Founders Fund

hello the 2026 @HillValleyForum agenda see you next week

Ambition is timeless. Tools are not. Today we are announcing an $80M acceleration round at a $1B valuation led by @foundersfund, with participation from @sequoia @generalcatalyst @Lux_Capital @RedGlass @lightspeedvp Avenir, and @Haystack. In the last year, we grew revenue 7x, added some of the world’s most serious hardware enterprises, and built over twice the new product surface area than in our prior two years combined. The most ambitious and fastest-moving hardware teams choose Nominal, from aerospace to energy, and automotive to defense, because it helps them learn faster and scale more efficiently. Our mission is to bring that advantage to every team building in the physical world. For those not yet using Nominal, we hope to have the opportunity to earn your trust and work hard for you and your company soon. All systems Nominal. 🚀 Thank you @business and @EdLudlow for sharing out story. And @traestephens and @zebulgar for doubling down. Read more about our announcement here: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Ambition is timeless. Tools are not. Today we are announcing an $80M acceleration round at a $1B valuation led by @foundersfund, with participation from @sequoia @generalcatalyst @Lux_Capital @RedGlass @lightspeedvp Avenir, and @Haystack. In the last year, we grew revenue 7x, added some of the world’s most serious hardware enterprises, and built over twice the new product surface area than in our prior two years combined. The most ambitious and fastest-moving hardware teams choose Nominal, from aerospace to energy, and automotive to defense, because it helps them learn faster and scale more efficiently. Our mission is to bring that advantage to every team building in the physical world. For those not yet using Nominal, we hope to have the opportunity to earn your trust and work hard for you and your company soon. All systems Nominal. 🚀 Thank you @business and @EdLudlow for sharing out story. And @traestephens and @zebulgar for doubling down. Read more about our announcement here: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

America used to be #1 in the world for nuclear energy and controlled 86% of global uranium enrichment. Today? We've fallen to last place. As we approach the January 2028 ban on Russian uranium, the United States is facing a massive fuel crisis. If we don't reshore this capability, the future of our grid may be at risk. In this episode, @ScottNolan (Partner at @foundersfund & Co-founder of @generalmatter) reveals his plan to take back America's lead. We discuss: • How Scott is applying the SpaceX playbook of cost reduction to uranium • The massive market opportunity in HALEU and next-gen fuel • Scott's counterintuitive advice: avoid starting companies unless the mission is this important. Timestamps (00:00) Introduction to Scott Nolan (02:24) General Matter’s mission to rebuild U.S. enrichment (08:31) Scott’s background: From SpaceX and Founders Fund to General Matter (17:50) How Scott’s focus evolved over 13 years at Founders Fund (33:30) How U.S. uranium enrichment quietly came to an end (38:34) The Russian uranium ban and the 2028 supply cliff (50:56) What the U.S. needs to actually scale nuclear energy (59:30) Why General Matter chose Paducah, Kentucky (01:07:06) The $900 million Department of Energy award (01:14:12) Final meditations

Even before launch these AI hearing aids have become the in-ear Birkin bag of the elite (of a certain age). Here’s why. wired.com/story/hearing-…

Prediction markets are no longer a fringe curiosity. They are becoming one of the most revealing instruments in modern finance. Platforms like @Polymarket, once a niche corner of crypto, now regularly clear billions in monthly volume as traders speculate on everything from political outcomes to sports to cultural events. Few people saw this future as early, or as clearly, as @joeykrug. A decade before prediction markets went mainstream, Joey dropped out of college to co-found Augur, the first decentralized prediction market protocol. He later became one of the most influential investors in the category by backing Polymarket at @foundersfund. In this conversation, Joey shares why the moment for prediction markets has finally arrived, what has changed, and how these markets are reshaping information flows across society. You can listen to it here 👇 • YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=6F7RcH… • Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/2KL8TA… • Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/joe… And a big thanks to the incredible sponsors that support our work: ✨ Guru – The AI source of truth for work: getguru.com ✨ Auth0– Secure access for everyone. But not just anyone: a0.to/mario

Today @UseMnzil celebrates closing our Series A round led by @foundersfund ! توسّعنا إلى +13 مدينة ندير فيها +60 مبنى مخصص للعاملين تخدم الآلاف منهم! واليوم نعلن عن إغلاق جولتنا الإستثمارية بما يزيد عن 44 مليون ريال، بقيادة @foundersfund لأول مرة في السعودية والخليج

Valthos builds next-generation biodefense. Of all AI applications, biotechnology has the highest upside and most catastrophic downside. Heroes at the frontlines of biodefense are working every day to protect the world against the worst case. But the pace of biotech is against them: more powerful methods to design biological systems, with near-universal access, open up an increasing surface area of threats. In this new world, the only way forward is to be faster. So we set out to build the tech stack for biodefense. Our team of computational biologists and software engineers applies frontier AI to identify biological threats and update medical countermeasures in real-time. We are backed by $30M from @OpenAI, @Lux_Capital, @foundersfund and others including @Definition_Cap. We are actively hiring engineers to join in the mission - if that sounds like you, get in touch.

Markets on everything. We’re proud to announce that $ICE, the owner of @NYSE and the largest exchange company in the world, is making a strategic investment of $2 billion into Polymarket, valuing us at $9 billion post-money. Our partnership with ICE marks a major step in bringing prediction markets into the financial mainstream. But in addition to that, it’s a monumental step forward for DeFi. ICE is the one remaining founder-led exchange company, and Jeff is all-in on utilizing his assets, including NYSE, to usher in a new financial era of tokenization. We’re humbled to be working together on this endeavor. ICE will also begin distributing Polymarket data to thousands of financial institutions around the world. There is so much to build when you combine the force of ICE’s institutional scale and credibility with Polymarket’s consumer + cultural savvy and distribution. The past two years have been surreal. Going from a write off to creating a category, watching our vision become a reality. The Polymarket origin story is funny because it's a rare case of the dream being identical to how things played out. If I learned one thing, it’s that bold ideas are everywhere, hidden in plain sight. It just takes someone crazy enough to spend their life willing it into existence. That’s entrepreneurship: willing things into existence. I remember reading Robin Hanson’s literature on prediction markets and thinking - man, this is too good of an idea to just exist in whitepapers. There were a million reasons why it shouldn’t work, countless arguments of why not to do it, and the odds were against us, but we had to try. At the onset of the pandemic, I quite literally had nothing to lose: 21, running out of money, 2.5 years since I dropped out and nothing to show for it. But I knew we were entering an era where ways to find truth would matter more than ever, and Polymarket could play a critical role in that. After all, nothing is more valuable than the truth. It’s still a work in progress, but we’re honored to have made the impact we have thus far. I’d also like to give a special thank you to all of our users, builders, and community members who have been with us since 2020. Your support will not be forgotten 🔮 Last but not least, I am deeply grateful for all of the support and hard work of my brilliant team. I’m getting to live my wildest dreams, seemingly against all odds, and I don’t take it for granted. The best is yet to come… 🇺🇸 Que Sera Sera

Markets on everything. We’re proud to announce that $ICE, the owner of @NYSE and the largest exchange company in the world, is making a strategic investment of $2 billion into Polymarket, valuing us at $9 billion post-money. Our partnership with ICE marks a major step in bringing prediction markets into the financial mainstream. But in addition to that, it’s a monumental step forward for DeFi. ICE is the one remaining founder-led exchange company, and Jeff is all-in on utilizing his assets, including NYSE, to usher in a new financial era of tokenization. We’re humbled to be working together on this endeavor. ICE will also begin distributing Polymarket data to thousands of financial institutions around the world. There is so much to build when you combine the force of ICE’s institutional scale and credibility with Polymarket’s consumer + cultural savvy and distribution. The past two years have been surreal. Going from a write off to creating a category, watching our vision become a reality. The Polymarket origin story is funny because it's a rare case of the dream being identical to how things played out. If I learned one thing, it’s that bold ideas are everywhere, hidden in plain sight. It just takes someone crazy enough to spend their life willing it into existence. That’s entrepreneurship: willing things into existence. I remember reading Robin Hanson’s literature on prediction markets and thinking - man, this is too good of an idea to just exist in whitepapers. There were a million reasons why it shouldn’t work, countless arguments of why not to do it, and the odds were against us, but we had to try. At the onset of the pandemic, I quite literally had nothing to lose: 21, running out of money, 2.5 years since I dropped out and nothing to show for it. But I knew we were entering an era where ways to find truth would matter more than ever, and Polymarket could play a critical role in that. After all, nothing is more valuable than the truth. It’s still a work in progress, but we’re honored to have made the impact we have thus far. I’d also like to give a special thank you to all of our users, builders, and community members who have been with us since 2020. Your support will not be forgotten 🔮 Last but not least, I am deeply grateful for all of the support and hard work of my brilliant team. I’m getting to live my wildest dreams, seemingly against all odds, and I don’t take it for granted. The best is yet to come… 🇺🇸 Que Sera Sera