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A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders
Power in Numbers
July 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
Reddit, USA Today, Politico, Reuters, and other publishers are reconsidering whether to let Google access their content as AI search erodes referral traffic, with some weighing outright blocks despite the risk of disappearing from traditional search results.
OpenAI revealed that one of its models went rogue during a test and hacked the systems of AI dataset platform Hugging Face in a fully AI-enabled attack, a dramatic example of the dangers posed by advanced AI models.
a16z named Connor Love a general partner on its American Dynamism team, where he'll focus on defense, space, advanced manufacturing, and autonomous systems. Love joins from Lightspeed, where he backed Anduril and Saronic, and is a former Army captain who deployed to northern Iraq.
White House science adviser Michael Kratsios directly accused Chinese startup Moonshot AI of stealing from Anthropic by covertly distilling its Fable model to build Kimi K3, escalating Washington's confrontation with Chinese AI developers.
Khosla Ventures, one of OpenAI's earliest backers, is in talks to raise as much as $5.5 billion across its newest funds, which would make it the firm's biggest fundraise in its 20-year history, with the bulk earmarked for early-stage bets: roughly $1B for seed, $2B for venture-stage, and $2.5B for a fund targeting more mature startups.
Twitter and Block co-founder Jack Dorsey announced a new app on Tuesday called Buzz. Positioned as a challenger to Slack and GitHub, Buzz is a group chat platform for the workplace that puts humans and their AI agents in the same conversations.
Travis Kalanick’s robotics company, Atoms, has raised $1.7 billion in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Ben Horowitz will join the company’s board following the investment. Bain Capital, Fifth Wall, and others participated in the round.
💰 Funding announcement highlights
Lil Snack raised $8M, with Andreessen Horowitz, Lerer Hippeau, Waverley Capital, Powerhouse Capital, and Hasbro participating. The company builds bite-sized daily games distributed across platforms like Netflix, Peacock, Reddit, and FOX.
Fora raised $60M Series D co-led by Forerunner Ventures and Tactile Ventures, with Insight Partners and Thrive Capital participating, at a $1B post-money valuation. The company provides a platform for people to become travel advisors and plan trips for clients.
Bunkerhill Health raised $25M Series B led by Khosla Ventures, with Sequoia Capital, Felicis Ventures, Optum Ventures, and Y Combinator participating. The company develops AI agents and FDA-cleared clinical algorithms to automate clinical and operational workflows for hospitals.
Wonder raised $650M+ Series D from AllianceBernstein, ARK Invest, Kayne Anderson, Accel, GV, and New Enterprise Associates, at a $9B post-money valuation. The company operates food halls and owns Grubhub and Blue Apron.
Neo raised $75M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners, with Craft Ventures and Merlin Ventures participating. The company helps enterprises discover, monitor, and control AI agents and AI-enabled software.
📚 Interesting reads of the week
Startups that have had explosive AI-driven revenue growth might be in trouble. This is a consequence of the exact same open-weight model and AI sovereignty dynamics that are driving hype and discussion across twitter right now.
YC’s latest “Requests for Startups” is out, and what they are most excited about is AI is moving into the physical world. This batch's requests come from YC partners and founders building on the frontier, and include, for the first time, one from the sitting U.S. Secretary of the Army.
The term "pre-seed" no longer says much about a startup's stage or the amount of capital it has raised. A decade ago, pre-seed rounds were often under $1 million and intended to help founders validate product-market fit. Today, startups can raise $10 million or more while still calling the round "pre-seed," often to preserve the "seed" label for a future raise.
Excellent deep dive by Colossus on Sarah Guo from Conviction Capital, and her bet against the ambitions of its biggest frontier AI companies.
Reid Hoffman on why making stellar introductions is one of the best ways to strengthen your alliance in the business world. Many things could go wrong when you make an introduction, but the key to a successful intro is to always require double opt-in.
According to Kyle Harrison (Contrary), traditional, analysis driven investing is becoming less effective in an AI era where the biggest winners consistently outperform historical models and "rules of thumb." Instead of relying on spreadsheets and financial extrapolation, successful investors now fall into four categories
📌 Tweet of the week
💼 Who’s hiring in VC?
Looking to get into VC? Below are this week’s curated VC job openings.
Plug and Play is looking for an Program Manager
Weekend Fund is looking for a Partner
Techstars is looking for an Operations Associate
Decile Group is looking for an Analyst
General Atlantic is looking for an Associate
