The Dealflow by Founders Capital - Edition 36

Key News and Trends

Anthropic’s $50B Buildout: AI Labs Are Becoming Utilities

Anthropic has announced a $50B U.S. infrastructure plan, starting with massive new data centres in Texas and New York. The programme brings gigawatt-scale compute online and hundreds of long-term technical jobs. The message is clear: Anthropic wants to own domestic compute capacity, not rent it, shifting from an AI model shop to a core infrastructure player in the U.S. intelligence stack. Read more here

Lovable’s 8M Surge: The Vibe-Coding Breakout Goes Enterprise

AI coding platform Lovable is nearing 8 million users, up from 2.3M in July, as it becomes one of the fastest-adopted dev tools of the year. Users are now generating 100,000 new products per day, and more than half of the Fortune 500 have adopted the platform. The company hit $100M ARR in June, though recent traffic declines raise questions about the sustainability of the “vibe coding” boom. CEO Anton Osika says retention remains strong and the company is doubling down on security hires as it expands its 100-person team. Read more here

Meta Goes Megawatt: The $600B Pivot From Social to Infrastructure

Meta is planning $600B in U.S. data-centre and energy investment over the next three years, including a $27B JV with Blue Owl to build the nine-building “Hyperion” campus and a 1GW facility in Texas. This is Meta repositioning itself as a national-scale infrastructure operator, not a social platform, deploying compute and power at a level usually associated with governments. Read more here

Founders’ Take: The Endgame of the Data Centre Arms Race

This week brought two new data centre buildout announcements - from Anthropic and Meta. Anthropic’s move, in particular, feels like a direct response to OpenAI’s Stargate ambitions: a signal that frontier AI is now as much about who owns the infrastructure as who builds the models. But it raises a deeper question - what’s the logical endpoint of this arms race?

Do we see a handful of AI labs vertically integrate into trillion-dollar utilities, each operating its own compute empire? Or does the market fragment, with specialised infrastructure providers capturing the value while the model builders commoditise? Either way, the battleground has shifted - and it’s clear that for many of these companies, the real concern for now is not owning the infrastructure.

Top Venture Deals

Skims - $225M Growth Round at $5B Valuation (Goldman Sachs Alternatives)

• Kim Kardashian’s Skims has raised $225M at a $5B valuation, in a round led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives with participation from BDT & MSD Partners. The shapewear and apparel brand, now on track to surpass $1B in net sales in 2025, plans to expand its intimates, activewear, and retail footprint. Skims’ investor roster, including Thrive Capital and Greenoaks, positions the company as a credible future IPO candidate, supported by strong consumer pull and Kardashian’s integrated beauty–apparel ecosystem. Read more here

CHAOS Industries - $510M Round (Valor Equity Partners)

• CHAOS Industries, the defence-tech company building Coherent Distributed Networks™ for next-gen radar and autonomous-threat detection, has raised $510M at a $4.5B valuation, led by Valor Equity Partners with participation from 8VC and Accel. The raise brings total funding to over $1B and follows CHAOS’s acquisition of Ziva Corporation, whose wireless time-sync tech underpins multi-static radar. With global UAV threats increasing, CHAOS is scaling deployment of its distributed sensing systems across defence and border-security customers. Read more here

TRIP - $40M Growth Round (Coefficient Capital)

• TRIP, the fastest-growing calming drinks brand in the U.S., has raised $40M from Coefficient Capital alongside investors including Joe Jonas, Alessandra Ambrosio, Paul Wesley, and Ashley Graham. The company is on track for $100M revenue this year and projects $200M in 2026 as it scales its drinks, oils, and gummies line. Read more here

Upcoming Public Offerings

Einride

• Autonomous freight operator Einride is going public via a SPAC merger valuing the business at $1.8B. The Swedish company, known for its self-driving electric trucks, plans to use proceeds to expand U.S. long-haul routes and scale its autonomous pod fleet. It becomes one of the few commercial-stage autonomy players attempting a public listing. Read more here

Klook

• Travel platform Klook has filed for a U.S. IPO, reporting $417M revenue in 2024, up from $335M. Backed by SoftBank, Klook is capitalising on the global rebound in travel and the rapid growth of the experiences category. The company plans to list on the NYSE under “KLK”.  Read more here

See you in the next edition,
The Founders Capital Team

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