PIN

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
August 14, 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 shareholders expect the artificial intelligence company to go public at more than $2 trillion, the Financial Times reported. CNBC host Jim Cramer defended that number hours later. Such a price would deliver the largest initial public offering ever completed and vault the company past SpaceX. Anthropic filed confidentially with US regulators in June and entered a quiet period.

A total 195 companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in the first half of 2026, far surpassing counts seen since the second half of 2022. Already, H1 is above the new unicorn totals for all of 2025, when 193 companies were minted with that status.

Mark Zuckerberg has outlined a new strategy for making advanced AI more widely accessible while supporting communities that host Meta’s data centers. The plan includes releasing more open-weight AI models and creating a $1 billion fund to invest in data center communities.

Europe’s favorite vibe-coding startup Lovable has confirmed previously reported whispers that it was raising another mega round at a $13.3 billion valuation. Lovable said on Wednesday that it has raised $400 million in a Series C round led by Menlo Ventures and the Scaleup Europe Fund, with more than a dozen other investors participating.

Accel, a global venture capital firm with offices in Silicon Valley, London and Bangalore, India, has raised $3.5 billion in new funds for early-stage investments across the world. The firm, which has backed artificial intelligence companies including Anthropic, Cursor and Perplexity, has raised four separate funds dedicated to backing young startups in a moment when the AI race is upending the fundraising market.

Thrive Holdings has raised $2 billion in new funding at a $12 billion valuation from investors like SoftBank, D1 Capital Partners, and Altimeter Capital. Thrive Holdings is akin to a private equity firm for AI, buying traditional businesses like accounting firms and implementing AI into their workflows.

Anthropic will watermark text generated by its models, including Claude, to comply with European regulations, the company now says. The AI model maker confirmed the watermarking in an updated support page.

Selena Gomez, one of the most-followed people on the planet, is being sued by investors who say her mental-health startup Wondermind was a hollow promise dressed up as a movement.

💰 Funding announcement highlights

Form Energy raised $750M Series G led by T. Rowe Price, with Sequoia Capital, Janus Henderson, Franklin Templeton, PEAK6, Prelude Ventures, Engine Ventures, TPG Rise Climate, Capricorn, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna, Gigascale Capital, Coatue, Energy Impact Partners, NGP, GE Vernova, Blindspot Ventures, and M&G Catalyst Fund participating. The company develops iron-air batteries that provide multi-day energy storage to improve grid reliability and support renewable energy.

Neros Technologies raised $250M Series C co-led by Sequoia Capital and American Strategic Technology Fund, with Interlagos, Valor Equity Partners, Allen & Company, Thiel Capital, Spark Capital, Mantis, and Dylan Field participating, at a reported $2.5B post-money valuation. The company designs and manufactures autonomous battlefield drones and interceptor systems.

Cambridge Aerospace raised $300M Series C led by DFJ Growth, with Lux Capital, Accel, Lakestar, Never Lift, Ora Global, and Elad Gil participating, at a reported $3.4B post-money valuation. The company develops lower-cost interceptor and radar systems for defending against drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles.

River AI raised $1.1B in venture funding led by General Catalyst and AMP PBC, with NVIDIA, AMD Ventures, Y Combinator, and Temasek participating. The company develops personal AI that users can own and control, with tools for adapting open-source AI models.

CodeRabbit raised $143M Series C co-led by Atomico and Smash Capital, with BMW i Ventures, Datadog, Hirtle Callaghan, SineWave Ventures, CRV, Scale Venture Partners, Flex Capital, and Pelion Venture Partners participating, at a reported $1.5B post-money valuation. The company uses AI to review code, identify bugs, and improve pull requests before software is shipped.

📚 Interesting reads of the week

Businesses are increasingly experimenting with model-serving platforms and open-source AI. Last month, 6.1% of businesses using AI were using model-serving platforms, while adoption growth for OpenAI and, to a lesser extent, Anthropic has slowed. The shift suggests future growth for leading AI companies may increasingly depend on getting existing customers to spend more as businesses explore a wider range of AI models.

Palantir combines software and consulting in a vertically integrated model focused on delivering outcomes rather than simply selling software. A major part of its advantage comes from relying heavily on its own technology while continuously investing in long-term R&D. This combination has allowed Palantir to build capabilities that competitors may struggle to replicate using traditional software or consulting models.

Almost all strategy discussions start the same way. First, you list all of your strengths and then you list all of your weaknesses. Then you move on to opportunities and finally you cover threats. From those you try to build strategies that use your strengths to take advantage of your opportunities while negating your threats. Unfortunately, it’s only effective if the strengths needed to win in your market are strengths that you already have. Rather start with these two lists.

A fascinating deep dive into Joshua Kushner and the rise of Thrive Capital, from a $5M first fund to one of tech’s most influential investment firms. It explores Kushner’s reliance on intuition and taste, Thrive’s highly concentrated bets on companies like Stripe and OpenAI, and the behind the scenes role the firm played during Sam Altman’s 2023 ouster.

How to make people care about your startup

Three founder archetypes, and how to turn your origin story into a communications strategy. It’s never been easier to start a company. It’s also never been harder to get someone to care that you did. Anyone can now go from idea to business in less time than it takes to hire a single engineer. But the same tools that make building simple make standing out a challenge.

📌 Tweet of the week

💼 Who’s hiring in VC?

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

Duke Capital Partners is looking for a Financial Investment Analyst

Antler is looking for an Event and Marketing Intern

Ananda Impact Ventures is looking for a Venture Capital Associate

Alumni Ventures is looking for an Associate Community Manager

General Atlantic is looking for an Executive Assistant