💰 The Freshest Deals on the Block

Spotted: Max Hodak — yes, that Max Hodak, co-founder and former president of Neuralink — is back with a vengeance. His new startup, Science Corporation, just raised a hefty $230 million Series C and claims it'll be the first brain-computer interface company to actually get a product to market. (Shots fired at Elon, perhaps?) While the Neuralink drama plays out on social media, Hodak has been quietly building hardware for patients with blindness and paralysis. You didn't hear it from me, but being the "former president" of a competitor might just be the best founder pedigree in this space. Sources say Science Corp is racing to clinical trials while others are still fighting PR battles. Read more on TechCrunch

Word on the street: Sometimes the best revenge is building a better brain chip.

Another day, another defense tech unicorn. Nominal just snagged an $80 million Series B extension at a $1 billion valuation — led by Founders Fund, naturally. This is on top of their $75M Series B from Sequoia in September, bringing their total raised to $155M in just 10 months. CEO Cameron McCord is a former U.S. Navy submarine officer and Anduril alum, because apparently defense tech is now the official career path for former military officers with Stanford MBAs. The company makes software for hardware engineers to test their designs, and with Anduril as a marquee customer AND Trae Stephens leading this deal, the defense tech mafia is clearly taking care of its own. Read more on TechCrunch

Spotted: When Trae Stephens leads your preemptive deal, you've officially joined the defense tech inner circle.

Word on the street: A former Google Cloud security executive just emerged from stealth with $38 million to tackle what they call "silent" security failures. CEO Gal Shafir says large companies use dozens of fragmented security tools, and those systems quietly stop working over time — but nobody notices until it's too late. "Nobody really knows if their detection rules are silent because they were secure or because something got broken in the data plumbing a couple of months ago," Shafir told Business Insider. The team raised a seed round last April, then a preemptive Series A just eight months later. When the ex-Google Cloud security folks say there's a problem, VCs apparently listen. Read more on Business Insider

The Irish-founded payment encryption startup just raised €21 million ($23M) in a Series B led by Ribbit Capital, with Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures joining the party. Evervault keeps payment data encrypted from end to end, meaning card data never appears in plaintext in customer systems. With EU payment regulations tightening and GDPR enforcement ramping up, they're solving a very timely problem. Customers apparently cut compliance costs by an average of €86,000 and achieve compliance 95% faster. You didn't hear it from me, but when Ribbit and Sequoia co-invest, the fintech infrastructure play is officially validated. Read more on The Next Web

Stepping away from defense and AI for a moment: This Mayo Clinic-collaborating healthtech startup just raised $20.6 million co-led by HM Venture Partners and Southeast Minnesota Capital Partners. They're tackling fecal incontinence — yes, really — with a clinically proven single-use device called StaySure™. Sometimes the biggest opportunities are in the markets nobody else wants to talk about at cocktail parties. Founded in 2015 in collaboration with a Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist, this is old-school medtech with real clinical validation. Refreshing, honestly. Read more on BioSpace

Sources say this animal health tech company just secured $100 million in growth financing from Symbiotic Capital. TARGAN develops precision technologies for animal agriculture, and this kind of growth capital suggests they're scaling fast. When VCs start throwing nine-figure checks at agtech, you know the sector has officially arrived. Read more on AgFunderNews

Long Journey Ventures (yes, the Uber and SpaceX backers) just led a $750,000 seed round into this London-based AI-native investment bank for small and mid-market M&A. The model is clever: every client gets a senior human M&A adviser paired with a custom AI "Deal Concierge" that runs 24/7. Because apparently even the boutique investment banks need AI agents now. The founder is Joe Lewin, and venture partner Pascal Levy-Garboua drove the deal — he also runs Noosa Labs, which acquires and operates small SaaS businesses, so he actually understands the problem. Read more on The Next Web

🎙 What the VCs Are Saying

The SaaStr founder just delivered a brutal reality check to stagnant startups: "So many founders who haven't reignited growth say: 'We're doing the best we can'... Be honest. You are a dinosaur in Age of AI. It is you." His prescription? Grab your top 10-20 people, move them to a new building, and their only job is building the #1 AI agent in your space. "This may be your only, last, best, chance." Brutal. But apparently necessary. See the tweet here

Spotted: When Jason Lemkin calls you a dinosaur, it's time to pivot.

Also from the Lemkin files, fresh from this morning: "Growth slowed? Get the co-founders together in a room. Lock the door. Now you'll see the only team available to fix things. No one else is coming to help you. It's up to you. How badly do you want to get back to growth?" The message is clear: stop making excuses and start executing. Only founders can care enough to really do the hard work. See the tweet here

The Craft Ventures co-founder dropped a bombshell in January that's still echoing through the ecosystem: "California has become a hostile work environment for founders." With nearly 6,000 likes and almost 600,000 views, this isn't just hot air — it's a declaration of war. Sacks has been warning about the Billionaire Tax Act and predicting a "panic and rush for the exits" if it gets on the ballot. Whether you agree or not, the exodus narrative is gaining steam. See the tweet here

Also from Sacks' prophecy desk: "As a response to socialism, Miami will replace NYC as the finance capital and Austin will replace SF as the tech capital." This one went absolutely viral — 52,000+ likes, 5,700+ retweets, and 6 million+ views. The geo-political realignment of tech is apparently happening in real time, and Sacks is positioning himself as the oracle. See the tweet here

David Sacks wrote a thesis-length thread urging Garry Tan and Y Combinator to open an Austin office. His argument? "The Austin startup ecosystem is off to the races thanks to first movers like @elonmusk and @JTLonsdale. If you don't open YC Austin, you're basically acknowledging that Silicon Valley has insuperable network effects... If Tech doesn't start sharing the wealth with Red States, it should expect narrow and shrinking political support." Translation: diversify geographically or face political consequences. Bold. Controversial. Very on-brand. See the thread here

The founder-turned-investor (Curseforge, now at Fdotinc) summed up VC decision-making in 2026: "Current State of VC: • 'Big labs will own this' → Pass • 'No defensible moat' → Pass • 'Growth isn't venture scale' → Pass Anything new on the x timeline: 'Invest immediately'" 400+ likes and 21,000+ views suggest this hit a nerve. The FOMO-driven investment cycle continues, apparently. See the tweet here

A timely reminder from a solo GP: "Totally agree. Advice is highly over rated. Generally the things VCs can give great advice on are fundraising and sometimes shared learnings from other portcos. Tangible help aka intros are what can actually move the needle." The era of VC-as-guru is apparently over. Now it's all about who you can introduce founders to. Network > wisdom. See the tweet here

🍞 The Quick Sips

💭 Parting Thoughts