- PIN'd
- Posts
- PIN
PIN
A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders
Power in Numbers
March 06, 2026
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!
If you’re receiving this, it’s because you’ve signed up for our waitlist and/or for newsletter updates.
Got a friend that wants to learn more or stay up to date on angel investing/VC? Help us spread the word and forward this email to them ;)
Subscribe here.
📰 This week’s best news
Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken's banking unit has gained access to the Federal Reserve's payments system through a limited-purpose account, the first U.S. digital-asset bank to do so as the sector deepens its reach into mainstream finance.
OpenAI has selected law firms Cooley and Wachtell to assist in preparing for its initial public offering. The decision marks a significant step for OpenAI as it gears up for a public market debut.
OpenAI has confirmed it fired an employee for using confidential company information to place bets on prediction platforms like Polymarket. Analysis by financial data firm Unusual Whales flagged 77 suspicious positions tied to OpenAI product launches and even Sam Altman's employment status going back to 2023. The tell, according to analysts, is the clustering: dozens of brand-new wallets placing the same winning bet right before a major announcement.
Toby Pohlen has become the seventh co-founder to leave xAI in less than three years, following two others who departed earlier this month. The departures coincide with mounting regulatory pressure, as investigations into Grok's role in generating non-consensual imagery are underway across the EU, UK, France, and California.
Multiple sources familiar with the matter revealed that a16z crypto is raising funds for its fifth fund, targeting approximately $2 billion, with plans to complete fundraising in the first half of 2026.
After refusing to let its AI be used for autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, Anthropic sparked a wave of public support that pushed Claude to the top of both the Apple App Store and Google Play. A Morning Consult survey found that more than half of Americans think the government went too far, with two-thirds saying tech companies have a right to set limits on their own AI.
Elon Musk's rocket company is eyeing a confidential SEC filing as early as next month, keeping it on track for a June listing. The deal could seek a valuation north of $1.75 trillion and raise up to $50 billion, which would shatter Saudi Aramco's current IPO record. If it happens, SpaceX would be the first of a potential trio of mega-IPOs, with OpenAI and Anthropic potentially following. Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley are already lined up for senior roles.
Palmer Luckey's defense-tech company is reportedly raising billions in a new round led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, targeting a valuation double its last. This comes less than a year after a $2.5B Series G that valued the company at $30 billion.
💰 Funding announcement highlights
14.ai, a startup that operates customer support for startups using a mix of AI and human agents, raised a $3 million seed round led by Y Combinator. Additional investors included General Catalyst, Base Case Capital, SV Angel, along with the founders of Dropbox, Slack, Replit, and Vercel.
Pluvo, a startup with offices in Ottawa and San Francisco, raised a $5 million seed round to build software that converts financial and operational data into structured, explainable insights for CFOs and finance teams. The round included Andreessen Horowitz, Deel, The Perseverance Fund, StandUp Ventures, and AltaIR Capital.
Guild.ai, a San Francisco startup founded this year that provides centralized governance, audit logging, and access control for AI agents operating across different models and vendors, raised $44 million across seed and Series A funding at a $300 million post-money valuation. Both rounds were led by GV, with Khosla Ventures, Acrew Capital, NfX, Scribble Ventures, and Webb Investment Network also participating.
JetStream Security, a newly launched startup based in San Francisco that offers an AI governance platform for enterprises, raised a $34 million seed round led by Redpoint Ventures. Additional investors include CrowdStrike Falcon Fund, George Kurtz, Assaf Rappaport, and Frederic Kerrest.
Smack Technologies, a two-year-old company headquartered in El Segundo, California, raised a $32 million Series A round co-led by Geodesic Capital and Costanoa Ventures, with participation from Point72 Ventures and Felicis. The startup develops advanced AI models and tools designed to help military and national security teams analyze operational and sensor data.
📚 Interesting reads of the week
If AI can write it, why should you? That is the question veteran investor David Teten is asking himself after realizing much of his published work is now replicable by the tools trained on it. His answer? Check it out.
Dragonfly's Haseeb Qureshi just closed a $650M crypto Fund IV and wrote the blueprint he wishes someone had given him a decade ago. The core thesis: put your reputation on the line early, find a niche nobody else wants, and optimize like a startup with tight feedback loops.
Most founders build products around what is scientifically true, but the self-help industry runs on something different: what actually works. Paras Chopra, who built and shut down AI habit coach Nintee after returning VC funding, argues the real edge is in "empirical usefulness" over scientific purity.
HotelTonight founder Sam Shank built three companies and says the difference between failure and a $400M exit came down to one thing: ditching 80 metrics for one.
A new breed of tiny, AI-powered startups is reaching millions in revenue with little more than a credit card, and it is quietly breaking venture capital's core assumptions. The old logic was ambitious companies need capital to move fast.
With $1.9B under management, 15 unicorns, and 54 exits, M13 has built a track record that most early-stage firms would envy without making much noise about it. Co-founders Courtney and Carter Reum run a deliberately operator-heavy model, targeting 20% ownership per deal and skipping the base-model AI hype in favor of second and third-order opportunities. Their portfolio companies are reaching Series B 30% faster and at 25% higher valuations than the median.
📌 Tweet of the week
💼 Who’s hiring in VC?
Looking to get into VC? Below are this week’s curated VC job openings.
Azolla Ventures is looking for a VC Associate
Lilly Ventures is looking for a Senior VC Director
Abundant Venture Partners is looking for a Senior VC Analyst
Lockheed Martin Ventures is looking for a Senior VC Manager
CoFound is looking for a VC Investor
