The Dealflow by Founders Capital - Edition 11

Key News and Trends

OpenAI doubles down on doing good, but Musk isn’t buying it. OpenAI has confirmed it will retain its nonprofit board’s control while converting its for-profit arm into a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), allowing it to pursue commercial goals without losing sight of its mission to benefit humanity. The decision comes after legal scrutiny and public concern over governance. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s lawsuit alleging the company has drifted from its founding values is still ongoing. Read more here.

From spaceships to spreadsheets: xAI enters the enterprise. Elon Musk’s xAI has partnered with Palantir Technologies and TWG Global to integrate AI into the financial services and insurance sectors. The collaboration aims to embed xAI’s Grok large language models and Colossus supercomputer into enterprise operations, enhancing productivity and enabling market expansion. TWG Global will lead the implementation efforts, working directly with company executives to design and deploy AI-powered solutions. Read more here.

About time: Stripe reveals how it’s putting AI to work. Stripe has launched a payments-specific AI foundation model trained on billions of transactions to dramatically improve fraud detection - reducing card-testing attacks by 64% for major clients. It also rolled out stablecoin-backed business cards and a new orchestration layer for developers. The announcement came alongside a deeper integration with Nvidia, which now uses Stripe Billing across its customer base. Read more here.

Figma just redrew the battle lines with Adobe, WordPress, and Canva. At Config 2025, Figma launched four AI-powered tools - Sites, Make, Buzz, and Draw - marking a bold expansion into web design, prototyping, content creation, and illustration. The move positions Figma to directly challenge Adobe’s creative suite, WordPress’s web builder dominance, and Canva’s marketing tools. Read more here.

Founder’s Take: OpenAI’s Structure Is Still a Black Box

OpenAI’s decision to retain nonprofit board control while converting its for-profit arm into a Public Benefit Corporation has been framed as clarity. In reality, it raises as many questions as it answers.

This was always going to be a messy balance: a nonprofit mission, a capped-profit model, and one of the most commercially explosive technologies in history. The structure was never built for this scale - and everyone, from investors to regulators to Elon Musk, seems to sense it.

Yes, the nonprofit board stays in charge. Yes, the mission remains “benefit all of humanity.” But no, we still don’t know how future investor economics will shake out, how governance will flex under pressure, or how strategic calls will be made when you're operating at the scale of the most influential private company on the planet.

Bottom line: the press may have headlines, but the market still doesn’t have answers. It’s all up in the air.

Top Venture Deals

Anysphere –  $900M  (Thrive Capital)

• Anysphere, the startup behind AI coding assistant Cursor, raised $900M at a $9B valuation. Cursor has surpassed 1 million users and reached $200M in annual recurring revenue, doubling from $100M in just two months. Notably, this growth was achieved with minimal marketing spend, driven largely by individual developers and over 14,000 business customers. Read more here.

Wonder – $600M (Google Ventures, Accel, NEA)

• Wonder, the food-tech startup led by Marc Lore, raised $600M to expand its physical locations across the Northeast, scale its meal prep business, and build a "mealtime super app" following acquisitions of Grubhub, Blue Apron, and Tastemade. Read more here.

NewLimit – $130M Series B (Kleiner Perkins)

• Longevity biotech NewLimit, co-founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Blake Byers in 2021, raised $130M to develop epigenetic reprogramming tech aimed at reversing aging. The round was led by Kleiner Perkins with backing from Founders Fund, Dimension, and Nat Friedman. Read more here.

Upcoming Public Offerings

eToro

• Social trading platform eToro has officially launched its U.S. IPO roadshow, aiming to raise up to $500 million by offering 10 million shares priced between $46 and $50 each. The company plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker “ETOR” on May 14, targeting a valuation of approximately $4 billion. Read more here.

Hinge Health

• Digital physical therapy startup Hinge Health is moving forward with its IPO plans despite market volatility tied to U.S. tariffs. The San Francisco-based company, last valued at $6B, has raised over $825M from top VCs including Insight, Bessemer, Coatue, and Tiger Global. Read more here.

See you in the next edition,
Sam Scott and the Founders Capital Team