Weekly Download #22

This week in Silicon Valley, Startups & Tech:

• Tech CEOs Speed-Dial Trump: Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Salesforce's Marc Benioff called Trump directly to cancel National Guard deployment to SF

• Crypto Gets Institutional: CZ pardoned after backing Trump family crypto venture; stablecoin volume hits $10B/month under regulation

• OpenAI's $1.5T Handshake Empire: Sam Altman negotiated up to $1.5T in deals with Nvidia, Oracle, AMD, and Broadcom without bankers or lawyers

• Microsoft's OpenAI Black Box: Buried losses in a $4.7B "other, net" expense line, won't disclose ownership or deal terms despite OpenAI's $500B valuation

• The Grid Can't Handle Both: AI boom vs manufacturing revival competing for GWs the grid doesn't have, so utilities choosing data centers over factories

As we continue to build at Context Ventures, we've launched Startup Intros with a simple mission: to help early-stage founders find the right investors, faster and smarter.

🌉 When Tech CEOs Speed-Dial Trump: San Francisco's National Guard Crisis Averted

In the most Silicon Valley resolution possible, Trump called off a planned National Guard "surge" into SF after Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Salesforce's Marc Benioff called him directly.

"Great people like Jensen Huang, Marc Benioff, and others have called saying that the future of San Francisco is great," Trump posted on Truth Social Thursday, announcing he was backing off federal deployment after speaking with Mayor Daniel Lurie.

The Whiplash Timeline: Benioff initially told the NYT he'd support Trump's call for federal troops, earning public backing from Elon Musk and David Sacks. Then, facing massive criticism, he backtracked on Friday, saying "I do not believe the National Guard is needed" after "the largest and safest Dreamforce in our history."

The Data that Saved SF: Crime down 30% from 2024, homicides at 70-year lows, car break-ins at 22-year lows. Meanwhile, venture funding in 2025 is expected to surpass 2021's record, driven entirely by AI.

Translation: When your city's biggest tech CEOs have the president's cell phone number and your crime stats actually back up your claims, you can negotiate military deployment like it's a B2B SaaS contract. Mayor Lurie's strategy of not publicly attacking Trump, unlike Pelosi's and Newsom's, apparently works better than feuding on Twitter.

🏛️ Crypto's Institutional Legitimacy Play: From Revolution to Suit-and-Tie

🎰 Trump Pardons CZ After Binance Founder Spent Months Boosting Trump Family's Crypto Venture

On October 23, President Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao (CZ), Binance's founder, clearing his criminal record from a 2024 conviction for violating the Bank Secrecy Act.

The Timeline: CZ pleaded guilty in November 2023, paid $4.3B in fines, served four months in prison, then spent months boosting Trump's World Liberty Financial crypto venture. Presidential pardon delivered October 2025.

The Framing: White House claims they're pushing back against the Biden admin's "war on cryptocurrency." However, it seems that CZ helped the Trump family's crypto business, and the Trump admin “transactionally” cleared his record.

Other Moves: Trump also nominated Michael Selig, currently chief counsel for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) crypto task force, to run the entire agency. What a victory for an industry that spent big on lobbying to get the friendlier regulator (CFTC) over the SEC.

Reality Check: Binance.US now holds 0.75% market share, down from dominance. The pardon doesn't fix that, but shows that for crypto, regulatory consequences expire if you know the right people.

💰 Stablecoins: The $15B Profit Machine Running on $10B Monthly Volume

The GENIUS Act legalized payment stablecoins in July 2025, and monthly transaction volume has doubled. Artemis reports $10B+ in stablecoin transactions in August, up from $6B in February. This is real payment infrastructure scaling faster than traditional cross-border rails.

Second, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino projects $15B profit in 2025, up from $13B in 2024. That's more profit than Stripe, approaching Visa levels, from supposedly just holding $1 in reserves for every $1 of stablecoin.

The Paradox: Legitimate stablecoin adoption explodes under regulation (the GENIUS Act mandates reserves, audits, and consumer protections) while Tether, still largely unregulated, prints $15B by investing your deposits in Treasury bills and keeping 100% of the returns.

The Irony: Crypto maximalists spent a decade arguing that regulation would destroy innovation. The second Congress legalized stablecoins with actual oversight, and usage exploded. Meanwhile, unregulated players prints more profit than most banks.

🏦 Crypto Exchanges Become Banks While Traditional Banks Become Crypto Infrastructure

Crypto Exchanges: Crypto.com just applied for a National Trust Bank Charter, following Circle and BitGo. These companies spent 15 years telling people "be your own bank," and now they're lining up to be regulated like it's 1933.

The Reasoning: You can't custody $50B in ETF assets with a hardware wallet and a prayer. As BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF alone hits $30B+, institutions need federally supervised custody, FDIC insurance, and all the traditional banking infrastructure crypto was supposed to make obsolete.

Traditional Banks: Meanwhile, Citigroup partnered with Coinbase to enhance digital-asset payments for institutional clients, exploring on-chain stablecoin payments for 24/7 real-time conversions. Also, JPMorgan plans to allow institutional clients globally to use bitcoin and ether as collateral for loans by year-end.

Translation: When Citigroup needs Coinbase to teach it payments, and JPMorgan (whose CEO called Bitcoin "a fraud" in 2017) accepts it as loan collateral, the crypto revolution didn't fail, the industry that promised to replace banks is becoming banks.

🏗️ The AI Infrastructure Land Grab: Everyone's Scrambling to Control the Backbone

🤝 OpenAI's $1.5T Handshake Empire: No Bankers, No Lawyers, Just Vibes

Sam Altman just orchestrated deals worth up to $1.5T with Nvidia, Oracle, AMD, and Broadcom, without hiring a single investment banker or external lawyer. The largest infrastructure deals in tech history were negotiated by his inner circle: CFO Sarah Friar, President Greg Brockman, and a former Deloitte consultant.

The Circular Insanity:

• Nvidia: "Sam and Jensen talk constantly" for $100B in OpenAI to get back $350B in chip orders.

• AMD: Gave OpenAI warrants for 10% of the company at $0.01 per share for 6GW of chips.

• Oracle: $300B deal happened because another customer bailed on a Texas data center mid-construction.

• CoreWeave: OpenAI signed $22B for compute, got $350M in shares that tripled.

The Philosophy: Focus on "technical aspects first" with financial details "coming later." When you're burning $13B annually and valued at $500B, apparently, you negotiate trillion-dollar deals like splitting a bar tab and figure out who owes what later.

📊 Microsoft's OpenAI Black Box: We Lost Money But Won't Say How Much

Microsoft buried its OpenAI losses in a $4.7B expense line called "other, net," a hodgepodge category that tells investors nothing. Despite OpenAI hitting a $500B valuation (potentially making Microsoft's stake worth $100B+), Microsoft won't disclose what percentage it owns, the carrying value, or how much of its $13B commitment it's actually funded.

The Accounting Gymnastics: Microsoft calls OpenAI an "equity-method investment" (significant influence) but doesn't list it as a "related party" in disclosures. Morgan Stanley analysts are calling BS: "Transactions may not be conducted at arm's length."

Reality Check: Microsoft's $3.9T market cap depends on a company whose losses they won't quantify, ownership they won't clarify, and deals they won't explain.

⚡ The Power Grid Reality: AI or Manufacturing, Not Both

The Trump admin wants an AI boom AND a manufacturing revival, but both need GWs of power the grid doesn't have. AI data centers consume 10-50x more power per square foot than traditional centers. Goldman Sachs estimates AI could add 165 TW-hours annually by 2030, equivalent to another entire Northeast US grid.

The Result: Utilities are choosing AI over factories, because tech companies pay faster, sign longer contracts, and don't unionize. Data centers need fiber and power; factories need transportation, labor, and infrastructure. The grid can't support both at the promised scale, so the factories lose.

⚡ Startup Quick Hits: When AI Agents Meet Fire Drones

🤖 Uniphore's $260M for Making NVIDIA and AMD Play Nice: The "agentic AI" startup got AMD, Databricks, NVIDIA, and Snowflake to co-invest in their Series F. The platform promises to "deploy agentic AI across enterprise functions."

⚡ Crusoe Energy's $1.4B First Close at $10B+ Valuation: Denver's modular data center company held first close on their Series E. Valor Equity Partners and Mubadala Capital are leading, with Altimeter, BAM Elevate, Fidelity, Founders Fund, and Blue Owl piling in.

👓 Sesame's $250M for AI Glasses by Oculus Veterans: Sequoia and Spark Capital led a $250M Series B for a conversational AI startup founded by Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe. Building a personal AI agent with a "natural human-like voice" embedded in smart glasses.

🔐 Chainguard's $280M for Securing Open Source: Kirkland's open source security startup raised $280M from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund. The company delivers "hardened, secure, and production-ready builds" of open source software.

🦜 LangChain's $125M Unicorn Coronation: The open source AI framework raised Series B at a $1.25B valuation, led by IVP with CapitalG (Alphabet's growth fund) and Sapphire Ventures joining. It has become the default platform for connecting AI apps to real-time data.

💰 Investor Quick Hits: War Chests and Follow-On Funds

🏦 A16z's $10B War Chest for AI Domination: A16z is seeking $10B across multiple funds: $6B for its latest growth fund, $1.5B each for AI apps and AI infrastructure funds, and $1B for "American Dynamism" (defense tech, wrapped in patriotism).

💎 Thrive Capital's $6B-$8B 10th Fund: Josh Kushner's firm is gearing up to raise $6B–$8B for its 10th flagship fund, continuing its strategy of massive bets on giants like Stripe and OpenAI. Nothing says "early-stage venture" like writing big checks to unicorns.

🇮🇳 Accel and Prosus Team Up for India: Launched an investment partnership to co-invest in early-stage Indian startups from day zero, focusing on automation, energy transition, internet services, and advanced manufacturing.

📦 BoxGroup's $550M Double Raise: New York's BoxGroup raised $275M for its 7th flagship fund and another $275M for its 4th follow-on fund. After 16 years of early-stage investing, they've mastered the art of betting small, then doubling down after validation.

🔒 SYN Ventures' $200M+ Cybersecurity Focus: Secured over $200M for its 3rd fund, targeting up to $300M according to SEC filings. The firm focuses on cybersecurity and related sectors because, in 2025, "related sectors" means "everything touched by a computer."

💸 IPO & M&A Quick Hits: Buying What You Could Have Built

🖥️ OpenAI Acquired Sky for Mac Domination: OpenAI bought Sky, an AI interface for Mac, aiming to integrate powerful AI features directly into desktop workflows. The acquisition brings the team behind Apple's Shortcuts app into OpenAI's fold.

🤖 Skan AI Acquired Metaculars for Enterprise Agentic AI: Skan AI, known for enterprise process intelligence, acquired Metaculars to expand its "agentic AI" capabilities. Metaculars specializes in AI agents for automating enterprise operations.

📊 Omni Acquired Explo for BI Muscle: Omni acquired Explo, a platform focused on business intelligence and analytics, enabling the business technology firm to boost its data analytics and visualization capabilities for enterprise clients.

💳 Modern Treasury Acquired Beam for Stablecoin Infrastructure: Modern Treasury, the payments infrastructure company, acquired Beam, a stablecoin and fiat payment platform. This enables supporting both digital and traditional payments for businesses.

💸 In Other Bay Area Funding News

Here's a roundup of notable recent funding rounds across the Bay Area:

🤖 Artificial Intelligence

• Serval: Raised $47M Series A led by Redpoint for an AI IT service management platform.

• Findem: Raised $36M Series C led by SLW for an AI talent acquisition platform.

• Gimlet Labs: Raised $12M Seed led by Factory for an applied research lab developing next-generation AI infrastructure.

• Bluwhale: Raised $10M Series A led by UOB Venture for a decentralized knowledge data platform enabling Dapps intelligence via API.

• Notch: Raised $8M Seed for AI ad generation and performance optimization.

• OpenAGI: Raised $7.5M Venture Round for agentic foundation models redefining pre-training and reinforcement learning.

• Allie AI: Raised $5.2M Series A for co-pilot agents and models for industrial optimization and actuation.

• Tensormesh: Raised $4.5M Seed led by Laude Ventures for optimizing inference efficiency for large language models.

🔐 Cybersecurity

• Defakto Security: Raised $30.7M Series B led by XYZ Venture Capital for Non-Human IAM Platform.

• Pila Energy: Raised $4M Seed led by R7 Partners for battery systems providing energy security and management for homes and businesses.

💰 Fintech

• Anrok: Raised $55M Series C led by Spark Capital for automating sales tax compliance for modern commerce.

• Streetbeat: Raised $15M Series A led by CDP Venture Capital for a B2B AI platform serving wealth managers and brokers.

• Brico: Raised $13.5M Series A led by Flourish Ventures for a licensing platform helping companies acquire and maintain financial licenses.

• Apriority Financial: Raised $2.3M Seed led by Bridge Angel Investors and others for debt optimization platform managing employee personal debt.

🧬 Biotech

• Electra Therapeutics: Raised $183M Series C led by EQT Life Sciences and Nextech Invest for antibody therapies for immunological diseases and cancer.

• Eyconis: Raised $25M Venture Round for developing and commercializing TransCon ophthalmology assets.

• Generation Lab: Raised $11M Seed led by Accel for molecular disbalance testing, measuring aging via cheek-swab test.

• Newton AI: Raised $3.8M Seed for an AI dental workflow automation platform.

🌟 Editor's Note

At Startup Intros, our mission is to bring the latest founder-investor news straight to your inbox, keeping you ahead in the fast-paced world of Silicon Valley.

💭 Parting Thoughts

That's a wrap on another week where tech CEOs negotiated military deployments like B2B contracts, and the crypto revolution put on a suit and tie to become the banks it swore to destroy. And the largest infrastructure deals in history got done on handshakes because who needs lawyers when you're burning $13B annually on vibes and Jensen's cell number.

Remember: when your "partner" is simultaneously your investor, your customer, your competitor, and won't disclose what percentage of you they actually own, you're not in a strategic relationship, you're in whatever accounting category lets them avoid explaining the losses to shareholders.

Till next time!

P.S. Raised this week, and we missed you? Want to be featured? Have tips or funding questions? Reply or DM us as we’re here to help.

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