Today I'm excited to share that @usefootprint has raised a $25M Series B, bringing our total funding to $45M. Financial institutions are in an arms race with cartels and oligarchs. The movement of illicit money globally has grown by $1.3 trillion since 2023, now sitting at $4.4 trillion. And bad actors have taken full advantage of AI’s capabilities: generating fake identities and shell companies faster than any team can manually review. Yet, the work to combat financial crimes is still being done the old way - risk teams sifting through spreadsheets, PDFs, and disconnected tools one case at a time. AI lets us reimagine this sector. We're solving for this at @usefootprint by focusing on two things: time and memory. → Time: Percy runs your compliance program end-to-end in 1/10th the time, so your institution has extra eyes on every case, and your human analysts dedicate their time to the ones that truly matter. → Memory: Trust Fabric makes sure the grey area is removed and learnings are universal so your team (whether 5 or 500 people) catches more true positives and identifies fraud rings before they form. With this raise, we're doubling down on the thesis that risk operations will be re-envisioned for the AI-native era. As AI increases financial crime in the global economy, we're building the defense system that can expand to meet and defeat it. We're honored @QEDInvestors doubled down on their conviction, leading our Series B two years after leading our Series A. The same goes for those who have invested since day one: @lererhippeau, @indexventures, @BoxGroup, Operator Partners, Definition, and @animalcapitalco. And for new investors @am_mufg_jp, @commercevc, @lightbank, and @alumniventures. To the Footprint team: this company would be nowhere without your belief in building a digital world full of trust. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being on this journey with us. To our customers: thank you for trusting us with your most important decisions. Your partnership is helping us build a better future for financial crime compliance. Full story on our blog: onefootprint.com/learn/serie…

LH Managing Partner @BenjLerer spoke with @LizSegran at @FastCompany about shifts in consumer attitudes and purchasing behaviors. Ben's take: we're at a major inflection point, and founders and brand builders will need to be increasingly nimble and responsive to keep up. Sixteen years ago, in LH's earliest days investing, consumer brands were in their heyday: the rapid rise of social media and the democratization of supply chains, combined with some very sleepy incumbents, meant lower barriers to entry for DTC brands. Today’s landscape looks different - consumers are savvier, and they’re skeptical of brands trying to sell them exclusively on lifestyle. They want products that make them feel better on day one (LH portfolio companies Climatic, Brami, Ayoh, Elm Biosciences are growing in a way that exemplifies perfectly this trend). Founders should take notice, and prioritize high-quality ingredients, durable products, real expertise - in Ben's words, "What is inside the bottle matters more than it used to." Full article linked in comments.

The retail economy will be transformed by @Zipline. As autonomous drones beat the cost of car-based delivery, stores become decentralized micro-fulfillment hubs. Daily orders for local restaurants and shops rise, flights cut carbon emissions by 97%, while reducing traffic and noise, and gig workers shift from driving to flight operations.

Congratulations to Max Wechter on his promotion to Senior Director of AI. In this role, Max will continue and expand upon the work he's already done leading our internal AI strategy at LH. Under Max's leadership, we've built a firm-wide operating system, data layer, and MCP to help manage all aspects of our business - our networks, our founders and portfolio companies, and a huge range of our sourcing, investment, and operational processes. We're excited to share more of our learnings as we continue to define what it means to operate as an AI-native venture firm, best equipped to support early stage founders from day negative 1.

Claude CoWork & Design would be even more amazing if they learned to really work together. From my handoff back to Claude CoWork:

It feels like I'm constantly pinging back and forth between Claude CoWork and Claude Design, which CoWork doesn't seem to trust. Design is amazing but would be even better if they were fully integrated.

We're looking for an Investor to join our team in NYC. This is a sourcing role first. Our investors help us meet the next great founders before anyone else. They're the people out in the ecosystem building relationships, chasing down themes, and developing the deal sense to know what's worth our conviction. It's a central seat at a flat, inclusive firm with a strong track record of promoting from within and helping our team grow. Your path here could look like a lot of things: maybe you built a product at a fast-growing startup or have invested at another firm. What matters less is the exact resume; what matters most is how you work, how you think about founders, and the networks you've built. This is a full-time, in-office role based in New York City. Apply via link in comments.

We wrote a first check into @smalldoorvet in 2018 at its founding, and have been so impressed by @florentp and team’s execution since. Today, they’ve announced that they’ll combine with Bond Vet, another leading brand in the veterinary care space, to offer premium vet services to more pets. Congratulations to Florent, who will manage the combined entities as CEO, and the entire teams on this milestone.

Our CEO @roth_dan joined @vkhosla on @FoxBusiness today where @LizClaman asked what got @vkhosla so excited about @ScaledCognition. He summed it up perfectly: "It was pretty simple, reliability is as important as intelligence when it comes to AI systems" 🎦 Full interview: lnkd.in/g7ApKRd9 🅰️ scaledcognition.com/series-a

Enterprise AI requires reliable actions, not just probable words. @roth_dan, @profdanklein & the @ScaledCognition team are building for that paradigm. We're grateful to be early investors.

Turns out you don't need to be a VC in the Bay Area to party with the NBA champs 🏆 We do that now in NYC, right @BenjLerer 😂

We loved breaking in our new rooftop on the nicest day of the season with our founders, LPs, coinvestors, operators, and ecosystem friends this week. Thanks to Santo Taco for the best catering, hands down. Thanks, also, to our partners at @Stifel, @WithumCPA, @Aduro_Advisors, @awscloud, and @goodwinlaw.

We are currently building the railroad tracks of the mind, and the market is speculating wildly on the steel companies. The real societal wealth won't be generated until everyone is actually riding the trains. h/t @GeminiApp

I’m ready to move from sending around docs and slides to sharing HTML. Cowork just needs a better editing layer with things like simple text editing, easy image cut/copy/paste, and pagination.

I think we need to update the @LererHippeau website with new team photos from @mother__tech's Degen AI. degen.online/gen/a75d2679-9e…