OpenAI is reportedly raising $30 BILLION at a $1.4 TRILLION valuation meanwhile, VCs are telling founders doing $1M ARR to "come back when you have more traction" venture capital in 2026 is a simulation

if a VC says “keep me updated,” congratulations, you've just been added to their free deal flow newsletter

If a VC asks who else is investing before asking what you're building, they're buying social proof

If a VC spends more time talking about their portfolio than asking about your business, it's a networking call

if a VC directs you to their EA, calendly, agent, etc… they’re not investing

Qualitate raised a $25 million Series A led by Insight Partners, with participation from existing investors IA Ventures and Crew Capital, to accelerate development of its AI-powered continuous intelligence platform for primary research. The company’s system conducts expert interviews, structures insights, and uses AI interviewers and research agents to deliver actionable intelligence directly into customers’ workflows. Qualitate reported more than 10x revenue run-rate growth this year, over one million minutes of AI-moderated expert interviews, and more than 300% 12-month net revenue retention. The funding will support expanded market coverage, enhanced research agents, and deeper integration of research insights into decision-making workflows. FOUNDER: Sagar Kadakia INVESTORS: Insight Partners, IA Ventures & Crew Capital ROUND: Series A AMOUNT: $25,000,000 HQ: New York, New York #VentureCapital #Qualitate #SagarKadakia #InsightPartners #TradedVC

The unofficial social calendar of the ultra-wealthy: - Davos: Pretending to save the world. - Art Basel: Going to 17 parties, 12 dinners, and 6 clubs. Seeing zero art. - Monaco F1: Networking on someone else's yacht, being rich and feeling poor. - Miami F1: Turning a car race into a 4-day party. - SXSW: Discovering startups that already raised $50M. - LA Tech Week: Calling every house party a founder dinner. - SF Tech Week: Raising your next AI round over coffee. - Cannes Lion: influencer vibes - Milken: Billionaires asking other billionaires for money. - Sun Valley: Negotiating billion-dollar deals in Patagonia. - Aspen: Après-ski without actually skiing. - Coachella: Calling partying a brand activation. - Burning Man: Spending $100K to pretend money doesn't matter. - The Hamptons: Taking investor meetings by the pool, Surf Lodge table? - Fashion Week: Pretending you know the designer. - The Met Gala: Paying millions to look ridiculous. - Wimbledon: Quiet luxury networking. - The Masters: Old money - Super Bowl: Networking in a $1M suite. - St. Barts NYE: The annual billionaire migration. and somehow, every trip is "for work"

Asymptote Labs, co-founded and led by CEO Justin D., raised a $5.5 million seed round led by Tower Research Capital, with participation from 1984 Ventures, South Park Commons, Lytical Ventures and angel investors. The company is developing Beacon, an open-source memory system that helps AI coding agents learn from past sessions and reuse skills across tools, alongside an enterprise security platform designed to detect data leaks and prevent risky agent actions. FOUNDERS: Justin D’Souza & Shukan Shah INVESTORS: Tower Research Capital, 1984 Ventures, South Park Commons, Lytical Ventures, Henry Shi, Tom Alcock, Anand Thangaraju, Oliver Legg, Dylan Babbs, Kevin Tian, Rahul Madduluri, Feross Aboukhadijeh, Malika Aubakirova, Travis McPeak, Elliot Marx, Andrew Moreland, Terry O’Daniel, Max Pollard, Ian Livingstone, Mukund S., Mark Hillick, Snir Kodesh, Akshat Bubna, Kathy Del Gesso, Pranit Pan, Jeff Trudeau & Aaron Zollman ROUND: Seed AMOUNT: $5,500,000 HQ: New York, New York #VentureCapital #AsymptoteLabs #JustinDSouza #ShukanShah #TradedVC

Anthropic says they could potentially spend $750 Billion on Infrastructure/computer over the next 7-10 years. Your Next Prompt Will Still Be “Make This Email Sound Less Aggressive.”

Anthropic Makes $16.3B. Two Customers Account for 20% ($3.3B). The Other 80% Are Asking Claude to Rewrite Emails.

Daytona raised $60 million in a Series B round led by FirstMark Growth at a $1 billion valuation, bringing its total funding to $91 million. Led by CEO and co-founder Ivan Burazin, the company is building an Agent Execution Cloud that provides AI agents with secure, scalable computing environments, including Linux, Windows, macOS and GPU sandboxes. Daytona reported approximately 25× revenue growth since January and average monthly net revenue retention of about 135%, with customers including Meta, Cohere, Writer and Postman. The round included strategic investments from Qualcomm Ventures, Samsung Next and Okta Ventures, alongside existing and new investors. FOUNDERS: Ivan Burazin, Vedran Jukić & Goran Draganić INVESTORS: FirstMark Growth, FirstMark Capital, E2VC, Upfront Ventures, Pace Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Samsung Next, Okta Ventures, Evergreen Fund, Alumni Ventures, Torch Capital, Patrick Collison, Tobi Lütke, Aravind Srinivas, Eric Yuan, Olivier Pomel, Adam D’Angelo, Brendan Foody ROUND: Series B AMOUNT: $60,000,000 VALUATION: $1,000,000,000 HQ: New York, New York #VentureCapital #Daytona #IvanBurazin #FirstMarkGrowth #TradedVC

Arda, founded by former OpenAI Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew, has emerged from stealth with $232 million in total funding, including a $160 million Series A at a $1.5 billion valuation co-led by Altimeter, Accel and Khosla Ventures, following a $72 million seed round led by Accel and Founders Fund. The company develops AI software that converts product designs into assembly-line instructions and adapts manufacturing workflows as designs change, helping U.S. manufacturers accelerate production. Already deployed at Anduril as part of its ArsenalOS platform, Arda plans to expand its engineering and research teams, grow customer deployments across defense, electronics and data centers, and develop AI-powered robotics to make automated assembly lines more adaptable. FOUNDER: Bob McGrew INVESTORS: Accel, Altimeter, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, XYZ Venture Capital, 8VC, SVAngel & Felicis ROUND: Series A AMOUNT: $160,000,000 VALUATION: $1,500,000,000 HQ: San Francisco, California #VentureCapital #Arda #BobMcGrew #TradedVC

OpenAI just acquired Orchestra Bio, the software biopharma teams use to coordinate drug development. Every AI-for-pharma deck says "workflow is the moat." OpenAI read the deck and bought the workflow.