AT Pulse · VC & Startups

Huang Leaves Nvidia; Agile Robots Raises $500M; Salesforce Buys Braze; ByteDance Prices at $400B

Fri, 13 Nov 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Jensen Huang's resignation as Nvidia CEO dominated the day, and the export-control questions around Megaspeed may outlast the scandal itself. Elsewhere, separate events showed how private companies are priced and how investors get cash back. SoftBank led a $500m round in Agile Robots at $8.5bn. ByteDance set a roughly $400bn price for an investor buyback. Bessemer and Newcomer ranked 100 private AI companies. Salesforce agreed to buy Braze for about $5.66B. Early rounds went to orbital compute, voice-based age checks, in-code localization and defense factory robotics. On the fund side, RedBlue held a first close on Fund II, Kerala launched a scale-up mission, and Contrary's Kyle Harrison argued that private marks should be made public.

Satlyt runs Google's Gemma on orbiting satellites to diagnose faults and shrink downlinked data after $8M seed — Satlyt, a software-only startup that recently raised an $8M seed, runs a quantized Google Gemma model on satellites already in orbit to diagnose onboard faults and shrink downlinked data, a first step toward pooling many operators' spacecraft into orbital compute.
Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO Over Megaspeed Affair; CFO Colette Kress Named Interim Chief — Nvidia's longtime chief stepped down after admitting an affair with a Megaspeed executive whom officials had suspected of spying. That spy claim has since weakened, leaving a sharper question: how Nvidia tracked tens of thousands of export-controlled GPUs after sale.
Peter Sarlin's PostScriptum Takes Majority Stake in Finnish AI Deployment Firm Brillian — PostScriptum, the founder's office of Silo AI co-founder Peter Sarlin, has bought a majority of Brillian, a 2024-founded Finnish firm that helps companies put AI into daily operations. Existing holders keep a substantial minority; terms were not disclosed.
ByteDance Plans Up to $6 Billion Share Buyback From Investors at About $400 Billion Valuation — ByteDance plans to repurchase up to $6 billion of shares from existing investors at roughly $400 billion, about 20% above last year's buyback level but far below the $600 billion-plus that buyers reportedly offered for a founder's stake this year.
Crunchbase News Taste-Tests Venture-Backed Protein Snacks and Finds Most Middling, With Brami Pasta the Standout — As venture money shifts from meat substitutes to protein-fortified packaged foods, including a $250 million round valuing David Protein's parent at $2.25 billion, an informal taste test of seven Target products found most were merely acceptable.
Salesforce's $5.66B Braze Deal Anchors SaaStr Argument That $1B ARR Is the New Safe Scale for Public B2B Software — Salesforce's agreement to buy Braze for about $5.66B, weeks after a 26%-growth quarter sent its shares down 11%, anchors a SaaStr argument that $1B ARR now marks safe scale for public B2B software, as $100M once did.
Kerala launches scale-up mission targeting 100+ startups earning ₹100 crore a year as IvyCap's Vikram Gupta urges growth-stage support — Kerala has moved its startup policy from counting new ventures to scaling them. It now targets over 100 firms each earning more than ₹100 crore (about US$11M) a year. IvyCap's Vikram Gupta argues that support for years three to five is the missing piece.
RedBlue Capital's Olaf Sakkers holds first close on Fund II, targeting at least $50M amid emerging-manager squeeze — RedBlue's Olaf Sakkers has held a first close on a second fund he expects to reach at least $50 million, citing a $5 million debut fund whose strong returns rest largely on paper markups, as first-time managers face their toughest fundraising market in years.
Helix raises $6.2M pre-seed led by Chicago Ventures, with Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus as adviser — Voice-verification startup Helix raised a $6.2 million pre-seed round led by Chicago Ventures for an on-device spoken challenge that checks a user is human and estimates age, arriving ahead of New York's SAFE for Kids age-assurance rules taking effect January 2027.
Singapore founder named Jensen Huang says Nvidia CEO's resignation drove traffic to his AI startup — A 24-year-old Singapore software engineer who shares Jensen Huang's name says joking LinkedIn posts about the Nvidia CEO's November 12 resignation went viral, sending about 5,000 visitors to his AI startup Lycana's website and converting some into paying subscribers.
SoftBank leads $500m Series F in Agile Robots at $8.5bn valuation — Munich-based Agile Robots raised a $500m Series F led by SoftBank at an $8.5bn valuation, with Nvidia, Hitachi and T.Capital joining. The money targets US expansion and humanoid production, though the company has not disclosed how many humanoids it has shipped.
General Translation raises $27M in seed and Series A funding led by Upfront Ventures and a16z — General Translation, a San Francisco startup that builds localization into application code, announced $27M in combined seed and Series A funding, with Upfront Ventures leading the seed and Andreessen Horowitz the Series A. Valuation, revenue and the split between rounds were not disclosed.
Nidus Raises $30M Pre-Seed and Seed, Led by Costanoa and Kleiner Perkins, for Defense Factory Robotics AI — Founded in March 2026 by former Vannevar hardware engineers, Nidus fine-tunes existing AI models on private, teleoperated factory data and runs them on robots defense manufacturers already own. Its first task is wire-harness prep, with kitting and circuit boards planned next.
Bessemer and Newcomer Publish the AI 100, Ranking Anthropic and OpenAI First Among 100 Private AI Companies — Bessemer Venture Partners and Newcomer ranked 100 private AI companies, valued together at roughly $3.5–3.6 trillion, with Anthropic first and OpenAI second. Value is heavily concentrated in frontier labs, and the scoring cannot be reproduced from published data.
Contrary's Kyle Harrison Argues Venture Valuations Should Be Made Public, Citing Kerala Fish-Market Study — Contrary GP Kyle Harrison argues that a startup's price can rest on one term sheet or on GPs agreeing with each other. He uses Jensen's Kerala fish-market study to argue that disclosing private valuations would improve price discovery.

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Anthropic sets $70–$78 IPO range, Huang exits Nvidia, Uforce and Mercor raise big rounds

Thu, 12 Nov 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Anthropic's amended S-1 set a $70–$78 range for 825 million shares. A separate $26 billion placement from chip and cloud suppliers comes alongside it, and at the top of the range the fully diluted value is about $1.4 trillion. In the same week, Nvidia's board accepted Jensen Huang's resignation after reports tied him to a suspected foreign intelligence effort. Sequoia is closing its London office and is reportedly preparing a large check for AI holding company Sequence. Private round valuations kept rising: Uforce raised $700 million at $6 billion, Mercor $750 million at $20 billion, Nominal $240 million at $3 billion and Imprint $130 million at $1.88 billion. In the Philippines, Series A money nearly disappeared even as GCash parent Mynt completed a record listing. Meanwhile, founders and funds are adjusting to AI-driven screening.

Dragonfly's Haseeb Qureshi says founders now send VCs a company.md file for AI screening agents — Some founders now send VCs a company.md, a markdown summary meant for AI screening agents, alongside the pitch deck, Dragonfly's Haseeb Qureshi wrote. A This Week in Startups panel weighed the practice, which echoes the llms.txt convention and has no published schema.
Anthropic sets $70–$78 IPO range as Nvidia board investigates Jensen Huang and Sequoia closes London office — Anthropic set its IPO range at $70–$78 a share. Depending on share count, that values it at about $1.02 trillion to $1.4 trillion. The same week, Nvidia's board opened an inquiry into Jensen Huang, the Nasdaq 100 lost about $2.5 trillion and Sequoia cut back.
Sequoia to Invest Hundreds of Millions in Sequence Holdings, the AI Holding Company Taking Baldwin Group Private — Sequoia Capital is reportedly investing hundreds of millions of dollars in Sequence Holdings, a year-old AI holding company that buys service businesses to keep and rebuild around AI, and is taking insurance broker Baldwin Group private with Michael Dell's family office.
Anorak, founded by former Hutch executives, raises $5M pre-seed from Play Ventures, Backed VC, Supercell and MTG for interactive generative video games — London–Chengdu startup Anorak, started by former executives of racing-game studio Hutch, raised a $5M pre-seed round to build interactive generative video: AI-generated video that responds to players in real time, aimed at games for niche hobby communities.
Colombian Rent-Payments Startup Palomma Raises $10M Series A Led by Cometa, Bringing Total Funding to $14M — Palomma is a Medellín startup led by a former Nubank Colombia executive. It has raised a $10M Series A led by Mexico's Cometa, bringing total funding to $14M. It plans to use the rent payments it already processes to offer advances, default coverage and tenant credit.
Theranos whistleblower Tyler Shultz warns that AI investors are repeating Theranos-era diligence failures — Tyler Shultz helped expose Theranos. He says the AI funding boom has the same weak points: shallow investor checks, products that are easy to fake and NDAs that discourage employees from speaking up. In a new podcast, he details how Theranos suppressed internal dissent.
Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO Amid Megaspeed Spy Scandal as Anthropic Launches IPO Roadshow — Nvidia's board accepted Jensen Huang's resignation after he admitted infidelity amid reports linking him to Megaspeed executive Alice Huang, a suspected Chinese spy. The same week, Anthropic began marketing an IPO implying a valuation of up to about $1.4 trillion.
WeRoad acquires Swiss group-travel startup TravelTribe in first deal of €70M M&A plan — WeRoad, the Airbnb-backed group-travel company, has bought Zurich-based TravelTribe, a sports-focused community of about 1,600 members, for an undisclosed price. It is the first deal in a plan to add €70 million of revenue through acquisitions over three years.
Philippine Series A funding falls 98% in 2026 as Series B jumps 795%, while GCash parent Mynt completes record ₱60.9B IPO — Philippine startup capital is pooling in revenue-stage Series B rounds while Series A value has nearly vanished, according to Tracxn and Gobi Partners data. GCash parent Mynt's record ₱60.9B listing shows public markets can absorb large exits but does little for early-stage founders.
METR estimates Anthropic's AI progress has roughly doubled in pace, and AI 2027 authors move superhuman-researcher forecasts into 2027 — After 11 weeks embedded at Anthropic, METR estimates the company's internal benchmark gains are arriving about twice as fast as before and attributes most of the speed-up to Claude helping build Claude. Days later, the AI 2027 forecasters moved their timelines into 2027.
Uforce raises $700M Series A at $6B valuation, co-led by Valor Equity Partners and UK National Wealth Fund — Uforce, a drone maker founded in Ukraine and headquartered in London, raised a $700 million Series A at a $6 billion post-money valuation. Valor Equity Partners and the UK's National Wealth Fund co-led the round, which will scale production of uncrewed systems and command software.
Anthropic sets $70–$78 IPO range and adds a $26B placement from chip and cloud suppliers, for a combined raise of up to $88.5B — Anthropic's amended S-1 offers 825M Class A shares at $70–$78 on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT. A $26B non-voting placement from compute suppliers, including Google, Nvidia, AMD and TSMC, brings the combined raise to as much as $88.5B.
Mercor raises $750M Series D at a $20B valuation and pitches evals to enterprises — Mercor's $750M Series D, which includes an employee tender, values the AI training-data company at $20B. That is double the price it set in October 2025. Brendan Foody says Mercor sells reinforcement-learning environments and is now bringing evals and post-training to enterprises.
Nominal raises $240M Series C at $3B valuation, triple its March 2026 valuation — Austin-based Nominal, which builds software for engineers testing complex hardware like aircraft, raised a $240M Series C led by Lightspeed at a $3B valuation. That is triple its March 2026 valuation, and the company is now selling an AI agent that analyzes test data to defense customers.
Imprint Raises $130 Million at $1.88 Billion Valuation as It Adds Big Retail Card Programs and Targets AI Shopping Agents — Co-branded card company Imprint raised $130 million at a $1.88 billion valuation and projects about $400 million in 2026 revenue, up 150%. It added Shell, Kroger, Albertsons and Fanatics programs and launched an MCP server for AI-agent shopping.

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