The Dealflow by Founders Capital - Edition 26

Key News and Trends

$13B for Anthropic: Apparently Safety Isn’t Cheap.
Anthropic has raised a massive $13B Series F, led by Iconiq, Fidelity, and Lightspeed, pushing its valuation to $183B. The funds will accelerate enterprise adoption, expand internationally, and deepen AI safety research. With ARR surging from $1B to $5B in 2025 and 300,000+ business customers, investors are betting big on Claude’s commercial momentum despite questions around the pace of spending and sovereign fund involvement. Read more here

Google Escapes Breakup. Settles for a Scolding.
Google avoided a forced breakup in its landmark antitrust trial, but Judge Amit Mehta ruled it must abandon exclusive search and app distribution deals. The remedies curb Google’s ability to bundle Search, Chrome, Gemini, and Play Store revenue-sharing - loosening its dominance without dismantling the core business. While not existential, the ruling chips away at a pillar of Google’s market control just as AI-driven search competition intensifies. Read more here

OpenAI Buys Statsig, Installs New Leadership
OpenAI is acquiring product testing startup Statsig for $1.1B in stock, bringing in founder Vijaye Raji as CTO of Applications. Raji will oversee ChatGPT, Codex, and future app products under Fidji Simo’s Applications group. The deal marks OpenAI’s largest acquisition yet and reflects a sharpened focus on building consumer-facing AI products alongside its model business. Leadership reshuffles underscore a bid to scale OpenAI into a product powerhouse. Read more here

OpenAI Expands Secondary - Everyone Wants In
OpenAI has boosted its secondary share sale, now allowing current and former employees to offload $10.3B worth of stock at a $500B valuation. The transaction cements OpenAI’s status as one of the most valuable private companies in the world, giving insiders liquidity while sidestepping new dilution. The move highlights ongoing investor appetite for AI exposure, even as governance debates and Microsoft negotiations continue in the background. Read more here

Founder’s Take: The Pipes, the Interfaces, the Feedback Loops

OpenAI’s $1.1B purchase of Statsig might look like another routine acquisition, but it’s more revealing than that. While many recent deals in AI have been acquihires, OpenAI went a step further - buying not just talent, but the full suite of product optimisation tools. Scaling AI to hundreds of millions of users isn’t just about better models; it’s about making those models usable, reliable, and sticky.

If you zoom out, the strategy is starting to look deliberate. First hardware with Jony Ive’s IO, then data infrastructure with Rockset, now product optimisation with Statsig. They’re quietly building everything around them: the pipes, the interfaces, the feedback loops. That’s the difference between being a lab and being a platform.

What stands out to me is the practicality of it. While competitors are still tied up in questions of research direction, OpenAI is quietly putting together the machinery that will let them dominate in the real world. Statsig isn’t flashy, but it’s essential. It’s the kind of acquisition that tells you OpenAI is thinking several moves ahead, not just about building intelligence, but about how to operationalise it at global scale.

Top Venture Deals

Sierra: $350M Funding Round

• Sierra, the enterprise AI agent startup founded by ex-Google exec Clay Bavor and Salesforce’s Bret Taylor, is closing in on a $350M raise at a $10B valuation. The two-year-old company builds custom AI agents optimised for customer service and support, reflecting growing investor appetite for specialised agentic AI. Read more here

ID.me: $340M Series E + Credit Facility (Ribbit Capital)

• ID.me, a Virginia-based digital identity provider used by 152M consumers and 20+ U.S. federal agencies, has raised $340M at a $2B+ valuation. The funds will expand its reusable identity wallet and bolster defences against AI-driven fraud, including deepfakes and synthetic identity theft. Read more here

LayerX: $100M Series B (TCV)

• LayerX, a Tokyo-based SaaS startup automating back-office workflows, secured a $100M Series B led by TCV, marking its first investment in Japan. Its Bakuraku platform streamlines expense, invoicing, and compliance for 15,000+ firms, while its AI Workforce targets enterprise data. The company is on track to hit ¥10B ($68M) ARR faster than any domestic SaaS peer. Read more here

Upcoming Public Offerings

Gemini

• Crypto exchange Gemini, founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, has filed for a U.S. IPO targeting a $2.22B valuation. The firm plans to raise $317M by selling 16.7M shares at $17–19 each, trading under the ticker “GEMI.” Gemini generated $142M in 2024 revenue, up 45% YoY, positioning itself as a mid-sized regulated alternative in the crypto sector. Read more here

Lambda

• San Francisco–based Lambda, an Nvidia-backed AI cloud provider, has hired Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, and Citi to lead its IPO preparations. With H1 2025 revenues of $250M (+33% YoY) and gross margins of 61% in its cloud unit, Lambda could list in early 2026 at a $4–5B valuation. The move follows rival CoreWeave’s blockbuster IPO earlier this year. Read more here

See you in the next edition,
The Founders Capital Team

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