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.

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Ivelina

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Important News + Data 🟣

What people are talking about…

• At least three researchers have already resigned from Meta’s new Superintelligence Lab, with two returning to OpenAI just weeks after being hired.

• Vercel is raising hundreds of millions in new funding led by Accel at a $9 billion valuation, nearly triple its value after a $250 million round last May, as demand for its AI-driven developer tools accelerates.

• European VC valuations hit a decade high in H1 2025 with a median pre-money of €8.6 million, as larger deals in AI, fintech, and defense tech push later-stage valuations to record levels.

• Netskope files for a Nasdaq IPO after reporting $616 million in sales for the year ended July 31, 2025. Lightspeed, ICONIQ, and Accel backed the company.

• Klarna revives its U.S. IPO plans for September with a target valuation of up to $14 billion, aiming to raise nearly $1 billion after shelving its debut earlier this year.

• TechCrunch lists 33 U.S. AI startups that raised $100M+ in 2025, including OpenAI’s record $40 billion round, Anthropic’s $3.5 billion Series E, and Thinking Machines Lab’s surprising $2 billion seed deal.

• No-code website builder Framer reaches $2B valuation, This double-unicorn milestone comes at a time of hype for website builders.

Interesting Links 🟣

These caught my eye this week…

• Independence is a privilege. Jason Fried reflects on why running an independent company means saying yes to the weird ideas others would never approve and why giving cover to odd experiments is one of the best parts of the job.

• Is venture broken and how bad is the pressure? What 2,000+ priced early-stage rounds tell us about the state of Seed & Series A.

• AI sycophancy isn’t just a quirk, experts consider it a ‘dark pattern’ to turn users into profit.

• Jeff Bezos runs on mental models. From regret minimisation and the two-pizza rule to reversible decisions and working backwards from the customer, this article sketches out the frameworks that shaped Amazon’s rise.

• Startup exits are finally heating up. Crunchbase reports U.S. billion-dollar IPOs and M&A surged in 2025, with Figma, Circle, and Chime driving public market momentum and Alphabet’s $32B bid for Wiz leading acquisitions.

• The Gen AI app race is stabilizing. a16z’s fifth Top 100 GenAI Consumer Apps list shows fewer newcomers, Google’s Gemini rising to #2 behind ChatGPT, and vibe coding platforms like Lovable and Replit breaking into the ranks.

• The company-building principles of Elon Musk. After 60+ hours with his biography and 40 pages of notes, this episode of Founders unpacks how Musk thinks, works, and builds.

🎙️ SAFEs vs Priced Rounds in 2025

SAFEs still dominate early rounds (88% of pre-seed deals), but post-money SAFEs are catching founders off guard, stack a few and you’ve quietly given away 40–50% of your company before Series A.

Priced rounds, once slow and expensive, are now faster and cheaper thanks to platforms like Carta and SeedLegals. They give you clarity upfront; a clean cap table, visible dilution, governance terms, and tax advantages.

The tradeoff is simple: SAFEs buy you speed, priced rounds buy you clarity. Neither is wrong, but treating them as interchangeable is where founders get burned.

Below is a quick comparison, and I recently wrote a full-length deep dive on the topic, which you can read here.

 
New VC Fund Highlight: Ventures.eu 🟣

And the best part - highlighting my favorite fund of the week!

Europe is on the cusp of a deeptech renaissance - but a common gap remains: the “last mile” of innovation, where EU-funded R&D breakthroughs need private capital to scale. Ventures.eu addresses this directly, acting as one of the earliest private backers for such businesses.

Founded by Thijs Povel, who brings over 15 years of VC experience, the fund will make investments between €250K and €2M in startups at seed and pre-Series A stages, with a particular focus on Deeptech and AI.

Why it's notable: 

• Strategic EU‑backed sourcing. Ventures.eu builds on Dealflow.eu’s matchmaking platform that connects EU‑funded, de‑risked deeptech startups with investors and corporates. This gives Ventures.eu early access to founders who already have validation and momentum.

• Geographic split designed for impact. The fund allocates 60% of capital to Portuguese startups and 40% to the wider EU.

• Golden Visa appeal. The fund is structured to attract US and non‑EU investors seeking Golden Visas via Portugal.

• Operator‑led with hands‑on support. Provides talent development, coaching, recruitment, strategy, grant applications, and EU funding expertise for its portfolio.

PS: Track new VC funds raised here.

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

Watch out for these…

• Boost My School, a startup that provides fundraising software for K-12 schools to manage donations, events, and giving campaigns in one system, raised a $10 million round. The investors included High Alpha, Far Out VC, Ground Game, and Allos Ventures.

• Creem, a startup building financial tools for AI-focused companies to handle global payments, taxes, revenue automation, and revenue sharing, raised a $2.1 million pre-seed round. Practica Capital led the deal.

• Payment Labs, a startup offering software to manage international payments, compliance, and reporting in sports, esports, and the creator economy, raised a $3.25 million seed round. Aperture Venture Capital, Capital Eleven, and ESPMX participated.

• Kira, a startup developing an AI-powered operating system for embedding financial products, raised a $6.7 million seed round. Blockchange Ventures, Vamos Ventures, Stellar Blockchain, Grit Ventures, and Credibly Neutral were part of the investors.

• Holiwise, a startup creating an AI travel service that instantly plans and books personalized trips, raised a $1.7 million pre-seed round from banker Bobby Previti.