Lots of people say: 'With the policy so messed up in Washington right now, why in the world do you spend so much time thinking about it?' he told Fortune. 'It's because I have a great belief that... the only way to get to large scale is good policy. I see the power of things like the Medicare Modernization Act, which introduced prescription drugs. Believe it or not, before that, prescription drugs weren't part of Medicare at all.'
Just one month after raising $11.75 million in a round led by Joe Lonsdale's 8VC, African defensetech Terra Industries announced that it's raised an additional $22 million in funding, led by Lux Capital. Nathan Nwachuku, 22, and Maxwell Maduka, 24, launched Terra Industries in 2024 to design infrastructure and autonomous systems to help African nations monitor and respond to threats.
Molly O'Shea is a name-dropper. There's good reason for that. I count 29 big names in tech mentioned over our hourlong call. She told me about recently moderating a panel with Kalshi cofounders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara. Ken Griffin took the stage after her. O'Shea breezily referenced talking about the state of new media with the TBPN bros in Peter Thiel's house.
The AI investing boom (or perhaps bubble) is something Silicon Valley has seen many times before: a gold rush of VC money thrown at the Big New Thing. But one aspect of it is completely unique to these times: startups rocketing from $0 to as much as $100 million in annual recurring revenue, sometimes in a matter of months. Word on the street is that many a VC won't even look at a startup that's not on the ARR superhighway, aiming for $100 million in ARR before their Series A funding round.
SNAK Venture Partners announced Wednesday the close of its oversubsubscribed $50 million debut fund, anchored by the investment firm Pritzker Group (founded by Illinois governor JB Pritzker and his brother, Tony). SNAK founders Sonia Nagar and Adam Koopersmith worked at the firm and helped lead investments in companies like the auto marketplace Backlot Cars and TicketsNow (exited to Ticketmaster). The duo decided to break out on their own and, earlier this year, launched their firm to back digital marketplaces.
This year, 37 up-and-coming investors made the list of rising stars of venture capital. In this live Q&A, hear how the list is put together and learn about the hottest trends in venture capital. Plus, catch an interview with one of this year's winners. Scroll down for the live video on Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. ET.
Independently and immediately, a flood of people reached the same conclusion: This had to be a mistake. It was the summer of 2017, and as word spread that Mamoon Hamid was joining venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, some people wondered if it was a joke, or "fake news." And they didn't hold back. "I got calls from friends in the venture business, other GPs [general partners], asking: 'Are you sure this is happening? Is this real?'" Hamid recounts.
While Bitcoin treads water to start 2026, sentiment for other niches in crypto has soured even more-especially DePIN, or decentralized physical infrastructure. Tokens for the decentralized cellphone service Helium and the decentralized mapping network Hivemapper, for example, are near all-time lows. Still, some investors remain bullish on the concept, including the upstart venture firm Escape Velocity, which has raised $61.74 million for a second fund to back founders in DePIN and crypto more broadly.
FLORA - $42M Series A CREATIVE AI FLORA, a creative AI tool with an infinite canvas for generating and refining text, image, and video outputs, has raised $42M in Series A funding led by Redpoint. Founded by Alexi Li and Weber Wong in 2024, FLORA has now raised a total of $52M in reported equity funding. Slice Global - $25M Series A
Outtake, founded in 2023 by a former Palantir engineer, Alex Dhillon, has found a way to automate what has largely been the manual problem of spotting and taking down digital identity posers: impersonation accounts, malicious domains posing as the company's, rogue apps, fraudulent ads, and more. This problem has grown even more difficult because AI has enabled attackers to be more convincing and faster in their efforts.
"You can have as much money as you want to pour into the algorithm and buy ads," Kaplan told Business Insider. "But if you don't have the right founder who's able to build a community and the attention that you need to build a real product that people want, all of that money ... is meaningless."
where visionary founders showcase AI-driven innovations designed to create meaningful, positive impact. This event spotlights startups leveraging artificial intelligence, deep tech, and frontier technologies to solve real-world challenges and transform industries for the better. Selected startups will pitch live to a distinguished panel of venture capitalists and technology leaders, sharing their mission, traction, and measurable impact in a fast-paced, interactive format.
