The Dealflow by Founders Capital - Edition 64

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.

July 24, 2026

Edition 64

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.

Key News & Trends

Microsoft Backs Mistral’s European AI Expansion

Microsoft has agreed to spend billions of dollars on Mistral’s European compute infrastructure, while expanding distribution of the French AI lab’s models through Azure and Microsoft Foundry. The deal will allow Azure customers to build software using Mistral data centres in France, giving regulated industries an alternative to US-controlled infrastructure. Read more here.

Anthropic Sits at the Centre of the AI Arms Race

Anthropic was at the centre of multiple major stories this week, spanning compute, chips and model security. Meta is reportedly in talks to lease AI computing power to Anthropic in a deal worth up to $10B over two years, while AMD has signed a separate agreement to sell Anthropic tens of billions of dollars’ worth of AI servers and invest up to $5B as deployment milestones are met. At the same time, a senior White House official accused Moonshot AI of using large-scale distillation from Anthropic’s Fable model to develop Kimi K3, intensifying the debate over Chinese open-source models, industrial espionage and national security risk. Read more here, here and here.

OpenAI Expands Health Offering as IPO Preparations and Open-Weight Pressure Build

OpenAI is expanding ChatGPT Health to all US users over 18, across all plans, as weekly health-related queries rise from 230M to 300M. The feature can integrate data from Apple Health, Function and MyFitnessPal, pushing ChatGPT further into a sensitive consumer use case. The company has also appointed Nubank CEO David Vélez and BNY CEO Robin Vince to its nonprofit and for-profit boards, adding financial-services expertise as the $850B-plus company prepares for a potential IPO. Meanwhile, Moonshot’s Kimi K3 has intensified debate over Chinese open-weight models, after OpenAI’s head of strategic futures argued that cheaper open models could pressure frontier-lab economics before retracting parts of his claim. Read more here, here and here.

SpaceX Courts Pentagon Compute Deal

SpaceX is reportedly in talks with the US Defense Department to provide billions of dollars’ worth of data-centre capacity for running AI models. The potential deal would deepen SpaceX’s relationship with the Pentagon and extend the company further into AI infrastructure. Read more here.

Founders’ Take

Is AI Is Becoming a Supply Chain Problem ?

The AI race used to be framed as a contest to build the best model. Increasingly, however, success appears to depend on securing enough chips, compute, power and political support to keep scaling.

Anthropic is reportedly discussing a compute-leasing agreement with Meta while entering a major chips-and-investment partnership with AMD. Buying infrastructure from a competitor might once have seemed unusual. Today, it reflects a market in which demand is growing faster than capacity, forcing frontier labs to secure compute wherever they can find it.

The same dynamic helps explain Microsoft’s support for Mistral’s European infrastructure expansion. For Europe, the goal may extend beyond supporting a competitive domestic AI lab. It could also provide greater control over where models operate, who owns the underlying infrastructure and whether regulated industries can adopt AI without relying entirely on US-controlled capacity.

Competition with China adds a geopolitical dimension. Moonshot’s Kimi K3 has demonstrated how quickly powerful open-weight models can challenge leading US systems. The White House response, including allegations that Kimi was developed using distillation from Anthropic’s Fable model, shows how closely model development is becoming linked to national security and industrial policy.

AI is starting to look less like a conventional software market and more like a strategic supply chain. Strong models will remain essential, but the eventual winners will also need reliable access to chips, energy, data centres, distribution and political trust.

Top Venture Deals

Atoms Raises $1.7B at Undisclosed Valuation, Backed by a16z, Bain Capital, Fifth Wall and Uber

  • Travis Kalanick’s robotics company Atoms has raised $1.7B in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Ben Horowitz joining the board. Bain Capital, Fifth Wall and Uber also participated, backing Kalanick’s push to build robotics and automation technology for the physical world. Read more here.

Valar Atomics in Talks to Raise $1B at $6B Valuation, Backed by Sequoia

  • Nuclear startup Valar Atomics is reportedly in talks to raise new funding at a roughly $6B valuation, with Sequoia expected to lead. The company, which is building small modular nuclear reactors for AI data centres, has already raised $450M at a $2B valuation across equity and debt. Read more here.

Revolut Completes Secondary Share Sale at $115B Valuation

  • Revolut has launched a secondary share sale valuing the British digital bank at $115B, up from $75B late last year. The sale, priced at $2,017 per share, further cements Revolut’s position as Europe’s most valuable startup. Read more here.


Upcoming Public Offerings

AlphaSense Explores Public Debut

  • AlphaSense is reportedly exploring a potential IPO, with the AI-powered market intelligence platform working with IPO advisory firm Class V and beginning discussions with investment banks. The company serves more than 4,000 enterprise customers, including a majority of the S&P 500, and has expanded through acquisitions including Sentieo and Tegus. Read more here.

Scribe Raises $129M in Rare Gene-Editing IPO

  • Scribe Therapeutics has raised close to $129M in the first IPO by a gene-editing medicines company in more than two years. The biotech sold 8.58M shares at $15 each, above earlier projections, and is set to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker SCTX. Read more here.

Moonshot AI Seeks Hong Kong IPO Approval

  • Moonshot AI is seeking shareholder approval for a Hong Kong IPO that could arrive within six months. The Beijing startup behind Kimi is also reportedly finishing a private funding round that could value it at more than $30B, while annual recurring revenue reached $300M in June 2026. Read more here.

Manipal Health Targets $8B Valuation in $960M IPO

  • Temasek-backed Manipal Health Enterprises will open its IPO for public subscription from 29–31 July, targeting a valuation of up to $8B. The company has set a price band of Rs 560–590 per share for the Rs 92.75B ($960M) offering, comprising an Rs 80B fresh issue and an Rs 12.1B offer for sale by Temasek’s Imperius Healthcare Investments, TPG Capital and other shareholders. It is expected to be India’s second-largest IPO this year, behind SBI Funds Management’s $1.03B offering. Read more here.

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