We raised $25M to make local government software that works. Big thanks to our Series A leads, @lachygroom & @AcrewCapital, to @operatorpartner & @CooleyLLP for joining. Thank you to @contrary, @generalcatalyst, @ScribbleVC, & @BasisSet for the support. fsh.org/blog/why-we-built-fs…

Meet mate, your AI growth teammate for marketers. We spent the last 2 years in stealth building the hard part first: distribution. A live network of 12B+ shopper intent signals that tells us who’s actually in-market, right now. Now mate puts AI on top of that network to find your customers and convert them. It's like Claude for your marketing team but with our own consumer distribution infrastructure underneath. We quietly signed 700 brands to the beta, drove $94.4 million in sales in 12 months for the likes of JD Sports, Brooklinen and Everlane, and are weeks away from crossing a $15M run rate. Today, we’re thrilled to be opening the beta. Drop a comment if you run an online store and we'll get you set up!

I’m psyched to announce that Smack has raised a $61M Series B. This funding accelerates our ability to ship domain-specific AI models that are actually relevant across the Joint Force in 2026, and to build the hardware to deploy it to the tactical edge. I’m truly grateful for the investors, technologists, and warriors who have become Team Smack. To @costanoavc and First In, thanks for doubling down on our merry band of psychopaths. Your support, along with @p72vc, @GeodesicCap, @NomiCapital, @felicis, @ScribbleVC, @fortitude_vc, @BloombergBeta, @PalumniVc, and Fulcrum VG supercharges our ability to deliver Decision Dominance to the DoW. To our researchers and engineers, thanks for choosing to build here. Without you, Smack’s story would be Marines doing AI good. No one wants to hear that story. The late night breakthroughs amidst piles of Celsii are testaments to the fact that you are leading the charge on mission-driven AI. What you’ve built will save lives in combat. To our warriors, thanks for continuing to serve. I’ve deployed to combat with many of you. It’s an honor to ride with you again. For those I haven’t, it’s an honor to serve with you now. Together, we will become a new category of defense prime: built by warriors, for warriors.

I disagree with Dario on most things, but this is spot on: “At this point, saying that AI will cure cancer is more a cliché than it is inspiring, and most people think it is deceptive. The thing that will work is actually curing cancer.” The thing that frustrates me is that some people often draw a straight line from smarter models → cures, without acknowledging how much infrastructure is missing in between. We’ve still got a lot of work to do, people. The regulatory bottleneck gets a lot of attention. But the bigger bottleneck may be that in many places, we’re lacking the right biological data. AI can’t reason its way to cures if we haven’t generated the data required to understand the disease in the first place. Ironically, that’s why I’m most bullish on AI making dramatic progress in cancer first: decades of investment have produced extraordinary datasets across genomics, pathology, imaging, clinical outcomes, and more. For complex chronic diseases, much of that infrastructure simply doesn’t exist yet. The good news is that many companies (including @ChronicleBioAI) are racing to build it. But model intelligence and biological infrastructure are going to have to scale together. I really do believe AI can cure all diseases but only if we build the infrastructure to translate intelligence into cures at the same pace that models improve (which is a high bar!). Otherwise, we risk having superintelligent AI with an incomplete picture of human biology, and delay that promise by years.

Happy Thursday. On today's show: - @zoink (Figma) - @nxthompson (The Atlantic) - @2112Power (Hadrian) - @adityaag (South Park Commons) - @CMochen (Atlas Motion) - Ariane Gorin (Expedia) See you on the stream.

Today we're announcing our Series D: $1.37B in new capital at a $7.87B valuation to Reindustrialize America. Thank you to all our investors. WCM Investment Management, @WashingHarbour, Valor Equity Partners, @137ventures, and @BaillieGifford led the round. @jpmorgan Chase's Strategic Investment Group acted as anchor co-lead, investing through the firm's Security and Resiliency Initiative. The round also included major participation by @1789capital, as well as participation from @MorganStanley Wealth Management, @apolloglobal, @TRowePrice, @a16z, @CapitalG, @foundersfund, @lux_capital, @AltimeterCap, @constructcap, and existing investors. This round confirms our belief in a few simple things: America needs to Reindustrialize, Physical AI is real, transforming the world of atoms matters 100x more than the world of bits, and, most importantly, that the New American Workforce is the center of everything we do. Here's what we've built, and what comes next.

Today we're announcing our Series D: $1.37B in new capital at a $7.87B valuation to Reindustrialize America. Thank you to all our investors. WCM Investment Management, @WashingHarbour, Valor Equity Partners, @137ventures, and @BaillieGifford led the round. @jpmorgan Chase's Strategic Investment Group acted as anchor co-lead, investing through the firm's Security and Resiliency Initiative. The round also included major participation by @1789capital, as well as participation from @MorganStanley Wealth Management, @apolloglobal, @TRowePrice, @a16z, @CapitalG, @foundersfund, @lux_capital, @AltimeterCap, @constructcap, and existing investors. This round confirms our belief in a few simple things: America needs to Reindustrialize, Physical AI is real, transforming the world of atoms matters 100x more than the world of bits, and, most importantly, that the New American Workforce is the center of everything we do. Here's what we've built, and what comes next.

Thrilled to announce our $400M Series C led by @IndexVentures, with @kleinerperkins, @sequoia, @_DimensionCap and others. Great to speak to @m_delamerced @nytimes about how drug discovery using AI is moving from a promise to actual deployment.

Today, we announced that @useOrb has entered into a definitive agreement to join @Adyen. @kshithappens and I have spent the past five years building Orb alongside some of the fastest growing companies in the world. The clearest thing we've learned: how companies price is changing faster than how they bill. AI has accelerated the shift toward consumption and outcome-based models, and the infrastructure underneath hasn't kept up. That gap is why we founded Orb, and joining Adyen is how we close it at global scale. Today's announcement doesn't change our commitment to our customers. Orb will continue operating as a stand-alone product, there will be no interruption in service, and our customers can continue to choose to work with their preferred payment processing partner. We're here for the long run, ensuring that our service continues to uphold "billing must be correct" as our customers pursue their most audacious revenue design goals. So why Adyen? Over the past several years supporting our customers' global growth, we've learned that billing at serious scale is only half the equation. The other half is moving money across markets, currencies, and enterprise requirements. Adyen has already built the foundational financial infrastructure that makes this possible. Joining them lets us build offerings that bring to life the vision of self-driving infrastructure for revenue optimization. We’re incredibly excited for Orb to only get better from here. To our team: thank you for all the hard work that you do every day for our customers. It has been, and continues to be, the pleasure of my professional life to work with all of you. To our customers: thank you for trusting us to support your growth and letting us partner with you. Thank you to our investors and supporters who’ve been with us on the journey. And thank you to my family for putting up with me talking about so, so many billing edge cases!