EverythingStartups Weekly

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Let’s get into this week’s edition on what’s happening in startup & VC world + the main highlights.

But first, you might find some of these resources helpful:

• 120+ Active Pre-Seed - Series A investors

• Venture Capital Trends September 2025

• 48 pre-seed accelerators

• Latest VC funds announced

• 350+ SaaS investors

• LPs investing in VC funds 

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Important News + Data 🟣

What people are talking about…

• Deloitte will repay part of a $440,000 fee to the Australian government after admitting it used AI to help produce a report riddled with fabricated references and errors. The issue was flagged after academics exposed fake citations, leading Deloitte to issue a corrected version and acknowledge use of Azure OpenAI GPT-4o tools in the drafting process.

• North American startups raised $63.1 billion in Q3, up $20 billion year over year, driven largely by AI. Anthropic led with a $13 billion Series F, followed by $1.1 billion for Cerebras, and $1 billion each for Figure and PsiQuantum.

• Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire at 27 after Intercontinental Exchange announced a $2 billion investment valuing the blockchain-based prediction market at $8 billion pre-money.

• YZi Labs, the investment firm of Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, launched a $1 billion builders fund to support long-term projects on BNB Chain. The fund targets areas such as trading, real-world assets, artificial intelligence, DeSCI, and DeFi.

• Sequoia Capital partner Luciana Lixandru confirmed plans to expand the firm's team in Europe at the Sifted Summit.

Hot rounds 🔥

• Base Power raised $1 billion in a round led by Addition with participation from CapitalG, Elad Gil, Lightspeed, Ribbit, Thrive Capital, and Valor Equity Partners.

• Reflection AI, a startup founded just last year by two former Google DeepMind researchers, has raised $2 billion at an $8 billion valuation, a whopping 15x leap from its $545 million valuation just seven months ago.

• n8n has raised $180 million in new funding, valuing the Berlin-based automation company at $2.5 billion as investors bet on the growing use of AI agents across industries.

🎤 The Narrative in VC Lately: Courage Over Consensus

Venture capital is at an inflection point, everyone now consumes the same Substacks, listens to the same podcasts, and uses the same AI tools, so the traditional edge of being well-read and analytically rigorous is quickly eroding. What’s scarce now isn’t intelligence, it’s courage.

Courage is what separates real venture capital from what some are calling “consensus capital.” Real VCs back the weird, early, and hard-to-believe bets when it feels career-threatening to do so. Consensus capital, by contrast, plays it safe by chasing the same pedigreed founders, competing in crowded AI rounds, and scaling fund size faster than conviction.

In contrast, the next generation of standout firms is rediscovering what venture was built on: independent conviction. The courage to double down on a founder when everyone else walks away, to back the outlier who looks “too weird” until they redefine the market, after all these are the moments that make reputations and returns.

The real alpha in venture today doesn’t come from consensus or size, it comes from courage.

New VC Funds Announced 🟣 

These new venture capital funds launched this past week…

• Lobster Capital – $12M for YC startups

• Better Tomorrow Ventures – $140M for Fintech

• Serena – $215M for Applied AI, Climate Tech

• Cyberstarts – $380M for Cybersecurity

• 55North – $352M for Quantum

• Karman Ventures – $40M for AI, Pre-Seed to Seed

• Sugar Free Capital – $32M for AI, Deep Tech, MIT founders

• Striker Venture Partners – $165M for Technical Founders, Pre-Seed

Learn more about each fund here.

Interesting Links 🟣

These caught my eye this week…

• The myth of LP alpha in venture. New PitchBook research finds that even the best fund selectors only added 61 basis points a year over two decades, suggesting luck plays a bigger role in VC than most LPs want to admit.

• Just because something failed before doesn't make it impossible, here’s what founders need to look out for if they are trying again.

• How Fund I managers really build portfolios. New Sydecar data shows most lean on breadth over reserves, use SPVs for follow-ons, and concentrate 65% of deals at pre-seed or seed with small checks and faster execution to signal strength to LPs.

• You can’t compete with someone having fun. Nikunj Kothari reminds founders that real intensity isn’t about 996 hours or screenshots, it’s about joy. When you love the problem so much the work feels like play, resilience follows.

• Balderton turns 25. In a rare sit-down, Bernard Liautaud and Suranga Chandratillake reflect on the VC firm’s biggest wins (Revolut), biggest misses (Spotify), and why Europe still needs reinvestment, stronger public markets, and long-term bets on AI.

New Fund Highlight: Striker Venture Partners 🟣

This fund is truly impressive because…

A four-time Midas List investor just launched a $165M debut fund with the most concentrated strategy in venture capital: just 10 investments per fund, raised in weeks from only 10 LPs, deploying $5-30M checks at day zero.

Founded by Max Gazor after 14 years at CRV, Striker targets inception-stage technical founders in AI, cybersecurity, and infrastructure software before they have revenue.

Gazor brings exceptional credibility: four Midas List recognitions and a track record of leading pre-revenue investments in companies like Airtable, Cribl, Reflection AI, Dyna Robotics, Lepton AI, and CloudGenix.

100% of his first checks were pre-revenue, with board seats on every investment from day zero.

Why it's notable:

• The most concentrated early-stage fund in the market with proven alpha generation. While most VCs spread across 50-100 companies seeking "safety in numbers," Striker will make just 10 total investments from its $165M fund. This extreme concentration (~$16.5M average check) represents genuine conviction and accountability.

• Exceptional LP confidence in an untested brand. Raising $165M in weeks from only 10 institutional LPs for a debut fund is extraordinarily rare.

• Inception-stage specialization that founders actually want. Striker operates at the "far edge of the risk spectrum" where most firms won't commit real capital or board bandwidth. Striker solves the core founder frustration: VCs who preach focus while diversifying their own portfolios.

This is venture capital returning to its roots, true partnership over asset management.

PS: Track new VC funds raised here.

Top Pre-Seed to Series A Funding Rounds This Week 🟣

Watch out for these…

• Appy.AI, a startup helping non-coders build production-ready AI agent businesses with built-in tools for payments, analytics, and customer management, raised a $5 million seed round. Four Rivers and Founder Collective were part of the deal.

• Arcjet, a startup that helps developers detect and block malicious online activity directly within their applications, raised an $8.3 million seed round. Plural and Ott Kaukver invested.

• Datamonk, a startup that automates medical imaging data migrations for hospitals, raised a $1.9 million seed round. Healthy.Capital, Nina Capital, Antler, and Rabobank backed the round.

• Akua, a startup that provides an AI-powered, cloud-native payments platform for emerging markets, raised an $8.5 million round. Flourish Ventures, Cathay Latam, Atlantico, Honey Island 4UM, Krealo, and Simma Capital participated.

• Bettani Farms, a startup making protein-rich, dairy-free cheeses using a proprietary plant-based casein ingredient called Caseed, raised a $6.5 million seed round. S2G Investments, At One Ventures, Gratitude Railroad, Manta Ray Ventures, and Toba Capital invested.