PIN

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
September 05, 2025

Welcome to PIN’d - our weekly newsletter where we pin (lol, bear with us) the most important tech/startup news of the week for aspiring angels, vc’s, startup investors, founders, etc. Expect a new weekly roundup from us every Friday morning!

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📰 This week’s best news

OpenAI says it’s developing an AI-powered hiring platform to connect businesses and employees, a service that would put the outfit in close competition with LinkedIn. The product is called the OpenAI Jobs Platform, and the company expects to launch the service by mid-2026.

Anthropic has closed a $13 billion Series F led by Iconiq, Fidelity, and Lightspeed, pushing its valuation to $183 billion. This year, revenue has surged from $1 billion to $5 billion ARR, with Claude Code alone contributing more than $500 million in run-rate revenue. Now serving over 300,000 business customers, Anthropic is moving fast to keep up with OpenAI and other rivals.

Gemini is aiming for a $2.22 billion valuation in its upcoming IPO, pricing shares between $17 and $19 to raise up to $317 million. The deal is being led by Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Cantor. In 2024, the exchange pulled in $142.2 million in revenue as trading picked up. Founded by the Winklevoss twins, Gemini plans to trade under the ticker GEMI.

Scale is suing Mercor for misappropriation of trade secrets and is suing the former employee, Eugene Ling, for breach of contract. The suit also claims the employee was trying to pitch Mercor to one of Scale’s largest customers before he officially left his former job. The suit calls this company “Customer A.”

OpenAI is increasing the size of its secondary share sale by more than $4 billion. The artificial intelligence startup is giving eligible current and former employees the opportunity to sell roughly $10.3 billion in stock, up from the $6 billion it was initially targeting, according to a person familiar with the offering.

At TechBBQ in Copenhagen, Lovable co-founder Anton Osika showed why the AI coding startup is Europe’s fastest-growing unicorn. The company hit $100 million ARR in just eight months and raised a $200 million Series A at a $1.8 billion valuation. Now with more than 2.3 million active users, Lovable is expanding its platform to cover the full product journey for founders. Osika says the focus is on building trust by making it fast, secure, and easy to use.

Launched just a few months ago, Human Behavior is betting that vision AI can do what analytics tools like Mixpanel and PostHog have struggled with: give companies a real understanding of how people use their products, including why they convert or churn.

💰 Funding announcement highlights

Kapital, a six-year-old Mexico City startup that develops software that supports its own banking operations in Mexico and Colombia, raised an $86 million round co-led by Tribe Capital and Pelion Ventures. Y Combinator, Marbruck Ventures, and True Arrow also contributed.

LayerX, a four-year-old Tel Aviv startup that uses AI to help Japanese companies automate back-office work such as processing expenses, invoices, and HR paperwork, raised a $100 million Series B. The round was led by TCV, with a MUFG Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Innovation Partners, Jafco, Keyrock Capital, Coreline Venture, and JP Investment also showing up.

Citymall, a startup that runs an online grocery service in India that sells low-cost essentials to shoppers in smaller cities and towns, raised a $47 million Series D. The round was led by Accel, with previous investors Waterbridge Ventures, Citius, General Catalyst, Elevation Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, and Jungle Ventures also joining.

Aurelius Systems, a startup building autonomous laser defense systems designed to take down low-cost drone attacks, raised a $10 million seed round co-led by General Catalyst and Draper Associates, with additional investors including Outlander VC, Squadra, Decisive Point, Alumni Ventures, New Founding, GoAhead Ventures, Detroit Venture Partners, EO Tech, and Mana Ventures. 

Kite, a San Francisco startup founded three years ago, is developing infrastructure that lets autonomous agents handle payments, identity, and transactions with stablecoins. The $18 million Series A round co-led by PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst, with 8VC, Samsung Next, and others. 

📚 Interesting reads of the week

Andreessen Horowitz partner Martin Casado argues that early-stage success usually aligns with consensus, not contrarian bets. He says venture isn’t private equity, but it is a game of access, competition, and fund structure. Founders must pitch in ways investors recognize, even if their product feels non-consensus.

In this episode of Sourcery with Molly O’Shea, Danielle Strachman shares the inside story of the Thiel Fellowship, a radical $100K bet on teenagers willing to drop out and build. The program has produced giants like Ethereum, Figma, Scale AI, Anthropic, and OYO, creating more than $750B in value. Strachman explains how Peter Thiel’s contrarian vision reshaped venture’s view of young founders. Now at 1517 Fund, she’s scaling that same ethos to back dropouts and sci-fi scientists at the earliest stages.

The evidence that AI is destroying jobs for young people just got stronger

A new Stanford study suggests AI may be cutting into early career opportunities after all. Using ADP payroll data, researchers found a 13% drop in employment for workers aged 22–25 in jobs most exposed to generative AI, like software development and customer service. Older and less-exposed roles saw stable or rising employment.

Google’s new Nano Banana model is making quite a buzz. Integrated into Gemini and Imogen, it lets anyone swap backgrounds, blend photos, or try on outfits with just a prompt. Creators are already using it for product shots, fashion, and interior design, making it one of the most popular editing models in the world.

Vibe coding is booming, but security cracks are starting to show. Recent breaches exposed sensitive data, raising alarms about how quickly these apps are shipped compared to how little is spent on safety. Still, investors are flooding the space, with startups like Loveable and Anysphere doubling valuations at breakneck speed.

💪Tech mafia of the week

Highlights:

💰 Most money raised: Generate Capital

🤑 Total money raised by the Bessemer Venture Partners Mafia: $3 billion

Weekly Tech Mafia Leaderboard

The Bessemer Venture Partners alumni has built some amazing companies. This tech mafia group takes the 43rd spot on our leaderboard, with 83 companies founded and $3 billion raised.

PS: Are you a Bessemer Venture Partners alum interested in getting your community together to invest in the community (and earn carry/other benefits along the way)? Or are you a member of another community that you think would make for an amazing startup investment community?

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📌 PIN tweet of the week

💼 Who’s hiring in VC?

Looking to get into VC? Below are this week’s curated VC job openings.

Tech Square Ventures is looking for a Director of Finance.

Plug and Play Tech Center is looking for a VC Associate.

gener8tor is looking for a Managing Director.

Energize Capital is looking for a Senior Associate.

Andreessen Horowitz is looking for an Investor Ecosystem Partner.

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📠 Fun fact of the week

Spam mail was named after the canned meat Spam, featured in a Monty Python skit.