Nous Research, maker of open-source AI assistant Hermes, has raised $90 million in venture funding. Hermes was downloaded more than 22 million times since February. It overtook OpenClaw and other open-source assistants by usage, per OpenRouter. wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/… via @WSJ

Gunderson Dettmer partner Aaron Rubin spoke with @ychernova at @WSJVC on the growing scrutiny VCs and acquirers are applying to data used to fine-tune AI models—and the importance of addressing licensing and user consent from the start. on.wsj.com/47lypkM

Yet more great energy reporting in the WSJ, recommend folks to read Some quotes from realistic venture capital folks: - “Decarb is dead for now" - “Climate Week could basically be AI and data center week" Removal of subsides + the need to actually power growth exposed how fragile the entire ecosystem was. Carbon removal gets a lot of flak btw but it's too easy of a scapegoat, there are a lot more techs that have no path to viability that continue to receive a lot of funding

Climate-tech VCs don’t talk much about climate change these days. They are focused on AI and data centers. Who isn't? "Decarb is dead for now," is how @SophiePurdom put it. Is that antithetical to climate-tech's purpose? We discuss! wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/… via @WSJ

“20 years ago...” @ubertigavin “Were you alive then?” @patrick_oshag exchange at the @PrimaryVC summit. Patrick jabbed at his youth a few times, but Gavin remains unfazed

“I love them for it, man,” @UbertiGavin speaking lovingly of @Etched supplier TSMC at the @PrimaryVC summit

‘Not In My Backyard’ Could Slow AI Progress. Opposition to AI data centers has skyrocketed over the past 6 months in the U.S. Data on this keeps coming and coming. Find this morning's WSJ Pro VC newsletter here wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/… via @WSJ

Check out today's WSJ Pro Venture Capital daily newsletter. (Now available with a WSJ.com url). Leading the newsletter is @sarahklearman 's piece on Menlo Ventures' new hire & growth investing strategy wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/… via @WSJ

John Borthwick’s NYC-based venture firm Betaworks was the first investor to back Hugging Face, writing a $150,000 check in 2016. It now owns a stake that could be worth $650 million. Scoop: wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/…

Scoop: Sol Bier's venture firm Factorial Funds crossed $1 billion in proceeds, per a letter it shared with LPs. That's $965 million in distributions to its LPs. VC liquidity is finally getting going. wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/… via @WSJ

Ryan Breslow's @bolt is raising a bridge pay-to-play round to "clear legacy obligations." But the controversial founder refuses to give up. He is putting $5M of his own capital into a once high-flying unicorn. techcrunch.com/2026/08/31/ry…

Large exits are generating less & less return. Stats on the heels of Airtable acq: The difference between exit value and the company’s last valuation for exits of $500M+ narrowed to just 15.5% this year, down from 60%+ in 2021 (PitchBook.) See my column: venturecapital.cmail20.com/t…

I wrote about the SaaSpocalypse — why some software startups are reinventing themselves for AI, while others are shutting down & starting from scratch. As one founder put it: “You have to burn the ships and start from the ground up.” wsj.com/tech/ai/saas-softwar…

Scoop: Bryan Kim, a former partner at a16z, is launching a new venture firm, Mido Capital, with plans to raise about $100 million for its debut fund, sources say wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/… via @WSJ

SCOOP: Sequoia Capital has raised $10 billion under its new leaders—the firm's first fundraising haul since the shakeup. We dove deep into @Alfred_Lin and @gradypb's revamped strategy, which includes around-the-clock dealmaking and bold AI bets like $2.5 billion on Anthropic👇

Freestyle had sold part of its stake in Airtable in earlier rounds via secondaries, Samuel said. "We sold at the top." This is a common practice for the firm when a portfolio company reaches unicorn status.

The acquisition of Airtable is a ‘kick in the gut’ for software unicorns and their backers. "I believe Howie was ahead of the curve for what I think many other B2B SaaS companies need to do,” said Freestyle's Dave Samuel, an early Airtable investor wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/…

A few months back, we signed a term sheet with a London AI startup. Then one of the founders quit to join a big AI lab and the deal was dead before any money went out. "That was a big disappointment" is what I told @ychernova at the @WSJ. That's the printable version. I get it, I spent my career as a founder before I started writing checks and a much larger, very hot, tech co dangling life-changing money is hard to say no to, but this poaching of founding teams is happening at every stage. PitchBook counted 322 US AI startup acquisitions with undisclosed values last year, up from 181 the year before (undisclosed usually means "we wanted the team"). 2026 is running hotter. Venture only works if founders play the long game - this means a growing chunk of our @ZeroPrimeVC diligence is me sitting across from a founder trying to figure out if they'll still be at the wheel in year 3 when a lab comes calling. Their story ran this morning and the headline made me laugh: "VCs Are Asking Founders: Will You Quit on Me?" If you're a founder raising right now, expect a version of that question. If you're building AI infra and don't have to think before answering it, I'd love to speak with you. Worth a quick read. I'm the guy in the first paragraph who got left at the altar 🤓 wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/…

In the age of the acquihire and founder poaching, VCs are asking founders: Will you quit on me? “It’s a feeding frenzy right now. Corp dev is everywhere" @shcallaway wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/… via @WSJ

By one metric, China’s slice of global biotech venture capital has risen to 15% from 9% last year, while the U.S.’s has slipped to 58% from 64%. The U.S. industry has taken note - by @wsj's Brian Gormley wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/…