The Dealflow by Founders Capital - Edition 24

Key News and Trends

BlackRock’s bargain hunt begins… With venture stakes changing hands at steep discounts, BlackRock is seizing the moment by preparing to launch its first dedicated VC secondaries fund. The new vehicle will target discounted venture capital stakes on the secondary market, where deals are currently trading at roughly 75% of face value. Read more here

OpenAI’s raking in billions, and burning through GPUs just as fast. OpenAI has crossed $1 billion in monthly revenue, but CFO Sarah Friar says the company is burning through GPUs at a breakneck pace. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s lawyers are questioning Meta’s role in Elon Musk’s $97B takeover bid from earlier this year. Read more here

Big Tech’s truce of convenience - Meta parks its AI on Google’s turf. Meta has struck a six-year, $10 billion deal to run its AI workloads on Google Cloud - an unusual alliance between two fierce advertising rivals. The partnership highlights just how urgently Big Tech is racing to secure computing power, as companies scramble to lock in the infrastructure needed to fuel their AI ambitions. Read more here

Founder’s Take: Venture Capital is starting to look more like Private Equity

BlackRock launching a secondary fund is certainly interesting for the private markets - and very much a sign of the times. The underlying issue has been clear for a while: liquidity in VC is broken. Too much capital is trapped in late-stage companies, and with IPO windows stretching further out, some investors are being forced to sell at discounts.

The bigger picture is that venture capital is beginning to resemble private equity. For the right players in this space, there are plenty of opportunities on both the buy side and the sell side. Investors looking to unlock liquidity are often sitting on high multiples, while new capital flowing into these companies can create fresh momentum.

BlackRock’s liquidity fund will be one to watch, but it certainly won’t be the last - expect more of the big names to roll out similar vehicles in the months ahead.

Top Venture Deals

Databricks: $100bn (Thrive Capital, Insight Partners, WCM Investment Management)

• Databricks is closing in on a $1 billion funding round at a $100 billion valuation - up 61% since its last raise in December. The fresh capital will help the company attack a new AI database market. Read more here

EliseAI: $250M Series E (Andressen Horowitz)

• EliseAI, a nine-year-old New York startup automating administrative work for housing operators and healthcare providers, has raised a $250 million Series E at a $2.2 billion+ valuation. Andreessen Horowitz led the round, joined by Bessemer Venture Partners, Sapphire Ventures, and Navitas. Read more here.

FieldAI: $312M (Bezos Expeditions, Prysm, and Temasek)

• FieldAI, a 2.5-year-old Irvine-based startup building “foundational embodied AI models” - essentially robot brains for humanoids, autonomous vehicles, and more - has raised $314 million in new funding. Read more here.

Upcoming Public Offerings

Gemini

• Yet another crypto company IPO… The Winklevoss twins are taking their crypto exchange Gemini public on Nasdaq, despite mounting losses - $282.5 million in the first half of 2025 alone, nearly double all of last year. The move highlights how crypto firms are racing to list while regulatory conditions remain favourable under the Trump administration. Read more here.

Shein

• Shein, the fast-fashion giant, is considering relocating its headquarters back to China to boost its chances of winning approval for a Hong Kong IPO, after earlier setbacks in New York and London. Read more here.

See you in the next edition,
The Founders Capital Team