PIN

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
October 10, 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 signed a five-year chip deal with AMD that could be worth tens of billions. The AI company will get up to 10% of AMD if it meets deployment milestones. It’s the most direct challenge yet to Nvidia’s dominance in the AI chip race.

Deloitte will refund part of its fee after using AI to write a government report filled with fake references. The errors were flagged by an academic who spotted made-up citations attributed to his colleagues. Deloitte confirmed it used GPT-4o tools but didn’t say if AI caused the mistakes.

Reflection AI, a startup founded just last year by two former Google DeepMind researchers, has raised $2 billion at an $8 billion valuation, a whopping 15x leap from its $545 million valuation just seven months ago. The company, which originally focused on autonomous coding agents, is now positioning itself as both an open source alternative to closed frontier labs like OpenAI and Anthropic, and a Western equivalent to Chinese AI firms like DeepSeek.

Startups in the US and Canada raised $63.1 billion in Q3, with AI driving more than half of it. Just one deal, Anthropic’s $13 billion Series F, made up over 20% of the total. Despite fewer rounds, bigger checks and IPOs like Figma’s kept the quarter strong.

ICE, the parent company of the NYSE, just poured $2 billion into Polymarket, valuing the prediction platform at $9 billion. The deal signals a push to merge Wall Street scale with decentralized finance. Polymarket is also preparing a U.S. relaunch after buying a regulated market for $112 million.

Venture capitalist Max Gazor has raised a $165 million debut fund at his firm Striker Venture Partners to pursue a high-risk strategy: invest in just 10 startups, pre-revenue and even pre-product. Gazor has been an investor at venture firm CRV for the past 14 years, backing app-building company Airtable, general-purpose robotics startup DYNA Robotics, Reflection AI, which is developing open-source AI models, and others.

💰 Funding announcement highlights

Longeye, a San Francisco startup founded this year developing AI tools for law enforcement to examine digital evidence, raised a $5 million seed round. Andreessen Horowitz was the main investor with Seven Stars Capital also joining.

Nozomio, a two-year-old startup developing AI coding agents to improve software development performance, raised a $6.2 million round. CRV, BoxGroup, and LocalGlobe co-led the investment with Y Combinator and 20VC Product also contributing.

FurtherAI, a San Francisco-based AI workspace designed for insurance, raised a $25 million Series A. Andreessen Horowitz led the deal.

Tycho.AI, a company developing navigation and AI systems for unmanned vehicles, raised a $10 million Series A. FirstMark led the funding with Pillar VC also contributing.

Tato, an AI-native project platform purpose-built for system integrators, raised $5 million in seed funding. The investment was led by Ridge Ventures with  Myriad Ventures, Betaworks, and RRE Ventures also joining.

📚 Interesting reads of the week

Venture investing is no longer just for the ultra-wealthy. A growing number of individual investors are backing startups with checks as small as $500. The shift helps diversify portfolios and embrace the power law of startup returns.

VC is warming up after a long freeze, with AI startups pulling in premium valuations and sparking a surge in discovery meetings. But caution still rules. Operators with real traction and experience are getting the calls. IPO activity is helping unlock liquidity, but only the disciplined are getting through the door.

Jaryd Hermann reflects on the value of silence in a world that overshares. He argues that talking less protects focus, strengthens follow-through, and builds trust. The loudest voice rarely wins, it’s the quiet one that holds weight.

Real drive comes from joy, not grind, this article says. Builders who love the work don’t count hours because they’re too busy playing the game. The piece takes aim at hustle culture and celebrates doing hard things for the thrill of it.

In a rare, four-hour deep dive, Telegram founder Pavel Durov opens up on power, privacy, and the price of freedom. He talks about resisting government pressure, staying disciplined, and why encryption matters more than ever.

💪Tech mafia of the week

Highlights:

💰 Most money raised: Ares Management

🤑 Total money raised by the Apollo Global Management Mafia: $6.2 billion

Weekly Tech Mafia Leaderboard

The Apollo Global Management alumni has built some amazing companies. This tech mafia group takes the 35th spot on our leaderboard, with 13 companies founded and $6.2 billion raised.

PS: Are you an Apollo Global Management 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.

Inspired Capital is looking for a VC Analyst

Pegasus Tech Ventures is looking for a VC Associate

Connecticut Innovations is looking for a VC Director

Primary Venture Partners is looking for a Senior VC Associate

Samsung Next is looking for a VC Investor

📌 PinPoint - Get paid to refer your friends to great jobs

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📠 Fun fact of the week

The longest word you can type on a QWERTY keyboard using only one row is "typewriter."