Welcome to all the new visionaries here who signed up last week! As usual, there’s loads going on in the startup & VC ecosystem, but I wanted to highlight this post for founders that I found really interesting this week.

Let’s get into this week’s edition on what’s happening & the main highlights. But first, check out these resources:

• 120+ Active Pre-Seed - Series A Investors

• Latest VC Funds announced.

• 350+ SaaS investors.

• LPs investing in VC funds.

• Understanding founder vs VC investment memos.

Partnership & collaboration opportunities. 

Cheers,
Ivelina

PS: Liking this? Share this newsletter with your inner circle.

 
Important News 🟣

• Figma fearlessly files its paperwork for IPO.

• An OpenAI social network is underway with an internal prototype.

• ChatGPT was the most downloaded app around the world in March.

• OpenAI’s co-founder raises $2B for stealth startup without a product.

• Elon Musk’s chatbot, Grok, acquires new canvas tool to generate docs and apps.

• UK fintech giant Revolut named in affidavit amidst legal drama between Rippling and Deel.
  

• Want to raise a new VC fund? That 10-year IRR better be in the double digits.

 
New VC Fund Highlight - Founders Fund 🟣

While many firms are playing defense, Founders Fund is doing the opposite.

At a moment when IPO markets remain nearly frozen and political turbulence shakes tech valuations, Founders Fund just closed a massive $4.6 billion late-stage venture fund, comfortably beating the $3 billion goal set back in December.

Founders Fund has always been comfortable where others hesitate. Founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, it has long distinguished itself through bold, contrarian investments, backing household names like Airbnb, Stripe, Palantir, Affirm, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX well before they defined their industries. They’ve consistently gone after frontier technology and defense tech plays like Anduril, positioning the firm uniquely in a market crowded with more cautious investors.

What's particularly interesting about this new fund is the internal commitment from Founders Fund’s general partners themselves. With substantial skin in the game, the firm's leadership is signaling strong alignment with LPs, precisely at a moment when confidence matters most.

In a climate where going public has become a high-risk gamble, especially with trade tensions adding to market uncertainty, having billions in growth capital on hand is an enormous strategic advantage. It positions Founders Fund not only to double down on its own proven winners but also to stay competitive in hot late-stage rounds that most VCs simply can't access.

Founders Fund is clearly gearing up to shape the next generation of industry-defining companies. I'll be watching to see where this capital goes next.

PS: You can track all the latest new VC fund raises here.

 
Interesting Links 🟣

• Katha VC releases a report on opportunities for investors in emerging markets.
  

• OpenAI’s latest cookbook for GPT 4.1, highlighting its improvements in agentic workflows and prompting.

• Audio-enabled crosswalks throughout Silicon Valley have been hacked with imitations of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg’s voice.

• Try out these tactics, specifically for founders, to uncover your strongest growth levers.
  

• The Operator-VC trap.

• Get an idea of what a realistic timeline could be for the future of AGI.

• IPOs are “over” (for now) based on the state of damage done by recent tariff policies and the increasing competition of AI.

• Soon-to-be MIT grads are struggling to find jobs, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

• Here are four types of startup pivots for small, early-stage companies.

• “Habits are algorithms”, learn why building habits may be more beneficial than setting goals.

• a16z video on “delightful utility” apps from founders who know how to drive attention and engagement.

AI for Content: 5 Tactical Plays for Founders & VCs (That We’re Using with Clients) 🟣

In this week’s marketing advice, I want to share 5 practical plays I’d actually recommend to startup teams and VC firms using AI for content. We learned these from other content marketing experts over time, and we’re using these at EverythingStartups for our own content and clients, and they’ve been very helpful.

Let’s get to the point:

1. Don’t write the prompt, let AI do it.

Take content you already love (your best LinkedIn post, a blog in your tone), and ask AI to reverse-engineer it into a reusable prompt template. This removes the guesswork and ensures consistency.

2. Talk first, write later.

Record a voice memo about your idea, drop it into AI, and let it turn your ramble into a structured first draft. It’s a faster way to stay in your voice while getting over the blank page.

3. Set structure, style, and strategy as guardrails.

AI on its own will drift into generic territory. Give it your exact format, tone rules, and company context (e.g. pitch decks, positioning) up front. This makes your outputs actually usable.

4. Use the ABCD framework to fix weak drafts.

Ask AI to review content with these 4 questions:

• What’s Awesome?

• What’s Boring?

• What’s Confusing?

• What do you Not Believe?

  You’ll spot edits faster and with less bias.

5. Never publish without a “Final Cut Director.”

Even great drafts need a final taste test. Someone on your team should own the sign-off to ensure it sounds right, reads sharp, and aligns with your brand.

→ TLDR: AI should accelerate your workflow, not replace your taste.

Train it on your voice, build repeatable templates, and use it as a creative partner, not a ghostwriter.

Want to improve your content engine? We can help.

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

• Deck, a one-year-old Montreal startup that aims to make it easy for apps to pull information from websites that lack APIs, raised a $12 million Series A round led by Infinity Ventures. The company has raised a total of $16.5 million.
  

• Atomic, a two-year-old New York startup that is building an AI-powered inventory optimization platform to help businesses reduce inventory costs and improve stock availability, raised a $3 million seed round led by DVx Ventures, with Madrona Ventures also chipping in.
  

• Bauplan, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that allows developers to build and manage data pipelines and AI applications using Python code, raised a $7.5 million seed round. Innovation Endeavors was the deal lead.
  

• Ideem, a one-year-old Kansas City startup that enables businesses to offer secure, one-click online checkouts without requiring users to enter codes or passwords, raised a $2.4 million seed round from Sovereigns Capital, Quona Ventures, Everywhere Ventures, Hustle Fund, Oread Angels, and Network KS.
  

• Youlify, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that uses generative AI to automate the entire medical billing process, from coding and claims to appeals and payment recovery, raised a $4.3 million seed round led by Bonfire Ventures and including Top Harvest Capital.