Venture capital news covering startup funding, VC deals, funding rounds, investor activity, and the startup ecosystem.
PhysicsX, a British startup, raised $300 million in Series C funding led by Singapore's Temasek, valuing the company at $2.4 billion. The company develops AI models for manufacturing components like jet engines and semiconductors. Existing backers include Nvidia and Applied Materials.
Moonshot AI, developer of the Kimi chatbot, is seeking up to $2 billion in a new funding round that would value the startup at $30 billion. The company has held early talks with prospective investors to raise over $1 billion, and is nearing a separate $20 billion valuation round led by Meituan.
Former DOGE members Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox founded Special, a holding company backed by a16z and other ex-DOGE members, to apply government efficiency methods to the private sector. Its first target is senior care via FigureHealth, with plans to expand into construction and manufacturing.
Nina Achadjian, a partner at Index Ventures, argues that the next major investment opportunities in AI lie in integrating software with physical industries like manufacturing and robotics. She highlights the significance of the SpaceX IPO for the venture capital landscape, suggesting a shift from purely digital to cyber-physical systems.
This commentary recounts venture capital horror stories shared on X, highlighting incidents of VCs sleeping during pitches, reneging on term sheets, and ghosting founders. It argues that such behavior is common and often unacknowledged, while also noting that some founders still receive investment despite these experiences.
Supabase doubled its valuation to $10.5 billion in eight months with a $500 million Series F round. The open-source database platform now claims nearly 10 million developers, with over 60% of new databases launched by AI tools. It also launched Multigres, an 'operating system' for Postgres.
This commentary argues that the significant overlap in investors between OpenAI and Anthropic is unusual and reflects a strategic bet that the AI market will not be winner-take-all. It contends that investors are hedging their bets by backing both rivals, rather than picking a single winner.