Wow. Big Week
Kalshi, TBPN, Poppi, JFK Files, Flock Safety, Celestial AI, Dexterity, Reflection, OpusClip, Terabase Energy, Scopely/Niantic, UiPath/Peak, Wonder/Tastemade; Hinge Health
Today’s Sourcery is brought to you by Archer..
Learn more about how Archer is set to open a new world of opportunity for passengers by providing safe and efficient access to people, places, and events across the communities they live at archer.com
Prediction markets are so hot right now..
Not all stocks are going down.. Nearly a month after our interview with Co-Founder & CEO Tarek Mansour, Kalshi announces they’re bringing prediction markets to over 25 million Robinhood users.. moving Robinhood’s stock price up in a 9% pop on Monday. (just in time for March Madness - this is not investment advice)
→ Check out full interview here
Musings
Macro
Fixing the American Dream with Andrew Schulz [All-In]
The CQ: Teens Have Trend Bloat & Are Forgoing a Classic Rite of Passage + More Consumer Must-Reads [Forerunner]
+ Forget young love.. stare at your phone instead. This featured story reminds me of this data “55% of single 18-30 men say they haven’t approached a woman in the last year.” Yikes. Ask someone out. Anyone. Literally, anyone.
Astronauts to return to Earth after being stuck in space for 286 days [CBS]
Catch the Crew-9 Livestream here - splashdown planned for approximately 5:57 p.m. EDT on March 18
Trump to release 80,000 pages of JFK files on Tuesday [Reuters]
In a weird move, Solana deleted an X post with a very expensive launch for a cringe pro-America anti-woke video campaign (John Coogan called peak) here’s the video for your viewing pleasure - btw you can’t say “based” anymore
M&A
PepsiCo to Acquire poppi for nearly $2B [Bloomberg]
Media
Mastering the art of communication skills & public speaking [DOAC]
Jack Altman launched Uncapped — a new pod simply based on “conversations with people I admire about things I’m genuinely interested in.” Debut episode features Sequoia’s Shaun Maguire about media warfare - fascinating
Technology Brothers rebrand to TBPN and Livestreamed YC in full ESPN fashion
HardTech
2025: The Dawn of Energy Abundance | TOO CHEAP TO METER Film by Jason Carman
Big event happening in El Segundo Wednesday night, more on that next week :)
Top Interviews
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour, The Future of Free Markets | Raising $110M. Rise of Prediction Markets. Trade on Everything.
Arielle Zuckerberg, Long Journey Ventures | Winning Founder Recipe: The "Rizz" & "Tiz," Lessons from John Doerr, $100M ARR AI Companies
Last Week (3/10-3/14):
Relevant deals include the 70+ deals across stages below. I've categorized the deals below into seven categories, Fintech, Care, Enterprise / Consumer, HardTech, Sustainability, Acquisition/PE, and Fund Announcements, and ordered from later-stage rounds to early-stage rounds.
Final Numbers
Florida is the top location for movers + Teslas drop in EV market share
VC Deals
Fintech:
- Plata, a Mexican consumer credit startup, raised $160m in Series A funding at a $1.5b valuation. Kora led, and was joined by Moore Strategic Ventures.
- Mesh, a San Francisco-based crypto payments network, raised $82 million in Series B funding. Paradigm led the round and was joined by Consensys, QuantumLight Capital, Yolo Investments, and others.
- Nirvana Insurance, an SF-based commercial trucking insurer, raised $80m in Series C funding. General Catalyst led, and was joined by insiders Lightspeed Venture Partners and Valor Equity Partners.
- Zolve, a Houston-based fintech provider for migrants, raised $51 million in Series B funding. Creaegis led the round and was joined by HSBC, SBI Investment, GMO VenturePartners, DG Daiwa Ventures, and existing investors Accel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sparta Group, and DST Global.
- Worth, an Orlando-based onboarding and underwriting automation platform for the financial industry, raised $25 million in funding. TTV Capital led the round and was joined by Ingeborg, Florida Funders, Deep Work Capital, and Florida Opportunity Fund.
- Trust & Will, a San Diego-based estate planning platform, raised $25 million in Series C funding. Moderne Ventures led the round and was joined by Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, UBS Next, Erie Strategic Ventures, and others.
- Tomo Mortgage, a Stamford, Conn.-based digital mortgage lender, raised $20 million in Series B funding from Progressive Insurance and existing investors Ribbit Capital, DST Global, and NFX.
- Mimo, a London-based financial management platform for SMBs, raised $8.5 million in funding. Project A led the round and was joined by existing investors Northzone and Seedcamp.
- Seismic, a New York City-based encrypted blockchain, raised $7 million in seed funding. a16z crypto led the round and was joined by Polychain, 1kx, dao5, and NGC.
Care:
- Vori Health, a NYC-based musculoskeletal care business, raised $53m in Series B funding. NEA led with participation from AlleyCorp, Intermountain Health's Intermountain Ventures, Echo Health Ventures, and Max Ventures.
- Bluebird Kids Health, a Palm Beach County, Fla.-based pediatric care provider, raised $31.5 million in funding. F Prime and .406 Ventures led the round and was joined by AIF and Juxtapose.
- Junction, a New York City-based healthcare infrastructure company formerly known as Vital, raised $18 million in Series A funding. Creandum led the round and was joined by Y Combinator, Point Nine, and Amino Collective.
Enterprise/Consumer:
- Celestial AI, a Santa Clara-based photonic interconnect technology developer, raised $250 million in Series C1 funding. Fidelity Management & Research Company led the round and was joined by BlackRock, Maverick Silicon, Tiger Global Management, Lip-Bu Tan, and existing investors AMD Ventures, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Temasek, and others.
- Reflection, a New York City-based AI company building superintelligent autonomous systems, raised $130 million in funding across seed and Series A rounds. Lightspeed and CRV led the Series A round and Sequoia and CRV led the seed round.
- Cybereason, a La Jolla, Calif.-based cybersecurity business, raised $120m led by SoftBank Corp., SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and Liberty Strategic Capital.
- Ditto, a San Francisco-based mobile database, raised $82 million in Series B funding. Top Tier Capital Partners and Acrew Capital led the round and was joined by U.S. Innovative Technology Fund, True Ventures, Amity Ventures, and others.
- Omni, a San Francisco-based business intelligence platform, raised $69 million in Series B. ICONIQ Growth led the round and was joined by Theory Ventures, First Round Capital, Redpoint Ventures, and others.
- Pentera, a Burlington, Mass.-based automated security validation company, raised $60 million in Series D funding. Evolution Equity Partners led the round and was joined by Farallon Capital Management.
- Norm Ai, a New York City-based regulatory AI agent developer, raised $48 million in funding from Coatue, Craft Ventures, Vanguard, and others.
- Bria, a New York City-based visual generative AI platform, raised $40 million in Series B funding. Red Dot Capital led the round and was joined by Maor Investment, Entrée Capital, GFT Ventures, and others.
- OpusClip, a San Francisco-based generative AI-powered video editing platform, raised $20 million in funding from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and others.
- Daupler, a Kansas City, Mo.-based response management system, raised $15 million in Series B funding. Aqualateral led the round and was joined by existing investors Burnt Island Ventures and KCRise Fund.
- Pragma, a Culver City, Calif.-based backend game engine, raised $12.8 million in funding from Greylock Partners, Upfront Ventures, Insight Partners, and others.
- Pickle, a New York City-based peer-to-peer clothing rental platform, raised $12 million in Series A funding. FirstMark and Craft Ventures led the round and were joined by Burst Capital and FJ Labs.
- Peer Global, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based metaverse game engine, raised $10.5 million in funding from the family office of Tommy Mai.
- AIceberg, a New York City-based AI risk management platform, raised $10 million in seed funding from SYN Ventures and Sprout & Oak.
- Alceberg, a New York City-based developer of AI safety and compliance technology, raised $10 million in seed funding from SYN Ventures and Sprout & Oak.
- Onyx, a San Francisco-based AI workplace research agent, raised $10 million in seed funding. Khosla Ventures and First Round Capital led the round and were joined by Y Combinator and angel investors.
- Faireez, a New York City-based AI-powered residential housekeeping platform, raised $7.5 million in funding from Aristagora VC, Longevity Venture Partners, Hetz Ventures, Secret Chord Ventures, and others.
- Liminal Experiences, a Los Angeles-based UGC gaming company, raised $5.8 million in seed funding from BITKRAFT Ventures, Riot Games, OTK Media Group, and angel investors.
- Human Computer, a San Francisco-based game studio, raised $5.7 million in seed funding. Makers Fund led the round and was joined by a16z and Belinda Johnson.
- Enter, a São Paulo-based AI legal agents developer, raised $5.5 million in funding from Sequoia Capital.
- Uthana, a Los Angeles-based 3D character animation generative AI platform, raised $4.3 million in funding. IA Ventures led the round and was joined by A16Z Speedrun, Acequia Capital, Cursor Capital, and others.
- pgEdge, an Alexandria, Va.-based distributed PostgreSQL solutions provider, raised $4 million in funding from Akamai Technologies, Qube Research & Technologies, and existing investors Rally Ventures and Sands Capital.
- SaySo, a New York City-based retail clearance shopping platform, raised $4 million in funding from UP.Partners.
- Wolf Games, a Los Angeles-based generative games developer, raised $4 million in seed funding from Dick Wolf, Jimmy Iovine, and Paul Wachter.
- PvX Partners, a Singapore-based consumer apps scaling platform, raised $3.8 million in seed funding. Play Ventures and General Catalyst led the round and were joined by angel investors.
- Podqi, a San Francisco-based AI automated brand protection solutions provider, raised $3.2 million in seed funding. General Catalyst led the round and was joined by Soma Capital, Afore Capital, and angel investors.
- ZippedScript, a Toronto-based AI-powered education and employment verification solutions provider, raised $3.2 million in funding. Arcanum Capital, Right Side Capital, and New Stack Ventures invested in the $750,000 pre-seed round. Work-Bench led the $2.4 million seed round and was joined by existing investor New Stack Ventures.
- Thanks, a New York City-based ad network, raised $2.6 million in seed funding from Peak XV Partners, Founder Collective, and Side Stage Ventures.
HardTech:
- Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based community safety technology provider, raised $275 million in funding at a valuation of $7.5 billion. Andreessen Horowitz led the round and was joined by Greenoaks Capital and Bedrock Capital, Meritech Capital, and others.
- Terabase Energy, a Berkeley.-based solar power digital and automation solutions provider, raised $130 million in Series C funding. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the round and was joined by others.
- Dexterity, a robotics company aiming for human-like dexterity, raised $95m at a $1.7b valuation. Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sumitomo Corp. participated.