EverythingStartups Weekly

Welcome to everyone new here who signed up last week!

So much going on, with the newly launched VC database, VC reports, + all the ways I’m trying to improve this newsletter & still finding my way around it, it’s been a crazy few weeks. So you will see things are looking a bit different in this week’s edition + a very extensive “Top Pre-Seed to Series A Fundings” section. More to come. For now, the direction of this newsletter is covering early-stage deals, new VC funds, & possibly focusing on emerging managers.

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

• New VC Funds database

• Venture Capital Trends October 2025

• 48 pre-seed accelerators

• 350+ SaaS investors

• LPs investing in VC funds 

Partnership & ad opportunities with EverythingStartups. 

New Instagram account with more great startup & VC content.

Cheers,
Ivelina

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New VC Funds 🟣

Fresh capital in the past week…

• United Founders – Up to €1M for Hardware, Dual-Use, Medtech

• Rubio Impact Ventures – €70M for Circularity, Education, Economic Inclusion, Green Jobs

• MVP Ventures – $125M for AI, Hardware, Software

• CMT Digital – $136M for Crypto, Blockchain

Check them out here.

Signals 🟣

The vibe of the week, news, data, thoughts, what people are talking about, etc…

• A new YC-backed startup is making noise with “Chad: The Brainrot IDE,” a coding tool so bizarre users thought it was a prank.

• Lovable, the year-old AI coding platform, is nearing 8 million users after a surge in activity that includes 100,000 new products built daily.

• Anthropic announced a 50 billion dollar plan to build custom AI data centers across the U.S. The project adds thousands of jobs and positions the company as a major infrastructure player as it races to keep up with OpenAI’s massive build-out. The first sites go live in 2026.

• Venture funding may feel scarce, but another source has been hiding in plain sight. $17 trillion in retirement accounts, long thought out of reach, is now flowing into startups. Alto’s latest piece reveals how founders and VCs can use IRAs as a source of early-stage capital.

• Bending Spoons co-founder Luca Ferrari shares how the company became one of Europe’s most unusual tech acquirers.

• Accel’s latest report breaks down the AI landscape in USA, Europe and Israel.

• Peter Thiel is drawing attention after an old email predicting a surge in youth support for socialism went viral. In a new interview, he argues that economic stagnation, rising costs and shrinking mobility have pushed young Americans toward alternatives to traditional capitalism.

• As capital concentrates around a small group of firms chasing the same “consensus deals”, some investors are arguing that early-stage venture is becoming more adversarial.

• Fundraising experts distinguish two types of startup rounds: attention spikes and explainers.

• This Generalist piece shares a set of personal observations on creativity, learning, self-reinvention, and decision making.

• Chris Sacca’s firm is raising a second fund focused on nuclear fusion, expanding on its earlier 250 million dollar vehicle that backed companies like Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Pacific Fusion.

Hot rounds 🔥

• Cursor, a popular AI coding tool, closed a $2.3 billion funding round, with investment from Accel, Thrive Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, DST Global, Coatue, Nvidia and Google.

• Gamma, a San Francisco-based AI-powered presentation-making platform and website builder, raised $68 million in Series B funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Accel, Uncork Capital, and others.

• Wonderful, a startup developing AI agents for customer-facing enterprise applications across voice, chat, and email, raised $100 million in a Series A round led by Index Ventures. Insight Partners, IVP, Bessemer, and Vine Ventures also showed up.

• Scribe, a startup helping enterprises capture and analyze workflows to identify where automation and AI can drive returns, raised $75 million in a Series C. StepStone led the deal, joined by Amplify Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Tiger Global, Morado Ventures, and New York Life Ventures.

Deep dive of the week: Why Investors Fight for Pro Rata Rights and What Founders Should Know 🟣 

Investors fight hard for pro rata rights, and you, as a founder, need to handle them wisely.

A pro rata right gives an investor the option to maintain their ownership percentage in your company by participating in future funding rounds. And while pro rata rights might seem like a minor term to founders, for investors they’re mission-critical.

These rights are how VCs execute their fund strategy, protect their position in future rounds, and build the stories they need to tell their LPs. Without pro rata, even a well-placed early check can lose its upside.

Here’s everything you need to know, thank me later.