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The co-founders of startup Ricursive Intelligence seemed destined to be co-founders.
Anna Goldie, CEO, and Azalia Mirhoseini, CTO, are so well-known in the AI community that they were among those AI engineers who “got those weird emails from Zuckerberg making crazy offers to us,” Goldie told TechCrunch, chuckling. (They didn’t take the offers.) The pair worked at Google Brain together and were early employees at Anthropic. READ MORE
“Everyone understands that the AI revolution is enormous, and whoever succeeds in building the truly significant companies will do so within the next year or two at most. Everyone is playing for time,” said Pavel Gurvich, co-founder and CEO of Tenzai, during a panel moderated by Meir Orbach at Calcalist’s Tech TLV conference, held in collaboration with Leumi.
“We see that the market is ready to fund such ventures, ready to back teams that not only have the technological ability to execute but also the capacity to go to market quickly. Raising a $75 million Seed round is a major and significant step, but the journey ahead is much bigger. In the very early stages, the main risks are the team, whether the market truly exists, and whether you know how to build a product,” he said. READ MORE
Venture capital is in the middle of a quiet power shift.
Over the past few years, some of the largest and most consequential deals in tech, healthcare and life sciences have not been led by traditional venture firms at all. Instead, family offices and sovereign wealth funds are backing bigger bets, longer timelines and platforms that stretch across borders, often outside the constraints of the traditional 10-year fund model. READ MORE
National security has always been a lucrative opportunity for startups, but recently venture capital has been pouring into the sector at an astounding rate.
The Trump administration has vocally prioritized defense and security spending, but the trend started a few years before he took office, sparked by initiatives like the CHIPS Act and government-focused accelerators. The spike in venture capital investment is visible both at national scale, and locally in the DMV, where startups can gain an edge thanks to proximity to the Pentagon and Capitol Hill. READ MORE
Venture capital continued to flow into the artificial intelligence (AI) sector in early February, though the targets are changing. Investors are now prioritizing the durability and economics of the technology over simple scale. READ MORE
My agency gets these two calls in one week. First, a Series B Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) startup burning through its 18-month runway, desperate to differentiate before its next fundraising round. Then, a mid-sized venture capital (VC) firm managing $500 million, struggling to stand out in a deluge of “value-add investors.” READ MORE
Initial compliance deadlines are rapidly approaching for California’s new Fair Investment Practices by Venture Capital Companies Law (FIPVCC), with the California Department of Financial Protection & Innovation (DFPI) delivering initial guidance and other resources to assist covered entities with compliance. READ MORE
Last year, AI grabbed half of venture dollars globally. But the sector’s blockbuster growth hasn’t necessarily come at the expense of other startup industries. Rather, areas that benefit from AI-driven automation such as legal tech, or that combine AI software with physical tech, like robotics and defense tech, are seeing record-high funding levels as well, Crunchbase data shows.
With that, here are five areas where we’ve seen venture funding increase significantly in recent quarters. READ MORE
As employers and workforces settle into the new year, change, as always, is sure to be among the major challenges they face.
More specifically, says Kevin Rockmann, a professor of management at George Mason University’s Costello College of Business, this year’s change scenario will be particularly acute within the ongoing evolution of remote and hybrid environments. READ MORE
I underwrite small-business loans at Impact Loan Fund, a Community Development Financial Institution in Philadelphia. Like other CDFIs, we help businesses access capital when traditional banks and lenders wouldn’t, like if founders have lower credit or limited collateral, or when a company is early in its life cycle.
Our role is different than that of an investor. For our fund to offer capital, a business has to show enough operating history, revenue and — most importantly — profitability. READ MORE
I am more excited about venture capital (VC) today than at any point since starting Harlem Capital ten years ago out of a shared work space. At the same time, the economist in me has some concerns.
One question that comes up in several VC conversations is, “Are we in an AI bubble?” How you answer that question determines whether you invest aggressively, cautiously or not at all. I find myself both bullish and wary. READ MORE
Many investment firms of ultra-rich families are keen to buy stakes in private companies directly rather than through private equity funds, which come with fees and less control.
Cutting out the middleman can come at a steep cost, though, and requires hiring an in-house investment team to source proprietary deals. READ MORE
Little more than one year ago, New York City’s Vestar Capital sent a surprising message to its limited partners. After decades of growth, it was scrapping plans for its eighth private equity fund and would instead focus on improving its existing portfolio of companies. Its most recent fund, Vestar Capital Partners VII, launched in 2018 with $1.1 billion but has been limping along with an internal rate of return of 7.7%, significantly lagging the S&P’s average return of 14% over the same period. READ MORE
On December 11, 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Incentivizing New Ventures and Economic Strength Through Capital Formation Act[1] (“INVEST Act”) by a bipartisan vote of 302 to 123. If passed by the Senate and signed into law by the President, the INVEST Act would, among other things, enable certain venture capital fund managers to remain unregistered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) while raising more capital from more retail investors and deploying capital in the booming secondaries market for private venture investments. READ MORE
Global funding activity across the life sciences sector was mixed in 2025. Venture capital (VC) activity was slightly higher, while the initial public offering (IPO) market experienced a down year. M&A deals accelerated sharply as pharmaceutical companies increased acquisition activity. Investor sentiment weighed on funding early in the year but improved meaningfully in the second half, driving a pickup in activity and signaling stronger momentum heading into 2026. READ MORE
California’s Fair Investment Practices by Venture Capital Companies Law (FIPVCC), commonly referred to as SB 54, as amended by SB 164, requires certain venture capital companies (including venture capital funds) with a California nexus to register with the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI), and to collect and annually report anonymized, aggregated demographic data about the founding team members of businesses in which they invest. The first registration is due March 1, 2026, and the first annual report is due April 1, 2026. READ MORE
Some of California's most prominent venture capitalists are quick to slam their state, arguing that fiscal mismanagement and high taxes will cause startups to form elsewhere.
So far that doesn't seem to be happening. READ MORE
For years, venture capital (VC) firms were considered relatively benign risks in the directors and officers (D&O) insurance market.
Compared to traditional buyout private equity, VCs generated fewer claims, fewer losses, and generally enjoyed broad coverage, healthy capacity, and competitive pricing. READ MORE
Among startup investors, the prevailing mantra has long been that the greatest returns accrue to those who are earliest in finding and funding the most promising founders.
Sounds simple enough. But there’s a twist: What if a lot of well-capitalized investors identify those same founders around the same time?
In that case, being early can still have advantages. However, it can also be very expensive. READ MORE
Evidence of a slowdown in private equity fundraising continues to accumulate as concerns about lack of liquidity remain top of mind for institutional investors. Last year, global private equity fundraising across private equity strategies fell 12.7 percent to $480.29 billion, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. This was the third consecutive year that global fundraising declined. The slowdown is confirmed in data from Pitchbook, a data analytics firm. Using somewhat different definitions of PE strategies and data, its Global PE First Look report found that funds raised $407.5 billion globally across 2025, down from $611.6 billion raised in 2024. READ MORE