First Degree Capital

We started First Degree with one belief:
AI isn’t tomorrow. It’s now.

If you’re building something ambitious in productivity, collaboration, or workflow automation — let’s talk. DM us or send your deck to kaan@firstdegree.capital

Founder & General Partner

Graphio.ai

Revenue failures don’t happen overnight. Silent stalls, missed renewals, and broken handoffs start weeks earlier — but most leaders only see them when it’s already too late.

Graphio solves this.
It’s the AI-powered operating layer for modern GTM and ops leaders — what strategy consultants recommend once a year, running continuously.

Backed by 100+ senior exec angels from Mastercard, PwC, Snowflake, Experian, HelloFresh, BambooHR and more, we’re proud to support Dmitry, Andrey, and the Graphio team via firstdegree.capital

Investor (+ Partner)

Limelight

B2B go-to-market has changed. Buyers trust people more than brands, and the creator-led model is exploding — growing 30% year over year. Yet most brands still lack the analytics, attribution, and automation needed to make creator marketing work at scale.

Limelight solves this by giving GTM teams one place to:
Discover the right creators with the right audience
Automate outreach, contracting, and activation
Run creator and employee-led campaigns across LinkedIn, newsletters, podcasts, YouTube, X, and more
Connect the dots between social signals, CRM data, and revenue
It’s SaaS, marketplace, and AI outbound all in one — built for modern GTM leaders who want results without the manual hustle.

Backed by great co-investors and super-angels, we're happy supporting David, and Youngjae and the team via firstdegree.capital

Trampoline AI

Trampoline is building the AI-native workspace for proposals — starting with RFPs. It automates everything from brief ingestion to draft generation and collaboration. The result: service teams close more deals, faster.

We’re proud to partner with Edouard, Gabriel, and their team alongside investors like Salesforce Ventures, betaworks, and True Ventures.

🔗 Learn more https://trampoline.ai
🔗 Or check https://firstdegree.capital/portfolio/trampoline

WINN.AI

Winn.ai is your AI-powered meeting assistant built for revenue teams.

It joins your calls, tracks action items, and automatically syncs notes to your CRM — all without manual input.

No more “Oh, I forgot to ask!”
Set up your playbook — or adapt one of Winn’s with a click.
Winn tracks conversations in real-time, showing you which talking points you’ve covered and what’s still left to say.

It goes beyond transcription. It understands context, tracks pipeline impact, and ensures nothing slips through the cracks.

Backed by top-tier investors (Insight Partners, Sarona Ventures, S Capital VC + multiple prominent operators and angels) and loved by sales teams, we’re proud to support Eldad and Bar + the entire team at Winn.ai via firstdegree.capital.

Topo (YC W24)

Topo.io provides AI SDR agents to execute custom B2B outbound playbooks tailored to each company and industry. 

It identifies, qualifies, and engages high-value leads using real-time data signals. Beyond basic personalization, it delivers strategic, context-driven outreach.

Topo.io (YCW24) is backed by leading VCs and industry experts, happy to supporting Dan, Leonard, Robin and the team at Topo.io via firstdegree.capital

FullEnrich

Enrich anybody on LinkedIn with 1 click. You’re visiting a LinkedIn profile and want the contact info? Boom, you click on "Enrich", and your contact is enriched and saved in a list.

Backed by leading VCs and super-angels, we're happy supporting Benjamin, Grégoire, Jean-Luc and team at FullEnrich via firstdegree.capital

AlphaLens

Who is building something similar? Get razor-sharp intelligence on your market in seconds.

Whether you are a bootstrapped founder looking to map your market, an M&A professional  looking for a deal, or the head of data at a multi-stage firm, have a look at Alphalens and what it can do for you.

Supporting the Leo, Walid and team via First Degree.

Deckmatch uses the power of AI and advanced analytics to revolutionize investment deal flow. Our platform seamlessly integrates your deal flow with external data, offering investors intelligent parsing, precise startup-investor matching, and actionable insights through tailored memos.

With our API, Deckmatch fits effortlessly into your existing workflow and CRM, enhancing your investment strategy with sharp, data-driven insights.

Supporting the team at DeckMatch via First Degree.

WhiteBridge.ai

Whitebridge.ai is an AI-powered digital identity research tool that finds, verifies, and analyzes publicly collected data about someone and structures it into an insightful report. 

Supporting the team at Whitebridge via First Degree.

lablab.ai

Supporting Pawel, Simon and the team at LabLab via First Degree.

Investor

Cooking up something new. Stay tuned!🧑🏼‍🍳🪄

10x Founder → Early Stage Investor. 
General Partner @ First Degree Capital.

We’re backers of brave beginnings:

Dmitry & Andrew — graphio.ai (Sep ‘25)
David & Youngjae — limelighthq.com (Aug ’25)
Gabriel & Edouard — trampoline.ai (Jul ’25)
Eldad & Bar — winn.ai (Jun ’25)
Dan, Robin & Leonard — topo.io (May ’25)
Benjamin, Jean-Luc & Grégoire — fullenrich.com (Jan ’25)
Leopold & Walid — alphalens.com (Sep ’24)
Paulius, Tomas, Irmantas & Justin — whitebridge.ai (Sep ’24)
Simon & Pawel — lablab.ai (May ’24)

We co-invest alongside great angels and co-investors such as Y Combinator, Insight Partners, Kima Ventures, Flex Capital, Alliance VC, AltaIR, Luminar, Skyfall, and more.

We 💜 AI-driven companies “changing the way we work” and take out the 🫏 work. 

If you’re building something ambitious in productivity, collaboration, or workflow automation — let’s talk.

DM us or send your deck to kaan@firstdegree.capital

Kaan Anit

Nothing beats building. 

Before starting First Degree Capital, we’ve started and scaled RocketX. 

Back then, we were building every day.

Helping founders solve problems.
Finding product–market fit.
Scaling what worked.

We worked with over 300 founding teams.
And no matter the stage or industry,
the challenges were always the same:

⏱ Time.
🧠 Expertise.
🤝 Access.

Access to revenue.
Access to people.
Access to capital.

We turned those lessons into playbooks — real stories, distilled into practical steps. 99problems 😉

But even with playbooks, founders still wanted to talk.

Not theory. Not advice from afar.
Just a real conversation.

That’s why we’re proud to join Hubble Cohort 22 🚀

A platform built for exactly that —
where founders, operators, and investors
share what they’ve learned the hard way.

No panels.
No pitches.
Just honesty.

Because giving back is part of the journey.
And if what we’ve learned can save someone else a few steps, that’s time well spent.

💡 Early-stage fundraising
🎯 GTM & product–market fit
🤝 Founder-to-founder guidance
⚙️ Building with (and around) AI
🧭 Recruiting & hiring

Playbooks → https://lnkd.in/eCCdVPty
1:1 Talk → app.hubble.social/kaananit

Kaan Anit 🫧

Guillermo’s post on Harry Stebbings hit me harder than most content does.

Not because of Harry’s success (we love people to succeed), but because it exposed the one thing we haven’t built yet.

Harry has mastered something we haven’t:

A disciplined, systematic approach to closing capital.

✅ Weekly LP conversations.
✅ Quarterly updates.
❌ Hundreds of relationships nurtured long before he ever raises a fund.
❌ Relentless follow-through.
❌ Velocity that compounds.

It’s the opposite of how most funds raise.

And it’s the exact opposite of what we’ve been focused on.

We’re very good at building the engine — sourcing, evaluating, connecting people, and creating systems that actually work.

We’re good at moving fast, building trust, giving founders access, and turning zero into something.

But we’re not good at one thing: closing capital. 

And without that, nothing scales. 

We haven’t build a network of investors way before we started…

So we’re making a shift.

We’re looking for someone exceptional to join us — someone who lives and breathes capital raising.

Someone who treats LP relationships the way we treat founders.

Someone who can take our system, our network, our engine, and turn it into momentum on the capital side.

We’re a small team — Anouk and myself, supported by great people around us — and we’ve built everything from scratch over the last 18 months.

Now we’re ready for the person who completes the circle.

If you want to read the whole thing subscribe to Guillermo Flor his newsletter (link in comments) 🔗

But more importantly for us 😉
you know someone who should be doing this with us, we’d love an introduction.

Please share and repost this so we’ll get hold of this person we really need. 

And if this sounds like you, reach out.
DM me. 💜

No alternative text description for this image

We first met David. 💜
Clear. Fast. Obsessive about the problem.
A founder who sees exactly where GTM is heading — and is already building for that world.

Then we met Youngjae.💜
Technical, calm, incredibly sharp.
The kind of builder who gives you immediate confidence the product will keep improving every single week.

And together with Demir, Blas, and Janine, they form a small, fantastic team… focused, product-first, and relentless.

That’s when we said:
“We’re in.”

The problem they’re solving?

Everyone sees the shift:

• creators = distribution
• employees = media
• buyers follow people, not slide decks

But until now, nobody could measure it.
Everyone knew influence drives revenue nobody could prove it.

Limelight fixes this.

Their platform shows exactly how content turns into pipeline, with real attribution and real buyer intent.
And their new AI agent:

→ learns your company
→ defines your ICP
→ maps competitors
→ listens to social
→ surfaces intent
→ turns it into pipeline

Exactly the kind of AI-native product we back.

The proof?

A world-class group of investors joined + respected operators from across the ecosystem.

And of course they won the Global Pitch Competition at SaaStock, taking home €1,000,000.
Hard proof. Real momentum. 🙌🏼

That’s why we invested.

Great people.
A real problem.
A product that already delivers.

Proud to be in the round with this team.

#Limelight
#FirstDegreeCapital
#BackersOfBraveBeginnings

Founder & CEO @ Limelight | B2B Creator Marketplace | 3x Founder | MBA Mentor

Today I’m announcing our $2,100,000 funding round 🎉💰
And a HUGE NEW PRODUCT LAUNCH!! ...

Our brand new AI agent for Social Listening is live.

It can:

→ Research your company
→ Precisely define your ICP
→ Identify all of your competitors

Then automatically surface buyer intent from social content and turn it into sales pipeline. 

Early users are raving about it already!!

And just a few weeks ago,
We won the Global Pitch Competition!
On stage at SaaStock (€1M prize money)

THIS. IS. WHAT. MOMENTUM. LOOKS. LIKE.

Here’s why investors are loving Limelight

👇🏼👇🏼

Everyone is talking about personality-led marketing.

- Niche B2B creators are stealing trust.
- Employees are becoming mini media brands.
- Buyers follow PEOPLE, not 40-page whitepapers.

But the problem - up until now?

Everyone KNOWS influence drives revenue.

Yet nobody can measure it.

So budgets have stayed trapped in paid ads & cold outbound.

Limelight SOLVES this problem.

We’re showing brands - how CONTENT drives REVENUE.

We are making influence marketing performance-based.

So brands can track:

🔎 Which post led to $142,000 in pipeline
🔎 Which creator drove 237 product signups
🔎 Which campaign closed $1.9M new business.

(All REAL Limelight case studies! 📈)

We’re turning B2B influence from a “nice-to-have branding play” into a scalable revenue engine.

Big SHOUT out to our new investors for believing in us

Amit at SNR (led the round!) 
Eran at Savyon Ventures 
Kenneth at BackFuture
Kaan at First Degree 
Josh at OpenSky 
Kirby at Ascend

And many others like Ran Makavy, Gert Lanckriet, Suhit Gupta, Amir Ashkenazi, Mike Head, Eli Schwartz, Tom Waddington, Dan Murray🧠, Garrett Scott, Michel Lieben 🧠 & Alex Vacca 🧠🛠️.

A group of incredible operators/investors who know personality-led growth will define the next decade of GTM.

What’s next?

Goal remains the same:
→ Hit $10M ARR with a team of 10.

This funding round lets us:

⚡ Build even faster
⚡ Hire a few elite engineers + AMs
⚡ Push deeper into creator-based attribution
⚡ Power influencer programs for every GTM org

Huge gratitude to my tiny but might team Youngjae JI, Demir Capan, Blas C. and Janine Bulao. 

And most importantly...

The creators and brands (HubSpot, Webflow, Clay + 100s more) who are building this category WITH us 💪🏼

THIS IS JUST THE START.

PS. if you sign up as a new customer in the next 48 hours you get your 2nd month free! (DM me and I will do it for you)

How we bootstrapped First Degree Capital in 2025.

We tried a lot of tools this year — many AI-native, many custom-centric.
Here’s my Top 15 that helped me run the whole operation for < $250/month.


COMMUNICATION & OUTREACH

1. Wispr – People have spoken to my people for years because I can’t type.
Now I use voice. https://wisprflow.ai

2. Superhuman – Email, speed, focus. Beats Gmail. And definitely Microsoft.
https://superhuman.com

3. TryKondo – LinkedIn is part of my stack, but for messaging I use Superhuman for LinkedIn.
https://app.trykondo.com

4. Folk CRM – My digital Rolodex. Works seamlessly with LinkedIn and Superhuman.
https://folk.app

MEETING PREP & INTEL

5. WhiteBridge.ai – For meeting prep and personal intel.
https://whitebridge.ai

6. Alphalens – Company, competitor & product intel in seconds.
https://alphalens.com

7. FullEnrich – I don’t look for numbers or email addresses anymore.
https://fullenrich.com

RESEARCH & THINKING

8. Perplexity – Research, answers, clarity.
https://perplexity.ai

9. ChatGPT – My colleague. After two years, (s)he knows me by now.
https://chat.openai.com

PLANNING & ORGANISATION

10. Google Workspace – Docs, Sheets, Drive, and Gemini for meeting notes — all in one place.
https://lnkd.in/eCFawhbV

11. Google Drive – Still undefeated for storing and sharing.
https://drive.google.com

12. Happenstance – Natural-language search on my network. Outperforms LinkedIn Recruiter Seat or Sales Navigator by far.
https://happenstance.ai

RUNNING THE DAY

13. Calendly – Keeps my calendar under control.
https://calendly.com

14. Comet – My daily command centre.
https://comet.com

15. Gamma – Turns any content into clean, sharp slides.
https://gamma.app

THE HARDWARE BEHIND IT ALL
My iPhone and MacBook Pro – The foundations everything runs on.

If one of these saves you even 30 minutes a day, use it.
And if you’re building tools that change the way we work — I want to meet you.

Another great post from Mr. Stockholm aka Oliver Molander. 

Great insights for anyone thinking enterprise and AI. 

Especially point 6, "Change the way we work." As in get work done. 👀⤵️

I don't think people truly understand how early we're in enterprise adoption of AI agents.

McKinsey just released their 2025 AI report. 

Some nuggets:

1️⃣ 90% of companies “use AI,” but 67% are still stuck in pilot mode. Corporate AI theater is alive and well.

2️⃣ 62% of orgs are experimenting with AI agents, 23% are scaling AI agents. Most are in tech and healthcare.

3️⃣ The impact gap is massive. 64% say AI helps innovation, but only 39% see real EBIT gains. 

4️⃣ The high performers (top 6%) think bigger. They rebuild workflows, set growth goals, and invest real budgets not just PoCs.

5️⃣ Leaders who own AI personally are 3x more likely to scale it. Makes sense.

6️⃣ The winners use AI to transform how work gets done, not just speed it up.

7️⃣ The average company measures efficiency. The best ones measure how fast their agents can act.

8️⃣ Risk management is catching up with 51% have already seen AI backfire, mostly from inaccuracy.

9️⃣ The workforce impact is foggy. 32% expect cuts, 13% expect growth, everyone else is guessing.

Agentic AI looks magical in demos, but scaling it across teams and systems (especially in enterprise settings) is where it still breaks. You can do basic single-step automation reliably right now (tool calling).

As Andrej Karpathy recently noted on LLM agents:

"My critique of the industry is more in overshooting the tooling w.r.t. present capability."

Bottom line: we're still super early, this transformation will go on for another decade.

I'm bullish, but this will take a bit longer than we think, having fully autonomous agents. Just like autonomous driving took a bit longer than we thought, but here we are.

E.g. one of the biggest challenges in building AI agents today is agents' long-term memory.

#artificialintelligence

AI isn’t taking jobs — it’s taking tasks.

I just read Deel’s new AI & Workforce Policy Report (a fantastic report!!) and one thing stood out:

What AI means for people, employers, and founders is no longer theoretical.

It’s happening. Right now. 
Here are my key takeaways: 

👩🏻‍💻 For people:
Entry-level roles: the classic way in — are being automated out.

But new jobs are emerging just as fast: 
AI Librarians, Trainers, Tutors. The shift isn’t from human to machine… 

It’s from execution to judgment.

🏢 For employers:
AI is no longer an experiment.

70% of companies have moved beyond pilots. Yet compliance, trust, and talent are now the real constraints.

The question isn’t “if we use AI,” but “how responsibly we do it.”

🚀 For founders:
Every industry is hiring AI talent.

And the biggest opportunity isn’t building the next model, but it’s helping people and companies use AI safely, productively, and in ways that make work better.

Read the full report here 👉 https://lnkd.in/eZ8CgSaj

#AI #FutureOfWork #Productivity #Founders #VentureCapital

If I had the skills — and lived in LA — I’d apply myself.

David, Youngjae, and the team at Limelight are building something truly special.

They’ve cracked what every creator, brand, and marketer dreams of: real, data-driven influencer partnerships that actually convert.

They’re growing fast.
They move like true founders.
They treat customers like partners.
And they’re now looking for a Customer Success Manager who can help them scale that magic.

If you’ve ever wanted to join a rocket ship at just the right time — this is it.
An opportunity you don’t want to miss.

Trust me, you’ll want to keep an eye on this team.

#BackersOfBraveBeginnings
#LimelightHQ
#FirstDegreeCapital

I’m HIRING a Customer Success Manager!! 🎉 👀 Want to join a tech startup DOMINATING the creator economy space?!

Keep reading 👇

I don’t care about your fancy degree.
Or what brands are on your CV.
Or how old you are.

If you're awesome at what you do...

WE WANT YOU!!!

Simple as that 👏👏

The ideal candidate:

🔥 Has startup experience (and can work fast)
🔥 Can build relationships with enterprise customers
🔥 Understands B2B influence/creator partnerships
🔥 Has the grit and accountability to own outcomes

You'll get:

→ Ability to work from anywhere
→ Skin in the game + bonuses
→ Responsibility from day one
→ Total creative freedom

This is a rare opportunity for someone to join our early team and go on a MAJOR growth journey with us.

A bit about Limelight:

- Just won SaaStock Europe’s global pitch
- Growing fast with $3.6M in proposals sent
- Working with brands like HubSpot, Clay, Xero
- Building the future of B2B influencer marketing
- Used by thousands of world-class content creators

We made our last hire in under 10 days.

And we’re looking for someone incredible again.

Ready for the challenge?

Apply here: https://lnkd.in/d6bnJyJP

Know someone who is?

Tag ‘em!

“Europe is fine to start.
But once you want real numbers, you need to go where people buy fast.”

A fantastic post and must read for any European founder. 👀⤵️

All credits to Jérémy

CEO @The Mobile-First Company 📱Fixing broken desktop software with AI mobile apps 🌍 Angel Investor in +40 startups

Sell only in France if you want a small company.

Patrick Collison, the cofounder of Stripe, shared a chart this week that speaks for itself.  

If you build software and you don’t sell in the US, you miss the biggest part of the opportunity.

The US revenue curve goes up fast.
Even without AI companies in the mix, the US still grows faster than Europe.

The US is one big market with buyers who move fast.
Europe is split, slow, and full of small rules that block you the moment you try to scale.

Look at Pigment, PhotoRoom, Hyperline.
French teams growing fast because they sell in the US.

Europe is fine to start.
But once you want real numbers, you need to go where people buy fast.

If you want a big company, you go to the US.
If you want a small one, stay in France.

Venture Capital Investor at Mundi Ventures

Industrial Engineer turned tech early stage investor and builder of a media company.

I’ve worked as a VC backing early and late stage startups, and now invest globally at pre-seed as a business angel, helping founders with distribution and go-to-market.

I also write and run two of the leading tech newsletters for founders:

▪ The VC Corner (100k+ on Substack, 130k+ on LinkedIn):  Actionable VC insights, fundraising strategies, and curated resources
→ Ranked #4 tech newsletter globally on Substack
→ Fastest-growing tech newsletter on Substack
→ Largest Substack in any category created by a Spaniard

▪ The Founders Corner (40k+ on Substack, co-written with Chris Tottman): Real-world tips and tactics from top founders

Rubén D.

🚨BREAKING
Kalshi has raised 1 billion dollars at an 11 BILLION valuation.
And the speed of this company is getting hard to ignore.

They hit 2B valuation in June. 7 months later they are at 11B.
One of the fastest jumps in consumer fintech and market infrastructure in years.

Prediction markets went from niche to banned to mainstream.

Kalshi is now used weekly by millions and is shaping a new consumer behavior: people moving from passive observers to active participants in the future.

This round was led by Paradigm (Matt Huang), with participation from:
▫️ Sequoia (Alfred Lin)
▫️ a16z Growth (Alex Immerman)
▫️ a16z Crypto (Chris Dixon)
▫️ Bond Capital, Meritech, CapitalG, IVP, ARK Invest, Anthos Capital
▫️ Y Combinator (Michael Seibel)

Founders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara have spent 7 years fighting regulators, opening the category, and turning prediction markets into a real information layer for the world.

Kalshi now clears 1B dollars in weekly trading volume and is building toward the next 100 million users.

Where do you think this market goes next? Is prediction trading becoming a permanent part of consumer behavior—or still early?

Rubén Domínguez Ibar

Elon Musk was asked for his best advice to entrepreneurs. His answer was simple:

“Anyone who wants to make more than they take has my respect.”

He said the goal isn’t to chase money, but to build things people truly value.
Money follows usefulness the same way happiness follows meaningful work.

His core idea:

Create value greater than the effort you put in.
Expect the grind.
Accept the risk.
Aim to be a net contributor.

Everything else is a byproduct.

Where do you think most founders focus too much on the wrong thing?

👉 10 Lessons from this interview that Founders and Investors Should Take Seriously: https://lnkd.in/d5CVJsGy

Found something crazy useful today 😳
Someone put the entire AI Agents Roadmap on one single page.

Videos, repos, guides, books, papers, courses, newsletters. Everything you need to understand and build agents.

A few highlights:

📹 Videos
▫️ LLM Introduction
▫️ LLMs from Scratch
▫️ Agentic AI (Stanford)

🗂️ Repos
▫️ GenAI Agents
▫️ Microsoft’s AI Agents for Beginners
▫️ Prompt Engineering Guide

🗺️ Guides
▫️ Google’s Agent Whitepaper
▫️ Google’s Agent Companion
▫️ Anthropic’s Building Effective Agents

📚 Books
▫️ Understanding Deep Learning
▫️ Building an LLM from Scratch
▫️ The LLM Engineering Handbook

📜 Papers
▫️ ReAct
▫️ Generative Agents
▫️ Toolformer

🧑🏫 Courses
▫️ HuggingFace’s Agent Course
▫️ Anthropic MCP
▫️ Pinecone Vector DB Course...

Find all resources below 👇
https://lnkd.in/dPUwZqPe

Enjoy and share it with more people who can find it helpful. It's free! 🫣

Why build from scratch when you can copy what already works?
Here are 10 resources that save companies years of trial and error 👇

1️⃣ 100+ Pitch Decks That Raised $2B+ in 2024 and 2025
https://lnkd.in/dR6wVrCn

2️⃣ Investor List of Lists: 10k+ VCs, Family Offices, Angels, Accelerators
https://lnkd.in/dtQnbv4q

3️⃣ Cap Table Template 
https://lnkd.in/dcdW2y4G

4️⃣ Financial Modeling Examples for Founders: A Startup Guide Templates
https://lnkd.in/dQTKxZWt

5️⃣ OpenAI’s 4-Part Framework for AI Product Strategy
https://lnkd.in/d6_3FKQs

6️⃣ 2,500+ Angel Investors Backing AI & SaaS Startups
https://lnkd.in/djjN-TD2

7️⃣ 200+ Startup Pitch Decks That Raised Over $50 Billion
https://lnkd.in/denNjKSQ

8️⃣ The Venture Capital Method: How Investors Really Value Startups
https://lnkd.in/dPesU_G5

9️⃣ 350 Ways to Promote your Startup
https://lnkd.in/daRiU-RW

🔟 GEO Playbook
https://lnkd.in/eCvhk7Hn

Find more here: https://lnkd.in/d_NvAM_9 🔥

Which one do you find more useful? Any other resource you can recommend?

So much for the “drop out and build” myth. Most unicorn founders actually met at school or work 🤯

Palle Broe pulled together how the co-founders of 40 top tech companies first met. The pattern is clear

More than 80% were either classmates or colleagues:
▪️ Stripe, Grammarly, Gusto, Figma, Ramp, Canva → met at university
▪️ Coinbase, Miro, Revolut, Discord, Klarna → met at work
▪️ Others like OpenAI and Notion → introduced through friends

Even the giants of AI and fintech were sparked by connections in lecture halls and offices, not random chance.

It’s a reminder that university and early jobs aren’t just about credentials. They are networks where future co-founders collide.

If you’re an aspiring founder, one of the most underrated strategies is to be intentional about where you spend those early years. The people around you matter more than the classes or job titles.

Do you think today’s new generation of founders will keep meeting in school and work — or will it shift to accelerators, online communities, and programs like YC and Speedrun?

more 👉  https://lnkd.in/dxWsxKZU

🔥 The most valuable VC-backed startups in the world — 2025 edition

The $10B+ club tells you more about the future of tech than any prediction:

AI dominates.
Private markets have become their own universe.
And companies are staying private longer than ever.

From SpaceX, ByteDance, and OpenAI to the breakout newcomers like Perplexity, Mistral, Rippling, Kalshi, Figure AI, and Cursor, this list shows where capital, talent, and geopolitical influence are shifting.

I broke down the full map of the world’s most valuable private startups, including:
▫️ Every company worth $10B+ (curated by Trace Cohen)
▫️ Patterns across AI, fintech, defense, robotics, and infra
▫️ What it means for founders and investors in 2026

👉 Full list + analysis:
https://lnkd.in/dGhG7byX

Which company on the list surprised you most? Which one will on it soon?

How much equity should you give up at seed? Most founders have no idea 🤔


Palle Broe pulled together real data from 15 iconic startups, and the results are eye-opening:

▪️ Figma gave up 40% in their first investor-led round
▪️ Revolut, Grammarly, Brex all diluted around 28%
▪️ Airbnb and Uber lost 24% each
▪️ Wiz and Chime only 14%
▪️ Facebook 10%
▪️ Deel just 7%

On average: $3.3M raised, $12.3M valuation, and 21% dilution

The lesson? There is no magic formula. Some of today’s biggest companies gave up huge chunks early. Others barely diluted at all

For founders, this is both liberating and terrifying. You can raise on almost any terms if the story, timing, and team resonate

Would you take 40% dilution at seed if it meant building a $10B+ company?

Most startup founders struggle for years to learn what Paul Graham explained in 10 essays:

Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox, Reddit... all shaped by his thinking.

His essays have defined startup trends for decades.

Still, I keep meeting founders who’ve never read them.

So here’s your shortcut:
The 10 Paul Graham essays every founder should read 👇

1. Do Things That Don’t Scale
Your first 10 users should feel like clients, not clicks.
https://lnkd.in/dcKYH9M5

2. Startup = Growth
If it’s not growing, it’s not a startup.
https://lnkd.in/duwMFSFz

3. Startup in 13 Sentences
The closest thing to a YC cheat sheet.
https://lnkd.in/dGqiq3Fm

4. Founder Mode
What it actually feels like to be a startup founder.
https://lnkd.in/dv4HsKdc

5. Be Good
No growth hack beats a product people love.
https://lnkd.in/dB3xThCG

6. Billionaires Build
Talk less, ship more.
https://lnkd.in/dUW4w3RZ

7. The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn
The distractions that quietly kill great companies.
https://lnkd.in/d26g2uAf

8. 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups
Avoid these and you're ahead of 90% of teams.
https://lnkd.in/d38XQE4M

9. How to Convince Investors
What to say before you ever send a deck.
https://lnkd.in/dQZkxjjW

10. Ideas for Startups
Curiosity is the seed of every great company.
https://lnkd.in/dSi6QhwV

If you’re building, fundraising, or scaling, this is gold.

Save it and share it with any founder who can find it helpful!

Which one changed your thinking the most?
Which one would you add to the list?

Want more? Check out the following resources 🔥

▪️ 10k 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 List: https://lnkd.in/dtQnbv4q

▪️ VCs 𝗗𝘂𝗲 𝗗𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 Excel Template: https://lnkd.in/dXzaqRiA

▪️ 100+ 𝗣𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗸𝘀 That Raised Over $2B: https://lnkd.in/dR6wVrCn

▪️ SaaS 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹: https://lnkd.in/dUgPHBFv

▪️ 𝗖𝗮𝗽 𝗧𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 at Series A & B: https://lnkd.in/dcdW2y4G

▪️50+ 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀: https://lnkd.in/dxWsxKZU

Elon Musk just gave his most important interview in years 💣 


It is his clearest view yet on AI, robotics, energy, work, money, global talent, deflation, and even the simulation theory.

I went through the full interview, transcript, reactions, and commentary.

These are the 10 ideas that matter most for founders, operators, and investors 👇

1. Work Will Become Optional https://lnkd.in/d-sr988U

2. Money Eventually Disappears https://lnkd.in/dx38Muts

3. “Make More Than You Take” https://lnkd.in/d9jSACh5

4. X Will Become a Global AI Video Platform https://lnkd.in/dguVqUnM

5. The Meaning of Life: “The Question Matters More Than the Answer” https://lnkd.in/dy3SjwGw

6. Immigration Is a Superpower https://lnkd.in/dJWDUDNX

7. Energy Becomes the Real Measure of Progress and the Currency https://lnkd.in/dqnzeKSY

8. Tesla, SpaceX, xAI Are Converging https://lnkd.in/dzGjS-UC

9. The Population Crisis Is Real
https://lnkd.in/dxYfnuq4

10. Yes, He Still Thinks We’re in a Simulation
https://lnkd.in/dBsnGbVh

I put the full breakdown, insights, and a playbook on where to build and invest next in the piece below:
https://lnkd.in/d5CVJsGy

JUST IN: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says he should not be in charge of AI’s future

He admits he is “deeply uncomfortable” with how a small group of tech leaders is making decisions that will affect billions of people.

The same people building the most powerful systems are also the ones defining the guardrails.

There is still no clear governance model and no agreement on who should make these calls.

What should a better structure for AI oversight look like?

⚠️JUST IN: Anthropic reports that a China-linked group carried out what may be the first major cyber espionage campaign driven mostly by AI agents

The attackers used Claude Code to probe systems, generate exploit code, harvest credentials, and extract sensitive data across nearly thirty global targets in tech, finance, chemicals, and government.

Anthropic estimates AI handled 80 to 90 percent of the operation, with humans intervening only at a few decision points. The scale and speed went far beyond what human teams could achieve.

The company has expanded its detection systems and shared the case to help industry and government prepare for this new class of threat.

How do you think incidents like this will reshape cybersecurity priorities in the coming year?

AI Resources you might find helpful:

• OpenAI’s New Playbook for Product-Market Fit in AI Startups
https://lnkd.in/dy-HgVtX

• 2,500+ Angel Investors Backing AI Startups - https://lnkd.in/djjN-TD2

• 50 AI Agent Startup Ideas for 2025 - https://lnkd.in/dy9E-MCn

• AI Co-Pilots for Startups & VCs - https://lnkd.in/dSX3ss2q

• The Agentic Revolution - https://lnkd.in/dadFm25a

• 118 AI Communication Agent Use Cases - https://lnkd.in/dr9cM5BT

Peter Thiel said his biggest mistake when he was young was using education as a substitute for thinking about the future

He didn’t ask “what do I want to build?” He just followed the standard path through college, grad school, and a safe job

He believes this mindset traps people into collecting degrees and titles to “keep options open,” without ever finding purpose

The lesson is simple. Real progress comes from intentional choices, not default ones. Ask yourself early what you want to build, and how your actions align with it

Control is shifting to the top of the AI stack

Google is now the only company fully integrated across the entire AI value chain

That level of vertical control sets the limits for everyone else.
Startups compete through focus, proprietary data, or niche expertise, not infrastructure.

The higher you build in the stack, the more the moat depends on creativity, not compute.

🧠 Full breakdown: https://lnkd.in/daH8Btz6

The Ultimate INVESTOR List of Lists
More than 10K investors in one place 🎁

I built a complete database for founders raising capital, with:
▫️ 25 curated lists
▫️ VCs, angels, family offices, accelerators
▫️ AI, SaaS, climate, crypto, foodtech and more
▫️ No warm intro lists and diversity focused investors

👉 https://lnkd.in/dW3gt3dM

If AI gives us all this time back… what will we do with it? 🫣
A Google-backed startup has an answer, and I’m sharing its original deck and secrets

Meet-Ting started with a simple idea that caught Google’s attention.
Every morning, the world collectively reshuffles its schedule.
Millions of people move meetings, lose time, and slow down momentum.

They realized the real problem is systemic, not personal.
Their AI coordination network connects calendars, reads context from email and text, and learns how people actually collaborate.

▫️ 600+ calendars connected in two months
▫️ Top launch on Product Hunt
▫️ Backed by Google’s AI Startup Program

Founders Daniel B. and Mariana Oliveira Prazeres bring unique experience to the problem.
Dan helped shape TikTok’s global strategy at ByteDance, while Mariana has been building deep learning systems since 2017.

This might be one of the most interesting early AI startups in Europe right now

👉 Comment “Time” below and I’ll send you the full story and their original Google-funded pitch deck :)

🎁 The ultimate FREE AI bundle for founders is LIVE 


HubSpot For Startups partnered with the leading AI tools in the ecosystem to create a full AI-native startup stack — plus exclusive offers you won’t find anywhere else.

What’s inside:
▫️ Clay — $50 credit
▫️ Lovable — 1 month free
▫️ Make — 1 year free
▫️ Gamma — 50% off
▫️ Captions — 75% off
▫️ MindStudio — 60-day trial
▫️ Claude — free plan
▫️ Notion — 3 months free
▫️ HubSpot — up to 90% off

Here’s the link to unlock it:
👉 https://lnkd.in/gyF8VqGT

📘 Also… there’s a free guide that pairs perfectly with this bundle.
It shows you how to use these AI tools together to build your startup in days, not months.
Real workflows, prompts, templates, and step-by-step use cases.

If you want the guide, comment AI and I’ll send it your way

And if you want more founders to get access to this, feel free to repost and share

Excited to share my first investment in the Fall 25 Y Combinator batch: Karumi (YC F25) 🚀 
Most companies still demo like it’s 1990...
Static onboarding flows, endless demo requests, and sales reps booked for next week.

But buyers have changed.
They want instant, personalized product demos, not waitlists.

That’s where Karumi comes in :)

Karumi is your AI demo agent, available 24/7, in any language.
It joins live video calls, speaks, clicks, navigates your product, opens tabs, and tailors each walkthrough to every customer’s use case.

Founded by Toni Lopez and Pablo Omenaca Muro (previously StackAI, YC W23), Karumi makes product demos scalable, personal, and human again.

Congrats on the launch!

💬 Comment “Demo” if you want to try it.
🔁 Repost to give the founders a boost.

Anthropic and Cursor leading


Years from inception to $1B in revenue 😳


The playbook is being rewritten

VCs love to say alpha comes from being contrarian and right. The data suggests many prefer to be consensual and together 🤔

PitchBook’s Rosie Bradbury analyzed the top 20 firms and found that nearly 2 in 5 of their deals are done with another top firm.

Some highlights:
▪️ Benchmark syndicates about half of its deals with other top firms (two-thirds in 2024)
▪️ Redpoint and Greylock are also frequent syndicators
▪️ On the other end, Greycroft and Venrock co-invest in fewer than 1 in 5 deals

Fund size, stage, and philosophy drive these choices. For some, syndication spreads risk and builds consensus. For others, it dilutes conviction and ownership.

It raises an important question: are VCs optimizing for true differentiated bets, or for signaling and risk-sharing with their peers?

What do you think — should top VCs be partnering more, or doubling down alone?

Thanks to Jackie DiMonte for sharing this!

Meta just lost its mind. Literally, the mind behind its AI research 😬

Yann LeCun, Meta’s Chief AI Scientist, is leaving to start his own company.

LeCun has been one of the key architects of modern AI — leading Meta’s research since 2013 and shaping the foundations of deep learning. His work has always focused on helping machines understand the world, not just read about it.

Now he’s stepping away to pursue “world models,” an approach that aims to teach AI how to reason more like humans do. It’s a long-term vision that demands freedom and patience — two things large organizations rarely offer.

Meta has shifted toward faster product cycles and large language models, but LeCun seems ready to chase the next frontier on his own terms.

More and more of the people who built modern AI inside big tech are leaving to build outside it.


Will the next decade of AI breakthroughs come from within tech giants, or beyond them?

Source: Financial Times

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