- PIN'd
- Posts
- PIN
PIN
A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders
Power in Numbers
February 27, 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
Stripe nearly doubled its valuation in a year, jumping from $91.5 billion to $159 billion after a new tender offer backed by Thrive Capital, Coatue, and a16z. The fintech giant processed $1.9 trillion in payments in 2025, up 34%, with AI companies emerging as one of its fastest-growing customer segments. Despite investor anticipation around an IPO, co-founder John Collison was blunt: going public is not in the top twenty priorities right now.
Retail brokerage platform Robinhood has launched a $1 billion closed end fund designed to give individual investors exposure to high profile private companies such as SpaceX, Databricks and Stripe. The vehicle, Robinhood Ventures Fund I, plans to raise capital by offering 40 million shares at $25 each. Of those, 35 million shares will be issued by the fund and 5 million by Robinhood, according to Bloomberg. Investors were able to request shares starting February 17, with trading expected to begin February 26.
Anthropic says three Chinese AI companies, DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and MiniMax, used over 24,000 fake accounts to extract 16 million exchanges from Claude in a technique known as distillation, essentially copying its most advanced capabilities. The attacks specifically targeted Claude's agentic reasoning, coding, and tool use, the features that set it apart from competitors. Anthropic is now calling for a coordinated response from the industry, cloud providers, and policymakers.
SpaceX is eyeing a June debut that could raise up to $50 billion, potentially the largest IPO of all time, and it's making every other company planning a listing very nervous. Private equity firms are already rethinking timelines, trying to get their companies out at least six weeks ahead of the megadeals.
A viral blog post about AI's threat to software sent stocks tumbling, and three-quarters of last year's tech IPOs are now trading below their debut prices. Smaller PE-backed firms that spent years waiting for their moment will likely keep waiting, while the mega-offerings from SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are expected to soak up most of the interest.
UK startup Wayve just closed a $1.2 billion round, with Nvidia, Uber, Microsoft, and three global automakers all writing checks, pushing its valuation to $8.6 billion. Unlike Waymo or Tesla, Wayve doesn't operate its own robotaxis or build vehicles. It sells its AI driving software to carmakers and tech platforms, betting that a hardware-agnostic approach is the biggest opportunity in the industry. Uber alone could add another $300 million if their commercial robotaxi trials in London go as planned.
💰 Funding announcement highlights
ChipAgents, a one-year-old Santa Clara startup that uses AI to automate chip design and verification workflows, raised $50 million in funding led by Matter Venture Partners, with Bessemer Venture Partners, Micron, MediaTek, and Ericsson also investing.
Cogent Security, a two-year-old San Francisco startup whose AI platform automates vulnerability investigation, prioritization, and remediation, raised a $42 million Series A round led by Bain Capital Ventures, with Greylock Partners and Definition participating. The company has raised $53 million to date.
DG Matrix, a four-year-old Raleigh startup developing solid-state transformer systems for routing and managing power in data centers, raised a $60 million Series A round led by Engine Ventures, with ABB, Cerberus Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures, Clean Energy Ventures, Fine Structure Ventures, Helios Climate Ventures, MCJ, and Piedmont Capital also joining.
Efficient Computer, a four-year-old Pittsburgh startup building energy-efficient processors for AI and other workloads, raised a $60 million Series A round led by Triatomic Capital, with Eclipse, Overlap Holdings, Union Square Ventures, RTX Ventures, Toyota Ventures, and Overmatch Ventures participating. The company has raised $76 million in total.
Heron Power, a two-year-old Scotts Valley startup producing solid-state transformers for data centers, solar installations, and grid-scale batteries, raised a $140 million Series B round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, with Capricorn Investment Group, Energy Impact Partners, Gigascale Capital, and Valor Atreides AI Fund also participating.
📚 Interesting reads of the week
Neo, the fund behind early bets on Cursor and Kalshi, is retiring its accelerator and replacing it with something smaller and more deliberate. Neo Residency will take just 12 to 15 startups and 5 to 8 student teams per cohort, offering up to $750K in funding plus $450K in compute credits, a two-week Oregon bootcamp, and one-on-one mentorship from operators at Airbnb, Figma, Notion, and OpenAI. The twist: every founder gets a profit share in Neo's fund, aligning everyone's incentives from day one. Applications are open.
Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph has started six companies, mentored dozens of founding teams, and invested in over 100 startups. His top three criteria for early-stage success? The team, the team, and the team. At the early stage, products are just hunches and everything changes, so execution and flexibility are everything. The best people aren't just marginally better than average: they are orders of magnitude better.
The unwritten rule of venture capital, back one horse per race, is quietly breaking down. At least a dozen firms that invested directly in OpenAI also joined Anthropic's recent $30 billion raise, including Sequoia, Founders Fund, and Insight Partners. For decades, VCs built their brand on founder loyalty and confidential access. Now, with AI labs raising at unprecedented scale, the returns are simply too hard to walk away from.
Not all founders build for the same reason, and investors say they can tell the difference within five minutes of a pitch. Mercenaries optimize for the exit; missionaries identify so deeply with their mission that failure feels personal. The data backs it up: Bezos mentioned "customer" 443 times across his shareholder letters, but "competition" only 28. The strongest companies aren't built by people planning their escape.
Silicon Valley startups are running leaner than ever, using AI tools to slash headcount and chase the dream of the billion-dollar, one-person company. Median staff at Series A startups dropped from 57 employees in 2020 to 44 in 2024, as productivity per employee soars. But going too lean has real costs: enterprise clients still want human relationships, and small teams can burn out fast. The new startup flex isn't headcount growth. It's revenue per employee.
📌 PinPoint - Weekly Startup Job Opportunities
PermitFlow is hiring a Customer Solutions Engineer (New Grad).
Parallel Web Systems is hiring a Product Partnerships Manager.
Sunday is hiring a Senior Mechanical Engineer.
Gamma is hiring a Senior Product Manager, Editor.
Bending Spoons is hiring a Data Analyst.
You can earn thousands of dollars for referring candidates to top companies. Sign up to PinPoint.
📌 Tweet of the week
💼 Who’s hiring in VC?
Looking to get into VC? Below are this week’s curated VC job openings.
Initialized Capital is looking for an Operations Associate
SV Angel is looking for a VC Lead
Catalyst Health Ventures is looking for an IR Analyst
LLR Partners is looking for a VC Associate
Pfizer is looking for a VC Partner
