We’re entering a new chapter at Southern Equity. 🌍 As we continue to evolve, we invite investors, founders, and innovators to follow along as we share industry insights, portfolio updates, and perspectives on the trends shaping the future.

Large exits are happening at a near-record pace in 2026—but the returns may not be keeping pace with the cost. The median company exiting above $500 million has raised $323.7 million to get there, more than double the figure a decade ago, while exit step-ups have collapsed from 62.8% in 2021 to 15.5% in 2026. ⇢ Is the traditional case for venture risk starting to shift? ► Read the full report: pitchbook.brightspotcdn.com/…

Nearly 90 new unicorns* have been minted so far in 2026—and while most are AI-related, the class is more diverse than the headlines suggest, spanning healthcare, defense, crypto, robotics, and energy. ⌘ The pace of unicorn creation appears to be accelerating alongside the broader AI investment boom, with new companies reaching $1B+ valuations at earlier stages and on smaller amounts of total capital raised than in prior cycles. ► Read the full breakdown: techcrunch.com/2026/07/05/al… *A unicorn is a privately held startup valued at $1 billion or more.

Cybersecurity startup funding is holding at historically high levels in 2026, even as AI megarounds dominate the broader venture landscape. Global funding to security and privacy-related startups reached $10.6 billion in H1 2026, with eight rounds of $100 million or more closing in Q2 alone. ⇢ Exits are also occurring, with M&A activity picking up in the absence of a more active IPO market. As AI agents continue to proliferate, demand for more sophisticated security infrastructure to monitor their activity could suggest a structural tailwind for the sector that extends beyond the current cycle. ► Read the full breakdown: news.crunchbase.com/cybersec…

PlayVS announced it has been reorganized and fully financed, with a newly formed leadership team in place—Jonathan Boswell as CEO, Juanita Russell CPA MBA as CFO, and Charles O'Donnell as CRO. Inspired to support @PlayVS as they continue to create a space for students to compete, connect, and belong—now with the foundation to serve schools, coaches, and communities for the long term.

Mercury has officially launched @Mercury Books, an AI-powered accounting software that categorizes and reconciles transactions the moment they happen, built for bookkeepers and founders alike. Excited to support Mercury as they continue to expand what a financial platform for ambitious companies can look like.

The 2026 exit market is posting record numbers—but the headline figures appear to be masking a deeply bifurcated landscape. U.S. IPOs have already raised more than $140 billion in proceeds this year, and total VC-backed exit value in H1 topped $2 trillion. The catch: a single deal (@SpaceX) accounts for the vast majority of that figure. ⇢ For the rest of the startup market, the exit environment could come down to one variable—AI. Companies that can demonstrate AI-powered growth, strong ARR, and a compelling competitive narrative are reportedly finding appetite from both public investors and strategic acquirers. Those that can't are facing the same difficult window they've navigated for the past three or four years. ► Read the full breakdown: carta.com/data/startup-exit-…

The AI label seems to be becoming harder to trust. According to @SiliconVlyBank's H2 2026 State of the Markets report, an analysis of 9,000 VC-backed companies found that 42% of those marketing themselves as AI companies show little evidence that AI is actually central to their technology. ⇢ The pressure to claim the label appears to be creating noise—but investors seem to be growing more adept at cutting through it, increasingly identifying and rewarding companies where AI is genuinely core to the product rather than the pitch. ► Read the full report: svb.com/trends-insights/repo…

A term sheet is the preliminary document that outlines the key terms of a startup investor's offer, typically marking the first formal step in a venture capital fundraise. It establishes the deal's financial terms—valuation, investment amount, and option pool size—alongside the economic and control rights investors will receive, from liquidation preferences to board seats. While non-binding, it sets the framework negotiations build on before the deal moves to definitive legal agreements. ⌘ ► Read more: carta.com/learn/startups/fun… #VentureCapital #StartupFunding #TermSheet #Fundraising #Glossary

Six months into 2026, the US venture market has produced record-breaking headlines alongside persistent structural contradictions. First financings are on track to exceed 7,000 by year-end—a new record by more than 1,300 deals—while the $274.2 billion in venture-growth capital deployed through May already surpasses double the full-year 2025 total. The catch? 86.4% of that figure traces back to four rounds from three companies building the large-scale AI systems that serve as the underlying infrastructure the rest of the AI economy runs on. ⇢ Fundraising tells a similar story. VC funds over $1 billion have captured nearly 72% of capital raised year-to-date, while first-time managers have accounted for less than 10%. The second half of the year may hinge on a single variable—how public markets receive the mega-IPOs of SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI, and whether their reception can sustain the secondary market activity that has built around them. ► Read the full breakdown: pitchbook.com/news/reports/2…

Mercury has launched Mercury Spend, a unified system of intelligent budgets and self-enforcing expense policies built for scaling teams. The product issues purpose-specific stipends, automatically routes transactions to the right budget, and streamlines receipt uploads—aiming to give teams less busywork and finance leaders a clearer picture of spend from day one. ↩︎ To mark the launch, @Mercury also introduced a limited-edition IO card designed in collaboration with artist Simone Bodmer-Turner. ► Read more about the launch: southernequity.com/news_insi…

Nearly 2.9 million new businesses were formed in the first five months of 2026—the strongest start on record, according to Registered Agents Inc. 43 out of 50 jurisdictions posted year-over-year gains in May alone. A few data points worth noting: ⇢ Applications from one-person firms are up over 20% between early 2025 and mid-2026, suggesting AI tools may possibly be lowering the barrier to starting a company ⇢ Gen Z now accounts for 9% of new business formations, surpassing Baby Boomers at 5% ⇢ Florida, Texas, and California led the nation in total filings, while Mississippi posted 47% year-over-year growth ► Read more: entrepreneur.com/business-ne…

The global unicorn* market hit $8.2 trillion in aggregate value in Q2 2026—but nearly half of the companies behind it haven't raised capital in more than two years, and a dozen repricings account for most of the increase. Concentration seems to be the through line: the top five rounds represented 60.1% of Q2 unicorn deal value, and SpaceX alone accounted for 94.9% of all unicorn exit value in the quarter. What does concentration at this scale mean for private market returns going forward? ► Read the full report: pitchbook.brightspotcdn.com/… *A unicorn is a privately held startup valued at $1 billion or more.

AI companies didn't come out of nowhere. Track every company classified as AI today back through their raises: in 2018, they were already pulling 37 cents of every startup dollar. They crossed the majority line in 2024, and by H1 2026 it's 59 cents. "AI native" makes it sound like this group was born in the current wave. It was raising serious capital years before the name existed.

Otto Aerospace has selected @CraneAE to supply the brake control system for its Phantom 3500 business jet, adding a flight-critical capability to the program. Crane's Standard Systems Architecture BCS delivers anti-skid performance in a compact, weight-efficient package—key for a jet designed to operate from shorter runways. ⚙︎ We're inspired to see Otto Aerospace bringing on trusted, mission-critical partners as it moves toward its next Flight Test Vehicle. ► Read more: southernequity.com/news_insi…

The United States is in the middle of what may be the largest electronic infrastructure buildout since the interstate highway system. Six hyperscalers—@Amazon, @Google, @Meta, @Microsoft, @Oracle, and the Stargate consortium—have committed over $690 billion in capital expenditures to build AI-ready data centers across 28 states, with 74 new facilities breaking ground in 2026 alone. ⇢ The scale of the buildout could carry long-term implications well beyond AI. Power demand from AI infrastructure is projected to reach 37 GW by 2030, more than double the 17 GW recorded in 2023, while an estimated 4.7 million jobs are expected to be created through construction and operations over the same period. ► Explore the full tracker: valueaddvc.com/ai-buildout-t…

Seed rounds are bigger than ever—but the path to Series A has never been harder. The median U.S. seed round now sits at around $3 million, 3x larger than in 2018, with some rounds reaching $8–10 million. Yet only 24% of companies that raised a seed round in 2023 have progressed further—down from 55% or higher through 2020. The bar to raise a Series A has moved too. $1M in ARR is no longer enough—investors are reportedly expecting $2–4M before writing the check. Is the seed stage becoming a longer, more expensive proving ground? ► Read more: news.crunchbase.com/seed/dat…

Global venture funding rebounded 47% in 2025 to reach $469 billion—but the headline figure may be obscuring a more uneven picture beneath the surface. Deal count fell 17% to 29,501, while mega-rounds surged 77% to 738, capturing 65% of total venture funding, according to @CBinsights. In Q1 2026, @OpenAI's $122 billion raise alone accounted for 43% of all funding during the quarter. ⇢ The data suggests a decidedly bifurcated landscape—pockets of intense activity in AI, defense tech, and semiconductors alongside broader stagnation across most other sectors. As one @jpmorgan analyst noted, the level of concentration is without precedent in modern venture history, with the top five deals in Q1 2026 representing around three-quarters of total venture investment. ► Read more: internationalbanker.com/brok…