Tootfinder

Source: Dragoneer raised $4.3B for its seventh VC fund and now has over $30B in AUM; it raised $3.8B for its sixth private fund in 2022 (Dan Primack/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/12/15/dragoneer-vc-fund

Scoop: Dragoneer raises $4.3 billion for new VC fund
It's an outlier in what has been an exceptionally slow year for VC fundraising.

“Oh, look, they’ve built a new sewer… I wonder if it’ll enshittify?”
– Some folks, over and over again
#startups #VC

Sequoia's Shaun Maguire speculated in an X post that a Palestinian student was behind the Brown University shooting; the post was later deleted (Chris Stokel-Walker/Fast Company)
https://www.fastcompany.com/91463942/sequoia-shaun-maguire-brow…

Sequoia's Shaun Maguire accused an innocent Palestinian of being the Brown shooter. Then he doubled down.
Online sleuthing is not, it turns out, among the noted VC's talents.

"Twenty’s contracts are a rare case of an AI offensive cyber company with VC backing landing Cyber Command work; typically cyber contracts have gone to either small bespoke companies or to the old guard of defense contracting like Booz Allen Hamilton or L3Harris."
The Pentagon Is Spending Millions On AI Hackers

The Pentagon Is Spending Millions On AI Hackers
The U.S. government has been contracting stealth startup Twenty, which is working on AI agents and automated hacking of foreign targets at massive scale.

Oh goody, a LinkedIn connection request with a message!
Let’s break this down:
> …vc backed…
Focused on quarterly profits / RoI instead of outcomes.
> …invite-only…
NDAs and other gag agreements.
> …openAI browser…
Chromium that begs authors for ARIA to parse content.
> …seeing promising results…
Which aren’t genuine results.
> …goal is 100% WCAG testing…
Ah, snake oil.
> …with high capture rates.
Sales…

London-based PolyAI, which makes call center AI voice assistants, raised an $86M Series D led by Georgian, Hedosophia, and Khosla, after raising $50M in 2024 (John Reynolds/Tech.eu)
https://tech.eu/2025/12/15/polyai-raises-86m/

PolyAI raises $86M
London-based AI startup PolyAI has raised $86m in a Series D funding round.The funding round in the AI assistant developer for call centres was co-led by existing investors Canadian B2B software investor Georgian, London-based investor Hedosophia and US VC firm Khosla Ventures.Additional investors were NVentures (Nvidia’s VC arm), Sands Capital, Squarepoint Ventures, Citi Ventures, Point72 Ventures and the British Business Bank, which invested £15m ($20.1m). The British Business Bank is also…

when VC funded projects quiet-quit

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. 

Tokyo-based Sakana AI becomes Japan's most valuable unicorn at a ~$2.6B valuation, following a ~$130M raise from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and US VC firms (Nikkei Asia)
https://asia.nikkei.com/business/technology/a…

Sakana AI takes crown as Japan's most valuable unicorn
AI developer valued at $2.63bn in latest funding round

I’d like to revise and say that my hotter take is that every VC-funded *open source* software project should report both runway amounts and how many active FTE they have on payroll

Ventura County Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster ( #VCVOAD )
is a collaborative of nearly 50 local non-profit agencies,
faith-based organizations,
volunteer groups,
public institutions,
and private entities
dedicated to improving outcomes for people affected by disasters.
VC-VOAD helps communities respond to and recover from major disasters guided by our f…

About | Ventura County VOAD

Total global VC funding to fintech startups totaled $51.8B in 2025, up 27% YoY and above pre-pandemic totals, but much lower than 2021's peak of $141.6B (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)
https://news.crunchbase.com/fintech/funding-jumped-big-checks-ai-ye-2025/<…

Fintech Funding Jumped 27% In 2025 With Fewer Deals But Bigger Checks
Global venture funding to fintech startups climbed in 2025 to its highest level in several quarters, boosted by later-stage deals, Crunchbase data shows.

@… yeah, absolutely — I’d take FTE over runway. But with both you can better estimate how much time is left on the VC Hourglass of Funding™

VC fund a16z crypto says it is expanding to Asia and opening an office in Seoul, calling South Korea the world's second-largest crypto market (Sam Reynolds/CoinDesk)
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/12/10/a16z-cryp…

Andreessen Horowitz Crypto Unit to Expand Into Asia With South Korea Office
The crypto VC says it's opening its first Asia-based office in Seoul.

my hot take is that I think every VC-funded software project should report how much runway they have left every month

I used to run a few generative Twitter bots, all of which are now defunct due to Elon-related API restrictions, focus and audience shifts, etc. I'd like to resurrect a couple, and maybe even ensloppify one with AI (to attract VC $€£) but it appears botsin.space is dead. Any decent botting instances left? Is mastodon.bot alright? Should I just start my own instance, and make my hobby trying to get federated, instead?

Ripple Effects
Hosted by Soph Dicker from So Invested following Australian founders and VC operators on a transformative two-week journey in Tanzania...
Great Australian Pods Podcast Directory: https://www.greataustralianpods.com/ripple-effects/

A profile of VC firm Index Ventures, which saw billions in gains from exits in 2025, including Figma, Scale AI, and Dream Games, as it looks ahead to succession (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-01-08/inde…

Soso, #Nexthink an eine US-amerikanische Firma zu verkaufen ist also ein grosser Erfolg.
Fühlt sich irgendwie falsch an.
Der Einschub «Diese Transaktion wird viel Geld in die Region zurückbringen, das reinvestiert werden kann» finde ich nur halbwegs tröstlich. Aber hey, ich bin ja auch kein VC...

Nexthink: Schweizer Softwarefirma für 3 Milliarden übernommen
Wenige Start-ups erreichen je den in der Businesswelt begehrten Einhornstatus. Nexthink war eines davon. Dass es verkauft wurde, sei ein Meilenstein für die Schweizer Techbranche, sagt ein Experte.

PitchBook-NVCA: global VC investments hit $512B in 2025 with AI accounting for 50% ; VC fundraising fell to a 10-year low of $118.6B, ~$100B less than in 2024 (Duncan Riley/SiliconANGLE)
https://siliconangle.com/2026/01/07/pitch…

PitchBook: AI dominates global venture capital as 2025 deal value nears record - SiliconANGLE
PitchBook: AI dominates global venture capital as 2025 deal value nears record - SiliconANGLE

Sources: Balderton cashed out ~$2B of its Revolut stake in the past year, turning an early £1M bet into a historic European VC win; its fifth fund returned 25x (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/97e6f29e-bc79-43e0-bcbd-2dfe98755ea3

PitchBook: US AI and robotics VC deals are up over 4x since 2023 to $160B so far in 2025, while comparable China deals are just $10B , up from $9.24B in 2023 (CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/26/cnbc-china

CNBC's The China Connection newsletter: Foreign investors warm to China’s cheaper AI valuations despite fears of a U.S. bubble
For all the worries about a bubble in U.S. AI spending, capital flows into China's tech sector is far less, pushing startups to do more with less.

Nick Clegg joins London-based VC firm Hiro Capital as a general partner, and Yann LeCun joins the firm as an adviser; sources: Hiro looks to raise a €500M fund (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/98cf87d9-3d1c-4f60-9c50-eed36a25e219

Lighter, which operates an Ethereum Layer 2 network and a decentralized exchange to support perpetual futures contracts, raised $68M at a ~$1.5B valuation (Naga Avan-Nomayo/The Block)
https://www.theblock.co/post/378358/lighte

Tucuvi, which develops AI agents that check in with patients and escalate cases to human teams when needed, raised a $20M Series A, led by Cathay and Leadwind (John Reynolds/Tech.eu)
https://tech.eu/2026/01/08/clinical-voice-ai-startup-tucuvi-raises-20m/

Clinical voice AI startup Tucuvi raises $20M
A Spanish AI voice startup, which says its tech makes minor clinical decisions while on the call with patients, has raised $20m in a Series A funding round.Tucuvi was founded by Maria Gonzalez, its CEO, whose mother passed away after a reported hospital administration error.The Series A funding round was led by VC firm Cathay Innovation and Madrid-based Kfund, through its early-growth fund Leadwind, with participation from existing investors Frontline Ventures, Seaya Ventures, and Shilling.Tucu…

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio3's #NightTracks
Johann Sebastian Bach, Gabriela Montero & Gabriela Montero:
🎵 Adagio after Bach VC in E major BWV1042
#JohannSebastianBach #GabrielaMontero
https://open.spotify.com/track/1v3gGmcneK1QzYyBFiBXG0

a16z raises over $15B across five new funds, including $6.75B for its fifth growth fund and $3B for unspecified "other venture strategies" (Dan Primack/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2026/01/09/andreessen-horowitz-15-billion-for-new-funds

Andreessen Horowitz raises $15 billion for new funds
It's a major boost for the U.S. VC market, after its weakest fundraising year since 2017.

Sources and US tax lawyers: the IRS's planned audit of private equity and VC firms is faltering under President Trump, as many senior leaders leave the agency (Jesse Drucker/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/business/irs-private…

Push to Audit Private Equity and Venture Capital Falters Under Trump
Specialists have left the I.R.S. and audits have been abandoned since the president returned to office.

Qualcomm Ventures and six Indian VC firms join India Deep Tech Alliance with an additional $850M in commitments; Nvidia joins as a strategic technical adviser (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/04/nvid

NVIDIA, Qualcomm join U.S., Indian VCs to help build India's next deep tech startups | TechCrunch
Qualcomm Ventures has joined six Indian venture firms, collectively adding more than $850 million to boost India’s deep-tech ecosystem.

Sources: Roelof Botha was asked to step aside after some Sequoia partners raised concerns about his leadership; Botha had declined to comment on Shaun Maguire (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/sequ

An analysis of Crunchbase and PitchBook data: in 2025 so far, 80 tech startups reached $1B valuations, many of them focused on AI with exceptions like Kalshi (Dominic-Madori Davis/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/01/at-least-36-new-tech-…

At least 80 new tech unicorns were minted in 2025 so far | TechCrunch
Using data from Crunchbase and PitchBook, TechCrunch tracked down the VC-backed startups that became unicorns so far this year.

Mumbai-based Knight Fintech, which builds core infrastructure connecting banks, lenders, platforms, and borrowers, raised $23.6M led by Accel (The Economic Times)
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/…

Knight Fintech secures $23.6 million from Accel, IIFL, & others
Knight Fintech has raised $23.6 million in a funding round led by early-stage venture firm Accel, with participation from IIFL and Rocket Capital. Existing investors Prime Venture Partners, 3One4 Capital, Commerce VC, and Trifecta Capital also participated in the round.

Tracxn: VC funding for Indian startups fell 17% YoY to $10.5B in 2025 across 1,518 deals, down ~39% YoY; AI startups raised $643M, up 4% YoY, across 100 deals (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/27/india-startu…

India startup funding hits $11B in 2025 as investors grow more selective | TechCrunch
Startup funding rounds in India fell sharply in 2025 as investors concentrated capital into fewer companies.

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…

Sequoia, a16z, and other VC firms invested $1.2B into police and public safety tech startups over the past year, following the success of Palantir and others (Abram Brown/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/a

Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Add to $1.2 Billion Funding Boom for Police Tech Startups
Over the past year, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and many of Silicon Valley’s other top venture capital firms have funneled at least $1.2 billion in funding to startups selling technology to city police departments and local public safety agencies. Those companies illustrate the technology industry’s growing enthusiasm for making software and hardware for the government and law

Sources: Kalshi is receiving funding offers from VC investors at $10B-$12B or higher valuations, just weeks after it announced a $300M round at a $5B valuation (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Cerrion, which develops AI video agents that detect and resolve production line issues in real time, raised an $18M Series A led by Creandum (Tamara Djurickovic/Tech.eu)
https://tech.eu/2025/11/25/cerrion-raises-18m-to-reduce-factory-downtime-wi…

Cerrion raises $18M to reduce factory downtime with AI video agents
Cerrion, the Swiss-founded AI video agent platform that detects and resolves production line issues in real time, has raised $18 million in Series A funding to further expand and scale operations in the US and Europe. The round was led by Creandum, with participation from existing investors Y Combinator, Goat Capital, 10x Founders and Session VC, alongside prominent angels including Harry Stebbings (20VC), Oskar Hjertonsson, Thomas Wolf (Hugging Face) and Garret Langley (Flock Safety).Fa…

Everett Randle, a former partner at Kleiner Perkins, joins VC firm Benchmark as general partner, following a slew of personnel departures at Benchmark (Natasha Mascarenhas/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/benchmark-names-ev…

Benchmark Names Everett Randle as New General Partner 
Everett Randle, a former partner at Kleiner Perkins investing out of its growth-stage funds, has joined Benchmark as the firm’s newest general partner, the early-stage firm announced Monday. At Kleiner, Randle worked on investments including enterprise search startup Glean and legal AI startup Harvey, earning him a top spot on The Information’s Next General Partners list in 2024. The hiring

Arbiter, which is using AI to automate healthcare administrative tasks, emerges from stealth with a $52M seed from multiple family offices at a $400M valuation (Rebecca Torrence/Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/health-sta

This former Eli Lilly exec just raised a $52 million seed round from family offices to build a new healthcare AI startup.
Thirty Madison's former president is launching her own healthcare AI startup without a drop of VC funding.