Traded: Venture Capital

@vkhosla (and the Khosla family) are acquiring the Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) for $9.6 billion, marking the largest franchise sale in NFL history. The founder of @khoslaventures is leading the group in purchasing the team from the estate of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, adding one of professional sports’ most valuable assets to a career built around backing transformative companies. The reported deal is a major crossover between venture capital and sports ownership. Khosla has spent decades investing in frontier technologies across artificial intelligence, climate, healthcare, and enterprise software. Now, he is reportedly deploying capital into one of the world’s scarcest asset classes: an NFL franchise. At $9.6 billion, the transaction would exceed the Washington Commanders’ $6.05 billion sale by more than $3.5 billion and reset the valuation benchmark for professional football. The deal reflects a broader shift as venture capitalists, founders, and technology executives increasingly expand beyond private markets into sports, media, and culture. For Khosla, this would be more than a team acquisition. It would be one of the largest investments ever made by a venture capitalist outside the traditional technology ecosystem. #TradedVC #VinodKhosla #KhoslaVentures #SeattleSeahawks #VentureCapital

Mercor, an AI training startup, is reportedly in early discussions to raise a new funding round at a $20 billion valuation. The potential valuation would double the company’s $10 billion valuation from October 2025, when it raised a $350 million Series C round. Founder and CEO Brendan Foody recently stated that Mercor’s annualized revenue run rate has surpassed $2 billion, representing 100% growth in just four months. The company also announced the acquisition of Deeptune, an AI agent training firm, with the entire Deeptune team joining Mercor. The strong revenue growth, acquisition activity, and prospective funding round suggest Mercor is continuing to expand despite challenges earlier this year, including a data breach and legal disputes involving contract workers. FOUNDER: Brendan Foody AMOUNT: $20,000,000,000 HQ: San Francisco, California #VentureCapital #Mercor #BrendanFoody #TradedVC

Hephae Energy Technology Corp., a Houston-based geothermal startup, has raised $17.8 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Susquehanna Sustainable Investments and Underground Ventures, bringing its total funding to $24.7 million. The new capital will support the commercial deployment of Hephae’s Pandora210 Measurement-While-Drilling system, which can operate at temperatures up to 210°C, as well as the development of next-generation drilling technologies capable of exceeding 300°C. The company aims to address a key challenge in geothermal energy development by enabling drilling in the superhot rock formations that contain some of the most productive geothermal resources. CEO Steve Krase said the funding marks a major step in scaling Hephae’s ultra-high-temperature drilling technologies to support the growing geothermal industry in the U.S. and international markets. FOUNDER: Steve Krase INVESTORS: Susquehanna Sustainable Investments, Underground Ventures, alfa8, Baruch Future Ventures, Centaurus Capital LP, Elemental Impact, Exa Ventures, Future Ventures, Grantham Foundation for The Protection of the Environment, New System Ventures, True North Institute & Nabors Industries ROUND: Series A AMOUNT: $17,800,000 HQ: Houston, Texas #VentureCapital #HephaeEnergyTechnologyCorp #SteveKrase #TradedVC

Gradium, a Paris-based startup developing AI voice models, has expanded its seed funding round to a total of $100 million after bringing in new investors, including Nvidia. The company plans to use the funding to open a Bay Area office and recruit talent as it seeks to strengthen its presence within the global AI ecosystem. Originally emerging from stealth in December with $70 million in backing from prominent investors, Gradium focuses on ultra-low-latency audio models that enable near-instant AI voice interactions. The company was co-founded by Neil Zeghidour, a former researcher at Google Brain, DeepMind, and Facebook, and has already secured notable customers such as French automaker Renault despite facing competition from major players in the voice AI market. FOUNDER: Neil Zeghidour INVESTORS: Nvidia, FirstMark Capital, Eurazeo, DST Global Partners, Eric Schmidt & Xavier Niel ROUND: Seed AMOUNT: $100,000,000 HQ: Paris, France #VentureCapital #Gradium #NeilZeghidour #TradedVC

Databento announced a $97 million Series B funding round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from investors including DRW, Redpoint Ventures, and Tribe Capital. In a July 9, 2026 announcement, CEO Christina Qi said the funding will help accelerate the company’s mission to build a modern market data platform for finance. Databento reported 6.65x year-over-year revenue growth, 97% enterprise retention since inception, profitability ahead of schedule, and support for more than 3,000 companies worldwide. The company plans to use the investment to expand into new asset classes and geographies, increase its global data center footprint, and continue investing in the infrastructure that powers its market data services. FOUNDER: Christina Qi INVESTORS: New Enterprise Associates (NEA), DRW Venture Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Tribe Capital, Alumni Ventures, Blindspot Ventures, Cross Creek, Fifth Down Capital, Motley Fool Ventures, Operator Collective, TGVP & Trousdale Ventures ROUND: Series B AMOUNT: $97,000,000 HQ: Salt Lake City, Utah #VentureCapital #Databento #ChristinaQi #TradedVC

Ollama, the popular open-source AI developer tool that helps developers run open-weight AI models locally on their computers, has raised a $65 million Series B round led by Theory Ventures, bringing its total funding to $88 million. Founder and CEO Jeff Morgan said the company, which launched in 2023, is now used by more than 8.9 million developers each month and is present in 85% of Fortune 500 companies. Built by Morgan and co-founder Michael Chiang, who previously helped create Docker Desktop, Ollama has gained significant traction with developers through its free desktop product while also expanding its cloud offerings for larger AI models that are too resource-intensive to run locally. FOUNDER: Jeff Morgan INVESTORS: Theory Ventures, Benchmark & Peter Fenton ROUND: Series B AMOUNT: $65,000,000 HQ: Palo Alto, California #VentureCapital #Ollama #JeffMorgan #TradedVC

Kraken Technology Group has raised $175 million in a Series B financing round led by DTCP Defence, achieving a $1 billion valuation. The round attracted participation from the British Business Bank, NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), Rheinmetall, Inocea Group, and several venture capital firms, including HICO Investment Group, Thesiger Capital Group, BOKA Capital, Supernova Invest, and Hakluyt Capital. Kraken is focused on developing modular, scalable, and affordable maritime defence technologies for NATO and allied markets, with a particular emphasis on uncrewed surface vessels and payload capabilities. The new funding will support continued product development and the expansion of the company’s localized global manufacturing footprint. Investors highlighted their support for Mal Crease and the Kraken team as they scale production capacity and strengthen international partnerships. FOUNDER: Mal Crease INVESTORS: DTCP Defence, British Business Bank, NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), Rheinmetall, Inocea Group, HICO Investment Group, Thesiger Capital Group, BOKA Capital, Supernova Invest & Hakluyt Capital ROUND: Series B AMOUNT: $175,000,000 HQ: Portsmouth, Hampshire #VentureCapital #KrakenTechnologyGroup #MalCrease #TradedVC

@finkd ZUCK AI IS BACK

(1) Today we're releasing Muse Spark 1.1 -- a strong agentic and coding model at a very low price. It's available through our new Meta Model API and in Meta AI.

Paradigm, a crypto-focused venture capital firm, has raised a new $1.2 billion fund to expand its investment strategy beyond cryptocurrency and into fast-growing sectors such as artificial intelligence and robotics. Announced on Wednesday, the fund is Paradigm’s third venture vehicle and reflects the firm’s response to increasing investor interest in AI startups alongside a slowdown in crypto-related investment activity. While Paradigm was originally established to back cryptocurrency companies, the new fund will allow it to pursue opportunities in emerging technologies while continuing to support investments across the crypto ecosystem. FOUNDERS: Fred Ehrsam & Matt Huan AMOUNT: $1,200,000,000 HQ: San Francisco, California #VentureCapital #Paradigm #FredEhrsam #MattHuan #TradedVC

Vendelux has raised a $50 million Series B round led by Tribeca Venture Partners, with participation from S3, Pelion Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, FirstMark, and Cervin Ventures, bringing the company’s total funding to $71 million. The company provides intelligence and measurement tools for B2B events, tracking more than 250,000 events worldwide to help organizations identify opportunities for meaningful in-person engagement and better measure event ROI. Used by more than 50,000 marketing professionals and influencing over $5 billion in event spend, Vendelux serves customers including Ramp, Glean, Coupa, McKesson, WRITER, Deel, Intel, and the United States Postal Service. According to Alex Reynolds, CEO and Co-founder of Vendelux, the new funding will support further investment in AI and new products designed to strengthen connections between marketers and event organizers while making business events more measurable and effective. FOUNDERS: Alex Reynolds & Stefan Deeran INVESTORS: Tribeca Venture Partners, S3, Pelion Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, FirstMark & Cervin Ventures ROUND: Series B AMOUNT: $50,000,000 HQ: New York City, New York #VentureCapital #Vendelux #AlexReynolds #StefanDeeran #TradedVC

Prime Intellect, an AI infrastructure startup founded in 2024, has raised a $130 million Series A at a $1 billion valuation to help enterprises build and train their own AI agents. Led by Radical Ventures with participation from Nvidia Ventures, Intel Capital, Dell Technologies Capital, and Iconiq, the funding will support Prime Intellect’s full-stack AI development platform, which combines compute access, reinforcement learning tools, and evaluation systems; co-founder and CEO Vincent Weisser said the company aims to make advanced AI training capabilities accessible beyond major frontier AI labs. FOUNDERS: Vincent Weisser & Johannes Hagemann INVESTORS: Radical Ventures, Nvidia Ventures, Intel Capital, Dell Technologies Capital, Iconiq, Aravind Srinivas, Aaron Levie, Winston Weinberg, Jeff Wang & Brendan Foody ROUND: Series A AMOUNT: $130,000,000 VALUATION: $1,000,000,000 HQ: San Francisco, California #VentureCapital #PrimeIntellect #VincentWeisser #JohannesHagemann #TradedVC

Fleek has announced a $25 million Series B funding round, bringing its total funding to $45 million. The round was led by Burda Principal Investments, with participation from eBay Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, HV Capital, Y Combinator, FJ Labs, H14, and Pioneer Fund. Fleek is building an AI-native marketplace for the global secondhand apparel industry, using proprietary models to understand resale fashion, match buyers with suppliers, and automate operations. Its flagship AI vision model, FleekSort, can identify, grade, and price garments in seconds, helping modernize a secondhand market that still relies heavily on manual processes. The company says the new funding will support its mission of making secondhand the first choice and expanding its AI-driven platform across a rapidly growing global resale market. FOUNDER: Abhi Arora INVESTORS: Burda Principal Investments, eBay Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), HV Capital, Y Combinator, FJ Labs, H14 & Pioneer Fund ROUND: Series B AMOUNT: $25,000,000 HQ: London, United Kingdom #VentureCapital #Fleek #AbhiArora #TradedVC

Vermilion Cliffs Ventures has closed its second fund, a $25 million vehicle that will continue the firm’s focus on backing technical founders building in areas such as AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, and developer tools. Founded in 2023 by solo GP Ashley Smith, the venture firm raised the new fund in approximately four months, with significant support from existing investors. Fund II plans to invest between $500,000 and $1 million per company and target at least 25 startups over the next two and a half years, building on the success of the firm’s $13 million debut fund, which backed 35 companies including Keycard and CopilotKit. FOUNDER: GP Ashley Smith AMOUNT: $25,000,000 HQ: New York, New York #VentureCapital #VermilionCliffsVentures #GPAshleySmith #TradedVC

Blue Origin, the space company founded by Jeff Bezos, is reportedly raising $10 billion at a $130 billion pre-money valuation in what would be its first external funding round. According to reports, Coatue Asset Management is expected to invest about $4 billion, while Bezos would contribute $2 billion, with other large investors providing the remainder. The funding comes as Blue Origin works to recover from a recent New Glenn rocket test explosion, rebuild its Cape Canaveral launch infrastructure, and advance key initiatives including NASA Artemis mission support, a planned satellite internet network, and longer-term ambitions to operate data centers in space. FOUNDER: Jeff Bezos INVESTORS: Coatue Asset Management & Jeff Bezos AMOUNT: $10,000,000,000 VALUATION: $130,000,000,000 HQ: Kent, Washington #VentureCapital #BlueOrigin #JeffBezos #TradedVC

Venus Aerospace, a hypersonics and propulsion company founded in 2020 by CEO Sassie Duggleby and CTO Andrew Duggleby, has raised a $90 million Series B funding round led by Mercury Fund, with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6, Draper Associates, Starboard Star Venture Capital, and Green Sands Equity. The funding will support further testing and development of the company’s Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE), an advanced propulsion system that recently became the first of its kind to launch a rocket into flight. Following strong interest from defense and space customers after a successful engine demonstration, Venus has shifted its focus toward hypersonic weapons and high-speed space vehicles, aiming to translate its propulsion technology into operational defense and space systems. FOUNDERS: Sassie Duggleby & Andrew Duggleby INVESTORS: Mercury Fund, Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6, Draper Associates, Starboard Star Venture Capital & Green Sands Equity ROUND: Series B AMOUNT: $90,000,000 HQ: Houston, Texas #VentureCapital #VenusAerospace #SassieDuggleby #AndrewDuggleby #TradedVC

Oratomic, a Pasadena-based neutral-atom quantum computing startup, has emerged from stealth with a $300 million Series A round co-led by ARCH Venture Partners, Spark Capital, and Khosla Ventures, alongside participation from Bezos Expeditions, Index Ventures, General Catalyst, Lowercarbon Capital, Bain Capital, and others. Founded in 2026 by CEO Dolev Bluvstein and a team of researchers and engineers from Caltech, Harvard, Berkeley, Amazon, and Google, the company is focused on building a fault-tolerant quantum computer by the end of the decade. Oratomic’s approach is based on research suggesting that useful quantum computers may require only 10,000–20,000 reconfigurable neutral-atom qubits—far fewer than previous estimates—potentially accelerating the path to practical quantum computing. The new funding will support hardware development, algorithm research, and hiring across key technical disciplines. FOUNDER: Dolev Bluvstein INVESTORS: ARCH Venture Partners, Spark Capital, Khosla Ventures, Bezos Expeditions, Index Ventures, General Catalyst, Lowercarbon Capital & Bain Capital ROUND: Series A AMOUNT: $300,000,000 HQ: Pasadena, California #VentureCapital #Oratomic #DolevBluvstein #TradedVC

Figma has acquired the team behind Bud (formerly Orchids), a Y Combinator-backed startup that evolved from a vibe-coding platform into an AI agent platform capable of browsing the web, writing code, and automating tasks. The acquisition reflects Figma’s broader push to expand beyond design and bring AI-powered coding, prototyping, and app-building capabilities closer to its platform. Commenting on the deal, Bud CEO Kevin Lu said that Figma is a natural home for this new era of AI-driven work. As part of the acquisition, Bud and Orchids will shut down by July 18, with users required to migrate their projects before then. Notably, the details provided do not mention any recent funding raise for Bud. #VentureCapital #Figma #Buds #TradedVC

Versant Media Group has agreed to acquire golf simulator and sports-technology company Full Swing from Bruin Capital and minority investors for approximately $530 million in cash, making it Versant’s largest acquisition to date. The deal values Full Swing at more than three times the roughly $160 million Bruin Capital paid for the company in 2021 and will add the business to Versant’s Digital Platforms and Ventures portfolio, where Full Swing CEO Ryan Dotters will report to Will McIntosh. Known for its golf simulators, tracking technology, and analytics software, Full Swing is also the official technology partner of TGL, the indoor golf league co-founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. The transaction is expected to close before the end of the year. SALE PRICE: $530,000,000 #VentureCapital #VersantMediaGroup #FullSwing #TradedVC

Super.com has raised $65 million in a Series D funding round at a $1.2 billion valuation, with TPG leading the investment. The company, which began in 2016 as a hotel-booking chatbot, has since evolved into a savings-focused super app that helps consumers save money, earn rewards, and access credit-building tools. According to the company, customers have saved more than $1 billion through the platform to date, while its Super+ membership program has grown to nearly one million members. The new capital will support Super.com’s continued expansion as it works to become an essential money-saving service for American households. FOUNDER: Hussein Fazal INVESTORS: TPG, David Bessel & Arun Agarwal ROUND: Series D AMOUNT: $65,000,000 VALUATION: $1,200,000,000 HQ: San Francisco, California #VentureCapital #Supercom #HusseinFazal #TradedVC