Capital-Intensive 'Coconut' Rounds Upend the Traditional Venture Funding Model

Last week, Thomas Dohmke, the former CEO of GitHub, announced a $60 million seed round and a $300 million valuation for his new startup Entire, a developer platform focused on AI-generated code. By the standards of today’s AI market, that’s considered restrained.

Dohmke initially floated a $50 million raise to Madrona Ventures’ managing director S. “Soma” Somasegar — once the head of his division at Microsoft — who suggested a $250 million valuation. Dohmke said he would come back after testing the market, Somasegar told me. READ MORE

The VC bulls defying VC conventions by driving nuclear fusion tech

Nuclear fusion has captured Silicon Valley's imagination, even as investments in the technology break every venture capital norm. A cohort of investors—a combination of ultra-wealthy individuals and deep-pocketed firms—enthusiastic about the promise of fusion energy is pouring more capital into its commercialization than ever. And that's despite the fact that it's still several scientific discoveries away from being a realistic option for the energy grid. READ MORE

J.P. Morgan report finds family offices increasing private equity allocations as succession planning gaps persist

J.P. Morgan Private Bank releases its 2026 Global Family Office Report, revealing that while single family offices are professionalising, significant gaps in succession planning and risk management remain.

The report, which surveyed 333 family offices across 30 countries, finds that 37 per cent of respondents plan to increase their private equity allocations over the next 12 to 18 months. This comes despite 86 per cent of family offices globally admitting they still lack a clear succession plan for key decision-makers. READ MORE

How the uninvestable is becoming investable

Venture capital has long avoided ‘hard’ sectors such as government, defence, energy, manufacturing, and hardware, viewing them as uninvestable because startups have limited scope to challenge incumbents. Instead, investors have prioritised fast-moving and lightly regulated software markets with lower barriers to entry.

End users in these hard industries have paid the price, as a lack of innovation funding has left them stuck with incumbent providers that continue to deliver clunky, unintuitive solutions that are difficult to migrate from. READ MORE

Biopharma funding to experience 'continued, albeit disciplined' recovery in 2026

Just as a disciplined a soccer player might pass on a hopeful shot in favor of a better chance later on, the biopharma venture capital market reflected a preference for de-risked assts over platforms and is expected to display a “continued, albeit disciplined” recovery in 2026, according to a fourth-quarter PitchBook report. 

After bottoming out post-pandemic surge, biopharma venture capital continued to make a modest rebound in 2025. For the second consecutive quarter, deal value rose as capital became more selective and concentrated on fewer, larger deals.  READ MORE

How Ricursive Intelligence raised $335M at a $4B valuation in 4 months

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

"Getting $10-20 million in Seed money from reputable funds is easy. That’s why we also see rapid failures."

“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

Why AI Makes Venture Capital More Vulnerable, Not Smarter

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

The national security startup boom is real — and complicated

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

5 Startup Sectors Seeing Big Funding Growth

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

What will define ‘strong’ managers in 2026?

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

Tip for startup founders: Before you pitch investors, underwrite your own business

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

Is Now The Best Or Worst Time In Venture Capital?

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

Why Private Equity Is Suddenly Awash With Zombie Firms

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

A Potential Fundraising Boost for Venture Capital Investing: U.S. House Passes INVEST Act

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