The Dealflow by Founders Capital - Edition 41

Welcome back to The Dealflow by Founders Capital - your inside track on the private markets. Each week, we cut through the noise to bring you the latest industry trends - along with our take.

Author

Sam Scott
January 16, 2026

The AI Talent Boomerang

Mira Murati’s startup loses co-founders back to OpenAI - Two co-founders of Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, are returning to OpenAI less than a year after launch. The exits come despite a $2B seed round that valued the company at $12B, highlighting how gravitational pull, scale, and platform access continue to favour incumbent AI labs over well-capitalised spinouts. Read more here

OpenAI Buys the Medical Memory

OpenAI acquired healthcare technology startup Torch for approximately $60M, adding infrastructure designed to unify fragmented patient medical data into a single AI-readable layer. The acquisition follows the launch of ChatGPT Health and signals OpenAI’s strategy of selectively buying vertical-specific data infrastructure rather than building from scratch. Read more here

Cerebras Locks in Long-Term Demand

OpenAI has agreed a $10B+ multiyear deal with Cerebras for up to 750MW of computing capacity, securing dedicated infrastructure to meet surging demand and reduce reliance on ad-hoc cloud supply as it scales its models and products. Read more here

Meta Goes Nuclear

Big Tech locks in baseload power for the AI decade - Meta signed long-term agreements with nuclear providers Oklo, TerraPower, and Vistra to secure more than 6 GW of power for its data centres. The deals reflect a growing shift toward nuclear as AI-driven compute demand outstrips grid capacity, turning energy access into a strategic bottleneck for frontier model development. Read more here

Thinking Machines Lab is a reminder of one of the hardest problems in frontier AI: holding elite talent when the largest platform remains the industry’s gravitational centre. The company launched with $2bn in capital, a ~$12bn valuation, and an all-star team, yet three of four co-founders have now departed within 12 months.

In this era, talent mobility can matter more than valuation. OpenAI’s unmatched compute, infrastructure, and research ecosystem makes it rational for top builders to gravitate back - even as OpenAI itself has struggled to retain its own talent.

The deeper takeaway for founders isn’t just about incentives. The real edge is building an environment where world-class talent chooses to stay and build, and remains magnetised to even after they leave.

Skild AI: $1.4B (SoftBank, Nvidia, Bezos Expeditions, Salesforce, Samsung)

  • Robot AI startup Skild AI raised a $1.4B round led by SoftBank, with participation from Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, Salesforce Ventures and Samsung. The raise values the company at ~$14B and reflects growing conviction that foundation models for robotics will underpin the next phase of AI deployment beyond software. Read more here

Alpaca: $150M (Drive Capital, Citadel Securities, Kraken, BNP Paribas)

  • Brokerage infrastructure provider Alpaca raised $150M in a Series D led by Drive Capital, with strategic participation from Citadel Securities, Kraken and BNP Paribas’ venture arm. The round values Alpaca at ~$1.15B as it pushes to challenge Interactive Brokers by powering equities, options and crypto trading for hundreds of platforms globally. Read more here

CastAI: >$1B Strategic Raise (Pacific Alliance Ventures)

  • Cloud infrastructure startup Cast AI raised new funding from Pacific Alliance Ventures, pushing its valuation above $1 billion. The company is scaling OMNI Compute, a unified marketplace that helps enterprises optimise and source GPU capacity across multiple clouds while cutting costs and reducing lock-in for AI and Kubernetes workloads. Read more here

Strava

  • Fitness tracking platform Strava has confidentially filed for a US IPO, with a listing possible as soon as spring 2026. Last valued at $2.2B in a Sequoia-led round, Strava could offer one of the first consumer-tech exits as rate expectations and IPO backlogs begin to clear. Read more here

BitGo

  • Crypto custody firm BitGo is targeting a valuation of up to $1.96B in a US IPO, seeking to raise as much as $201M. With Goldman Sachs and Citi leading the offering, BitGo is positioning itself as a regulated, infrastructure-first play as investor appetite returns selectively to crypto-adjacent businesses. Read more here

See you in the next edition,
The Founders Capital Team

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