Elon Musk isn’t the only tech billionaire with power over the federal agencies that regulate his businesses. Since Donald Trump took office, more than three dozen employees, allies, and investors of Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and Palmer Luckey have taken roles at federal agencies, helping direct billions in contracts to their companies. Companies owned,
Josh Raffaelli, who has deep roots as a Silicon Valley investor and has backed a number of Elon Musk companies, is suing former employer, the massive trillion-dollar AUM Brookfield Asset Management, reports The New York Times. Much of Raffaelli’s complaint concerns how Brookfield covered pandemic-related real estate losses and alleges the company fired him after
Much of the world isn’t paying close attention to Greece right now. That may be a mistake. Best known for its stunning islands, sun-soaked cities, and deep historical roots, Greece has been quietly laying the foundation for something less expected — a modern, resilient tech economy. While the international spotlight often misses it, something real
Anduril announced its ninth acquisition on Monday with the purchase of Dublin’s Klas, makers of ruggedized edge computing equipment for the military and first responders. Anduril wouldn’t reveal financial details of the deal, and the purchase is subject to regulatory approval, but the company did say that Klas employs 150 people. Relatedly, on Monday, Anduril
A new venture firm aims to prove that the most successful startup ideas don’t have to be born or scaled in Silicon Valley. Fluent Ventures, a global early-stage fund, is backing founders replicating proven business models from Western markets in fintech, digital health, and commerce across emerging markets. The more cynical might describe this as
New $5M deep tech fund aims to lure founders from universities. Spend time at a university, and inevitably you’ll come across someone who has a plan to save the world, or at least make some small part of it better. It might be merely the optimism of youth, but sometimes they’re actually on to something.
Al Gore, Just Climate fund raises $175M from Microsoft and CalSTRS : When it comes to climate-related investments, the lion’s share has gone to companies working in energy and transportation. Most investors overlook actual lions — that is, nature-based solutions like biodiversity tend to get short shrift in the investment world. Just $35 billion was
In this week’s episode of the StrictlyVC Download podcast, veteran VC Aileen Lee was direct about a major consequence of the recent boom-and-bust cycle: many companies stuck in limbo aren’t just struggling to regain their footing after raising too much money at unsustainable valuations; they’ve also lost the champions who once backed them. Lee was
Y Combinator, one of the world’s most prolific startup accelerators, sent a letter on Wednesday urging the Trump administration to openly support Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), a wide-ranging piece of legislation that aims to crack open Big Tech’s market power. The DMA designates six tech companies as “gatekeepers” to the internet — Alphabet, Amazon,
Flock Safety and one of its long-time VCs, Bedrock Capital, announced Thursday that the startup raised a fresh $275 million at a $7.5 billion valuation. Flock makes computer vision-enabled video surveillance technology used by law enforcement as well as businesses, property management companies, and so on. It’s best known for its automatic license plate recognition
