Fund Closings and Capital Formation

• Bessemer raises $5.75B for AI, with $3B already deployed since 2022
• Bain Capital Ventures closes $1.6B Fund XI, tilted to early stage
• a16z grows from $300M in 2009 to $15B in January 2026
• Snowpoint Ventures closes $411M Fund 2 for ten dual use companies
• Zero Infinity ($156M) and Breed VC ($15M) close Fund II
• Uplift, Zinc and Auxxo close regional deep tech and founder funds
• Guernsey's PIF regime now underpins almost all new private funds

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Startup Rounds and Where the Money Is Going

• EliseAI raises $350M at a $4B valuation
• Vitalize ($31M) and Vocca ($20M) bring AI to healthcare operations
• Planted raises $31.8M for power deployment, Monid $7.7M for agent tools
• UpSmith ($10M) and Altro Health ($7M) apply AI to trades and wellness
• Outer Spaces launches with $8M pre seed to power backyards
• Slow Ventures' Creator Fund backs three non AI startups

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New Products and Structures for Fundraising

• Carta launches fixed fee Law Venture Financings for seed rounds
• Metal launches Investor Relations for founders
• Get Access opens venture deals to individual investors
• Start Funds cuts the first close threshold to $100k
• A new structure lets angels launch a fund at no setup cost
• Villanova launches a student advised fund inside its endowment
• Antler and Google bring 25 EMEA startups to London

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Market Data, Valuations and Returns

• NVIDIA joins 53 rounds of $100M+ in eight months, ahead of a16z at 44
• $100M seed valuations are now common
• Sequoia sees seven deals reprice 31x within a month
• Humanoid robotics valuations outpace use cases
• Median IRR falls for 2017 to 2019 vintages
• Anthropic's $2T valuation sits at nearly 31x its July run rate
• Women's health takes only 10% to 12% of US medtech early funding
• EU SRIP 2026 shows a stronger ecosystem that still struggles to scale
• US investors underwrite upside, European investors underwrite downside

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The Founder Fundraising Playbook

• Startups now need 10x+ annual growth to raise VC
• Series A turns on growth rate, about $2.5M to $3M ARR growing 4x
• Customers come first, fundraising second
• Founders who can bootstrap to $1M ARR should delay raising
• The strongest warm intro is a founder with a great outcome
• Yoodli raised its first $1M with no deck or traction
• Joseph Heller skipped seed for an $11M Series A
• Investors grade on team, market, competition, metrics and exit
• Y Combinator's brand opens doors for outsiders
• Traction proves a business, capital is only a tool

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Choosing Investors and Finding Funds

• VCs earn about $200,000 in fees per $1M, so pick partners over check size
• Choose investors like cofounders, since bad ones steer for years
• Large funds bring brand but may treat small checks as options
• Corporate VCs offer distribution, but scrutinize motives and rights
• Khosla Ventures backs both Factory AI and Cognition
• Bold ideas are praised on stage but narrowed in private
• Directories now target funds backing founders outside the US and Europe
• Hubble lists investors with checks from $25K to $5M
• Seed lists name check sizes, from Uncork's $3M to $5M to Homebrew's $100k
• Tapestry, Rhea, Kiara and Elevation raised fresh 2026 capital

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Fund Manager Economics and Emerging Managers

• VC economics rest on fees, carry and a few outlier wins
• A $5M fund size reveals little about GP pay
• Emerging managers should avoid LPs with restrictive conditions
• Raising a fund starts years before launch
• One VC with 128+ portfolio companies runs a quarterly self review
• A deep dive maps the emerging manager fund of funds universe
• David Haber builds his network by doing item four on a to do list

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Thanks to Chris Ellis, Kevin Jurovich, Maria Gorskikh, Eric Ong, Pavel Gvay, Joseph Heller, Peter Walker, Matthew Dickerson, Shantanu R, Varun Puri, Nicole DeTommaso, Gale Wilkinson, Sephi Shapira, Leo Crowe, Caoimhe MacRunnels, Elizabeth Coston McCluskey, Lucas J. Pols, Luba Yudasina, Mike S., Chris Tottman, Ksenia Moskalenko, Celine Al Helou, Jacob Colker, Alejandro Cremades, Maxence de Villepion, Carina Cunha, Jenny Fielding, Rahul Pandey, Sophia Amoruso, Rogers Healy, Andrew Oved, Shaun Gold and everyone else who contributed insights to this edition. Find the full list of posts and voices on LinkedIn: