GigaChad Jesus
Wiz, CoreWeave, Klarna; Nerdio, Cognition, Graphite, Apptronik, Kela, Augument, Tera AI, Factorial; Long Journey Ventures
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Dawn of a New Renaissance
As previously stated by Sourcery back in 2023.. LA is the new epicenter of U.S technology & VC funding (read Part I & Part II). And last week, one of the region’s most active investors hosted an iconic event celebrating the wins of the community alongside renowned artists that perfectly encapsulate the ex machina culture.
Day One Ventures, alongside Isaiah Taylor of Valar Atomics, & Augustus Doricko of Rainmaker, invited founders, engineers, investors, artists, and more, to a night where art and tech collided. A blueprint for a new Renaissance.. with GigaChad Jesus.
Where exactly? El Segundo, the Silicon Valley of deep tech. Here, ex-SpaceX engineers, college dropouts, and relentless builders are tackling real-world problems—not SaaS fluff or commoditized AI. They’re casting rocket parts, automating manufacturing, modifying weather, welding nuclear reactors, and designing the future of infrastructure, energy, and aerospace. The hard stuff.
The evening featured an art collection from industry legends (over $1M in value) – Alex Reben, OpenAI’s First Artist-in-Residence, Julius Margulies, FAILE, Miya Ando, Shawn Kolodny, Felipe Pantone, MSCHF, Nam June Paik, and more—curated by Paul Schimmel, MOCA Chief Curator for over two decades. With a special performance by Jacob Jonas the Company.. which left the room stunned.
Not the typical tech event. Sophistication dialed up. Cocktail attire. Guests flown in from Miami to SF.. It’s really exciting to see LA evolve past adtech & social media, putting a real stake in the ground to enter a new dimension. There’s no going back.
Luddites tremble.
Pictured: Masha Bucher +Julius Margulies (Art), MSCHF (Art), Augustus Doricko +Shawn Kolodny (Art)
“ I'm proud to say that what started off as punks.. that had a vision for what the future could look like, is now finally coming to fruition.
So over the course of the next year, two years, decade and century, I think that this place, because of the support of all of you, because of the work from people like Isaiah and otherwise. We'll be able to not just make El Segundo great, not just make America great, but usher in a new era of prosperity and abundance.
The likes of which had never been seen because it was a bunch of punks, because it was a bunch of dropouts, because it was a bunch of kids that were posting on Twitter excitedly and happily.. we should build things again.. we should break rules in service of building things.” - Augustus Doricko, Rainmaker
Pictured: Adam Gefkovicz of Genius Ventures, me, Xander Oltmann of Commodity Capital, +Felipe Pantone (Art)
Musings
Macro
VC RETURNS REVEALED: See IRR Performance for 50+ VC Funds in 2024 [Newcomer]
BREAKING: 2024 VC Fund Performance [Carta]
Our 2025 Annual Consumer Trend Report [Forerunner]
10 Charts That Capture How the World Is Changing [Rex Woodbury]
VC/DC
Vice President JD Vance Delivers Remarks at the American Dynamism Summit [The White House]
Scott Bessent + Howard Lutnick | All-In in DC
Top Interviews
Navigating Liquidity in Private Markets: SpaceX, Stripe, X, Ramp, Anduril | Christian Garrett, 137 Ventures
Arielle Zuckerberg, Long Journey Ventures | Winning Founder Recipe: The "Rizz" & "Tiz," Lessons from John Doerr, $100M ARR AI Companies
Shoutout to Business Insider for writing an article on this interview
Cyan Banister & Lee Jacobs Investing in the Magically Weird | SpaceX, Uber, Anduril, Crusoe
Last Week (3/17-3/21):
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.
Recent highlights include a strong focus on AI-driven startups and IPO activity. Key companies include Cognition AI, which raised "hundreds of millions" at a $4B valuation for its coding assistant platform, and Graphite, an AI-powered code review platform, which secured $52M in Series B funding. Other notable AI startups include Buynomics ($30M for pricing optimization), Gradial ($13M for marketing operations), and Inspiren ($35M for AI tools in senior living). In IPOs, CoreWeave, a cloud computing platform, is targeting a $2.5B raise at a $29.1B valuation, backed by Magnetar, Nvidia, and Fidelity, while Klarna Group, a leading e-commerce payment platform, has filed to go public on the NYSE
VC Deals
Fintech:
- RedotPay, a Hong Kong-based crypto payment platform, raised $40m in Series A funding. Lightspeed led, and was joined by HSG, Galaxy Ventures, DST Global Partners, Accel, and Vertex Ventures.
- NymCard, a MENA-focused embedded finance platform, raised $33m in Series B funding. QED Investors led, and was joined by Shorooq, Lunate and Endeavor Catalyst
- Buynomics, a Cologne, Germany-based AI-powered pricing and revenue optimization platform, raised $30 million in Series B funding. Forestay Capital led the round and was joined by Anais Ventures, VI Partners, and existing investors Insight Partners, Seedcamp, DvH Ventures, and Tomahawk Ventures.
- Crossmint, an enterprise blockchain development startup, raised $23.6m. Ribbit Capital led, and was joined by Franklin Templeton, Nyca, First Round, Lightspeed Faction, and HF0
- Multiply Mortgage, a provider of mortgages as an employee benefit, raised $23.5m in Series A funding. Kleiner Perkins led, and was joined by BoxGroup, A*, Mischief, and Workshop
- Halliday, a San Francisco-based workflow automation services provider for financial institutions, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Andreessen Horowitz led the round and was joined Avalanche Blizzard Fund, Credibly Neutral, and Alt Layer.
- Utila, a New York City-based digital assets management platform, raised $18 million in Series A funding. Nyca Partners led the round and was joined by Wing VC, NFX, Haymaker Ventures, and others.
- Town, a San Francisco-based tax platform for small businesses, raised $18 million in seed funding. First Round Capital led the round and was joined by Conviction Partners, Alt Capital, WndrCo, and angel investors.
- Privy, a New York City-based blockchain infrastructure company, raised $15 million in funding. Ribbit Capital led the round and was joined by Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, and Coinbase.
- AidKit, a Denver-based aid administration public benefit corporation for government agencies and nonprofits, raised $8.5 million in Series A funding from Blueprint Equity.
- Stable Sea, a San Francisco-based stablecoin offramping platform, raised $3.5 million in funding. Kindred Ventures led the round and was joined by Ludlow Ventures, DFS Lab, The Venture Dept., and The Fintech Fund.
- ClearGrid, a Dubai, UAE-based AI-powered debt collective platform for the Middle East and North Africa, raised $10 million in funding. Raed Ventures and Beco Capital led the $3.5 million pre-seed and were joined by Waed Ventures, KBW Ventures, Sharaka, angel investors, and others. Nuwa Capital and Raed Ventures led the $6.5 million seed round and were joined by existing investors.
- Peregrine Exploration, a New York City-based blockchain development company, raised $2.6 million in funding. Dragonfly led the round and was joined by Polychain Capital, Flowdesk, and an angel investor.
- Manifest, a startup bringing U.S. private equity real estate onchain, raised $2.5m in pre-seed funding. VanEck Ventures and Lattice Fund co-led, and were joined by Compound and SALT
Care:
- Inspiren, a N.Y.-based provider of AI tools for senior living, raised $35m in Series A funding. Avenir led, and was joined by Primary Venture Partners, Story Ventures, Third Prime, and Studio VC
- Dalma, a Paris-based pet insurance provider, raised €20 million ($21.8 million) in Series B funding. Breega led the round and was joined by Bpifrance Digital Venture and existing investors Northzone and Anterra Capital.
- Nimblemind.ai, a Chicago-based AI-powered data infrastructure platform for health care providers, raised $2.5 million in funding. Bread & Butter Ventures led the round and was joined by Great Oaks Venture Capital, SpringTime Ventures, Stone Mountain Ventures, angel investors, and others.
Enterprise/Consumer:
- Nerdio, a Chicago-based provider of Microsoft Azure deployment automation solutions, raised $500m in Series C funding at a pre-money valuation north of $1b. General Atlantic led, and was joined by Lead Edge Capital and StepStone.
- Cognition AI, a coding assistant maker, raised "hundreds of millions of dollars" at nearly a $4b valuation led by 8VC
- Dataminr, a real-time information startup, raised $85 in equity and debt funding co-led by NightDragon and HSBC
- PlaysOut, a London-based in-app mini-game company, raised $7 million in seed funding at a $70 million valuation from OKX Ventures, KBW Ventures, Pacific Century Group, and others.
- Graphite, a New York City-based AI-powered code review platform for developers, raised $52 million in Series B funding. Accel led the round and was joined by Menlo Ventures and Anthropic’s Anthology Fund and existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and The General Partnership.
- GrubMarket, a food B2B marketplace, raised $50m in Series G funding at a valuation north of $3.5b from 3Spoke Capital, Joseph Stone Capital, Liberty Street Funds, Pegasus Tech Ventures, Pinegrove Capital Partners, Portfolia, and ROC Venture Group
- Norm AI, a New York-based regulatory compliance automation startup, raised $48m from Coatue, Craft Ventures, Vanguard, Blackstone Innovations Investments, Bain Capital, New York Life Ventures, Citi Ventures, TIAA Ventures, and Marc Benioff.
- Cape, a Washington, D.C.-based mobile carrier, raised $15 million in funding from Cape investors A*, Costanoa, Point72, and XYZ Ventures.
- Gradial, a Seattle-based AI-powered enterprise marketing operations company, raised $13 million in Series A funding. Madrona led the round and was joined by Pruven Capital, General Advance, Outsiders Fund, and DLA Piper.
- VulnCheck, a Lexington, Mass.-based cybersecurity company, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Ten Eleven Ventures led the round and was joined by existing investors Sorenson Capital, In-Q-Tel, and others.
- Arcade.dev, a secure AI agent platform, raised $12m in seed funding led by Laude, a new VC firm led by Perplexity co-founder Andy Konwinski
- Pluralis Research, a Melbourne-based decentralized AI models developer, raised $7.6 million in seed funding round. USV and CoinFund led the round and were joined by Topology, Variant, Eden Block, Bodhi Ventures, and angel investors.
- Occuspace, a Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based occupancy intelligence platform, raised $6 million in Series A funding. Lewis & Clark Ventures led the round and was joined by existing investors Shadow Ventures, Okapi Ventures, Cove Fund, and Hamilton Ventures.
- SpangleAI, a Seattle-based AI-powered e-commerce platform developer for retailers, raised $6 million in seed funding from Madrona Ventures and Streamlined Ventures.
- Silicon Data, a New York City-based data transparency and efficiency solutions provider for the compute industry, raised $4.7 million in seed funding. DRW and Jump Trading Group led the round and were joined by others.
- ResiQuant, a San Francisco-based AI-powered property intelligence and risk platform, raised $4 million in seed funding. LDV Capital led the round and was joined by Foothill Ventures, Pear VC, Alumni Ventures, and angel investors.
- Agentic Marketing Technologies, a San Francisco and London-based AI employees developer for influencer marketing, raised $3.5 million in seed funding. NFX led the round and was joined by Charge VC, Mythos Ventures, and angel investors.
- PhilosopherKing, a Las Vegas-based AI-powered gaming platform, raised $3 million in seed funding from 468 Capital and 212.
- 2X, a marketing-as-a-service startup, secured an undisclosed amount of secondary funding from Insight Partners
HardTech:
- Apptronik, an Austin-based robotics company, raised $53 million in funding from Mercedes-Benz, Japan Post Capital, ARK Invest, and others.
- Kela, an Israeli defense-tech startup, raised $39m from Sequoia Capital, Lux Capital and In-Q-Tel.
- Augment, a San Francisco-based AI-powered logistics platform, raised $25 million in seed funding from 8VC.
- Rerun, a Swedish multimodal data stack for physical AI, raised $17m. Point Nine led, and was joined by Sunflower Capital and insiders Costanoa Ventures and Seedcamp
- Tera AI, a San Francisco-based spatial reasoning AI developer, raised $7.8 million in seed funding from Felicis, Inovia, Caltech + Wilson Hill, and Naval Ravikant.
Sustainability:
- SkySpecs, an Ann Arbor, Mich., renewable infrastructure monitoring startup, raised $20m. Goldman Sachs Alternatives led, and was joined by Statkraft and Equinor Ventures
- BlueShift, a Boston-based electrochemical climate technology developer, raised $2.1 million in pre-seed funding from ConocoPhillips Company, Ridgeline, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, and others.
Acquisitions & PE:
- General Catalyst invested $120 million in Factorial, a Barcelona-based business management software.
- Google agreed to acquire Wiz, New York City-based cloud security platform, for $32 billion in cash.