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A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Power in Numbers
February 13, 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!

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📰 This week’s best news

Anthropic raises another $30B in Series G

Anthropic is reportedly finalizing a $20 billion raise at a $350 billion valuation, doubling its initial target as investor demand surges. Strategic backers like Nvidia and Microsoft are expected to anchor the round, fueling the costly race for compute and frontier models. The move comes as rival OpenAI lines up its own massive raise. In the AI arms race, capital is now the real moat.

Meet the one woman Anthropic trusts to teach AI morals

At Anthropic, philosopher Amanda Askell is shaping the moral framework of Claude, the company’s flagship chatbot. She writes sprawling prompts and a 30,000-word “constitution” to guide how the model reasons about right and wrong. As rivals race on performance, Anthropic is betting that personality and ethics are competitive advantages.

Primary Ventures raises healthy $625M Fund V to focus on seed investing

Primary Ventures has closed a $625 million seed fund, one of the largest dedicated early-stage vehicles in the market. The firm plans to write $5 million to $10 million checks across 40 to 50 startups, betting that AI is pushing seed into a new asset class. Once New York focused, Primary is now investing nationwide as competition for top founders intensifies.

VC Masha Bucher, Epstein associate and Day One founder, explains herself

Masha Bucher, founder of Day One Ventures, addressed her past ties to Jeffrey Epstein after newly released files detailed their relationship. She said she was naive, feared retaliation from Russia, and apologized to founders and investors for the fallout. The revelations cast a shadow over a firm that manages $450 million and has backed breakout startups.

Sam Altman touts ChatGPT’s reaccelerating growth to employees as OpenAI closes in on $100 billion funding

Sam Altman told staff that ChatGPT is back to double-digit monthly growth, with more than 800 million weekly users. As OpenAI prepares a new model launch and tests ads inside the product, it is also closing in on a potential $100 billion funding round. Competition from Anthropic is heating up, especially in coding.

Elon Musk suggests spate of xAI exits have been push, not pull

Elon Musk is addressing a wave of departures from xAI, including two more co-founders who left this week, bringing the total to six out of the original 12. At an all-hands meeting Tuesday night, Musk suggested the exits were about fit, not performance.

💰 Funding announcement highlights

TRM Labs, a San Francisco-based blockchain analytics startup that helps governments and companies detect and prevent crypto-related crime, raised a $70 million Series C led by Blockchain Capital at a $1 billion post-money valuation, with Goldman Sachs, Bessemer Venture Partners, Brevan Howard, Thoma Bravo, and Citi Ventures also investing.

Sapiom, a San Francisco-based startup building a financial layer that enables AI agents to securely purchase and access software, APIs, data, and compute, raised a $15 million seed round led by Accel, with Okta Ventures, Gradient Ventures, Array Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Anthropic, and Coinbase Ventures also participating.

Smart Bricks, a San Francisco-based startup focused on automating the discovery, underwriting, and execution of global real estate investments, raised a $5 million pre-seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Techstars, 500 Global, Cornerstone VC, South Loop Ventures, Harvard Business School Alumni Angels, and Cento Ventures also investing.

VillageSQL, a New York-based startup that enables developers to add new features to MySQL databases without modifying core code, raised $35 million across seed and Series A rounds co-led by FirstMark, GV, and Spark Capital, with Homebrew also investing.

Entire, a San Francisco-based startup offering open source tools to manage and review code generated by AI agents, raised a $60 million seed round at a $300 million valuation led by Felicis, with Madrona, M12, and Basis Set also participating.

📚 Interesting reads of the week

What’s working in AI for GTM

While most B2B teams see little impact from AI, a small group is pulling ahead with practical workflows. From content copilots in ChatGPT to automated prospecting engines powered by Clay and HubSpot, top GTM leaders are turning data into pipeline.

Patient capital will eat the world

While firms chase mega funds and faith-based AI narratives around OpenAI and Anthropic, liquidity remains a mirage for most portfolios. The next winners will not look like traditional VCs but more like permanent capital machines in the mold of Berkshire Hathaway. In a market built on deployment pressure, patience may become the only edge.

AI is changing the CEO’s role—and could lead to a changing of the guard

AI is reshaping the CEO job across the Fortune 500, and boards are watching closely. Leaders like Satya Nadella at Microsoft have leaned in, while others face pressure to prove they are AI fluent. Average CEO tenure is already shrinking as companies demand adaptability over legacy playbooks.

Today is my last day at Anthropic. I resigned.

A researcher at Anthropic announced his resignation in a public letter that quickly drew millions of views. He pointed to growing concerns about how AI assistants may distort human agency, linking to his recent paper on real world LLM usage. The move adds to ongoing questions about culture and direction inside top AI labs.

Stanford's Date Drop matchmaking algorithm creates campus dating frenzy

A student-built algorithm has turned Stanford University into a live dating experiment. Date Drop now counts nearly half the undergraduate population, matching students weekly based on 50 data-driven questions. The founders are betting that smarter algorithms can spark better relationships, and the campus is hooked.

VC-backed startups are low status

Starting a venture-backed company no longer signals originality or edge. As big funds grow institutional and founders optimize for legibility, the path starts to look like old-school banking in a hoodie. Cultural exhaustion is replacing crisis, and even AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic are now judged on vibes as much as product.