Hang on gotta go eat in a hut on my patio before it gets taken out by a nor’easter

Over hundreds of venture rounds I’ve noticed they all fall into 1 of 3 paths 1. Investors throw cash at crazy growth (great!) 2. Founder runs a process that produces a term sheet (great!) 3. Hail mary stumble through cold pitches that gets lucky (avoid)

Most the last week’s Series As were outside the US. Coolest ones: 🇸🇦 barq ($329.5M) runs a digital payments and money-transfer app in Saudi Arabia that signed up 15 million users across more than 210 nationalities in its first two years. Led by Noon Investments, Sohar International Bank and the M20 Fund. 🇳🇱 Euclyd ($231M) is designing new full chip systems for AI inference to cut the cost and power of running foundation models. Co-led by Samsung, Somerset Capital Partners, the EQT-managed Scaleup Europe Fund and Innovation Industries. 🇳🇱 Fortaegis ($50M) builds chips that generate quantum-resistant encryption keys on demand. Led by Serendipity Capital. 🇮🇸 Treble ($18M) makes wave-based sound simulation software for architects and engineers designing how buildings will actually sound. Led by Paladin Capital Group. theventurecodex.com/trends/p…

Quick reminder: In Person - How Working Together Fuels Creativity, Productivity, and Growth - is already up for pre-order. Written with my brilliant collaborator @emma_k_h , out October 13. More information about the book can be found on my book website - link in comments. #WorkFromHome #HybridWork #InPersonBook #PreOrderNow

Double Rainbow. Vancouver, 2026 #leica #rainbows #streetphotography

Fundraising is 2026 easy. You just need to: make a deck oh and cultivate long term relationships with investors and practice a pitch and be a generational founder and be likable and be aggressive and have a massive vision and have a lot of revenue and have a lot of traction and have a lot of runway and don’t let the company whither and die during the process read Chapter 1 of How to Raise Venture Capital: magidandco.com/how-to-raise/…

For the past 5 years we’ve been working to preserve the legacy of small business in America. During this time we’ve built a dataset of millions of small businesses and now we’re giving that away for free. The hardest part of selling small businesses is that most owners don’t know what their biggest asset is worth so they end up shutting down instead of selling. That changes today. With @joglekar’s Zillow exec experience, we’ve been dreaming about the “Zestimate for SMBs” and I’m so stoked that it’s finally here. We’ve taken a page from the Zillow playbook and excited to be launching Business Profiles: free valuations, competitive stack rank, and more for small businesses across America. And we’re just getting started! Grateful to @FortuneMagazine for covering the launch: fortune.com/2026/09/15/baton…

how to fundraise in 1356 words tl;dr don’t run out of money. and have relationships. and build a giant vision. and...ok there's kinda a lot. we'll get to all of it, but here's the shortest version I could write

Build something that agents use (to fundraise) Introducing the venture fundraising MCP Get it here, with a UI for humans: frm.theventurecodex.com/

lots of advice is self serving to the advisor. that doesn't mean it is wrong or bad for you. it just means you need to understand the incentives and how aligned those are with yours.

Building with atoms continues to dominate Series A (and beyond). From last week: 🏭 Fab2 ($500M) builds small modular chip fabs plus the tools and process hardware inside them. Led by Fundomo at $3.7B. ⚡ TAR ($120M) builds self-contained modular power systems for AI data centers. Led by Spark Capital at $1B. 🤖 Maven Robotics ($100M) builds wheeled dual-arm robots for mixed-case palletizing. Led by RoboStrategy. ✈️ Poseidon Aerospace ($60M) builds unmanned fixed-wing cargo freighters. Led by TQ Ventures.

Backing exceptional founders was always the driver of a seed rounds. Now it's the primary driver of nearly every round. Metrics & moat still matter, but only as a signal of interestingness, evidence that the founder is who investors hope they are, rather than a gate you clear Every round is basically seed now. Writing about that dynamic. Chapter by chapter. First drop here: magidandco.com/how-to-raise/…

If ai people read less Philip K. Dick and more Isaac Asimov we’d fix this whole killer ai thing in a heartbeat

Summer's end. Jersey Shore. 2026 for @aweissman

early stage VCs are safe from AI because investing is a fundamentally irrational decision rooted in personal relationships

Energy has entered the unbundling phase as the traditional grid fails to supply load demanded by data centers and consumers. Four Series As this week focussed on an unbundled, modular electricity system: ⚡ Light ($46M) is Plaid for power, allowing partners to plug into an API to sell a branded electricity plan in about two weeks. Led by Matrix. 🛵 Yuma ($35M) runs a battery-swapping network for electric bikes, motorcycles, and three-wheelers in India. They have a high density of swapping stations that allow delivery riders to stay moving on the road all day. Led by Magna International. 🌀 Lazarus Energy ($16M) builds compact supercritical CO2 turbomachinery. Their container-sized modules us carbon dioxise instead of steam to generate power more efficiently and with a smaller footprint. Led by 50/50 Accelerator. 🔋 Octave ($11.6M) builds modular LFP battery storage paired with an energy management system, allowing clients to store power and flexibility sell back to the grid. Led by SPDG Growth. theventurecodex.com/trends/p…

"we're smarter" is the default founder answer to why they'll beat competitors "we're faster" is a hell of a lot better because it is observable and it compounds

Feels like a good week to remind founders: Don't pitch your competitor’s VC - They won’t invest in you (and if they do it’s a 🚩) - Your data will be shared. Maybe not on purpose. But\ it'll happen We built a tool to flag competitive investors. Basically an end-to-end fundraising platform powered by data on 71k startups and 50k funds. Free for founders. Find competitors, fundraise better: frm.theventurecodex.com/