Figma Files IPO + OpenAI's $3B M&A

Insider Trading? Blue Origin, General Matter, Thinking Machines, Neil Mehta, Coachella Recap, Base Power, Rippling, Poly-VCs

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Hello from an influenced LA

We’re back from Coachella & it was hands-down the best year to date. So good that more than 60% of attendees financed their tickets through their buy-now-pay-later payment plan to get in on the action.. Ok, well, ha, maybe, it’s actually a very tough time for fun.. In this economy!?! From $200 5-minute car rides out of the festival, zero pedicabs to get you in/out of the mile-long walk to the entrance, $20 strawberries from Erewhon, hot dog carts storming the gates to get some business.. & heaven forbid you want to go behind the Tiesto DJ booth 😉.. we all semi-jokingly blamed the tariffs. Regardless of that, the performances were absolutely astonishing, from Lady Gaga, Charli, Disco Lines, Tiesto, Green Day, Post Malone, Polo & Pan, Tyla, Travis Scott, Mustard, & more–it was hard to not walk away dancing, singing, and smiling.

But back to BNPL: Barstool writes a hilarious take on the shifting culture of the largest influencer conference in America, while GQ asks a deeper question: Is it worth going into debt for Coachella? (yes). Between DoorDash’s partnership with Klarna to finance your burrito bowl and Coachella’s serotonin-boosting lifelong memories with your friends, I’d go with the latter any day. Thanks to Lady Gaga & Coachella’s financing plan we can “Abracadabra ooh la la” some joy back into our lives.

The rumors are true.. polyamory in Silicon Valley is alive & well.

(Except for Founders Fund)

Musings

Macro

• Figma, confidentially files for an IPO despite Wall Street turbulence [Fortune]

  • Bold. Brave. & Beautiful. A solid exit regroup for Figma, 16 months after scrapping its $20 billion takeover by Adobe

• OpenAI in talks to buy Windsurf for about $3 billion [Bloomberg]

• Mira Murati’s AI startup Thinking Machines is reportedly aiming for a massive $2B seed round to be valued at $10 billion despite no revenue or products [Reuters]

HardTech

• Base Power Company: Chapter 2 [Packy McCormick]

  • Deep Diving into Base's violent execution to build America's Electric OS

  • BREAKING: Base Power's $200M Series B w/ Co-Founders Zach Dell & Justin Lopas

• Blue Origin's screaming star-studded launch with Lauren Sanchez, Katy Perry, & Gayle King [VideoFromSpace]

  • → Checkout our piece covering the first mission w/ NS-25’s crew member Mason Angel

• General Matter launches with $50M in funding & Thiel to join board [Scott Nolan, Founders Fund]

  • General Matter is making high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU [Bloomberg]

Health

• The $10B+ Opportunity in Healthcare Provider Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) [Selina Wang, Altimeter]

  • A critical layer of the US healthcare ecosystem that stands to reap massive benefits from AI innovation and automation.

More

• Founders Podcast: Michael Dell

• Finding the Next Figma, Wiz, & Stripe Before It's Obvious | Neil Mehta Interview [Invest like the best]

  • Full investor profile: Neil Mehta, Greenoaks

• The Operator-VC Trap [JMJ, Chapter One]

• Yikes. Politicians actively insider trading? Marjorie Taylor Greene Faces 'Insider Trading' Probe Calls Over Stock Buys

  • More on this in our upcoming interview with Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker & Autopilot Co-Founder Chris Josephs coming out this Friday! This is not financial advice.

Top Interviews

• LIVE FROM VARDA: Delian Asparouhov, Founders Fund & Varda

• Arielle Zuckerberg: Winning Founder Recipe The "Rizz" & "Tiz," Lessons from John Doerr, $100M ARR AI Companies

• SpaceX, Stripe, X, Ramp, Anduril: Navigating Liquidity in Private Markets | Christian Garrett, 137 Ventures

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Last Week (4/7-4/11):

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

Trading with China

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VC Deals

Fintech:

- Rippling, the payroll software company, is in early talks to raise hundreds of millions of dollars at a $16b valuation

- Sipay, an Istanbul, Turkey-based financial services platform, raised $78 million in Series B funding at a valuation of $875 million. Elephant VC led the round and was joined by QuantumLight.

- Rain, a Santa Monica-based earned wage access platform, raised $75 million in Series B funding. Prosus led the round and was joined by Nextalia Ventures, Spark Growth Ventures, and existing investors QED, Invus Opportunities, and others.

- Pennylane, a French accounting software startup, raised $75m at a $2b valuation. Sequoia Capital led, and was joined by CapitalG, Meritech, and DST Global

- Ethic, a New York City-based asset management platform, raised $64 million in Series D funding from State Street Global Advisors.

- Anecdotes, a Palo Alto-based AI-powered governance, risk, and compliance platform, raised $55 million in Series B funding. DTCP led the extended $30 million round and was joined by Glilot, Vertex, and Red Dot. Glilot led the initial $25 million round and was joined by Vertex and Red Dot.

- Blackbird Labs, a blockchain-enabled payment option for restaurants, raised $50m in Series B funding. Spark Capital led, joined by Coinbase Ventures, Amex Ventures and a16z.

- Turbine Finance, a Santa Monica-based liquidity provider for venture investors, raised $21.8 million in funding. Alpha Edison and TTV Capital led the $13 million Series A round and were joined by Fin Capital, B Capital, and Sozo Ventures. Alpha Edison and TTV Capital led the $8.8 million seed round and were joined by Fin Capital, B Capital, and Sozo Ventures.

- Luzern Risk, a New York City-based captive insurance services provider, raised $12 million in Series A funding from Caffeinated Capital.

- Haball, a Karachi-based supply chain financing and payments platform, raised $5 million in funding. Zayn VC led the round and was joined by Majlis Advisory SPV, angel investors, and others.

Care:

- Bliss Aesthetics, an Encinitas, Calif., cosmetic surgery startup, raised $17.5m in seed funding. Shine Capital led the financing, followed by Synchrony Ventures, Sheva Ventures, Point72 Ventures, and Cerca Partners

- Vivere Partners, a Laguna Beach, Calif.-based speciality insurance provider, raised $7.5 million in Series A funding. General Catalyst, Pathlight Ventures, and Greenlight Re led the round and were joined by others.

- OSSTEC, a London-based 3D-printed joint replacement implants developer, raised £2.5 million ($3.2 million) in funding. Empirical Ventures led the round and was joined by Oxford Innovation Finance, SFC Capital, Embryo Ventures, and Mishcon de Reya.

- illumicell AI, a Boston-based AI-powered male fertility diagnostics technology company, raised $2 million in pre-seed funding from KOFA Healthcare, Harvard Phoenix Venture Fund, MedTechSyndicates, and others.

- Rondah AI, a New York City-based AI-powered patient engagement software provider for dental service organizations, raised $1.8 million in pre-seed funding from 2048 Ventures and Twelve Below.

Enterprise/Consumer:

- Tailscale, a Toronto-based VPN services provider, raised $160 million in funding. Accel led the round and was joined by CRV, Insight Partners, Heavybit, and Uncork Capital.

- SandboxAQ, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based Alphabet spinoff developing AI models for enterprises, raised $150m from Google, Nvidia, and BNP Paribas at a $5.8b valuation.

- Rescale, a San Francisco-based digital engineering platform, raised $115 million in Series D funding from Applied Ventures, Atika Capital, Foxconn, and others.

- Redpanda, a San Francisco-based streaming data platform for agentic and operational applications, raised $100 million in Series D funding at a $1 billion valuation. GV led the round and was joined by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

- Krea, an SF-based platform for creatives working with genAI, raised $83m. Bain Capital Ventures led, joined by a16z and Abstract Ventures.

- Hydrolix, a Portland, Ore.-based data lake platform, raised $80 million in Series C funding. QED Investors led the round and was joined by Blumberg Capital, Frontline Ventures, Pruven Capital, Sozo Ventures, existing investors Akamai, AV8 Ventures, Ericsson Ventures, and others.

- incident.io, a London-based incident management platform, raised $62 million in Series B funding. Insight Partners led the round and was joined by existing investors Index Ventures and Point Nine Capital.

- Tessell, a San Francisco-based Database as a Service platform, raised $60 million in Series B funding. WestBridge Capital led the round and was joined by B37 Ventures, Rocketship.vc, and existing investor Lightspeed Venture Partners.

- NexGen Cloud, a U.K. AI infrastructure startup, raised $45m from high-net-worth individuals and family trusts

- LiveKit, a San Jose, Calif., network infrastructure startup for multimodal AI apps, raised $45m in Series B funding at a $345m valuation. Altimeter Capital led, joined by Redpoint Ventures and Hanabi Capital

- Portnox, an Austin-based cybersecurity company, raised $37.5 million in Series B funding from Updata Partners.

- groundcover, a Tel-Aviv-based observability platform, raised $35 million in Series B funding. Zeev Ventures led the round and was joined by existing investors Angular Ventures, Heavybit, and Jibe Ventures.

- TransFICC, a London-based connectivity and workflow solutions provider for the fixed income and derivatives markets, raised $25 million in Series B funding. Citadel Securities led the round and was joined by BlackFin Tech and existing investors.

- Bliss Aesthetics, a Bay Harbor Islands, Fla.-based Ai-powered cosmetic enhancement platform, raised $17.5 million in funding. Shine Capital led the round and was joined by Synchrony Ventures, Sheva Ventures, Point72 Ventures, and Cerca Partners.

- Outtake, a Brooklyn-based AI cybersecurity agents developer, raised $16.5 million in Series A funding. CRV led the round and was joined by S32, Nikesh Arora, and Bill Ackman. Slow, Night, Mantis, and others led the $3.5 million seed round.

- Solve Intelligence, an in-browser document editor, raised $12m in Series A funding led by 20VC

- Qevlar AI, a New York City-based autonomous AI security operations center analysts developer, raised $10 million in funding. EQT Ventures and Forgepoint Capital International led the round and were joined by others.

- Glimpse, a New York City-based AI-powered, end-to-end deduction management service for CPG brands, raised $10 million in Series A funding. 8VC led the round and was joined by Allison Pickens and existing investors YCombinator, Origin Ventures, and Informed Ventures.

- SigIQ.ai, a Berkeley-based AI-powered tutor developer, raised $9.5 million in seed funding. House Fund and GSV Ventures led the round and were joined by Duolingo, General Catalyst India, Peak XV Partners, Calibrate Ventures, and angel investors.

- Fern, a Brooklyn-based SDKs and API documentation generator, raised $9 million in Series A funding. Bessemer Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Y Combinator and angel investors.

- Miss Moneypenny Technologies, a Berlin-based Apple and Google Wallet SaaS platform developer, raised $8 million in seed funding. Earlybird led the round and was joined by existing investor b2venture.

- Starday, a Scottsdale-based AI-powered food brand launch and development company, raised $8 million in Series A funding. Slow Ventures and Equal Ventures led the round and was joined by Vinyl Capital, Hannah Gray, Fearless Fund, Heirloom Capital Partners, and others.

- HoneyHive, a New York City-based AI agent observability and evaluation platform, raised $7.4 million in funding. Insight Partners led the $5.5 million seed round and was joined by Zero Prime Ventures, 468 Capital, and MVP Ventures. Zero Prime Ventures led the $1.9 million pre-seed round and was joined by AIX Ventures, Firestreak Ventures, and angel investors.

- Octane, a New York City-based AI-powered blockchain cybersecurity platform, raised $6.8 million in seed funding. Archetype and Winklevoss Capital led the round and was joined by Gemini, Circle, Legion Capital, angel investors, and others.

- Starhive, a Stockholm-based IT asset and service management provider, raised $5 million in pre-Series A funding. Ventech led the round and was joined by node.vc.

- Spektion, an Austin-based software vulnerability management company, raised $5 million in seed funding. LiveOak Ventures led the round and was joined by Tau Ventures and Dauntless Ventures.

- Pax, a San Francisco-based duty drawback process automation company, raised $4.5 million in seed funding. Initialized Capital led the round and was joined by Sancus, Basis Set, Soma Capital, angel investors, and others.

- Linus, an Oakland, Calif.-based SAT prep gamification startup, raised $5m in seed funding led by Owl Ventures

- Series, a New York City-based AI-powered social network for college students, raised $3 million in pre-seed funding. Parable led the round and was joined by Pear VC, DGB.VC, 47th Street, angel investors, and others.

- Dosen, an Irish HR tech platform focused on "quiet quitting," raised $2.3m in pre-seed funding. Affinity Ventures led, joined by Unshackled Ventures and Fuel Ventures

- Sagittal AI, a London-based task-oriented AI solutions provider for software development, raised $2.2 million in pre-seed funding. Twin Path Ventures led the round and was joined by SineWave Ventures, Fuel Ventures, Blue Lake VC, and an angel investor.

- YRIKKA, a New York City-based AI red teaming platform, raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding from Focal and Garuda Ventures.

HardTech:

- Base Power, an Austin-based energy company, raised $200 million in Series B funding. Addition, Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Valor Equity Partners led the round and were joined by existing investors Thrive Capital, Altimeter, Terrain, Trust, and others.

- Nuro, a Mountain View, Calif.-based autonomous driving technology developer, raised $106 million in Series E funding, valuing the company at $6 billion, from T. Rowe Price Associates, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Tiger Global Management, and others.