AI’s Biggest Winners📉, Stop Playing The Markup Game🎯, The Self Driving Company🚗

Another week, another pulse check on Tech.

From top insights a

nd reports to new funds, VC jobs, resources, and the hottest deals, here’s everything you need to stay ahead 👇

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In-Depth Insights 🔍

• How to Build Three AI Agents Without Writing Code 🤖
  The guide starts with manual workflows, then local operators, and finally scheduled automation after each stage proves reliable. Financial, legal, medical, and other high risk decisions should remain under human review before any action is taken.

• Your Investor List Is 90% Dead Weight 📋
  Large investor databases rarely produce results because most names are not actively relevant to a fundraising round. Success comes from qualifying, scoring, and ranking a focused shortlist instead of sending more cold outreach.

• AI’s Biggest Winners Have the Lowest Margins 📉
  Low margin industries gain the most from AI because small operating savings flow directly into profit. The highest returns come from removing scheduling and coordination work inside existing systems, not adding new software employees must learn. [Daniel Kornum]

  

• The Reverse Information Paradox 🔄
  AI shifts the balance of knowledge as buyers reveal proprietary data while using commercial models. Companies need control over data, evaluations, orchestration, costs, and continuous learning to protect long term advantages. [Satya Nadella]

• Stop Playing The Markup Game 🎯
  Software investing is shifting as valuation growth alone no longer guarantees strong long term outcomes. Future investors will compete by designing capital structures for infrastructure, energy, chips, and manufacturing projects. [Hemant Taneja]

• The Future Worth Building Is Human 🌍
  Thinking Machines argues AI should strengthen human judgment instead of replacing local expertise. Its strategy focuses on customizable models, better interfaces, and decentralized alignment shaped by each organization. [Thinking Machines]

• You Just Hired A Million Bad Employees 👥
  Managing AI agents requires the same discipline as managing people through context, evaluation, and clear objectives. The next major opportunity belongs to firms that encode business processes into reliable agent systems rather than selling generic tools. [George Sivulka]

  

• The Self Driving Company 🚗
  Replit uses internal agents across engineering, sales, marketing, support, and operations while keeping quality stable. Teams increasingly define goals while agents execute tasks, replacing several external software tools along the way. [Amjad Masad]

  

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Interesting Reports 📊

• The 2026 Deep Tech Report by Drumbeat Capital 🔬
  The report examines funding trends, sector performance, and collaboration across the U.S. and Europe. It estimates Deep Tech startups raised a combined $156.6 billion across both regions. [Dealroom.co]

• The $1 Billion Race to Automate Warehouses 📦
  Physical AI funding in the first half of 2026 surpassed the total invested across all of 2025. Large warehouse automation deals accelerated, with Sequoia leading investment activity and NVIDIA expanding its safety initiatives. [PitchBook]

• Defense Tech VC Hits $35.4B YTD 🛡️
  Defense tech venture funding reached $35.4 billion year to date, led by Anduril’s $5 billion Series H round. Exit value climbed to $1.8 trillion, driven primarily by SpaceX’s public market listing. [PitchBook]

  

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Recently Launched Funds 💸

• Lionlight Capital closed its inaugural $215M fund to invest in high-growth technology companies across Europe.

• Uplift Investors closed its first $670M fund, backing ambitious founders building category-defining businesses.

• Citation Capital closed its inaugural $1.2B fund to invest in innovative, high-growth companies.

• Acurio Ventures closed Acurio Secondaries I FCR at approximately €115M, targeting venture-backed secondary opportunities.

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VC Jobs 💼

• 2150 Ventures (London, England): VC Principal (apply here)

• ICONIQ (San Francisco, CA): VC Associate (apply here)

• USV (New York City, NY): VC Associate (apply here)

• Ananda Impact Ventures (Munich, Germany): VC Associate (apply here)

• Peak (Munich, Germany): VC Analyst (apply here)

• Techstars (Boulder, CO): VC Manager (apply here)

• Equal Ventures (New York City, NY): VC Analyst (apply here)

• Leggett Ventures (Houston, TX): VC Associate (apply here)

• Telegraph Ventures (Montreal, Canada): VC Analyst (apply here)

• Reimann Investors (Munich, Germany): VC Internship (apply here)

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Hottest Deals 💥

• Fireworks raised $1.5B in Series D funding at a $17B valuation to scale its enterprise AI infrastructure platform. (read more)

• Neko Health raised $700M in Series C funding to expand its AI-powered preventive healthcare platform globally. (read more)

• Wonder raised $650M in Series D funding at a $9B valuation to accelerate its food delivery and dining ecosystem. (read more)

• Chai Discovery raised $400M in Series C funding to advance AI-driven drug discovery. (read more)

• Walden Robotics raised $300M in funding to accelerate next-generation robotics development. (read more)

• LimX Dynamics raised $200M in funding at a $2.2B post-money valuation to scale humanoid robotics. (read more)

• Alpaca raised $135M in funding to expand its global brokerage infrastructure platform. (read more)

• Brinc raised $125M in funding to expand its global venture accelerator platform. (read more)

• Cover Genius raised $100M in funding to scale its embedded insurance platform worldwide. (read more)

• Spectro Cloud raised $100M in Series D funding to expand its Kubernetes management platform. (read more)

• TerraFirma raised $100M in Series A funding to scale climate infrastructure technology. (read more)

• Singularity raised $80M in Series A funding at a $400M valuation to build AI infrastructure. (read more)

• SwissTo12 raised $70M in Series C funding to expand satellite communications technology. (read more)

• Flex raised $70M in Series B1 funding at a $1.2B valuation to expand its fintech platform. (read more)

• Lumin Digital raised $70M in new funding to accelerate digital banking innovation. (read more)

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