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A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders
Power in Numbers
July 04, 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
Grammarly is buying Superhuman to supercharge its AI productivity suite and move beyond grammar. The deal follows a $1 billion raise and brings in Superhuman’s CEO and team. Together, they will build tools that blend writing, email, and AI agents across workflows.
Elon Musk’s xAI just secured $10 billion in fresh funding, half in equity, half in debt, to scale its Grok chatbot and supercomputer infrastructure. The raise fuels its rivalry with OpenAI and Anthropic, as competition heats up in the AI arms race.
Elon Musk has tapped app founder and growth hacker Nikita Bier as the new head of product at X. Known for building viral teen apps like Gas and TBH, Bier now takes on a platform he already lives on. He’s teasing big changes, including smarter notifications and deeper Grok integration.
Figma just filed its S-1, revealing strong revenue growth and profitability as it gears up for a highly anticipated IPO. The company pulled in $821 million over the past year, with 91% gross margins and zero debt. If successful, the offering could match CoreWeave’s record-breaking $1.5 billion IPO.
Meta is offering OpenAI researchers up to $300 million over four years to join its new superintelligence lab. The first-year comp alone can top $100 million, with instant stock vesting and unlimited access to GPUs. OpenAI is fighting to keep talent, but Zuckerberg’s approach is making it really difficult.
OpenAI is pausing operations for a full week after losing several key researchers to Meta with a public breakdown from one employee revealing just how strained the team has become. Behind the race for AGI, burnout and brain drain are taking center stage and Zuckerberg is quietly winning.
Robinhood is letting European users trade tokenized shares of OpenAI and SpaceX for the first time. The move sent its stock to a record high and marked a major step in bringing private equity to retail investors. U.S. users are still blocked, but crypto staking is back on the table.
Lovable, one of the darlings of the vibe-coding world and one of Europe’s fastest-growing AI startups, is working on raising a fresh round of over $150 million at a near $2 billion valuation, the Financial Times reports.
You got into Y Combinator, raised $20 million from a16z, and then exited to Meta? That’s cool, I guess. But did Soham Parekh apply to work at your startup? There is now a new badge of honor for startup founders: your proximity to one previously unknown Indian software engineer named Soham Parekh.
💰 Funding announcement highlights
Genesis AI, a Paris and Palo Alto startup building a universal AI model to allow different kinds of robots to perform a wide range of real-world tasks, raised a $105 million seed. Eclipse and Khosla Ventures co-led the round, with Bpifrance, HSG, and Eric Schmidt also joining.
Ambrook, a startup that provides bookkeeping, invoicing, and payment tools for farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural businesses, raised a $26.1 million Series A. Thrive Capital and Field Ventures co-led the deal with BoxGroup, Designer Fund, Mischief, and Not Boring, as well as previous investor Homebrew also showing up.
Circulate Health, a Seattle startup offering clinics a blood-filtering treatment that removes toxins to support longevity and wellness customers looking for advanced health maintenance, raised a $12 million seed round. Khosla Ventures was the main investor, with Seaside Ventures and CSC Ventures also contributing.
Levelpath, a San Francisco startup that makes AI-powered procurement software for enterprises looking to replace outdated systems, raised a $55 million Series B round. Battery Ventures led the deal, with previous investors Benchmark and Redpoint also chipping in.
Campfire, a two-year-old startup using AI to automate accounting and ERP tasks for tech companies, raised a $35 million Series A. Accel led the round, with Foundation Capital, Y Combinator, and Capital 49 also joining.
📚 Interesting reads of the week
Packed with strategies, models, and real founder insights, Index Ventures’ latest study on Winning in the US is a must-read for anyone scaling globally from Europe.
In a world drowning in copy-paste content, Robinhood, Stripe, and others are raising the bar by making originality expensive again. The new edge isn’t tech: it’s taste, effort, and earned identity.
Granola is rewriting the AI notetaking playbook by growing 10% weekly without bots or bloat. Its always-on, invisible UX and AI-enhanced human notes have won over VCs and execs alike. With smart integrations and a Superhuman-style pricing model, it's building viral loops and high retention into the product itself.
With funds ranging from $10M to $75M, these solo GPs and lean firms are backing technical founders with niche theses and sharp focus. Think fewer gatekeepers, faster checks, and founders-first support.
At Lovable, 35 people hit $80M ARR in 7 months and not just because of AI tools, but because of AI-native mindsets. These employees don’t wait for approvals, they just build. The future belongs to those who default to AI and move fast without the drag.
We inherit beliefs before we ever choose them. Parents, schools, peers, and algorithms shape how we see the world. But clarity doesn’t come from fitting in. It comes from letting go, questioning everything, and choosing reality over comfort.
💪Tech mafia of the week
Highlights:
💰 Most money raised: Lambda
🤑 Total money raised by the Nextdoor Mafia: $545 million
Weekly Tech Mafia Leaderboard
The Nextdoor alumni has built some amazing companies. This tech mafia group takes the 87th spot on our leaderboard, with 18 companies founded and $545 million raised.
PS: Are you a Nextdoor 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?
Learn more about us and sign up for the waitlist here.
📌 PIN tweet of the week
IYKYK
Big news from from our team today 🎉
— PIN (@getpinxyz)
4:08 PM • Jul 3, 2025
💼 Who’s hiring in VC?
Looking to get into VC? Below are this week’s curated VC job openings.
Thermo Fisher is looking for a Senior VC Director.
HHMI is looking for a VC Associate.
Figma Ventures is looking for a VC Investor.
AI Fund is looking for a VC Principal.
Everywhere Ventures is looking for a Venture Capital Analyst.
📌 Introducing PinPoint - Get paid to refer your friends to great jobs
Want to earn thousands of dollars for referring candidates to top companies? Sign up to PinPoint.
📠 Fun fact of the week
When Larry Page and Sergey Brin were naming their new search engine, they wanted a name that reflected the immense amount of information the engine could search. They chose “googol,” which is a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. But when they went to register the domain, they accidentally typed “google.com” instead of “googol.com,” and the rest is history!
