The State of the AI Economy 📈, Ship Your First AI Agent in a Day🛠️, How to Steal a Customer Base🍴

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 🔍

• Free AI Creator Kit for Founders 📦
  This Notion toolkit combines content workflows, creator CRM, automation, and partner perks into one operating system for founders. It helps teams stay visible across AI search by turning meetings, emails, and Slack conversations into publishable content.

• JUST IN: A closed-door Mythos demo reportedly left House members “terrified” after showing it could drain bank accounts & plan kidnappings.

  86% chance Mythos 5 is restored by the end of the month [Polymarket]:

  

• How to Pivot Well in Startups 🔄
  Strong pivots begin with weak customer pull, not founder conviction, and preserve lessons instead of starting from zero. Examples like Clay, Lovable, and Cursor show how continuous customer conversations reveal when a new direction is worth pursuing. [a16z speedrun]

• Crypto’s Quiet Boom Hides Trillion-Dollar Signals 🪙🔍
  Stablecoin issuers now hold $165 billion in U.S. Treasuries, while crypto markets expand into round the clock trading for traditional assets. Funding remains muted, but new exchanges are generating meaningful revenue and crypto infrastructure continues gaining financial relevance. [Tomasz Tunguz]

• The State of the AI Economy 📈
  The AI economy is expanding rapidly, though most revenue still offsets the cost of building and operating infrastructure. Future growth depends on cheaper inference, stronger economics, and delivering more capability for every token processed. [Azeem Azhar, William Gildea, Hannah Petrovic, Nathan Warren and Marija Gavrilov]

• Ship Your First AI Agent in a Day🛠️
  This build kit outlines a seven step process with reusable templates, SDK starters, and practical safeguards for faster development. It also compares leading agent frameworks while covering debugging, cost controls, and ideas for launching a first production agent.

  

• Trump Administration Asks OpenAI to Stagger Model Release 🏛️⚠️
  Officials requested a limited rollout of GPT-5.6 through a small group of trusted partners before broader public availability. The move follows wider government scrutiny of frontier models and ongoing debates around deployment versus security. [Bloomberg]

  

• OpenAI Leans Toward Delaying IPO Until Next Year 📉
  OpenAI is reportedly reconsidering its public listing as market conditions remain uncertain despite valuation ambitions. Recent IPO performance and cautious investor sentiment are encouraging companies to wait for a stronger window. [The NewYork Times]

  

• How to Steal a Customer Base: The Fork Strategy 🍴
  Forking familiar platforms reduces switching costs by preserving workflows while introducing a better core experience. Cursor’s growth highlights how building on existing habits can outperform asking users to adopt something entirely new. [Jaryd Hermann]

  

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For sponsorship opportunities across this newsletter and LinkedIn (300k followers), email: ruben@thevccorner.com

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Interesting Reports 📊

• Pre-Seed Funding Holds Steady as AI Takes Half of Q1 Capital 📈
  U.S. startups raised over $2.3B across nearly 3,000 pre seed rounds, keeping funding levels in line with recent quarters. AI companies secured 50% of all pre seed capital, while mid sized rounds declined and the South moved ahead of the Northeast in funding share. [Carta]

  

• Cursor Acquisition Drives Startup M&A to a Record 2026 Pace 🚀
  Venture backed startup acquisitions have reached at least $119.8B this year, putting 2026 ahead of last year’s record pace. The $60B Cursor acquisition represents roughly half of total deal value and is now the largest startup acquisition on record. [Crunchbase News]

• Nordics Build a $561B Startup Ecosystem with 100+ Unicorns 🦄
  Nordic venture backed companies have grown to $561B in enterprise value, expanding sevenfold since 2016 with more than 100 unicorns. International investors now provide two thirds of funding, while late stage AI rounds close at significantly lower valuations than the Bay Area. [Dealroom.co]

  

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Recently Launched Funds 💸

• Menlo Ventures raised $3B across multiple AI-focused funds to back startups from seed to growth stages.

• Main Capital Partners closed a €5.25B fundraise to continue investing in enterprise software companies across Europe and North America.

• Seedcamp raised $320M across its First Check and Select funds to support the next generation of European founders.

• Mantis VC began raising its fourth fund with a $100M target to continue backing early-stage consumer and technology startups.

• Hoxton Ventures secured $60M for its fourth fund to invest in Europe’s most ambitious early-stage technology startups.

• Elanco Ventures launched a $25M corporate venture fund focused on animal health, livestock, and veterinary innovation.

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VC Jobs 💼

• General Atlantic (Stamford, CT): Director (apply here)

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

• Andreessen Horowitz (New York City, NY): Partner (apply here)

• Andreessen Horowitz (San Francisco, CA): Partner (apply here)

• Voy Ventures (San Francisco, CA): Director (apply here)

• Harlem Capital (Remote): Internship (apply here)

• Backbone Ventures (Zurich, Switzerland): Investor (apply here)

• Vendep Capital (Espoo, Finland): Associate (apply here)

• ResilienceVC (Washington, DC): Fellowship (apply here)

• SPLY Capital (Austin, TX): Associate (apply here)

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Hottest Deals 💥

• DeepSeek raised $7.4B in its maiden funding round at a $50B+ valuation to accelerate frontier AI research and infrastructure. (read more)

• Cred raised ~$900M Series H at a $4.5B post-money valuation to expand its consumer fintech platform. (read more)

• CuspAI is closing a $400M funding round at a $2.6B valuation to scale its AI-powered materials discovery platform. (read more)

• Nearfield Instruments raised €380M Series D to expand advanced semiconductor metrology solutions. (read more)

• Ollin Biosciences raised $330M Series B to advance next-generation precision medicine programs. (read more)

• Airwallex raised $320M Series H at an $11B valuation to accelerate global expansion of its financial infrastructure platform. (read more)

• Peregrine Technologies raised $250M Series D at a $6.8B valuation to scale mission-critical software for public sector agencies. (read more)

• Upscale AI raised $190M Series A-1 to accelerate development of enterprise AI infrastructure. (read more)

• Bionyra Pharma raised $165M Series A to advance its oncology drug pipeline. (read more)

• Assort Health raised $120M Series C to expand its AI-powered healthcare operations platform. (read more)

• Taktile raised $110M Series C to scale AI-powered decision automation for financial services. (read more)

• RunPod raised $100M to expand its GPU cloud infrastructure for AI developers. (read more)

• Scaled Cognition raised $100M Series A to develop next-generation AI systems. (read more)

• Cadence raised $100M Series C to expand its AI-powered healthcare platform. (read more)

• Engram raised $98M in funding to accelerate development of its AI platform. (read more)

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