Tootfinder

Inside GitHub's Fake Star Economy
https://awesomeagents.ai/news/github-fake-stars-investigation/

The problem with relying on commercial services for hosting any of your blog content is that they may only be around 10 or 15 years.
My blog has been around for 29 years and every now and then I need to fix up a bunch of posts from a decade ago because some service shut down.
My personal site (paid for by doing side jobs for people) has outlasted corporations with VC backing and overpaid CEOs who failed.

Nvidia says it is working with Peak XV and other VC firms in India to fund AI startups; over 4,000 Indian AI startups have joined its global startup program (Dylan Butts/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/18/nvidia-india-ai-vc-data-center-partners.html…

Nvidia is partnering with major Indian VC firms in search for the country's next AI start-ups
Nvidia is expanding its partnerships in India, including with venture capital firms, as it bets on the country's AI ecosystem that has drawn massive Big Tech investments. 

«Inside GitHub's Fake Star Economy:
Six million fake stars, $0.06 per click, and a VC funding pipeline that treats GitHub popularity as proof of traction. We ran our own analysis on 20 repos and found the fingerprints.»
Who trusts his blind faith in optical impressions that are almost incomprehensible?!??
Oh no, that's JUST marketing.
🤷

Inside GitHub's Fake Star Economy
Six million fake stars, $0.06 per click, and a VC funding pipeline that treats GitHub popularity as proof of traction. We ran our own analysis on 20 repos and found the fingerprints.

Doc: Kalshi and Polymarket CEOs are investing in a VC fund, led by two early Kalshi employees, that is raising up to $35M to back prediction market startups (Ben Weiss/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2026/03/23/kalshi-polymarket-5cc-capital-prediction-…

Exclusive: The CEOs of Kalshi and Polymarket are arch rivals—but are investing in the same $35 million prediction market VC fund
Other investors include Marc Andreessen through the fund Moneta Luna and Micky Malka of the fintech investment firm Ribbit Capital.

A look at Sourcery, a podcast and newsletter from Molly O'Shea, which gets big-name guests including Palantir CEO Alex Karp and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey (Henry Chandonnet/Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/molly-oshe

Meet Molly O'Shea, the VC-turned-podcaster who gets execs like Alex Karp and Palmer Luckey talking
Molly O'Shea's network helped her land interviews with Palantir and Anduril leaders. "A lot of these people really trust me," the Sourcery host said.

Peak XV, which split from Sequoia in 2023, raised $1.3B across new India- and Asia-focused funds, bringing its total assets under management to over $10B (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/20/peak-xv-rais…

Peak XV raises $1.3B, doubles down on AI as global VC rivalry in India heats up | TechCrunch
Peak XV says most of its new capital will target India as the firm prioritizes AI, fintech and cross-border bets while navigating recent partner departures.

RE: https://newsie.social/@ProPublica/116261506729341121
Turning control of nuclear facilities over to the VC Bros that can't even remember to put a password on an AWS bucket containing all of their account keys seems... I'll advised.

PitchBook estimates that 25% of VC-backed unicorns have become "undercorns," startups once valued at $1B or more by VCs but now valued below that threshold (Dan Primack/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/13/vc-unicorn-companies

VC-backed unicorns are losing their horns
A quarter of "unicorn" startups have likely seen their market value drop below $1 billion, per PitchBook.

PitchBook: VC dealmaking in the media sector fell 69% YoY to $165M across 47 deals in the first two months of 2026, as investors take an "AI-first" approach (Lucas Manfredi/The Wrap)
https://www.thewrap.com/industry-news/deal

AI Still Dominates as Media VC Deals Fell 69% to $165 Million in First 2 Months of 2026
Lead the Future, Justin and Ben Smith’s Semafor and former Paramount co-CEO Brian Robbins’ Big Shot Pictures were among the biggest VC investments in January and February

It's fun to be actively fighting Bilal Mahmood's legislation that would strip $500 million in voter-approved funds for affordable housing over the next five years, all to give a tax cut to the rich, and see that Garry Tan called Mahmood "too progressive."
The billionaire/VC class in SF are not reasonable people we can work with. They must be defeated.
#sfpol

@… so much funny money floating around via VC that it makes sense why folks are trained to think this. It’s almost systemically set up to exploit devs that are people pleasers 😅 *hides*

European VC firm Hummingbird raised $800M to find "misfit" founders, taking its total assets to ~$2B, after backing Kraken and AI vibe coding startup Lovable (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/4d29c556-bbd9-490e-a3c8-90f5b894af9e

If people are worried about #emacs #vc-mode executing code when doing #git operations they are going to be shocked about the amount of access your average

Garry Tan, VC and Y Combinator CEO: Brain computer interfaces are now giving sight back to the blind https://garryslist.org/posts/brain-computer-interfaces-are-now-giving-sight-back-to-the-blind by @…

Brain Computer Interfaces Are Now Giving Sight Back to the Blind
A 2mm chip restored sight more than 80% of blind trial patients, built by a former cofounder of Neuralink.

Friends Don't Let Friends Use #Ollama
#LLM

Generation 65 plus: "Der #VCÖ schlägt vor, dass Personen, die ihren #Führerschein freiwillig abgeben, drei Jahre lang kostenlos ein #Klimaticket

I have a killer idea for an AI startup. The name says it all:
CanadianGirlfriend
You know what it does already, right?
I don’t even NEED a pitch. Someone send me VC checks!

General Catalyst plans to invest $5B in India over five years, an increase from the $500M to $1B previously announced, after merging with a local VC in 2024 (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/19/general-catalyst-commits-5b-to-ind…

General Catalyst commits $5B to India over five years | TechCrunch
The pledge marks a sharp jump from General Catalyst's earlier $500 million–$1 billion India earmark.

I think it's funny that VC was released 17 years after the year it was set in, imagine a new GTA intentionally set in 2009 (I know IV is basically that but there's a diff, contemporary v caricature)

Sources: a VC firm backed by Fidelity billionaire Johnson's family shelves plans to sell its stake in ~40 Chinese tech companies as geopolitical factors ease (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Sequoia says Doug Leone is returning in a newly created role of chairman, after he announced his retirement in 2022 from his role as "senior steward" (Iain Martin/Forbes)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2026/03…

Billionaire VC Doug Leone Back Investing At Sequoia In Chairman Role
Three years after his official retirement, the Midas List investor is back as a partner making active investments at the blue chip Silicon Valley fund.

Mubi, which raised $100M led by Sequoia in 2025, faced backlash over Sequoia's ties to Israeli defense tech startups, but has since rebuilt subscriber numbers (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/…

Sources: Dylan Patel's SemiAnalysis is in early talks to raise hundreds of millions for a VC fund; Patel raised a $50M SPV toward Fluidstack's $700M fundraising (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/dylan-patels-semia…

Dylan Patel’s SemiAnalysis Mulls Raising Venture Fund
SemiAnalysis, the top chip and infrastructure research firm founded by Dylan Patel, is considering raising money to invest in startups, according to someone with direct knowledge of the discussions. The talks are in the early stages, and the firm does not yet have a target, but it could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The move to raise a venture capital fund would formalize

Crypto VC firm Dragonfly closes a $650M fund, its fourth, as the crypto VCs go through a "mass extinction event"; Dragonfly backed Polymarket's Series B (Leo Schwartz/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2026/02/17/dragonfly-fou…

Exclusive: Crypto venture firm Dragonfly closes $650 million fourth fund—even as blockchain VCs face ‘mass extinction’
An inside look at the fast-rising firm, from its early Polymarket bet to its mysterious founding partner.

Founders are increasingly leasing multimillion-dollar mansions in San Francisco's wealthy neighborhoods as corporate HQs and hacker houses, amid the AI boom (The San Francisco Standard)
https://sfstandard.com/2026/03/17/move-garages-startups-now-hatc…

In SF’s newest gold rush, startups are competing for mansions
With VC money flowing, the new trend across San Francisco is leasing multimillion-dollar hacker houses.

A profile of wealth manager Iconiq, which, sources say, has $100B AUM, with $26B specifically for VC investing; Iconiq invested $3B into AI startups in 2025 (Natasha Mascarenhas/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Sources: top VC firms operating in India are expected to commit investments ranging from $300M to $500M each to India's AI ecosystem at the AI Impact Summit (The Economic Times)
https://economictimes.indi…

Major VCs line up top dollars for coordinated AI capital push in India
Top venture capital firms in India are set to invest $300–500 million each into the country’s AI ecosystem, covering infrastructure, enterprise applications and sector-specific solutions. Global and domestic VCs, including Khosla Ventures, Accel India and Lightspeed, are participating. Combined, these commitments could exceed $1 billion, surpassing last year’s startup funding.

A look at Anti Fund, a small VC firm cofounded by YouTuber Jake Paul that has gained access to hot rounds in startups like OpenAI, Anduril, Polymarket, and Ramp (Jake Angelo/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2026/02/14/who-is-jake-paul-venture-capital-a…

Jake Paul and his $65 million fortune are gaining influence in Silicon Valley
“We’re going to do amazing things in 2026,” said Steve Han, a partner at Paul's Anti Fund, told Fortune. “And then hopefully we'll show it over YouTube.”

European VC funding in Q1 2026 rose nearly 30% YoY to $17.6B, AI claimed over 50% of all European funding for the quarter, and deal volume dropped 40% YoY (Gené Teare/Crunchbase News)
https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/funding-picked-up-ai-led-europe-q1-2026/

AI Drives Europe’s Second Straight Quarter Of Funding Gain As Deal Volume Falls Sharply
European venture funding reached $17.6 billion  in Q1 2026, Crunchbase data shows. That’s up nearly 30% year over year and marks the second consecutive quarter of growth. The main driver was AI, which for the first time claimed more than 50% of the continent’s total funding for the quarter.

Multicoin co-founder and Managing Partner Kyle Samani says he is stepping back from the VC firm and has transitioned to an advisory role (Daniel Kuhn/The Block)
https://www.theblock.co/post/388561/multicoin-founder-kyle-samani-ste…

In a podcast, OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger describes his phone calls with Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman, and says he had been contacted by "every big VC" (Marcus Schuler/Implicator.ai)
https://www.implicator.ai/peter-steinberger-chose-o…

Peter Steinberger Chose OpenAI. The Code Was Never the Point.
OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger joins OpenAI over Meta. The 196,000-star project's code wasn't the prize. Its adoption graph was.

India approves a $1.1B state-backed VC fund to finance high-risk areas like AI and advanced manufacturing, doubling down on an effort that debuted in 2016 (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/14/india-doubles-down…

India doubles down on state-backed venture capital, approving $1.1B fund | TechCrunch
India’s $1.1B fund-of-funds will invest through private VCs to support deep-tech and manufacturing startups.

Tether, flush with cash, has been investing in diverse sectors ranging from sleep tech company Eight Sleep to humanoid robotics company Neura Robotics (PitchBook)
https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/stablecoin-issuer-tether-has-so-much-cas…

Some of the biggest VC firms are backing both OpenAI and Anthropic, breaking a taboo by investing in competing startups, as the AI race reshapes venture capital (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-11/…

A profile of Jeffrey Yan and his startup Hyperliquid, a $10B crypto exchange that never took VC money and generated $900M in profit in 2025 with 11 employees (Dom Cooke/Colossus)
https://colossus.com/article/beyond-the-sky-jeffrey-yan-hyperliquid/

Hyperliquid: In Singapore With Jeffrey Yan
Jeffrey Yan turned down $100 million, airdropped billions to strangers, and can’t travel without a bodyguard. The story of how he built Hyperliquid,

PitchBook: European VC investments rose 5% YoY to a post-pandemic high of €66B in 2025; AI-related deals accounted for 35% , or €23.5B, up from €17.7B in 2024 (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/523ee7a9-489a-4f68-8aae-3f98c336b479

Source: Spark Capital, the first VC firm to back Anthropic in 2023, is raising about $3B in new funds, 50% more than the size of funds it raised two years ago (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/anthropic-backer-spark-c…

Anthropic Backer Spark Capital Targets $3 Billion in New Funds
Spark Capital, the first venture firm to back Anthropic, is in the process of raising about $3 billion in new funds, 50% more than the size of funds it raised two years ago, according to a person with direct knowledge of the fundraise. The fundraising target will test investor demand in a ...

Jay Graber is stepping down as Bluesky CEO, saying a "seasoned operator focused on scaling and execution" is needed; VC Toni Schneider is named interim CEO (Kate Knibbs/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/bluesky-ceo-jay-graber-is-stepping-down/
…

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber Is Stepping Down
Venture capitalist Toni Schneider will take over as interim CEO as Bluesky’s board of directors hunts for a permanent replacement.

How a16z became the dominant influence on Trump-era AI policy, including via Marc Andreessen building key relationships; an ex-official says it has "veto power" (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026…

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.

Global fintech VC funding rose 27% YoY in 2025 to $51.8B; Y Combinator was the most active investor in the space, participating in 151 deals, up 24.8% YoY (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)
https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/most-active-fintech-inve…

Y Combinator Was By Far The Most-Active Fintech Investor in 2025, Data Shows
All told, global venture funding to financial technology startups totaled $51.8 billion for 2025 compared to $40.8 billion in 2024, per Crunchbase data. The investors who provided all that capital included a mix of private equity and alternative investors, with venture capital firms and accelerators next in line.

Global VC investment hit a record $297B in Q1 2026, up 150% YoY, with AI startups capturing 81% of the funding; just four companies raised 64% of the total (Gené Teare/Crunchbase News)
https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/record-breaking-funding-ai-global-q1-202…

Q1 2026 Shatters Venture Funding Records As AI Boom Pushes Startup Investment To Nearly $300B 
The first quarter of 2026 was unlike any other for venture investment, driven by unprecedented spending on AI compute and frontier labs. Crunchbase data shows investors poured $297 billion into 6,000 startups globally in the quarter, up around 150% quarter over quarter and year over year, marking an all-time high for global venture investment not approached by any other quarter on record.

A look at South Park Commons, the VC firm behind a startup community focusing on idea exploration over immediate business plans, as it aims to raise $500M (Natasha Mascarenhas/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20