Tootfinder

Sources: Granola, which makes an AI-based note-taking app, aims to raise $100M led by Index Ventures at a $1B valuation, up from a $250M valuation in May 2025 (Iain Martin/Forbes)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/20

VCs’ Favorite Note-Taking App Granola In Talks To Hit $1 Billion Valuation
The London-based AI startup aims to raise a new round of at least $100 million led by Index Ventures, making the popular note-taking app the latest AI unicorn.

Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator - Capping-Credit-Card-Rates.pdf https://cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-URL/wp-content/uploads/sites/412/2025/09/03183755/Capping-Credit-Card-Rates.pdf

Battery recycling and cathode production startup Redwood expands its Series E to $425M, sources say at a $6B valuation, adds Google as a new strategic investor (Kirsten Korosec/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/28/redwood-attra…

Redwood attracts Google for its $425M Series E as AI power needs rise | TechCrunch
Google is the latest investor to back Redwood Materials as the battery recycling startup scales a new energy storage venture to power AI data centers and other industrial sites.

Serial entrepreneur Hamed Bahmani on early-stage building in neurotech https://www.neurofounders.co/post/serial-entrepreneur-hamed-bahmani-on-early-stage-building-in-neurotech

Serial Entrepreneur Hamed Bahmani on Early-Stage Building in Neurotech
Few people dare to start a company, and even fewer attempt it in a technically complex field like neurotechnology. Yet Dr Hamed Bahmani has now done it three times. After launching a clinical-stage company focused on myopia and another targeting Alzheimer’s through the visual system, he is doubling down on complexity. His latest venture has just emerged out of stealth, but early hints suggest it draws on decades spent at the forefront of neuro-innovation.Born in Iran, Bahmani studied engineer…

I needed to build up our inventory of parts to build our network testing products.
So I discover:
1. The Chinese vendor who makes the motherboards has stopped shipping to the US.
2. The memory I need - pretty basic 16gb DDR 4 and 5 SODIMS - unavailable or more than quadrupled in price.
3. M.2 NVME SSDs - unavailable or much higher prices.
F**k those AI companies especially the one that bought all those memory wafers it can't use just to block its competition…

Chinese state media: China launches three VC funds of $7.1B each to back early-stage "hard technology" startups valued below ¥500M, or about $71M (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boa…

Latin American VC funding rose 14.3% YoY in 2025 to $4.1B, with early-stage investment up 31.9% YoY to nearly $2B and late-stage/growth deals reaching $1.63B (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)
https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/vcs-bullish-latam-startup-…

LatAm Startup Funding Rebounds In 2025 As Mexico Sees Surge In Investment And VCs Remain Bullish On Region
Latin America startup investment climbed by 14.3% in 2025, driven by a boost in both early- and late-stage funding, Crunchbase data shows. 

DOJ files reveal how Jeffrey Epstein helped his Russian-born publicist Masha Bucher become a prominent VC who now boasts of early checks to 22 unicorns like xAI (Iain Martin/Forbes)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/20

How Jeffrey Epstein Helped His Publicist Become A Big-Time Venture Capitalist
Masha Bucher is one of the more high profile female VCs in Silicon Valley. New emails released from the Department of Justice reveal a deep, years long relationship with convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Booz Allen Hamilton commits $400M to a16z's newest set of funds, for which a16z raised $15B in January; this is Booz Allen's first LP stake in any VC fund (Lucinda Shen/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/pro/all-deals/2026/01/23/booz-allen-hamilton-400m…

Booz Allen Hamilton commits $400M to a16z funds
It's the firm's first LP stakes in any venture funds.

Robinhood launches an IPO for Robinhood Ventures Fund I, a $1B closed-end fund to provide retail investors access to private markets, offering 40M shares at $25 (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-17/ro…