PIN

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
April 24, 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

AngelList has launched USVC, a regulated fund designed to provide retail investors access to equity stakes in promising private companies. Unlike traditional venture capital investments, USVC does not require investors to meet accreditation standards, allowing participation with a minimum investment of $500.

Former OpenAI executive Mira Murati’s startup, Thinking Machines Lab, has signed a new multibillion-dollar agreement to expand its use of Google Cloud’s AI infrastructure, including systems powered by Nvidia’s latest GPUs.

OpenAI announced its latest artificial intelligence model, GPT-5.5, which the company says is better at coding, using computers and pursuing deeper research capabilities. The launch comes less than two months after OpenAI released GPT 5.4, the latest sign of the breakneck pace of development that’s driving the AI sector.

Mary Minno, a former Google PM, is teaming up with her old Palo Alto High journalism teacher Esther Wojcicki to launch Treehub, a residency program for academic founders in biotech and healthcare. Wojcicki, widely known as the Godmother of Silicon Valley, is bringing her "fail fast and revise" philosophy to the venture.

Lockheed Martin is increasing its corporate venture fund from $400M to $1B, the largest expansion since the fund launched in 2007. The capital will back AI, autonomy, quantum, advanced materials, and microelectronics startups that can mature into national security suppliers.

SpaceX has locked in the right to acquire AI coding startup Cursor for $60B, or pay $10B to keep their current joint projects running. The move lands as SpaceX prepares an IPO that could value it at $1.75T, and as Cursor was reportedly raising $2B from investors including Nvidia and a16z.

US IPO filings are picking up, but the momentum is coming from biotech and healthcare rather than venture-backed tech. Tech issuers are mostly waiting to see how SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI perform, a trio PitchBook expects to generate more exit value combined than every VC-backed IPO since 2000.

💰 Funding announcement highlights

Alloy Therapeutics raised $40M Series E with 8VC, JIC Venture Growth Investments, Echo Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, Gaingels, and Ulysses Diversified Holdings participating, alongside Mubadala Capital, Presight Capital, Thiel Capital, and Founders Fund. The company operates an AI-driven drug development platform spanning antibody discovery through biologics manufacturing.

Spektr raised $20M Series A led by New Enterprise Associates, with Northzone, Seedcamp, and PSV Tech participating. The company provides AI-powered compliance infrastructure for financial institutions.

Antioch raised $8.5M Seed led by A* and Category Ventures, with MaC Venture Capital, Abstract, Box Group, and Icehouse Ventures participating. The company builds simulation tools to help robots trained in virtual environments operate in the real world.

Coral raised $12.5M Seed co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Z47. The company automates administrative workflows in specialty healthcare, including patient intake, prior authorization, and payer communication.

Archil raised $11M Series A led by Standard Capital, with Y Combinator, Felicis Ventures, Peak XV Partners, and Wayfinder Ventures participating. The company provides a serverless file system that enables AI applications and agents to access and operate on large datasets through a unified interface.

📚 Interesting reads of the week

For Adam Mead, most investors don't have an analysis problem, they have a filtering problem. Mead lays out a four filter funnel inspired by Warren Buffett: can I understand the business, is it a good business, are there red flags, and is there a reason to care right now.

Twitter/X went wild. Palantir shared a 22 point summary of The Technological Republic, the bestselling book by CEO Alexander Karp and Nicholas Zamiska. The thesis is that Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that enabled its rise and has an obligation to help defend it. Karp argues hard power in this century will be built on software, that the atomic age of deterrence is ending and an AI era is beginning, and that the question is not whether AI weapons will be built but who builds them and why.

Sequoia's Alfred Lin argues that SaaS defaults built over the last fifteen years are becoming a liability in the age of AI. When agents can handle customer support, invoices, contracts, and entire workflows end to end, per seat pricing starts to look misaligned and value shifts from software access to outcomes.

Charlie O'Donnell compares two NYC micromobility startups, Infinite Machine (which raised $14.2M with a16z) and a Hispanic-led company he backed that went under, to argue that bias in VC is less about the room and more about the starting line.

The era of 1000x seed exits is over. It’s time for concentrated bets on genuinely underwriteable companies at whatever price, even $50M post, instead of spraying small checks into lottery tickets marked as cheap seeds.

Sarah Chieng wrote this after Jeff Bezos acquired the first company she ever angel invested in, a $50K check she wrote at 22. Her thesis: angel investing is not about deploying capital, it's about value.

Tim Cook announced he's stepping down as Apple's CEO in September after 15 years, transitioning into the executive chairman role. His successor is John Ternus, a 25 year Apple engineer who has been leading hardware and product development.

Session Replay, Data Warehouse, Logs, Workflows, and PostHog AI would not exist without hackathons, and together they've generated millions in revenue for the company. In this piece, Ian Vanagas breaks down how PostHog runs them: strict separation from day-to-day work, no pitching roadmap ideas, mandatory demos, no prizes, and open participation for non-engineers using tools like Claude Code.

📌 Tweet of the week

💼 Who’s hiring in VC?

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

Samsung NEXT is looking for a VC Investor 

ICONIQ is looking for a VC Associate

Roadrunner Venture Studios is looking for a VC Architect

Energize Capital is looking for a VC Director 

Polychain Capital is looking for a Head of Capital