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The official channel of V3V Ventures. We share updates on our investments, portfolio companies, and fund activities.

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🧠 Meta hires ex-OpenAI scientist Yang Song

Meta has recruited Yang Song, a former research lead at OpenAI, to join its Superintelligence Labs as a principal researcher.

🖱 Song led OpenAI’s “strategic explorations” team, focused on multimodal and large-scale data
🖱 Earlier at Stanford, he pioneered techniques later used in DALL-E 2
🖱 At Meta, he’ll report to Shengjia Zhao, another OpenAI alum now steering parts of the lab
🖱 Adds to Meta’s string of hires from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic
🖱 Signals Meta’s intent to strengthen leadership for its superintelligence efforts

The move underscores how Meta is aggressively stacking top AI talent to challenge OpenAI.


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✅ Trump greenlights TikTok sale via executive order

Former President Donald Trump signed an executive order approving a proposed deal to transfer TikTok’s U.S. operations to American and international investors.

🖱 Under the plan, TikTok US would be valued at $14 billion.
🖱 A consortium including Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX will control ~45%, while ByteDance retains less than 20% and limited governance rights.
🖱 The executive order grants 120 days to finalize the deal.
🖱 A key clause: the algorithm powering TikTok in the U.S. must be controlled, retrained, and monitored under the new U.S. entity.

This is a big pivot, instead of banning TikTok outright (as required by the 2024 law unless it was divested), the U.S. is shifting toward an ownership solution aimed at preserving the app under more direct U.S. control.


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✅ Sierra Space pivots after NASA changes the Dream Chaser deal

Sierra Space’s ambitions for its Dream Chaser spaceplane got a jolt after NASA altered their contract: the agency is no longer guaranteeing cargo missions to the ISS.

🖱 Instead of docking at the ISS, Dream Chaser will first fly a free-flying demonstration (no docking) in late 2026, with NASA offering only “minimal support.”
🖱 That shift removes the guaranteed revenue and support Sierra had counted on, forcing it to reimagine Dream Chaser’s market role.
🖱 Sierra is pushing hard on the defense and commercial angles now, they say the vehicle’s runway-landing, reusable nature gives flexibility for diverse payloads and mission profiles.
🖱 Timing is tight: the ISS is scheduled for deorbit around 2030, leaving a narrow window for Dream Chaser to prove itself as a cargo or multipurpose vehicle.

NASA’s pivot leaves Sierra with less certainty but more freedom, the question is whether Dream Chaser can turn flexibility into a sustainable business before the ISS retires.


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✅ Meta bets big on humanoid robots as its next AR-sized play

Meta is investing billions into humanoid robotics, positioning them as the company’s next frontier after augmented reality. The strategy leans less on hardware and more on becoming the dominant software platform for robots.

🖱 Internal project “Metabot” serves as Meta’s prototype, but the real goal is licensing robotics software, an Android-style model for humanoids.
🖱 Focus is on “world models” and simulation: training robots to grasp, move, and manipulate objects safely in real environments.
🖱 Meta’s new Superintelligence Lab works alongside its robotics team, bringing in top hires like MIT roboticist Sangbae Kim and ex-Cruise CEO Marc Whitten.
🖱 The company believes “good enough” designs (not perfect human mimicry) will win faster adoption across homes and industries.

Instead of chasing flashy humanoids, Meta wants to own the operating system that powers them, hedging its bet so no matter who builds the body, Meta controls the brain.


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📈 Solo founders are on the rise

More startups are being launched by a single founder rather than co-founding teams. In 2015, just 17% of companies were started solo. By 2024, that number has more than doubled to 35%.

Factors: faster prototyping tools, AI copilots, remote work culture, and less stigma around going it alone.

The solo-founder path is shifting from exception to norm, raising the question: will investors adapt their playbooks to back more “one-person startups”?


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✅ 10 tools to check a startup in 24 hours

With deal speed accelerating, investors and founders often have just a day to vet opportunities. These tools help you run fast, high-impact checks without a full analyst team.

🖱 Clay — auto-finds founders, clients, and key signals across open databases.
🖱 Valuer.ai — instant startup valuation using market comps and trend data.
🖱 DocSend — tracks pitch deck engagement: who opened it, which slides, and how long.
🖱 SimilarWeb — quick analytics on traffic, audience, and competitor channels.
🖱 Crunchbase Pro Alerts — real-time pings on new rounds, hires, and partnerships.
🖱 Ghostwriter — generates sharp founder questions from submitted materials.
🖱 Glassdoor & Blind — employee reviews for culture insights and hidden risks.
🖱 GitHub / Product Hunt signals — commit activity and early user feedback momentum.
🖱 PitchBook Instant — express reports on markets and comparable players.
🖱 OpenAI / Claude — automated verification of data, spotting weak spots in models and finances.

Instead of weeks of research, these tools give investors a rapid “go/no-go” lens, surfacing both red flags and hidden opportunities in a single day.


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🔔 SentinelOne raises $850M to push AI-first cybersecurity

Israeli startup SentinelOne has closed an $850M round at a $12.5B valuation, making it one of the largest cybersecurity deals of 2025. The focus: scaling AI systems to detect attacks before they happen and building critical infrastructure in Europe.

🖱 Lead investors include Tiger Global and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with Accel and Insight Partners joining the round.
🖱 Funds will fuel AI-powered proactive defense and a dedicated European data center for sovereign clients.
🖱 SentinelOne already secures 10,000+ enterprises, from global banks to energy majors.
🖱 The company is positioning itself as the AI layer of cybersecurity, betting on automation to replace reactive models.

As attacks on infrastructure escalate, SentinelOne is shaping itself not just as a security vendor, but as the operating system for corporate defense.


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🤔 Is AI a bubble? or the new railroads?

AI infrastructure spending has reached historic levels, with data centers alone driving 33% of US GDP growth in 2025. That’s $3T in the US and another $1T worldwide, numbers that recall past bubbles, but with key differences.

🖱 In scale: AI accounts for <1% of GDP, less than telecom (1.2%) and far below the railroads of the 1870s (4%), whose crash was brutal.
🖱 In capital intensity: GPUs depreciate faster than almost any asset (“chips depreciate like fish,” says Bill Gurley), leaving concrete and cooling as the only salvage value.
🖱 In revenue: AI revenues jumped from ~$0 five years ago to $60B today, doubling annually, unlike past bubbles, where growth slowed before the collapse.
🖱 In valuations: Nasdaq’s P/E peaked at ~72 in 2000; today it sits at ~32 high, but still tethered to earnings.
🖱 In funding: Unlike debt-fueled bubbles, today’s AI buildout is financed mostly from Big Tech free cash flow, not leverage.

The catch? Sustaining this boom will require another $2.9T. Giants can cover half, but outside capital must carry the rest.

AI today looks less like a bubble and more like an intensive investment boom, underpinned by real, accelerating revenue growth, a key distinction from railroads and dot-coms.


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🚀 International Venture news for the past week

🖱 Healthtech consolidation accelerates: 2025 has already seen 102 healthtech M&A deals, nearly matching last year’s full count (112). The sector is rapidly consolidating as scale becomes survival. 🔗 WSJ

🖱 VCs use AI to source startups: San Francisco’s Touring Capital deployed its “R2-D2” algorithm to scout deals, closing a $330M fund for AI startups. AI is moving upstream into venture itself. 🔗 WSJ | Economic Times

🖱 Brazilian legal AI attracts US giants: Enter, a São Paulo startup automating legal workflows, raised $35M from Founders Fund and Sequoia at a $350M valuation. Clients include Airbnb and Nubank. 🔗 WSJ

🖱 Fewer deals, larger checks
2025 deal value up 42.8%, but deal count down 31.4%. The shift favors bigger rounds for fewer winners. 🔗 Axios

🖱 Pharma doubles down on venture: Sanofi Ventures boosted its capital to $1.4B, focusing on biotech and digital health bets. Big Pharma is increasingly playing as LP + operator. 🔗 MedCityNews

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🔔 Trump’s DOE bans “climate change” and “green” from staff vocabulary

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy has circulated a memo forbidding staff from using terms like “climate change,” “green,” “decarbonization,” and “sustainability.” The directive comes as the Trump administration reframes federal energy policy.

🖱 The banned list also includes “emissions,” “carbon footprint,” and “transition,” signaling a retreat from standard climate terminology.
🖱 The change is led by a Trump-appointed official and reflects political positioning rather than scientific consensus.
🖱 Global clean energy investment, meanwhile, hit a record $386B in H1 2025, highlighting the gap between U.S. rhetoric and market momentum.
🖱 DOE staff now face constraints in reporting, grants, and external communication, raising concerns over transparency and accountability.

By policing language, the administration isn’t just shaping optics, it risks reshaping how U.S. energy policy is written, tracked, and enforced.


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💰 TikTok’s US sale looks like a steal

The Trump-approved deal values TikTok US at $14B, a fraction of what comparable platforms trade for. The app generates an estimated $10–20B annually in the US, yet sold for roughly 1× revenue.

🖱 By comparison: Snap trades at ~2.5× revenue, Reddit at ~25×, making TikTok’s price look like daylight robbery.
🖱 The Chinese side has not commented publicly, leaving questions about consent or coercion.
🖱 Trump claims the agreement is final, though details on buyer structure and governance remain vague.

If the valuation holds, this may go down as one of the most lopsided deals in tech history.

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🔔 How Larry Ellison Kept 40% of Oracle

Oracle’s founder still owns ~40% of his $300B company, a rare feat when most tech founders get diluted down to 5–15%. The reason? In 1977, no venture capitalist would fund software.

🖱 Late ’70s VC dollars flowed to hardware and biotech, Intel, Apple, Genentech all raised millions.
🖱 Ellison couldn’t even get a meeting. He and two co-founders pooled $2,000 and lived off consulting.
🖱 Their first break was a $50K CIA contract; nights were spent building their own database product.
🖱 Oracle launched in 1979 with “Version 2” (nobody trusted a Version 1). By 1984 revenue hit $70M; by 1987 it was the world’s largest database company.

By necessity, Ellison bootstrapped, making money from day one, avoiding dilution, and keeping control.

The irony: being ignored by VCs turned $2K of founder capital into one of the greatest fortunes in tech history.


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🎓 MBAs in Venture Capital

PitchBook tracked where VC firm employees earned their MBAs. The leaders look familiar, HBS, Stanford, Wharton, but unlike unicorn founder charts, the distribution is much smoother.

🖱 Top schools still show up, but the drop-off is gentle rather than steep.
🖱 Normalized by class size, the gap would shrink even further.
🖱 Takeaway: for breaking into VC, the brand of your MBA matters far less than in founder circles.

VC isn’t about heavy lifting, any solid MBA can open the door.

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💡 Bill Gates on Why You Shouldn’t Compare Yourself

“Don’t compare yourself with anyone in this world. If you do so, you are insulting yourself.” ~ Bill Gates

In venture (and in life), comparison is a trap. Others’ wins often look effortless, but you rarely see the mistakes, resources, and timing behind them.

🔥 What matters:
🖱 Focus on your own path: test your ideas instead of copying others.
🖱 Learn from experience: treat others’ wins and failures as lessons, not standards.
🖱 Think like a portfolio investor: diversify approaches instead of chasing one “perfect” play.

In Business @ the Speed of Thought, Gates explains how systems thinking lets you make decisions without looking back at competitors, staying ahead by design, not by comparison.

A useful selection of Bill’s books:
1. Business @ the Speed of Thought (1999): how IT and “digital nervous systems” transform decision-making.
2. How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (2021): a roadmap to net zero with industry-specific solutions.
3. The Road Ahead (1995/96): forecasts of the digital revolution and its societal impact.
4. Showing Up for Life (2009): wisdom and life lessons from Gates’ father.


Venture is a marathon, not a sprint. Your victories are unique, your mistakes are priceless, don’t trade them away by measuring against others.

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🔔 Robinhood wants to let everyone invest in startups

Robinhood has filed to launch Ventures Fund I, a new vehicle that would give retail investors access to early-stage startups, something usually reserved for VCs, institutions, and the ultra-wealthy.

🖱 The SEC filing outlines a venture fund targeting sectors like AI, robotics, aerospace, and fintech.
🖱 Unlike traditional venture funds, this one is pitched as “open to all” regular Robinhood users could buy in.
🖱 Exact details on fees, minimums, and launch timing are still unclear.
🖱 It’s part of Robinhood’s push to expand beyond trading into broader wealth and investing products.

If it works, Robinhood could democratize venture investing, but it also means everyday investors taking on the same high-risk, high-reward bets as VCs.

The open question: will retail see this as empowerment, or as Robinhood pushing risky assets onto its users?


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💰 EA Goes Private in a Record $55B Buyout

Electronic Arts is set to go private in the largest leveraged buyout ever, a $55 billion deal led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners. Shareholders will receive $210 a share, a 25% premium.

🖱 The deal is financed with ~$36B in cash and ~$20B in debt, a massive leverage bet.
🖱 EA’s cash cow franchises like FIFA and Madden give investors confidence in steady recurring revenue.
🖱 Timing is key: the deal lands just before the launch of Battlefield 6, EA’s biggest new release in years.
🖱 Going private shields EA from quarterly earnings pressure, letting it refocus on long-term strategy.

This isn’t just about gaming, it’s about capital markets shifting. Big LBOs are back, sovereign wealth money is flowing into entertainment, and private ownership is reshaping the future of blockbuster gaming.


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💳 Ex-OpenAI & DeepMind Researchers Raise $300M to Automate Science

Periodic Labs, a new startup from AI veterans Liam Fedus (ex-OpenAI) and Ekin Dogus Cubuk (ex-DeepMind), just pulled in a $300M seed round to build autonomous labs powered by AI “scientists.”

🖱 Fedus helped lead large language model research at OpenAI; Cubuk pioneered AI-driven materials discovery at Google Brain/DeepMind.
🖱 Their vision: robotic labs where AI designs experiments, runs them, collects data, and iterates without humans in the loop.
🖱 First focus: superconductors, materials that could unlock breakthroughs in energy and computing.
🖱 The pitch: turn science into scalable software, cutting years of trial-and-error into rapid AI-driven discovery cycles.

If it works, Periodic Labs could redefine R&D itself, shifting science from slow human bottlenecks to autonomous discovery engines.


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🚀 Musk becomes the first $500B man

Elon Musk just became the first person in history to see his net worth hit $500 billion, thanks to Tesla’s rebound and soaring valuations for SpaceX and xAI. By the market close, it dipped slightly to $499.1B, but the milestone was crossed.

🖱 Tesla remains the core driver: Musk still owns ~12% of the EV giant, whose stock has surged this year.
🖱 SpaceX and xAI have added billions in private-market value, boosting his fortune far beyond Tesla alone.
🖱 Tesla’s board has dangled a new $1T compensation package, tied to aggressive growth targets.
🖱 Much of the wealth isn’t liquid, it’s paper value tied to stock and private equity, making his net worth highly volatile.

For Musk, hitting half a trillion isn’t just a personal record, it’s a signal that the world’s richest person is building wealth on an unprecedented scale, faster than anyone before.


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🤖 OpenAI crowned the first $500B startup

OpenAI’s secondary share sale has vaulted its valuation to $500 billion, making it the most valuable private company ever and a symbol of how far the AI boom has run. Unlike a traditional fundraise, the deal let insiders cash out while investors fought for a seat at the table.

🖱 Roughly $6.6B worth of employee and early-backer stock changed hands.
🖱 Heavyweights like SoftBank, Thrive, Dragoneer, MGX, and T. Rowe Price joined the cap table.
🖱 The valuation leap, from $300B just months ago, reflects both AI demand and scarcity of access.
🖱 Still, OpenAI is burning cash, betting scale and distribution will cement its lead over rivals.

The $500B milestone isn’t just about valuation, it’s proof that in AI, investors are willing to pay sovereign-nation prices for a private company.


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🔔 Durov opens Telegram’s AI lab in Kazakhstan

Pavel Durov has just launched a specialized AI laboratory in Kazakhstan, partnering Telegram with the country’s AI supercomputer cluster to extend AI access globally.

🖱 The lab is housed in the Alem.ai building as part of a joint project with Kazakhstan’s Ministry of AI and the national supercomputer cluster.
🖱 Durov says the goal is to let over a billion people use AI tools in a way that’s confidential, transparent, and efficient.
🖱 Telegram’s own mini-apps will be among the first to leverage the new tech.
🖱 The Kazakh supercomputer cluster is expected to be a major provider of compute power for the network.

This move signals Telegram’s pivot from messaging into AI infrastructure, using the state’s compute assets to deepen its technological footprint in Central Asia and beyond.


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