EverythingStartups Weekly

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I’m excited to announce the beta launch of the EverythingVC database. 👏 It’s still a work in progress so I won’t be making a big splash about it just yet, but I will be sharing the news over the next few newsletter. Here is what you get with the paid version and the launch price. If you sign up and see any issues, please do send a message. Thank youuu.

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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New Instagram account with more great startup & VC content.

Cheers,
Ivelina

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Important News + Data 🟣

What people are talking about…

• Sequoia launched its latest $950M venture fund and sixth dedicated seed fund to back early-stage founders worldwide, citing AI’s platform shift across industries. The firm highlighted priorities including AI infrastructure, security and observability, next-gen consumer apps and commerce.

• OpenAI is laying the groundwork for an initial public offering that could value the company at up to $1 trillion, three people familiar with the matter said, in what could be one of the biggest IPOs of all time.

• Uber plans to launch autonomous taxi rides in San Francisco by late 2026 using vehicles developed with Lucid and Nuro. The company expects to have 100 test cars on the road soon and aims to deploy more than 20,000 robotaxis within six years, expanding collaborations with Nvidia, Stellantis, and WeRide across global markets.

• Discord has filed for an IPO, marking the gaming sector’s biggest listing since Roblox. The company, which rejected Microsoft’s $12 billion bid, reported $890 million in revenue and plans to expand through ads and monetization.

• Nvidia became the world’s first $5 trillion company, driven by surging demand for its AI chips. The milestone comes just three months after it hit $4 trillion, with shares up 50% this year.

• Bending Spoons will acquire AOL from Yahoo in a deal valued around $1.4 billion, backed by $2.8 billion in debt financing. The Italian firm plans to invest in AOL’s 30 million monthly users, adding to its U.S. acquisitions like Vimeo, Evernote, and Meetup.

• Morgan Stanley has acquired EquityZen, a New York–based platform for trading private company shares. The deal expands Morgan Stanley’s private markets suite with cap table management, liquidity programs, and secondary trading.

Hot rounds 🔥

• Mercor raised $350 million in a Series C led by Felicis with participation from Benchmark, General Catalyst, and Robinhood Ventures.

• Harvey raised $150 million in a new round led by Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the legal AI startup at over $8 billion.

• Whatnot raised $225 million in a Series F led by DST Global and CapitalG, valuing the live shopping platform at $11.5 billion.

New VC Funds Announced 🟣 

These new venture capital funds launched this past week…

• MTX Ventures – Undisclosed amount for Enterprise AI, Cybersecurity, AI-enhanced Technologies

• Lifeline Ventures – €400M Fund VI for Early-Stage Startups in Europe

• NFX – $325M Fund IV for AI Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Developer Tools

• BoxGroup – Undisclosed amount for Fintech, Developer Tools, Climate, Frontier Tech

• Fonds Impulsion (Investissement Québec) – $200M for Pre-Seed and Seed Startups in Québec

• Asymmetric Capital Partners – $137M Fund II for Vertical Software, Healthcare IT, SMB Rollups

• Aurelius Capital – $150M for Defense Tech, Cybersecurity, Drone Detection

• Burnt Island Ventures – $50M Fund II for Water Tech and Infrastructure Resilience

• Polytechnique Ventures – €21M Fund II for Deeptech, AI, Energy, Healthcare

• Sequoia Capital – $950M across Seed and Series A Funds for Early-Stage Founders

• Iris Ventures – €100M Fund II for Consumer Brands in Beauty, Wellness, Conscious Living

• Encoded Ventures – Undisclosed amount for Cloud, Data, AI, Cybersecurity

• Calm/Storm Ventures – €30M for Healthtech and Preventive Care Innovation

• Maple Bridge Ventures – $10.2M CAD for Immigrant Founders in AgriFoodTech, HealthTech, Enterprise Solutions

Learn more about each fund here.

Interesting Links 🟣

These caught my eye this week…

• Venture capital has lost its edge. Dan Gray argues that VC has become a self-referential game chasing signals, markups, and LP capital instead of true innovation.

• 10 charts by Rex Woodbury capturing current global trends across technology, entertainment, economics, and healthcare sectors, including AI company competition, app economy shifts, capital expenditure patterns, and emerging market opportunities.

• Advice for founders from Deel CEO. Alex Bouaziz shares 11 lessons from building Deel, from living with your customers and replying in seconds to hiring right, staying profitable, and remembering that cash discipline buys freedom.

• AI is making us work more, not less. Tawanda Munongo explores how generative AI has revived Silicon Valley’s 996 culture, turning “can work” into “should work”.

• Do the hard part first. Mercury CEO Immad Akhund shares how tackling compliance and risk before building helped the fintech reach product-market fit and scale to a $3.5B valuation.

🎤 a16z as a Media Empire That Invests

They’re just so good at being a media empire…so here we go again with another a16z highlight.

While most VCs are still playing the old game of handshake deals and portfolio updates, a16z figured out something radical: content is deal flow. They've turned their firm into a media company that happens to invest, flooding every channel - podcasts, newsletters, social media - with ideas that attract exactly the founders and operators they want to back.

This is beyond marketing, they are essentially building an ecosystem infrastructure. As David Booth outlined in his ecosystem announcement, every piece of content is a conversion event designed to pull the right people into their orbit. Write for a specific type of person you want to meet, curate ruthlessly, and suddenly founders and LPs are gravitating toward you because they've been consuming your worldview for months.

It's why every GP is expected to constantly ship quality content, why they experiment internally with new formats, and why "being everywhere" isn't optional, it's their engine. The traditional VC model of intimacy and personal attention hits a ceiling, but distribution scales infinitely.

The genius is in the compounding effect. Media builds mindshare, mindshare creates trust, trust turns into introductions from your network, and suddenly you're leading unicorn rounds at a rate no other fund can match.

The Flywheel:

• Own media everywhere → Podcasts, newsletters, GPs shipping constantly

• Content pulls in the right people → Founders, operators, future LPs

• Curation becomes your edge → Better people = better companies

• Network effects kick in → Founders connect founders, talent flows to portfolio

• Compounding distribution → More mindshare = more deal flow = leading rounds everyone wants

• Repeat → Every piece of content makes the next one more powerful

New Fund Highlight: Aurelius Capital 🟣

Aurelius Capital closed $50M (targeting $150M) for defense-tech.

This fund is truly impressive because...

While venture tourists scramble to rebrand as "dual-use investors," Aurelius launched with actual operators: former NSA Director Michael Rogers, former IAF Commander Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel, and ex-Mossad Deputy Director Udi Lavi, plus Hanaco Ventures partners Alon Lifshitz and Tomer Jacob managing the money side.

Based across Tel Aviv, New York, and London, the fund targets early-stage defense-tech with clear dual-use applications, think cybersecurity, drone detection, and critical infrastructure protection.

Why it's notable:

• Operator-led beats tourist capital. 30+ years combined experience in Israeli/American defense means they know what gets adopted vs. dies in procurement hell.

• Dual-use arbitrage. They're targeting technologies that sell to both military and commercial markets.

• Category inflection timing. Defense procurement is finally moving at software speed, and Aurelius is positioned at the gap between operator networks and institutional capital.

PS: Track new VC funds raised here.

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

Watch out for these…

• Onfire, a startup that uses AI to analyze developer discussions on public forums and identify buying signals for software vendors, raised a $14 million Series A round co-led by Grove Ventures and TLV Partners, with IN Venture and LeumiTech 77 also stepping up.

• Ava, a startup that uses AI to analyze consumer credit data and automate refinancing and loan recommendations, raised a $15 million seed round led by Greylock, with Transform VC, Firebolt, Twine Ventures, Sure Ventures, Defy.vc, and Burst Capital also investing.

• Spacial, a startup automating residential engineering and permitting, raised a $10 million seed round led by TLV Partners, with Mango Capital, Re Angels, and HTV also participating.

• Polygraf, a startup developing small language model technology to help organizations detect and mitigate AI risks, raised a $9.5 million seed round led by Allegis Capital and joined by Alumni Ventures, DataPower VC, and Domino Ventures.

• Ornn, a startup building a financial exchange for trading standardized GPU compute futures and derivatives, raised a $5.7 million seed round co-led by Crucible Ventures and Vine Ventures, with Link Ventures and Box Group also participating.