Dealmaker by The Information Staff

Two times/week

Dealmaker

By The Information Staff

Venture capital is at a crossroads. Reporters Cory Weinberg and Natasha Mascarenhas tell you what’s coming next, who’s winning—and who’s losing—in the high-stakes world of startup investing.

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Recent Editions

Synthesia co-founder and CEO Victor Riparbelli. Getty Images

Why Some AI Startup Acquisitions Are Failing

By Laura Mandaro and Katie Roof · Oct 23, 2025 2:49pm PDT · 1 comment

Over the last few days our reporters have broken news about two merger discussions that fizzled: Adobe, which was interested in buying video startup Synthesia, and SoftBank, which talked with humanoid robotics maker Agility about a takeover. In both cases, the startups ended up pursuing more venture capital funding at higher valuations.These are... Over the last few days our reporters have broken news about two merger discussions that fizzled:...

Latham & Watkins partners Seth Gottlieb (left) and Alex Kelly (right). Photo courtesy of the subjects.

AI Is Speeding Up M&A Deals, Says Latham

By Valida Pau · Oct 21, 2025 2:03pm PDT

A flurry of tech mergers and acquisitions catalyzed by the artificial intelligence boom has been big business for lawyers. Latham & Watkins, which has landed on some of the highest-profile deals, says tech is moving fast and companies are keeping pace, sometimes getting transactions done in days. “It’s speed oftentimes because the deal... A flurry of tech mergers and acquisitions catalyzed by the artificial intelligence boom has been...

Alex Ferrara, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. Photo courtesy of Paul Clarke for Resilience Media.

Bessemer Bets on War Worries in Europe

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 16, 2025 2:38pm PDT

The name of Bessemer Venture Partners is tied closely with the cloud software boom of the 2010s. The backer of Twilio, Shopify and Zoom even created its own Nasdaq index of cloud software companies, which I look at often to track the ups and downs of the market.But it’s not a good time to be a software investor. That index of cloud stocks has... The name of Bessemer Venture Partners is tied closely with the cloud software boom of the 2010s....

Reflection AI CEO Misha Laskin and The Information reporter Akash Pasricha.

Why Nvidia Is Shying Away From the ‘Lead Investor’ Mantle

By Miles Kruppa · Oct 14, 2025 2:11pm PDT · 1 comment

Reflection AI CEO Misha Laskin and The Information reporter Akash Pasricha.

Why Nvidia Is Shying Away From the ‘Lead Investor’ Mantle

By Miles Kruppa · Oct 14, 2025 2:11pm PDT · 1 comment

When somebody writes the biggest check in a round of venture funding, they usually want to shout it from the rooftops. Not so for Nvidia in its latest investment.The chip giant caused a stir last week when it objected to being called the lead investor in a $2 billion round of funding for Reflection, a one-year-old company developing open-source... When somebody writes the biggest check in a round of venture funding, they usually want to shout...

Venture capitalist Ben Horowitz and Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch. Photos via Getty and YouTube

Ben Horowitz Hires His ‘Jensen’; Vercel Starts a Venture Fund

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Oct 9, 2025 2:30pm PDT

Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz says only a small subset of AI companies, such as portfolio companies Safe Superintelligence Inc. and Thinking Machines Labs, need massive compute contracts. But many AI startups still need help getting access to bottlenecked resources, like chips to train their models.The venture firm said Thursday it... Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz says only a small subset of AI companies, such as...

Peter Thiel. Photo via Getty

Why I’m Covering Defense Tech; Founders Fund’s Concentrated Bets

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 7, 2025 1:47pm PDT

Greetings from Los Angeles, where I’ve taken up a new residence after a cross-country road trip from New York. During a tour of a defunct U.S. Steel mill in Pittsburgh and a visit to the uranium boom-and-bust town of Moab, Utah, I spent time thinking about the technology that has reshaped national security, industrialization, energy and... Greetings from Los Angeles, where I’ve taken up a new residence after a cross-country road trip...

Paige and Leura Craig. Photo courtesy of Outlander VC.

How an Early Scale AI Investor Picks Founders

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 2, 2025 1:52pm PDT

How do early-stage venture capitalists pick which unproven founders to back? Most don’t overcomplicate things. Backing a Stanford University computer science grad or an early OpenAI employee often seems like a good bet. Some VCs even use AI to score early startups based on their technical expertise or past successes.Paige and Leura Craig, the... How do early-stage venture capitalists pick which unproven founders to back? Most don’t...

Cyberstarts Founder Gili Raanan. Photo provided by Unlmtdpartners.

Cyberstarts’ New Fund Is a Bet on Cybersecurity M&A

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Sep 30, 2025 11:33am PDT

Cyberstarts Founder Gili Raanan. Photo provided by Unlmtdpartners.

Cyberstarts’ New Fund Is a Bet on Cybersecurity M&A

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Sep 30, 2025 11:33am PDT

Venture capitalist Gili Raanan is best known for his first investments in cloud security startups Wiz and Cyera. But as startups stay private for longer, his Israel-based venture firm Cyberstarts is now also investing in later rounds. It now has another $380 million for those more mature investments, thanks to a new fund raised this week to... Venture capitalist Gili Raanan is best known for his first investments in cloud security startups...

Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Photo via Getty

All-Male AI Boards; General Catalyst’s AI Head Count Savings

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Sep 25, 2025 2:04pm PDT

The topic of whether startup boards have enough women on them has been muted lately. Not only has President Donald Trump’s administration targeted diversity mandates, but federal courts have overturned related laws, such as those passed in California requiring a certain number of women and underrepresented minorities on public company... The topic of whether startup boards have enough women on them has been muted lately. Not only has...

President Donald Trump signs an executive order introducing a $100,000 fee for H-1B visas. Photo via Getty.

$100,000 H-1B Fee’s Inflationary Effect on Startups

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Sep 23, 2025 12:37pm PDT

The Trump administration’s announcement that it would start charging $100,000 for foreign workers applying for new H-1B visas sent a shock wave through the ranks of startups and their investors over the weekend. Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan and Menlo Ventures’ Deedy Das have warned the fees will give large tech companies an even bigger advantage... The Trump administration’s announcement that it would start charging $100,000 for foreign workers...

Anjney Midha, General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz. Image via Getty.

How Andreessen Horowitz’s ‘Compute Whisperer’ Wins AI Deals

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Sep 18, 2025 1:14pm PDT

Andreessen Horowitz general partner Anjney Midha’s main job is to lead investments in AI startups such as France’s Mistral AI and Germany’s Black Forest Labs. But behind the scenes, he’s also functioned as what he calls the firm’s “compute whisperer,” setting up and managing a group of thousands of Nvidia chips that the firm then rents to... Andreessen Horowitz general partner Anjney Midha’s main job is to lead investments in AI startups...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Images via Getty

Who Will Own the New OpenAI, in One Chart

By Sri Muppidi · Sep 16, 2025 2:45pm PDT

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Images via Getty

Who Will Own the New OpenAI, in One Chart

By Sri Muppidi · Sep 16, 2025 2:45pm PDT

One question has loomed over OpenAI investors for years: How would they generate a return on their investment? The ChatGPT maker is a nonprofit that capped the potential returns of early backers in its for-profit arm, such as Khosla Ventures and Microsoft, and would prevent the newer investors including Thrive Capital and SoftBank from reaping... One question has loomed over OpenAI investors for years: How would they generate a return on...

Photo via Getty

The AI Haves and Have Nots at Goldman's Big Tech Event

By Valida Pau · Sep 11, 2025 2:31pm PDT

At the historic Palace Hotel in San Francisco, Goldman Sachs is wrapping up three and half days of its annual Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference.Attendees were mostly in a buoyant mood, but not because this week is on track to be the biggest of the year for initial public offerings. Instead, the biggest pop during the conference... At the historic Palace Hotel in San Francisco, Goldman Sachs is wrapping up three and half days...

Art by Shane Burke

The $115 Billion Reason OpenAI Will Raise More Money

By Sri Muppidi · Sep 9, 2025 12:00pm PDT

Last week, I reported on how OpenAI updated its financial forecasts for investors. The company expects to spend nearly $115 billion between 2025 and 2029. That’s $80 billion more than it forecast in the first quarter. As the chart shows, the startup—recently valued at $500 billion in a sale of employee shares—has been able to handily raise... Last week, I reported on how OpenAI updated its financial forecasts for investors. The company...

Mercor CEO Brendan Foody. Screenshot via YouTube/First Block.

Mercor Fields $10 Billion-Valuation Offers in ‘Pre-emptive’ Onslaught

By Katie Roof · Sep 4, 2025 4:15pm PDT

The frothiness of the artificial intelligence boom is starting to look like 1999…or 2021. Startups are again receiving unsolicited investment interest months or even weeks after announcing a fundraising, sometimes at prices that would more than double their valuation. The latest is Mercor, a startup that helps OpenAI and other AI developers find... The frothiness of the artificial intelligence boom is starting to look like 1999…or 2021....

Photo via Getty

Nvidia Buys Coding Startup as AI Deal Blitz Grows

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Sep 2, 2025 4:37pm PDT · 1 comment

Photo via Getty

Nvidia Buys Coding Startup as AI Deal Blitz Grows

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Sep 2, 2025 4:37pm PDT · 1 comment

We’re in the midst of an M&A boom—for artificial intelligence startups. Among the latest: Nvidia last month bought Solver, according to a person with direct knowledge of the deal. The three-year-old startup formerly known as Laredo Labs has developed an AI coding agent that completes software development tasks for users. The company... We’re in the midst of an M&A boom—for artificial intelligence startups. Among the...

Synthesia CEO Victor Riparbelli. Photo via Getty

The New European Startup Darlings

By Katie Roof · Aug 28, 2025 3:36pm PDT · 4 comments

Hi, it’s Katie Roof, spending my first week at The Information schmoozing with Europe’s startup leaders at a conference called TechBBQ in Copenhagen. It’s been close to three years since I’ve been at a tech conference on the Continent, and the difference is palpable. In 2022, there was a panic in the air about a stock sell-off that eventually... Hi, it’s Katie Roof, spending my first week at The Information schmoozing with Europe’s startup...

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. Photo via Getty

The Founder Perk Showing Up in More VC Deals

By Cory Weinberg · Aug 26, 2025 4:10pm PDT

You’ll sometimes find signs of the times buried in companies’ bland corporate charters. The latest example: A growing number of startups that raised venture capital this year have issued a type of stock designed to make it easier for founders to sell some of their stakes.Nearly 11% of companies that raised money in the first half of the year... You’ll sometimes find signs of the times buried in companies’ bland corporate charters. The...

Photo by Getty.

Ex-OpenAI Staff Launch Fund as OpenAI ‘Mafia’ Spreads

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Aug 21, 2025 4:17pm PDT

Over the last two years, several ex-OpenAI employees have left to found new startups. Now some former researchers at the ChatGPT maker are starting venture funds, extending a history of alums from buzzy startups who jump into investing. The latest example of this is Zero Shot Fund, started this summer by a group of former OpenAI employees... Over the last two years, several ex-OpenAI employees have left to found new startups. Now some...

Photo via Getty

What to Watch as the IPO Heat Turns Up

By Cory Weinberg · Aug 19, 2025 3:00pm PDT

Photo via Getty

What to Watch as the IPO Heat Turns Up

By Cory Weinberg · Aug 19, 2025 3:00pm PDT

Initial public offerings are generating buzz again, and share prices of tech listings have doubled on average this year. The Nasdaq has been at an all-time high, today’s big-tech stock sell-off notwithstanding. And Chamath Palihapitiya is raising money for a special purpose acquisition company. Are we about to hit a speculative IPO and SPAC... Initial public offerings are generating buzz again, and share prices of tech listings have...