PIN

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
April 25, 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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📌 Special announcement: 

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📰 This week’s best news

Yale is weighing the sale of up to $6 billion in private equity holdings as weak returns and political pressure squeeze its $41 billion endowment. Despite continuing to back private equity, the school is exploring options to boost liquidity after one of the lowest investment performances in the Ivy League.

a16z just brought on Erik Torenberg as General Partner together with his podcast network, Turpentine, as part of a bigger play to own the narrative around tech. The move strengthens the firm's push to control its media influence while preparing a reported $20 billion fund focused on AI.

Discord confirms it's moving toward 'becoming a public company' as it hires a former Activision executive as its new CEO

Discord co-founder Jason Citron has announced that he is stepping down as CEO, and will be replaced in the position by former Activision Blizzard executive Humam Sakhnini. Citron will remain with the company, however, as a member of its board of directors and an advisor to the new chief. Citron's resignation comes a little over a month after the emergence of reports that Discord was making moves toward becoming a publicly traded company, and that is indeed what's going on: The outgoing CEO said Sakhnini was hired "to lead Discord through our next chapter of growth and someday becoming a public company."

Cursor, the AI coding tool from Anysphere, is growing too fast to sell. With revenue doubling every two months, the company turned down OpenAI's offer. Instead, OpenAI made a $3 billion bid for Windsurf, another fast-growing coding startup, as it looks to stay competitive in developer tools

Adam Neumann’s Flow raises over $100M at $2.5B valuation

Adam Neumann, the controversial co-founder and ousted CEO of WeWork, has once again captured the attention of Silicon Valley and Wall Street. His new venture, Flow, a residential real estate startup, has raised over $100 million in a Series B funding round, bringing the company’s valuation to approximately $2.5 billion.

Two former Columbia students raised $5.3 million for Cluely, an AI startup that lets users cheat on interviews, exams, and sales calls using a hidden browser tool. After getting suspended for their original version, the founders dropped out and scaled the product into a profitable, controversial business.

💰 Funding announcement highlights

Brellium, a New York startup offering an AI-powered platform to help healthcare providers automatically audit patient charts for clinical and billing compliance, raised a $16.7 million Series A. First Round Capital and Left Lane Capital co-led the round with Menlo Ventures, Digital Health Venture Partners, and Necessary Ventures also joining.

1Fort, a three-year-old startup automating how businesses buy and manage cyber insurance, raised a $7.5 million seed. Bonfire Ventures was the main investor, with Draper Associates, Village Global, Operator Partners, 8-Bit Capital, Character VC, and Company Ventures also contributing.

Exowatt, a Miami startup building modular energy systems that store solar heat and convert it into electricity for data centers, raised a $35 million Series A round. Felicis led the deal, with Andreessen Horowitz, 8090 Industries, Starwood Capital, Thrive Capital, and MCJ Collective also showing up.

Supabase, a San Francisco startup providing a Postgres database management system designed to help developers build and scale applications faster, raised a $200 million Series B round. Accel was the main investor, with Coatue, Y Combinator, and Craft Ventures as well as previous investor Felicis also joining.

Reco, a startup using AI to automatically map how employees use different SaaS tools, detect risky behavior, and prevent data leaks without disrupting workflows, raised a $25 million round. Redseed, Insight Partners, Zeev Ventures, Boldstart, and Angular Ventures were part of the investors.

 📚 Interesting reads of the week

AI is enabling solo founders to scale like full teams. This piece explains why grit, not credentials, is becoming the new edge.

Khloe Kardashian launches consumer brand backed by Serena Ventures, WME

Khloe Kardashian just launched Khloud, a new snack brand debuting with a protein-packed popcorn hitting Target stores April 29. Backed by Serena Ventures and WME, the startup raised $12 million and plans to expand into more “clean” snack products.

Startups are raising bigger early-stage rounds, even in AI, despite claims that the tech should cut costs. The reason behind this contradiction, according to Axios, is that hype-fueled funding is outpacing real-world use cases, with VCs often using capital as a moat rather than a necessity.

Kruze Consulting, a San Francisco, CA-based startup accounting and CFO consulting firm servicing more than 800 venture funded startup clients, has released its 7th annual CEO Salary Report. In this year’s report, startup CEOs are seeing an increase in average salaries, up more than 14% from $141K in 2024 to $161K in 2025.

New York is emerging as a serious hub for AI startups, with nearly 250 companies now active across sectors and top talent migrating in. Lux Capital highlights a fresh surge of early-stage teams, heavyweight hires, and tools like the NYC AI Map to help builders plug into the city’s fast-growing ecosystem.

AI tools are helping developers move faster, but rushing with unchecked code can lead to technical debt and security risks. In this article, Addy Osmani argues that AI-assisted coding should be treated like work from a junior dev: useful, but always needing review, testing, and human judgment to ensure it’s solid.

💪Tech mafia of the week

Highlights:

💰 Most money raised: Spenmo

🤑 Total money raised by the Grab Mafia: $225 million

Weekly Tech Mafia Leaderboard

The Grab alumni has built some amazing companies. This tech mafia group takes the 95th spot on our leaderboard, with 34 companies founded and $225 million raised.

PS: Are you a Grab 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?

Learn more about us and sign up for the waitlist here.

📌 PIN tweet of the week

💼 Who’s hiring in VC?

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

ABB Ventures is looking for a VC Manager.

Tower Research Capital is looking for a VC Analyst.

American Heart Association is looking for a VC Associate. 

TRS is looking for a VC Investor.

Grounded Capital is looking for a VC Associate.

📠 Fun fact of the week

Fairchild Semiconductor, founded in 1959, is often cited as the first true venture-backed startup and is credited with launching the modern semiconductor industry.

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