PIN

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
February 28, 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

Y Combinator deletes posts after a startup’s demo goes viral

A Y Combinator-backed startup, Optifye.ai, is facing backlash after a demo showcased its AI-powered worker surveillance tool. The viral clip, which depicted a supervisor scolding an underperforming factory worker using real-time AI tracking, was slammed as "sweatshops-as-a-service." Amid the controversy, Y Combinator deleted the video from its social media.

Perplexity AI launching $50 million venture fund to back early-stage startups

Perplexity AI is doubling down on the AI boom with a new $50 million venture fund targeting pre-seed and seed-stage startups. While the company will be an anchor investor, most of the capital comes from external backers, including f7 Ventures' Kelly Graziadei and Joanna Lee Shevelenko as general partners.

Anthropic unveiled Claude 3.7 Sonnet, its most advanced AI model yet, designed to combine real-time responses with deep reasoning. The hybrid approach aims to simplify AI interactions for users, giving the company an edge over rivals like OpenAI and Google.

Has Silicon Valley abandoned its true purpose? In The Technological Republic, Palantir CEO Alexander Karp claims that tech giants have become too focused on consumer apps instead of tackling big global challenges.

Venture capital firms are rethinking how they hire, moving beyond flashy resumes to focus on real skills, insights, and diverse backgrounds. This shift—dubbed “talent unboxing”—prioritizes substance over prestige, opening doors for non-traditional candidates in a historically exclusive industry.

Brex is tightening its focus on enterprise clients and cutting cash burn as it gears up for a potential IPO. With a goal of hitting $500 million in net revenue next year and turning cash-flow positive by mid-2025, the fintech giant wants to ensure predictability before going public.

IBM has finalized its multi-billion dollar HashiCorp acquisition, two days after the U.K.’s antitrust regulator gave the deal its blessing. Today’s announcement comes 10 months after IBM first revealed plans to pay $6.4 billion for HashiCorp, an enterprise software company best known for Terraform, an “infrastructure-as-code” tool for automating infrastructure provisioning and management across clouds.

Digital payments platform Stripe has yet to lay out plans to go public, but in the meantime the company has thrown past and present employees a line for some liquidity. The company on Thursday confirmed a tender offer where investors will buy up shares from those employees at a valuation of $91.5 billion. Stripe said it will also repurchase shares as part of the transaction.

💰 Funding announcement highlights

Nomagic, a nine-year-old Warsaw startup developing AI-powered robotic systems for warehouse automation, raised a $44 million Series B round led by Khosla Ventures.

Metronome, a platform helping software companies manage their billing based on how much customers use their services, raised a $50 million Series C. NEA led the round, with Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Workday Ventures, Greyhound Capital, Truebridge Capital Partners, Activant Capital, SineWave Ventures, and Megalith Ventures also showing up.

Albert Invent, an AI-powered platform designed to streamline and enhance chemical research and development, raised a $20 million round. J.P. Morgan Private Capital’s Growth Equity Partners was the main investor, with Coatue and TCV also joining.

Patlytics, an AI-powered platform helping companies and law firms automate tasks such as drafting patent applications, detecting potential infringements, and creating detailed claim charts, raised a $14 million Series A. Next47 led the round, with Gradient Ventures, 8VC, Alumni Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, and Myriad Venture Partners also investing.

Cambium, a Baltimore startup transforming fallen trees into sustainable wood products for construction and design, raised an $18.5 million Series A. VoLo Earth Ventures was the main investor, with NEA, Dangerous Ventures, Tunitas Ventures, Woven Earth, Understorey, Groundswell, Ulu Ventures, MaC Venture Capital, Rise of the Rest, 81 Collection, Alumni Ventures, and Soma Capital also participated.

 📚 Interesting reads of the week

San Francisco is celebrating failure. The Museum of Failure, a pop-up opening at Fisherman’s Wharf, will showcase over 150 infamous product flops, from Google Glass to Trump Steaks. Its exhibits are a reminder that even the biggest companies make spectacular mistakes.

Not all businesses grow the same way. While some print money quickly, others take years to build real value. Nat Eliason breaks down the difference between “cash businesses” that generate immediate income and “equity businesses” that scale slowly but can become massive. His advice: Find a balance between the two.

Alex LaBossiere sat down (again!) with Keith Rabois, General Partner at Khosla Ventures & CEO of OpenStore, to break down the Hollywood model of startups, how to pick the right co-founders, hire A+ talent, raise capital, build a board, delegate like a pro, and track the right metrics.

Startups have long been told to chase growth at all costs, but Linear co-founder Karri Saarinen argues that profitability is the real power move. By keeping teams small, staying focused, and controlling costs, startups can scale sustainably without relying on investors for survival.

Venture funding isn’t just about raising money, it’s about understanding how dilution, option pools, and liquidation preferences shape your future. Venture Dealr is an interactive tool that lets founders experiment with different financing scenarios to see how valuations, investor terms, and exits impact ownership.

The rules of venture capital are changing. Yoni Rechtman lays out how to earn early access to the best deals: take real risks, offer value beyond money, and build long-term relationships. The investors who truly contribute, not just chase hot companies, will be the ones who win.

💪Tech mafia of the week

Highlights:

💰 Most money raised: BILL.

🤑 Total money raised by the Intuit Mafia: $19 billion

Weekly Tech Mafia Leaderboard

The Intuit alumni has built some amazing companies. This tech mafia group takes the 18th spot on our leaderboard, with 245 companies founded and $19 billion raised.

PS: Are you an Intuit 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

💼 Who’s hiring in VC?

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


Houlihan Capital is looking for a Crypto VC.

VSA Partners is looking for a VC Associate.

Stealth is looking for a VC Partner.

SignalFire is looking for VC Product.

📠 Fun fact of the week

The largest venture capital fund ever raised is the SoftBank Vision Fund, which amassed over $100 billion in capital upon its establishment in 2017. This fund, managed by SoftBank Investment Advisers, focuses on technology investments and has significantly influenced the venture capital landscape.

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