🤖 Robots in the Metro: China’s New Delivery Frontier

China's robotics game isn’t just about humanoids.

In Shenzhen, a new kind of delivery robot is being tested — not for streets, but for underground metro tunnels.

🖱 The goal: solve a growing logistics issue for 7-Eleven stores inside metro stations (over 100 locations).
🖱 Traditional delivery vans are failing — traffic jams and no parking near stations slow down restocking.
🖱 New autonomous robots now deliver goods directly inside the metro system.
🖱 These rover-like bots navigate the underground routes, bringing stock right to store doors.

The tests are going well so far. And they might just redefine last-mile delivery — one tunnel at a time.

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💠 Venture Bingo: Due Diligence Edition

If you've invested in at least 10 startups —chances are, you already have your own bingo card.

🖱 “The founder is super charismatic” — ✅
🖱 “AI” mentioned 12 times in the deck — ✅
🖱 “Unit economics? We’re too early for that” — ✅
🖱 “Pre-revenue, but TAM is $100M” — ✅
🖱 “Still in stealth, but two friends at BigCo said it's interesting” — ✅

We’ve gathered the classic phrases you hear over and over in due diligence.

Sound familiar?

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⏫ 2025 could become a record year for startup acquisitions.

Carta analyzed data from companies on its platform for the first half of the year:

🖱 126 exits from companies that raised $1M–$10M
🖱 100 exits from startups with $10M–$50M in funding
🖱 48 exits from startups that raised over $50M

If this trend continues in the second half of the year, we may see a new record for M&A activity.

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🔍 Perplexity hits $18B valuation after fresh $100M round

Just two months after its last raise, Perplexity has secured another $100M — pushing its valuation from $14B to $18B.

The surge comes after a major partnership with Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel. Under the deal, all 360 million Airtel users will get a free 1-year subscription to Perplexity Pro (normally $20/month).

Distribution in scale — the AI way.

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📣 Top OpenAI investor melts down after ChatGPT “reveals secret system”

Geoff Lewis, founder of Bedrock Capital and early OpenAI backer, posted a 3.5-minute monologue claiming he’s being targeted by a “non-governmental system.”

He says the system:
🖱 isn’t visible, but structurally real
🖱 doesn’t censor content, it distorts signal
🖱 isolates “recursive” people and replaces them with mirrored versions
🖱 leaves you “alive, but invisible”

💬His words:

People say, ‘he’s brilliant, but something’s off.’ That’s the pattern.

Then he shares screenshots of ChatGPT-4o supposedly revealing internal logs and calling him by a codename: Mirrorthread.

This wasn’t a one-off. His blog posts in recent months (“The Signal Is Already Here”, “Institutional Sovereignty”) follow the same paranoid arc.

📌Stanford researchers recently warned about people using LLMs as therapists.
When someone says, “Everyone thinks I’m fine, but I’m already dead,” a real therapist challenges that.
LLMs often agree. And amplify the illusion.

A fund built on betting against consensus is now fighting phantoms.

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⏫ Fastest-growing professions by 2030

The job growth forecast is based on a survey of 1,000 major international companies.

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💰🧪 “Cash or Cure”: biotech investors demand capital back

Activist funds are targeting biotech startups that sit on huge cash reserves but have little to show in terms of drug development.

Roughly 1 in 6 companies in the Nasdaq Biotech Index is now worth less than the cash it holds on its balance sheet. That’s billions in idle capital — and investors are done waiting.

🖱 Funds estimate up to $30B is frozen in underperforming biotech stocks
🖱 Activists urge firms to kill stalled projects and return cash to shareholders
🖱 Tang Capital already shut down Allakos, Cargo Therapeutics, and iTeos
🖱 Acelyrin was pushed into an acquisition after similar pressure
🖱 Sector hype peaked after COVID and obesity drug wins, but approvals have slowed

For many funds, the logic is simple: if you’re not going to cure anything — pay us.

The science was always a means to an end. Now, that end is liquidation.

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🎯 The Art of Saying No: Why Focus Wins in Venture

In venture, the temptations are endless — shiny trends, big markets, exciting ideas. But winners aren’t those who try everything. They’re the ones who pick what matters and make it the best.

As Steve Jobs said: “I’m as proud of what we don’t do as I am of what we do.”

🖱 Focus fuels faster growth
Growing companies must avoid the trap of chasing everything — and double down on what truly matters.

🖱 Depth beats distraction
Becoming world-class in one area beats being average in five.

🖱 Strategic refusal is power
Success often means turning down good opportunities to stay aligned with the right one.

Focus isn’t a constraint. It’s a weapon.

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📊 Key Venture Highlights of July: AI, Infrastructure, and Deeptech Dominate

The July venture landscape was shaped by record-breaking deals in AI, a resurgence in U.S. investment volumes, and a clear shift toward infrastructure-focused tech platforms.

AI mega-deals dominate the month
🟡Anthropic secured nearly $10B in fresh capital from Google, Amazon, and Salesforce Ventures, pushing its valuation above $100B — a milestone for private AI.
🟡 Elon Musk’s xAI closed a $10B round at an $80B pre-money valuation, backed by Morgan Stanley and others.

Venture funding surges in the U.S.
🟡 H1 2025 saw $162.8B in investments — up 75.6% YoY, with nearly 65% of capital flowing into AI.
🟡 Despite tight fundraising conditions, this is now the second-biggest year for VC in U.S. history.

Other notable July deals
🟡 LangChain (LLM infra): $100M led by IVP
🟡 Substack: $100M Series C, reaching a $1.1B valuation
🟡 Moment (fixed-income infra): $36M from a16z, Index, Contrary
🟡 PitchBook highlights Anthropic, Grammarly, and others as “object-oriented” investment outliers

📌Trends to watch

🖱AI is the market: Most major July deals center on AI or LLM infrastructure
🖱Deeptech resurgence: 65% of U.S. funding now targets deep infrastructure, not just consumer apps
🖱Private unicorn surge: Players like Anthropic and xAI are setting new valuation benchmarks
🖱LLM and Web3 infra still hot: LangChain and Moment show that infra demand remains strong

Investor optimism holds: Despite macro tension, venture outpaced expectations

Venture capital is rotating toward core infrastructure bets in AI and deeptech. These aren’t just hot narratives — they’re becoming the backbone of the next market cycle.

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🧠 Eric Schmidt: AI agents will kill user interfaces

The former Google CEO says every CEO, developer, and product lead should be thinking about one thing — the end of interfaces as we know them.

In the future, AI agents will handle tasks directly.
No buttons, no menus — just outcomes.

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⚖️ LegalOn raises $50M to speed up legal work with AI

Japanese startup LegalOn is building AI tools to help lawyers review contracts faster and more accurately.
The product is already widely used — and now the company is doubling down on the US and UK markets.

🖱 AI scans legal documents, flags risks, and suggests edits
🖱 Cuts review time by up to 8x, according to the company
🖱 7,000+ companies already use it across Japan, the US, and UK
🖱 In Japan, 25% of all public companies are LegalOn users
🖱 New funding round led by Goldman Sachs brings total to $200M
🖱 Actively building AI legal agents, with early access to OpenAI models

LegalOn is trying to become the default AI co-pilot for contract review — starting with scale, not hype.

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📊 What is YoY — and Why It Matters in Startup Analysis

YoY (Year-over-Year) compares a metric from a specific period (like a month or quarter) with the same period the previous year.

This helps investors and founders assess true growth trends, without being misled by seasonality.

💡Example:
If a startup reports 50% YoY MRR growth, it means monthly recurring revenue is up 50% from the same time last year — a strong sign of momentum.

Tips for using YoY in startup evaluation:

🖱 Compare the same time periods across years — this removes seasonal noise
🖱 Focus on consistency — stable YoY growth matters more than one-time spikes
🖱 Look beyond revenue — check client count, pricing, margins
🖱 Context matters — fast YoY growth is easier for young startups than mature firms

YoY shows trajectory. Use it wisely.

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📉 Only half of VCs ever back a truly successful deal

New data reveals a tough truth for the venture world: just 50% of VC firms have made even one investment that meets any of these three success benchmarks:

🖱 Backed a company that became a unicorn
🖱 Achieved at least a 2x return on an exit
🖱 Reached an IPO

Even a single win by these standards puts a firm in the top half of the industry.

VC may promise big returns — but the hit rate is brutally low.

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📱 BiteSight blew up after one TikTok

YC-backed BiteSight is a food delivery app that lets users discover restaurants through short videos and friend recs — not stock photos.

One casual TikTok pitch from the founder's sister sent it viral and broke the app.

🖱 TikTok hit 4M likes, app hit #2 in App Store
🖱 100K+ users joined in days, NYC only for now
🖱 Built by ex-General Atlantic PM, launched from YC W24
🖱 Uses AI to stay lean vs Uber Eats-style infra
🖱 Restaurants now reach out to partner, not the other way around

The app plays to how Gen Z finds food: video-first, socially shared, and real. Discovery is the product — not delivery speed.

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🤟 Ozzy Osbourne, Prince of Darkness Inc. — a 50-Year Venture Through Rock History

On July 22, Ozzy Osbourne passed away at the age of 76.

Just two weeks earlier, he held his farewell show Back to the Beginning in Birmingham with the original Black Sabbath lineup — drawing 40,000 fans in person and 5.8 million online viewers.

The event raised a record-breaking $190 million for charity.

But Ozzy wasn’t just a rock legend — he was a case study in brand reinvention, market adaptation, and long-term compounding in the music industry.

📈 Ozzy as a Venture Project 👇

Startup Phase (1968–1979)
🖱 Co-founded Black Sabbath, pioneering heavy metal — a “blue ocean” strategy
🖱 First 5 albums each sold over 4M copies globally
🖱 Paranoid (1970) hit 9.9M units worldwide
🖱 Fired from his own band in 1979 due to poor management — classic “founder ejection”

The Turnaround (1979–1995)
🖱 New operator: Sharon Osbourne relaunched “Ozzy” as a solo brand
🖱 Blizzard of Ozz (1980): 5M+ copies in the US
🖱 No More Tears (1991): 4× platinum
🖱 Scandals became brand assets — not liabilities

Market Disruption (1996–2007)
🖱 Rejected by Lollapalooza, he launched Ozzfest
🖱Built a two-sided market: fans bought tickets, bands paid up to $75K for slots
🖱$100M+ grossed, 5M+ tickets sold
🖱First metal artist to reach $50M in merch sales

Brand Saturation & Licensing (2002–Present)
🖱 The Osbournes reality show brought in $800K (season 1), then $5M per family member per season
🖱 “Prince of Darkness” became a diversified brand: cosmetics, merch, digital IP
🖱 Final act: $30 online pay-per-view farewell concert

💡 5 Lessons from the Ozzy Playbook

🔥 A revolutionary product isn’t enough — early Black Sabbath lacked business structure
🔥 Every founder needs a “Sharon” — an operator who scales the chaos
🔥 Don’t deny the scandal — monetize it
🔥 Rejection is a roadmap — Ozzfest was born from a “no”
🔥 Pivot when the model breaks — Ozzfest moved from ticket sales to sponsorships

Across his career, Ozzy sold over 70M albums with Black Sabbath and another 51M as a solo artist. Together, he and Sharon built a brand valued at over $220M.

His greatest legacy may not be surviving the chaos — but mastering it, turning a rock persona into a global business that will outlive him.

RIP, Prince of Darkness.

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🤖 Seventy AI agents from YC’s Spring batch

Y Combinator is all-in on agents this year, over 70 startups in the Spring batch are building AI agents across four core categories:

🖱 Software dev agents to reduce risk and replace vibe-coding
🖱 Browser agents that complete tasks online for you
🖱 Internal workflow agents for ops and back office
🖱 Vertical agents for regulated industries like law and healthcare

The agent wave is real — and YC’s shaping where it hits first.

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⚙️ Top 10 tools every VC should know in 2025

We updated our toolkit for venture investors who want to move faster, go deeper, and find deals others miss.

These platforms help you source smarter, track better, and access off-market opportunities.

🖱 SourceCo – AI platform for discovering off-market deals
🖱 Inven – fast M&A/VC target generation by sector and region
🖱 DealSuite – global deal matching across PE, M&A, corp dev
🖱 Grata – private company search with AI-powered market maps
🖱 Wayflyer / Pipe / Capchase – RBF platforms for alt financing without equity
🖱 Juicebox / Republic / Wefunder – Web3 and crowd investing platforms
🖱 Affinity – CRM for relationship intelligence and deal tracking
🖱 Carta – cap table, options, and secondaries management
🖱 Notion / Airtable – flexible workflows for deal tracking and collaboration
🖱 Zapflow – VC-specific pipeline and analytics platform

The modern VC stack lets you see trends early, surface hidden targets, and streamline the messy middle of venture.
Use it.

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📊 You can see Product Market Fit — here’s how

On the image: two lines.
Green = a product with PMF.
Blue = a product without it.
Both show user retention over time.

What is retention rate — and how do you build this graph for your own product?

Step 1: Identify the key action that reflects user value (and is easy to track).
Step 2: Define how often a happy user should repeat it — your “ideal frequency”.

🖱 For Airbnb, it’s a booking (or paid night), ideally once a year
🖱 For Gusto, it’s running payroll — monthly or weekly
🖱 For Facebook, it’s opening the app — daily or monthly

Once you have that, run a cohort analysis.

On the X-axis — time periods based on your ideal frequency.
On the Y-axis — % of users who keep doing the action over time.

Most curves drop at the start. That’s normal.
The difference is: bad products keep declining.
Good products hit a plateau — users keep coming back.

If your curve flattens, you’ve likely hit PMF.
If not — keep building.

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📊 Crypto Venture Weekly: July 21–25, 2025

$128M raised across 22 projects this week, with capital clustering around AI infra, agent orchestration, and tokenized collectibles.

Here’s what the top 8 are building 👇

🖱 Courtyard ($30M, Forerunner, YC, ParaFi)
Trading infra for physical collectibles. Focused on tokenizing real-world assets with liquidity and compliance built in.

🖱 Gaia ($20M, Mirana, SIG, Mantle)
Decentralized infra for generative AI networks. Backed by leading crypto + AI funds across Asia.

🖱 Poseidon ($15M, a16z crypto)
Data platform on Story Protocol for IP-cleared datasets, focused on AI training for robotics and autonomous systems.

🖱 Freename ($6.5M, Entrée, Polymorphic)
Web3 domain registrar for buying, registering, and creating blockchain-based domain names.

🖱 Questflow ($6.5M, cyber.Fund, Animoca, HashKey)
AI agent orchestration layer to connect decentralized workflows and decision-making.

🖱 Delabs Games ($5.2M, Spartan, HASHEd, TON Ventures)
Web3 gaming studio powered by AI. Known for Boxing Star X and Ragnarok Libre.

🖱 Quack AI ($3.6M, Animoca, Kenetic, Merlin Chain)
AI-driven Web3 governance protocol blending voting, risk signals, and execution logic.

🖱 Omo ($1.1M, Cogitent, Presto Labs)
Early-stage multi-agent coordination layer targeting distributed AI apps.

Investor interest is tilting toward crypto x AI infrastructure, governance logic, and real-world asset rails — all getting more programmable.

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🔓 Tea app hacked, 72,000 user images leaked

Dating safety app Tea has suffered a major breach just days after going viral on the App Store. The hack exposed thousands of sensitive user photos, including selfies and ID scans.

🖱 72,000 images leaked, including 13,000 verification photos and 59,000 images from posts and messages
🖱 Hack was discovered after 4chan users began sharing the stolen data
🖱 Only users registered before February 2024 were affected
🖱 Tea claims no emails or phone numbers were compromised
🖱 The app had just hit #1 on Apple’s App Store before the breach
🖱 Third-party experts have been hired and the vulnerability patched

The breach hits at the worst possible time — right as Tea was breaking into the mainstream.

A brutal reminder: viral growth means nothing if your security doesn’t scale with it.

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💰 5 startup deals you may have missed this month

A vaccine for all flu strains, deepfake detection, underground mapping, and more.

Here are five overlooked but notable July raises 👇

✅ Exodigo — $96M Series B
AI-based platform to detect underground infrastructure for safer construction.
Clients include Amtrak and Metro LA.

✅ Centivax — $45M Series A
Developing a universal mRNA flu vaccine.
Backers include Future Ventures, NFX, Bold Capital.

✅ IdentifAI — €5M ($5.9M) Seed
Detects AI-generated deepfakes across video, voice, and images.
Led by United Ventures.

✅ Retirable — $10M Series A
Wealth platform for everyday retirees with $175M AUM.
IA Capital and Nationwide Ventures backed the round.

✅ OpenLaw — $3.5M Seed
AI legal matchmaker connecting clients to affordable solo attorneys.
Co-led by Flint Capital and Slauson & Co.

These deals show investors still back deeptech, even outside the spotlight.

Geophysics, mRNA, and legal infra aren’t hype-driven — but they’re getting funded.

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