven by three forces: the surge in AI‑focused funding, the growing dominance of B2B models, and a media narrative that over‑highlights youthful, consumer‑centric...
The Toll of Stress on Startup Teams and Its Link to Founder Well-Being
Startup Snapshot’s second report reveals that 80% of startup employees say their mental health has suffered, with half experiencing burnout and 52% reporting anxiety. Founder stress is visible to 57% of staff, yet only 10% of founders discuss it openly....
The Two Context Databases Powering Enterprise AI
Enterprises are adopting two distinct context databases—operational and analytical—to serve as the new system of record for AI agents. Operational databases capture procedural knowledge and trade secrets, while analytical databases encode metric definitions and reasoning logic. The article emphasizes that...
The AI Value Gap : Where Does the $7,000 Per Seat Go?
A new OpenAI study finds AI saves white‑collar workers 54 minutes daily, translating to roughly $7,282 of recovered productivity per seat each year. Current SaaS pricing—ChatGPT Plus, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Google Workspace AI, and Gamma—captures only 3‑5% of that value,...
Streaming Comes Into the Fold
IBM announced an $11.1 billion acquisition of Confluent, valuing the streaming‑platform provider at 10 × its last‑twelve‑month revenue. Confluent, the commercial arm behind Apache Kafka, serves more than 40 % of Fortune 500 firms and posted Q3 revenue of $298.5 million, up 19.3 % YoY, with...
Coming Soon: Harry Stebbings on the State of Venture
In this episode, Harry Stebbings examines the rapid transformation of venture capital, focusing on shifting valuation dynamics, the impact of AI hype on startup success, and the emergence of a new capital stack that founders and investors must navigate. He...
