#venture-capital

#venture-capital

AI taking entry-level jobs is a 'when,' not an 'if.' But in venture capital, 70% of the decision is reading the founder and team-and that's something AI can't do. That simple breakdown , 70% people, 30% product-flips the usual narrative about finance. For decades, finance was defined by numbers. Analysts lived and died by the spreadsheets. Today, AI can run discounted cash flows, parse a term sheet, and size a market faster than any junior associate.

In 2022, when Yoni Rechtman's boss asked where he wanted to be in five years, the newly hired venture capitalist told him, "Not here." What might have sounded like defiance was exactly what Kevin Colleran, managing director of Slow Ventures, wanted to hear. The firm doesn't promote from within. It keeps funds small - "easier to return many multiples of success," Colleran said - and so the firm needs fewer investors.

Kevin Hartz tends to be first through the door. In 2001, he co-founded Xoom, back when sending money across borders meant standing in line at Western Union. In 2013, it went public, and in 2015, PayPal paid $1.1 billion for it. Four years after launching Xoom, he co-founded Eventbrite, which went public in 2018 and turned buying event tickets into something you could do without wanting to throw your laptop in the ocean.

Venture capitalists are among investors putting $75 million into a US startup's push to install home solar and batteries for an electricity subscription - just as the residential market shrinks. RELATED: The world's largest battery made of bricks turns on in California Daylight Energy raised the funds in a round that included $15 million in equity led by Framework Ventures with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Lerer Hippeau, M13, Room40 Ventures and EV3, according to a statement.

Rather than racing to dramatically increase their assets under management like many funds have in recent years, the partners have intentionally kept their fund sizes small, even as their reputation and returns have grown. Their latest vehicle - a $55 million early-stage hybrid fund, dubbed the Axis Fund, that recently closed - brings the Washington-based venture firm's total assets to roughly $250 million across four funds.

September 2025 NYC startup funding reached $2.09B across 95 deals in September 2025. The month showed remarkable growth from both last month and last year, with strong activity across all funding stages and particularly robust performance in Series B rounds. 📈 CONNECT WITH NYC'S STARTUP ECOSYSTEM Position your brand alongside the most-read funding coverage in NYC tech. Reach decision-makers when they're most engaged. Explore Opportunities → Funding by Stage

Last year, her worlds collided when she decided to launch her own fund, Sugar Free Capital, a firm that focuses on investing in technical founders from MIT. She nabbed LPs, including the family offices of heavy-hitting tech executives from companies like Nvidia and Citadel, and on Monday announced the closing of Sugar Free's $32 million inaugural fund. One premise of the fund is found in the name.

The stat that women receive less than 2% of VC funding is often cited-but that figure tells only part of the story.

Operating from his unique vantage point between Vancouver's innovation ecosystem and Dubai's capital markets, al Homsi identified critical market gaps that traditional recycling methods could not address. His investment in Aduro Clean Technologies (NASDAQ: ADUR, CSE: ACT) was based on a fundamental insight: existing mechanical recycling technologies were inherently limited by contamination challenges, creating an opportunity for breakthrough chemical processes enhanced by artificial intelligence.

"Climate tech" isn't a thing. It has shifted in recent years from a category to define clean energy companies to an umbrella phrase that loses meaning the more we use it. Granted, the term is everywhere: inserted into VC pitch decks, plastered on billboards along highways from San Francisco to Austin to Boston, wedged into government policy papers, and featured prominently on conference agendas. Media properties from CNBC to GreenBiz rely on it as a traffic-driving category.

The Jacobs Institute Steering Committee guides the strategic direction of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, a cornerstone of Cornell Tech's mission to fuse academic excellence with real-world impact through programs in health tech, urban tech, and connective media, as well as startup incubation, facilitated by the Runway program. These accomplished leaders bring deep expertise in cloud computing, urban development, financial technology, and venture capital - fields that are shaping the future of digital life.

The reaction is: 'Oh my God, this is all hype,' 'This stuff doesn't work. We're wasting our time.' Disaster, right? But if you dig into it, the real issue—and this is pervasive—is about evaluations. What are you trying to accomplish, and how do you evaluate it? And that's an organizational issue and a process issue. You have to understand the limitations of where we are with what AI can do, effectively benchmarking and evaluating from there: Is this effective or not?

The deluge of speculative tech investments unleashed by artificial intelligence is unparalleled in history. Never before has a technology which promises so much - but currentlydoes so little - managed to capture enough funding to threaten the US economy should it fail. With that kind of cash on the line, one would assume thattech startups have done their homework on the complicated reality of AI development before courting untold millions of dollars from overzealous investors - that's sort of their job, after all.

As artificial intelligence becomes a buzzword in nearly every healthcare startup pitch, investors are finding it increasingly challenging to distinguish which ones are actually worth the hype. That's why, during a Thursday panel discussion among venture capitalists at the MedCity INVEST Digital Health conference in Dallas, this question was posed: What metrics do you want to see founders highlighting more often when they're pitching, and what is one red flag that makes you question the validity of their technology? The session was moderated by Neil Patel, head of ventures at Redesign Health.

Wayve said it has signed a letter of intent with Nvidia to evaluate a $500 million strategic investment in the U.K. startup's next funding round. Nvidia participated in Wayve's $1.05 billion Series C round that closed in May 2024. A Wayve spokesperson confirmed that the $500 million tentative commitment is part of Nvidia's AI startup investment pledge. Nvidia said during an event Thursday the £2 billion commitment would include funds from venture-capital investors Accel, Air Street Capital, Balderton, Hoxton Ventures and Phoenix Court.

The Startup Battlefield 200 global pitch competition at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, taking place October 27-29 at San Francisco's Moscone West, is just weeks away, and the stakes have never been higher. Twenty founders will pitch their companies on the Disrupt Stage, but only one will walk away with the $100,000 equity-free prize and the coveted Disrupt Cup.

This Builder Stage session brings together Katie Stanton ( Moxxie Ventures), Thomas Krane ( Insight Partners), and Sangeen Zeb ( GV). They've seen thousands of decks, led major rounds, and helped steer startups from scrappy beginnings to breakout scale. You'll hear what actually moves a pitch from "maybe" to "we're in," including the metrics that matter, how to tell your growth story, and what causes investors to walk away.