🤖 AI agents are now a real business — not just a demo

What started as experimental tools is turning into serious revenue. Five AI agent startups have crossed $100M in ARR: Anysphere, Glean, Mercor, Replit, and Lovable.

The agent market is exploding — from $5B to $13B in just a year.

🖱 42% of AI agent startups now operate at commercial scale
🖱 Revenue per employee is catching up with Big Tech
🖱 Valuations go as high as 127x revenue
🖱 Nearly half of the top players were founded in the last 3 years
🖱 Winners solve tasks with clear ROI — coding, support, ops

Next up: dominance will go to those with tight workflow integration, unique data, and high switching costs.

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🪙 Ramp raises $500M to scale its finance-focused AI agents

Ramp has secured $500M in fresh funding at a $22.5B valuation to expand its AI-driven financial automation tools. The round, led by Iconiq, comes as demand surges for agentic systems in corporate finance.

🖱 Ramp's AI agents automate tasks like expense compliance, procurement, and bookkeeping
🖱 Thousands of companies, including Quora, are already using them to replace entry-level accounting work
🖱 CEO: “We’re teaching software to think like people”
🖱 Concerns remain — 80% of high-automation firms cite privacy and security as major hurdles
🖱 Iconiq also leads Anthropic’s massive $170B valuation push

Ramp isn’t just digitizing finance — it’s trying to replace the grunt work entirely.

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📈 Meta doubles down on AI, but Reality Labs keeps bleeding

Meta will spend up to $72 billion on AI infrastructure this year — a $30B jump from 2024.

But while it fuels the compute arms race, its metaverse unit Reality Labs posted a $4.5B loss for Q2, adding to a staggering $70B in cumulative losses since 2020.

🖱 AI infra spend this year will reach $66B–$72B, up from $40B in 2024
🖱 Reality Labs lost $4.5B in Q2 alone — the worst quarterly result in its history
🖱 Since launch, the division has now burned over $70B chasing VR and AR ambitions
🖱 Meta’s total revenue rose, but AI infra costs and metaverse bets remain a drag

One side of Meta is building the future — the other is still paying for Zuck’s past vision.

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📊 Crypto Venture Weekly: July 28 – August 1, 2025

$322M raised across 26 projects this week, with capital flowing into stablecoin infra, decentralized compute, and RWA protocols.

Here’s what the top 10 are building 👇

🖱 RD Technologies ($40M, Matrixport, Hivemind, Immutable)
Stablecoin infrastructure provider behind HKDR, backed 1:1 by the Hong Kong dollar.

🖱 Billions ($30M, Coinbase, Polychain, Polygon)
Mobile-first identity network for verifying humans and AI across applications.

🖱 Stable ($28M, Bitfinex, Hack VC, KuCoin)
New L1 chain built for stablecoins — USDT used for gas.

🖱 Subzero Labs ($20M, Pantera, Coinbase, Mysten)
RISC-V-based blockchain for internet-scale decentralized applications.

🖱 Zodia Markets ($18.25M, Circle, Pharsalus)
Digital asset platform enabling institutional trading via stablecoin rails.

🖱 KAIO ($11M, Laser Digital, Brevan Howard)
New protocol for tokenizing and managing real-world assets.

🖱 Manifold Labs ($10.5M, OSS Capital, DCG)
Decentralized AI compute layer built on Targon and Bittensor networks.

🖱 STON.fi ($9.5M, Ribbit, CoinFund)
DEX and DeFi suite built natively on the TON blockchain.

🖱 Due ($7.3M, Speedinvest, Fabric, Semantic)
Cross-border payments platform with stablecoin and fiat rails in 80+ markets.

🖱 TACEO ($5.5M, Archetype, a16z CSX)
Privacy-preserving compute infra using ZK and MPC for encrypted data handling.

Investor interest continues to converge around programmable money, crypto x AI tooling, and modular infra for scale.

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🖌 Figma IPO: every VC's dream seed round

Figma’s IPO glow-up is making early investors look like prophets. Let’s count the returns.

🖱 Index Ventures:
$3.8M seed → $7.2B → 1,900×

🖱 Greylock Partners:
$14M → $6.7B → 480×

🖱 Kleiner Perkins:
$25M → $6B → 240×

🖱 Sequoia Capital:
$40M → $1.1B → 27×

🖱 a16z:
$50M → ~$1.5B → 30×

🖱 Durable Capital:
$200M → ~$1.4B → 7×

The craziest stat?
Index Ventures only put 1% of its fund into the seed — and now it’s returned 17.5× the entire fund from that single bet.

Sometimes one stroke really does paint the whole picture.

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💼 Luxury fatigue hits Gucci, Dior, and LV as sales drop in 2025

The owners of Gucci, Dior, and Louis Vuitton reported a 7–15% YoY sales drop in H1 2025. The decline is driven by global economic instability — and a growing sense of “luxury fatigue” among consumers.

🖱 Kering saw Gucci down 25% and YSL down 10%
🖱 LVMH confirmed weak demand in Japan, where tourist spending collapsed
🖱 China luxury demand dropped 18–20% in 2024
🖱 Bain reports online engagement with luxury brands fell 40% vs 2022
🖱 Gen Z demand dropped 7% — more buyers turn to secondhand and even replicas
🖱 LVMH's Loro Piana unit was hit with labor rights violations and placed under external management for a year

The luxury slowdown isn’t just cyclical — it’s cultural. A new generation is redefining what “status” means.

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🚛 Pitch deck vs. reality

Slides promise one thing — execution delivers another.

Remember when Elon’s “unbreakable” Cybertruck window shattered on stage?

Same thing happens in venture 👇

✅"CAC $1, LTV $1000"
❌"We’re hiring a PM and looking for our first users"

A great pitch is just a hypothesis.
What really matters is what happens after the check clears.

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⚡️ Musk offered $29B Tesla package — but only if he stays

Tesla’s board has proposed a new $29 billion stock compensation plan for Elon Musk — on one condition: he must stay in charge for at least two more years and hold the shares for five.

🖱 The plan reflects growing pressure from the AI talent war
🖱 Unlike his 2018 package, this one isn’t tied to market cap targets
🖱 For the first time, Musk is formally required to remain at Tesla
🖱 Shareholder vote scheduled for November
🖱 If Delaware’s Supreme Court upholds the previous $56B package rejection, this deal will be void

Tesla’s betting billions that keeping Musk is more valuable than chasing KPIs.

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🤖 85% of YC startups are now AI startups

Y Combinator’s latest batch is 85% AI — a sharp signal of where early-stage conviction is headed.

The gold rush isn’t over — it’s still accelerating.

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📉 Why predictions fail — and how great investors prepare instead

Your job isn’t to predict the future. It’s to be ready for it.

In venture, success doesn’t come from guessing right — it comes from building systems that thrive in uncertainty. The best investors don’t speculate. They prepare.

🖱 Winning comes from readiness, not foresight
🖱 Resilience is built on structured thinking and scenario planning

When the future is unclear, smart investors stay grounded:

🖱 They build systems for fast, objective opportunity analysis
🖱 They test assumptions constantly and act with clarity

⚡️ In venture and beyond, discipline beats prediction — every time.

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📈 Top 6 fresh venture deals

Here’s a snapshot of the week’s biggest venture rounds — and the markets they’re reshaping:

🖱 Blaxel — $7.3M seed
Agent-native infra platform without traditional cloud dependencies.
Backers: First Round Capital, Y Combinator

🖱 Hadrian — $260M Series C
Industrial AI startup automating manufacturing and defense supply chains.

🖱 Bedrock Robotics — $80M Seed + Series A
Autonomous systems for heavy construction equipment, backed by NVIDIA, Eclipse, 8VC.

🖱 Groq — $600M in progress ($6B valuation)
AI chipmaker nearing close of major raise led by Disruptive ($300M+).

🖱 Ramp — $500M Series E-2
Fintech automation giant hits $22.5B valuation.
Backers include ICONIQ, Founders Fund, GIC, Coatue

🖱 Anaconda — $150M+ Series C ($1.5B valuation)
AI & data science platform raises from Insight Partners, Mubadala.

AI infra, automation, and deeptech continue to dominate capital flows. From agent-native cloud to autonomous construction and vertical AI platforms — unique edge plays are pulling in the biggest checks.

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🏎 How Formula 1 makes money

F1's popularity in the US doubled thanks to the Netflix docuseries released during the pandemic. But in recent months, the flow of new viewers has slowed down.

For comparison:
🖱 The NFL earns 7 times more than F1
🖱 NASCAR — a niche American cousin of Formula 1, secured $1.1 billion from media rights deals

There’s still plenty of room to grow.

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💵 The quiet $100B empire built by ignoring Silicon Valley

While VCs were chasing unicorns and exits, Mark Leonard built a $100B software giant by doing the exact opposite — buying small, boring SaaS companies and holding them forever.

His firm, Constellation Software, now generates $2B+ in free cash flow yearly, with just 20 people at HQ.

🖱 Started in 1995 with $25M and a contrarian mindset
🖱 Focused on tiny vertical SaaS businesses overlooked by VCs — things like water billing or camp registration software
🖱 Acquired 1,000+ of these companies over 30 years — no exits, no flipping
🖱 Keeps every acquisition independent: original team, culture, product, branding
🖱 No layoffs, no “synergies” — just profit and long-term ownership
🖱 Doesn’t give Wall Street forecasts, doesn’t do investor calls
🖱 Managers are required to reinvest their bonuses into company stock — by 2015, 100+ employees held over $1M in shares
🖱 Company went public only to provide liquidity for employees — not to cash out or raise growth capital

Leonard optimized for permanence instead of speed, and operational discipline over hype.

And it worked: 35% CAGR since IPO, $100B market cap, and one of the highest revenue software companies in Canada — ahead of Shopify.

In a world chasing flash, Constellation shows the real returns come from staying invisible, disciplined, and long-term.

Probably the best venture strategy no one in the Valley wants to copy.

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🚨 The next unicorns will look boring (until they aren’t)

The billion-dollar startups of the next decade won’t start loud or flashy. They’ll look underwhelming at seed—small, niche, hard to spot. But by Series B, they’ll be miles ahead.

Here’s why:

🖱 AI and automation make early teams lean but deadly effective
🖱 Real traction is quiet: revenue, execution, strategic focus
🖱 The best companies won’t fit traditional “hot startup” signals
🖱 Big markets often emerge from “niche” wedge plays
🖱 Technical depth and defensibility build long before they’re visible

What makes these companies dangerous is compounding.

Distribution grows silently. Data moats deepen. The product becomes sticky.
And then, suddenly, everyone else is too late.

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📣 Trump calls for Intel CEO's resignation

Donald Trump has demanded the immediate resignation of Intel’s new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, citing his ties to Chinese companies, including some with military links. Intel shares fell 5% following the statement.

🖱 Tan took over in March and began a major restructuring
🖱 His changes include 22% workforce cuts and halting some fab builds
🖱 Intel recently received nearly $20B from the U.S. under the CHIPS Act

The clash could escalate tensions over U.S. chip strategy and China-linked leadership.

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💸 Recently Launched Funds — August 2025

A wave of new capital is flowing across Asia and the U.S., with strong focus on early-stage tech, Southeast Asia, and overlooked founders. Here are the highlights:

🖱 Foxmont Capital Partners closed the first tranche of its $20M Fund III to back early-stage startups in the Philippines

🖱 China Galaxy & CICC are eyeing $1B+ to expand into Southeast Asia, targeting innovation and tech

🖱 NEO Group launched a PE fund focused on Southeast Asian tech and consumer sectors

🖱 Vietnam’s NIC VC Fund, backed by the government, aims to support 100 startups by 2030

🖱 Inflection Point Ventures rolled out a ₹500 Cr ($60M) fund via GIFT City for 100+ Indian startups

🖱 Sameer Verma (ex-Nexus) launches solo GP fund for early-stage Indian tech

🖱 UTEC & Emerging Asia Capital Partners teaming up for a deep tech fund across Asia

🖱 Skyline Investors closed $125M to back overlooked U.S. “micro-market” companies

🖱 KKR raised $6.5B for its second Asset-Based Finance fund to target private credit

🖱 Yaletown Partners hit $100M first close on its $250M Innovation Growth Fund III in Canada

🖱 Verified Capital closed $175M debut fund focused on early-stage climate + infrastructure tech

🖱 Blackwood Ventures closed $25M+ to back pre-seed and seed-stage startups

🖱 Anansi Capital (Vinay Iyengar) launched to support overlooked, underrepresented founders

🖱 Juchain launched a $100M fund for early-stage Web3 startups in Asia

🖱 360 ONE Mutual Fund launched a new multi-asset fund under its NFO scheme

📍 Strong signals:
Asia-focused funds are ramping up fast, with India, Vietnam, and Southeast Asia seeing new vehicles. Meanwhile, climate tech, credit, and founder diversity remain top U.S. themes.

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🚀 How a Solo Founder Sold His AI Startup for $80M in 6 Months

Maor Shlomo built Base44, a no-code app builder, entirely solo—with no team, no investors, and no marketing budget.

In just 6 months, it was acquired by Wix for $80M upfront, with potential to exceed 9 figures.

Here’s how he pulled it off 👇

🖱 Built out of frustration: no-code tools were too complex for true beginners

🖱 Used AI as his full dev team, coding 90% frontend, 50% backend

🖱 Skipped traditional workflows—no branches, no reviews, just shipping

🖱 Targeted complete non-technical users—a massive but ignored market

🖱 Bootstrapped to 250K users, $3.5M ARR, and $189K profit in a single month

🖱 Failed at paid marketing, then went viral by sharing raw founder lessons on LinkedIn

🖱Turned users into a marketing engine by rewarding them for posting their builds

Wix didn’t just buy a product—they bought a story, an audience, and a working growth machine.

This is the new playbook:

One founder, AI tools, real velocity, and relentless execution.

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