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A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders
Power in Numbers
July 03, 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
Ashton Kutcher is walking away from Sound Ventures, the firm he's helmed for years, to launch a brand-new early-stage fund with Morgan Beller, formerly a general partner at NFX. The move signals a major bet on AI infrastructure and deep tech, as one of Silicon Valley's most visible celebrity investors recalibrates his strategy amid a shifting venture landscape. Kutcher's pivot comes as traditional VC firms face pressure to specialize and as AI continues to dominate startup funding.
Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 5, a mid-range AI model designed to run more independent tasks at a lower cost. This launch underscores a new direction in AI competition. It's no longer just about who is the smartest, but who is the most efficient and stable in running AI agents.
AOL is public again — sort of. Its owner Bending Spoons, the 13-year-old Italian company that has been quietly acquiring beloved but ailing internet brands for the past decade, went public on the Nasdaq today, opening at an over $18 billion valuation, with the stock then popping 40% by market close.
CEO Alex Karp on Wednesday criticized the token model used by U.S. artificial intelligence labs Anthropic and OpenAI as costs skyrocket. “I’m not throwing shade at them, but something has gone completely wrong,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “The basic view among enterprises in this country is I’m going to chillax and waste my time with tokens.”
Fortune profiles brothers Raj and Sunny Singh Sandhu, who have just closed a $55 million debut fund for Vicus Ventures, a New York and San Francisco based early stage VC inspired by the Latin word for "village."
Chamath Palihapitiya, best known for his venture capital firm Social Capital and the All-In podcast, announced Monday that the AI coding startup he founded raised a sizable Series A.
💰 Funding announcement highlights
Together AI raised $800M led by Aramco Ventures, with Vista Equity Partners, General Catalyst, Emergence Capital, NVIDIA, March Capital, Pegatron, and S Ventures participating, at an $8.3B post-money valuation. The company provides computing infrastructure for training and running open-source AI models at scale.
TwelveLabs raised $100M Series B co-led by New Enterprise Associates and NAVER Ventures, with Amazon, Radical Ventures, Korea Investment Partners, Index Ventures, Quadrille Capital, and Red Bull Ventures participating. The company enables organizations to search, analyze, and structure large video datasets.
Dominion Dynamics raised $97.9M Series A led by Georgian, with Valor Equity Partners, Expeditions Fund, Lakestar, OMERS, Business Development Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Deloitte Ventures Canada, JDY Capital, BCI, Bessemer Venture Partners, Garage Capital, Golden Ventures, and Silent Ventures participating. The company develops command-and-control software, Arctic surveillance sensors, and autonomous drone systems for defense operations.
Higharc raised $95M Series C led by Insight Partners, with Wellington Management, Fifth Wall, Spark Capital, Lux Capital, SE Ventures, Simpson Strong-Tie, PSP Partners, RXR Arden Digital Ventures, Suffolk Technologies, Vertex Ventures, NC Tweener Fund, and MetaProp participating. The company develops AI software for homebuilders to automate design, estimating, sales, and construction workflows.
1001 raised $30M Series A led by Lux Capital, with 9Yards Capital, Hanabi Capital, and Sanabil Investments participating. The company uses AI to help aviation, ports, shipping, and energy companies improve operations and develop new products.
📚 Interesting reads of the week
Markets are flashing another parallel to the dot-com bubble, JPMorgan says. The bank's Jason Hunter pointed to one trend in particular in markets that looks similar to what happened to stocks in the months leading up to the dot-com crash.
Startup exits valued at $1 billion or more are now more numerous than at any point since the 2021 market peak, Crunchbase data shows. That’s the trend we’re seeing for the second quarter of 2026. This period has brought us both the largest venture-backed exit of all time, with SpaceX, and a bevy of other comparatively tinier but still sizable startup exits through acquisition or IPO.
As OpenAI and Anthropic prepare to go public, tech workers making six figures are grousing that they cannot compete with the new A.I. elite. Some doubt they can afford to stay.
When Anthropic found itself in a high-stakes standoff with the White House over its newest AI models, it wasn't CEO Dario Amodei who smoothed the tensions. Instead, one of the company's quietest cofounders stepped in.
According to new research from Stripe Economics, solo businesses are growing faster than employer businesses, with more founders reaching six, seven, and even eight figure revenue without hiring employees. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Stripe, and international markets suggests this isn't a temporary trend or fraud, but a structural shift driven by AI, which is replacing many of the capabilities that once required building a team.
When we think about VC marketing in 2036, of course AI will be solving a lot of problems in the ‘HOW’ as AI generation will certainly help us get more done. But this still leaves unanswered the WHO, WHAT and WHY that will define the role.
📌 Tweet of the week
💼 Who’s hiring in VC?
Looking to get into VC? Below are this week’s curated VC job openings.
Collide Capital is looking for a CFO
Cicada Innovations is looking for a Venture Executive
16VC is looking for an Investor Relations Associate
b2venture is looking for an Associate
Softbank Vision Fund is looking for a Director, Global Treasury & Insurance
