The Dealflow by Founders Capital - Edition 14

Key News and Trends

Don’t worry, AI can’t replace human creativity, just your salary. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has made a bold claim: AI could eliminate up to 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within five years, potentially driving unemployment to 10-20%. He’s urging governments and tech companies to stop “sugar-coating” the risks and brace for a rapid transition as AI begins to replace roles across finance, law, and tech. Read more here.

Speaking of Anthropic… Reed Hastings, co-founder and chairman of Netflix, has joined the board of directors at Anthropic. Appointed by Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust, Hastings adds decades of leadership from Netflix and board roles at Microsoft, Facebook, and Bloomberg. Read more here.

Third time’s the charm… for collecting debris and data. SpaceX’s ninth Starship test reached space but spun out and broke up on reentry - the third consecutive Starship to suffer a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” A propellant leak caused the craft to lose control during descent, though SpaceX still considers the flight a valuable data-gathering mission. Read more here.

The soft launch of a $300M partnership. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced a $300 million partnership with Elon Musk’s xAI to bring the Grok chatbot to the platform, with Telegram set to receive 50% of subscription revenue tied to the integration. While Musk has downplayed reports of a formal agreement, the rollout is still anticipated this summer. Read more here.

Founder’s Take: Sink or Swim

First it was blue-collar jobs under threat - now it’s white-collar roles in the firing line. 

Calling for 10–20% unemployment might sound dramatic, but Dario Amodei has told skeptics to ask themselves one question: “Well, what if they’re right?”

While it’s important to prepare for the worst, we should be focused on the upside. Take developers: once the most in-demand role, hiring has dropped by 70% - yet the top engineers are now 10x more productive thanks to AI tools. As always, the future belongs to those who adapt fastest.

In our modern world, we always like to find ways things will "break the system". In reality technology has been "breaking the system" for over 100 years.

Top Venture Deals

Neuralink  –  $600M (Founders Fund)

• Neuralink just raised $600M at a $9B pre-money valuation, more than doubling its $3.5B valuation from 2023. The round, reported by Semafor, was led by Founders Fund with backing from Google Ventures and sovereign wealth funds. Read more here.

ClickHouse –  $350M Series C (Khosla Ventures)

• ClickHouse just raised a $350M Series C to scale its lightning-fast, open-source analytics database. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, joined by Index and Lightspeed, bringing total funding to over $650M for the eight-year-old San Francisco startup. Read more here.

GRIN Therapeutics  –  $140M Series D (Blackstone, Angelini Pharma)

• GRIN Therapeutics secured $140M in funding to push its GRIN-NDD drug, radiprodil, into Phase 3 trials. The round was led by Blackstone and Angelini Pharma - with Angelini also signing a global rights deal worth up to $520M.  Read more here.

Upcoming Public Offerings

Circle

• Circle is targeting a $6.7B valuation in its upcoming IPO, with plans to raise up to $624M by offering 24 million shares priced between $24 and $26 each. BlackRock is reportedly planning to acquire around 10% of the shares offered. Read more here.

Shein

• Fast-fashion giant Shein is reportedly preparing for a Hong Kong IPO, after failing to obtain Chinese regulatory approval for a planned London listing. Read more here.

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