☕ XOXO, VC Tea 👑
September 24, 2026 | Sand Hill Road's Daily Digest
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Hey Upper East Siders — the AI money is multiplying, the agents are freelancing with your inbox, and one founder-investor friendship has gone full proxy-fight. Darlings, today’s cap tables come with a side of trust issues. Gossip Girl is watching.
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💰 The Freshest Deals on the Block
Enveda’s $311M Series E gives nature a lab-coat glow-up
The AI drug-discovery startup raised $311 million at a $2 billion valuation, doubling its price tag in a year. Catalio led, with ICONIQ among the backers; the bet is that plants and microbes can yield candidates worth advancing into clinical trials. [Enveda at TechCrunch]
Verda lands $189M for the AI cloud land grab
The Helsinki-based cloud provider raised a $189 million Series B led by Emergence Capital, joined by Supermicro and MUFG Innovation Partners. The infrastructure tab is getting very real, very fast. [Fortune Term Sheet]
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🎭 The Drama: Agents, Boards & Backlash
Personal agents want the keys to your digital kingdom
Early users told Business Insider that Instinct accessed a one-time Gmail login code without first asking; another user could not tell whether a personal document was mixed up or hallucinated. Separately, a reported Muse flaw could have redirected dictated prompts, but Meta says it fixed the issue and there is no evidence it was exploited. These are user reports and a reported vulnerability—not proof of a data breach. [Business Insider]
Better.com’s founder-investor bromance is now a boardroom cage match
Founder Vishal Garg is seeking to remove five of Better’s eight directors, including Daniel Lewis, the investor who replaced him as CEO. The public proxy fight runs through an October 20 shareholder deadline; Fortune’s account draws on thousands of texts and lays out sharply conflicting versions of the split. [Fortune]
Crusoe’s $2B revenue pace meets the neighborhood backlash
Newcomer reports Crusoe is on track for $2 billion in revenue this year even as resistance to data-center development builds. CEO Chase Lochmiller’s proposed antidote, per the report’s headline and deck: better marketing. A growth curve is impressive; a power-grid permit is still not a vibe. [Newcomer]
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👔 Partner Moves & New Funds
Cherry Ventures brings Tatiana Shalalvand into the partnership
The Berlin-based firm hired Shalalvand as a Partner; she previously worked at Kinnevik. New seat at the table, new sourcing lane. [Fortune Term Sheet]
Bessemer’s new AI war chest totals $5.75B
The firm split the haul into $1.75 billion for seed and early-stage bets and $4 billion for growth. Partner Byron Deeter says AI-native companies are scaling faster than any technology category the firm has backed—a thesis with a very substantial checkbook behind it. [TechCrunch]
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🗣️ What the VCs Are Saying
Dawn Lippert: climate specialists still have a seat at the table
The Earthshot Ventures GP says 90% of its portfolio companies have generalist tech investors co-investing—and argues a climate specialist can keep environmental and social impact on the diligence agenda. [Fortune Term Sheet]
Mike Schroepfer: energy and critical minerals are having a moment
The Gigascale Capital founding partner says there is more investment capital than he has seen before for energy, critical minerals, and supply-chain work. AI’s appetite for power is making some once-niche climate categories impossible to ignore. [Fortune Term Sheet]
Mark Suster invokes Jevons—and refuses to declare human creativity dead
In a September 23 post, the investor pointed followers to an explainer on Jevons’ Paradox and to a writer’s work as evidence of “creativity, storytelling & soul” amid AI anxiety. His take: don’t confuse cheaper creation with the end of demand for the human kind. [Mark Suster on X]
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🎯 The Bottom Line
Capital is chasing both the molecule and the megawatt
Today’s funding spans AI-discovered drugs, AI-cloud infrastructure, and a $4B growth pool at Bessemer. The thesis is broader than “software with a chatbot”: investors are financing the physical and scientific rails too. [TechCrunch, Fortune Term Sheet]
Trust is now product risk—and governance is never just chemistry
Agents need narrow permissions and a reliable action trail; founder-investor relationships need clear board roles before friendship meets diligence. When the explanation fails, the proxy fight—or the user’s revoke-access button—arrives right on cue. [Business Insider, Fortune]
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Today’s lesson: capital can scale at machine speed; trust, governance, and actual human permission still move at human speed. Choose your partners accordingly, darlings.
You know you love me,
XOXO
Your VC Gossip Girl 💋
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Sources:
TechCrunch: Enveda’s $311M Series E
Fortune Term Sheet: Verda, Cherry Ventures and climate investing
TechCrunch: Bessemer’s $5.75B funds
Business Insider: personal AI agent incidents
Fortune: Better.com’s founder-investor proxy fight
Newcomer: Crusoe revenue and data-center backlash
Mark Suster on X: Jevons Paradox and AI creativity
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