Weekly Download #28

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This week in Silicon Valley, Startups & Tech:

• Netflix Buys Hollywood: $82.7B deal for Warner Bros. studios and HBO Max, the largest entertainment acquisition in history, funded by a record $59B loan

• Paramount Goes Hostile: David Ellison's $108.4B all-cash counterbid backed by Saudi, Qatari, and Emirati sovereign funds plus Kushner's Affinity Partners

• Trump Plays Kingmaker: President warns Netflix deal "could be a problem" for market share while his son-in-law finances the competing bid

• NSS Puts Taiwan First: New National Security Strategy explicitly prioritizes Taiwan deterrence, downgrades European commitments, and drives reshoring

• H200 Surprise: Trump admin poised to let Nvidia sell H200s to China while Cambricon plans to triple domestic chip production to 500K units

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• Dec 16: Verza's Annual Holiday Mixer & Content Sprint: Join a great group of top-tier creators, founders, and industry leaders. Sign up on Partiful!

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• Jan 20: AI Startup Pitch Night: Apps to pitch are open! Join us in SF for an exciting pitch night featuring the hottest AI startups. Sign to pitch here!

• May 27: Early Stage Summit: Due to various logistical factors, we had to reschedule the event but plan to make it better than ever. Register on Luma!

🎬 Hollywood's $108B Bidding War: When Media Giants Fight Over What's Left

📺 Netflix Buys Hollywood's Crown Jewels for $82.7B

Netflix struck a deal to acquire Warner Bros.' studios and HBO Max in one of the largest media transactions ever. The streaming giant that spent a decade disrupting Hollywood is now buying its most storied studio under these terms:

• $82.7B Enterprise Value: $72B equity plus $10.7B in assumed debt

• $27.75 Per Share: $23.25 cash + $4.50 in Netflix stock to WBD shareholders

• $59B Bridge Loan: Largest ever underwritten, with Wells Fargo committing a record $29.5B alone

• $5.8B Breakup Fee: What Netflix owes if regulators kill the deal

• 12-18 Months to Close: Timeline after WBD spins off networks in Q3 2026

What Netflix Gets: Warner Bros. Pictures, HBO, HBO Max, DC Studios, Warner Bros. Games, and a century of IP, including Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Friends, and the entire DC Comics universe. Combined streaming subscribers would exceed 430M globally.

Translation: The company that pioneered streaming as Hollywood's existential threat just became Hollywood's biggest landlord. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos called it "pro-consumer, pro-innovation, pro-worker," which means "we're buying our way out of the licensing trap we created."

🥊 Paramount Goes Hostile: $108.4B Counter-Punch

Three days after Netflix's victory lap, Paramount launched a hostile takeover bid directly to WBD shareholders, offering $30/share all-cash for the entire company:

• $108.4B Enterprise Value: vs. Netflix's $82.7B

• $30/Share All-Cash: vs. Netflix's $27.75 cash-and-stock mix

• $18B More Cash: What Paramount claims shareholders would receive

• $54B in Debt Financing: From Bank of America, Citi, and Apollo

• $24B in Equity: Backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Abu Dhabi sovereign funds, and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners

David Ellison, fresh from the Kennedy Center Honors with Trump, told CNBC: "We're sitting on Wall Street, where cash is still king."

The Catch: WBD's board rejected this exact bid last week. Paramount's hostile tender offer expires January 8, 2026, giving shareholders 30 days to decide whether Netflix's deal undervalues their shares. If WBD flips to Paramount, it owes Netflix a $2.8B breakup fee.

Reality Check: When the Ellison family, Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, and Trump's son-in-law all back the same bid, it's less "hostile takeover" and more "alternative friends-and-family round."

🏛️ Trump Plays Kingmaker: "That's a Big Market Share"

President Trump raised antitrust concerns on the Kennedy Center red carpet, noting Netflix's market share "could be a problem."

• 43% Global SVOD Share: What Netflix-WBD would command, according to Paramount

• "I'll be involved in that decision": Trump's not-so-subtle signal

• Ellison's Trump Ties: Paramount CEO attended Kennedy Center Honors with the President, calling their relationship "incredible"

• Kushner's Backing: Trump's son-in-law's firm is financing the competing bid

Ted Sarandos visited the Oval Office last week to lobby for the deal, arguing that, even combined with Warner Bros., Netflix represents less than 10% of total TV viewing. Meanwhile, Ellison is framing his bid as "pro-competitive" against Netflix's streaming "monopoly."

The Bottom Line: Despite the lobbying efforts, the DOJ will technically decide, but when the President publicly muses about market share and promises personal involvement, the regulatory process has already become political theater.

🌏 America's New Strategic Calculus: Taiwan First, Chips Everywhere

🎯 The NSS Drops: Taiwan Up, Europe Down, Chips Everywhere

Trump’s National Security Strategy represents a fundamental reorientation of American foreign policy, and the semiconductor industry is ground zero for its implementation.

The Core Shift: "Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority." The document elevates Taiwan from secondary flashpoint to the main test case for US deterrence, explicitly citing semiconductor dominance and the First Island Chain's control of one-third of global shipping.

The Framing:

• Taiwan/Indo-Pacific: Force buildup, allied burden-sharing (Japan, South Korea, Australia), economic leverage on China; clear upgrade to central theater

• Europe: Faces "civilizational erasure," should take "primary responsibility" for its own defense, halt NATO expansion; relative downgrade to legacy commitment

• Reindustrialization: Strategic tariffs, defense industrial base revival, and near-shoring run through every section

The Industrial Policy Implications: The NSS calls for low-cost drone/missile defense innovation rather than expensive legacy systems, domestic manufacturing revival, and protection of supply chains.

Translation: DC is stating that US political and military bandwidth is reserved for Taiwan and the Western Hemisphere, not for extended European contingencies. And the chip factories follow the strategic priorities.

🏗️ Trump Industrial Parks: SoftBank's $550B Federal Land Grab

Masayoshi Son is finalizing plans with the White House to build "Trump Industrial Parks" on federal land across the US, funded by Japan's $550B trade deal commitment. The facilities would manufacture AI infrastructure components: fiber-optic cable, data center equipment, and eventually chips.

The Deal: Japan provides capital and engineering expertise; the US decides where funds go and keeps 90% of profits once Japan recoups its investment. Originally a single $1T city north of Phoenix ("Project Crystal Land"), it's morphed into a network of factory clusters that could launch in 2026.

Reality Check: Nothing says "America First" quite like having a Japanese billionaire fund your industrial renaissance on government property while you keep most of the profits. But it fits the NSS framework perfectly: allied burden-sharing for US strategic benefit.

🌵 TSMC Phoenix: 115K Jobs, Culture Shock, and Yields That Beat Taiwan

TSMC, Intel, and Amkor are transforming Phoenix into America's chip hub, with 115K local jobs projected over four years. TSMC's first Arizona fab began high-volume 4nm production in late 2024, with yields exceeding Taiwan's by 4 percentage points. The six-fab complex will represent 30% of TSMC's global sub-2nm capacity.

The Culture Clash: The NYT chronicled "TSMC Village," where Taiwanese workers struggle with Phoenix suburbia while Americans bristle at 12-hour days and management described as "about obedience." Half of 2,200 direct employees remain Taiwanese despite $5M apprenticeship programs.

🇨🇳 The China Countermove: H200 Reversal Meets Cambricon's 500K Gambit

Breaking: The Trump administration will allow Nvidia to sell H200 chips to China, a major lobbying win days after Jensen Huang met with Trump and expressed uncertainty whether Beijing would even accept them: "We can't degrade chips that we sell to China, they won't accept that."

The Irony: China blocked Nvidia's gimped H20, pushing companies toward domestic alternatives. Now the US offers H200s, 18 months behind Blackwell, hoping Beijing lets them in this time.

China's Not Waiting: Cambricon plans to triple AI chip production to 500,000 units in 2026, including 300,000 advanced Siyuan 590/690 chips. The company reported 14x Q3 revenue growth with ByteDance as its largest customer. The catch: SMIC yields run just 20% as four of five dies are scrap.

The Bifurcation Bottom Line: The NSS acknowledges what export controls couldn't prevent: two parallel AI ecosystems are emerging. The US is simultaneously reshoring manufacturing, relaxing some controls, and watching China build capabilities anyway, with $98B in domestic spending this year. The strategy emphasizes gaining "economic leverage" over China by leveraging the supply chains the US is still racing to build.

⚡ Startup Quick Hits: Prediction Markets, Defense Tech, and AI Security

🎰 Kalshi's $1B for Betting on Everything: The regulated prediction market raised a massive Series E led by CapitalG, Paradigm, and Sequoia. After the election-betting frenzy, Kalshi's event-based contracts are looking like "alternative data infrastructure."

🚀 Castelion's $350M for Building Weapons Faster: Altimeter and Lightspeed led the Series B for a defense tech company applying "modern hardware development" to national security challenges.

💳 Airwallex's $330M Series G for Global Payments: Addition led the round for the global payments and financial platform serving businesses with cross-border transactions. At Series G, they're either pre-IPO or running out of alphabet.

🛰️ ICEYE's €150M for All-Weather Spy Satellites: General Catalyst led the Series E for the radar satellite constellation providing earth observation data that works through clouds, darkness, and whatever else nature throws at it.

🔐 7AI's $130M Series A for AI Security Agents: Index Ventures led the round for an AI-driven cybersecurity platform using AI agents to manage the full security operations lifecycle. The pitch is to replace your SOC analysts with AI.

💸 IPO & M&A Quick Hits: Photonics, Billing, and Runtime Acquisitions

💡 Marvell's $3.25B-$5.5B Photonic Fabric Play: Marvell is acquiring Celestial AI for $3.25B upfront ($1B cash + $2.25B stock) with up to $2.25B in earnouts. The Santa Clara startup's Photonic Fabric technology delivers 2x power efficiency over copper.

📊 Stripe's $1B for Usage-Based Billing Dominance: Stripe is acquiring Metronome for ~$1B, doubling the company's valuation in nine months since its $50M Series C. The platform powers usage-based billing for OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks, and Nvidia.

🐰 Anthropic's First Acquisition: The Bun Runtime: Anthropic acquired Bun, the all-in-one JavaScript toolkit with 7.2M+ monthly downloads, in an all-stock deal. The timing makes sense: Claude Code hit $1B ARR in just six months after May 2025.

🔑 ServiceNow's ~$1B Identity Security Bet: ServiceNow is acquiring Veza for ~$1B+, adding the identity security platform's patented Access Graph technology that maps 30B+ permissions across human, machine, and AI identities.

🔬 OpenAI Buys Its Training Dashboard: OpenAI is acquiring Neptune, the Warsaw-based experiment tracking platform, for under $400M in stock. OpenAI already uses Neptune to monitor GPT training runs across per-layer metrics.

💸 In Other Bay Area Funding News

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

🤖 Artificial Intelligence

• Vinci: Raised $36M Series A led by Xora Innovation for generative AI that creates hardware designs.

• Ricursive Intelligence: Raised $35M Seed led by Sequoia for AI-powered semiconductor design transformation.

• Lemurian Labs: Raised $28M Series A led by Hexagon and Pebblebed for hardware-agnostic AI deployment platform.

• Simular: Raised $21.5M Series A led by Felicis for AI agents automating computer and web tasks.

• Raindrop: Raised $15M Seed led by Lightspeed for monitoring platform for AI agents.

• Unlimited Industries: Raised $12M Seed led by a16z and CIV for AI-powered critical infrastructure engineering.

• Jeeva AI: Raised $9M Seed led by JLL Spark and Sapphire for AI-powered contact finder and lead generation.

• Guide Labs: Raised $9M Seed led by Initialized Capital for interpretable, steerable AI reasoning models.

• Cortex AI: Raised $6M Seed for AI models powering general-purpose robots.

• Basalt: Raised $5M Venture led by Entourage for end-to-end AI agent reliability platform.

• Honeyjar: Raised $2M Pre-Seed for AI platform for PR and communications teams.

🔐 Cybersecurity & Semiconductors

• Axiado: Raised $100M Series C led by Maverick Silicon for hardware root of trust security processors with per-system AI.

• Multifactor: Raised $15M Seed led by Nexus Venture Partners for secure identity management with strong cryptography.

💰 Fintech

• Flex: Raised $60M Series B led by Portage Ventures for end-to-end business and personal finance platform.

• Portal to Bitcoin: Raised $25M Venture led by JTSA Global for crypto trading without custody risk.

• Nasdaq Private Market: Raised $22.5M Venture for marketplace connecting private companies with investors.

• Quanta: Raised $15M Series A led by Accel for real-time financial clarity for software companies.

🧬 Biotech & Healthcare

• Angle Health: Raised $134M Series B led by Portage Ventures for tech-enabled employer health insurance platform.

• Akura Medical: Raised $53M Series C led by Qatar Investment Authority for next-gen thrombectomy devices.

• Aether Bio: Raised $15M Venture led by Tribe Capital for ML-powered enzyme repurposing.

• Iolyx Therapeutics: Raised $15M Series B led by Frazier Healthcare Partners for ocular disease treatments.

• Trial Library: Raised $10M Series A led by NEXT VENTŪRES and SemperVirens for oncology clinical trials platform.

• Junevity: Raised $10M Seed led by Godfrey and Goldcrest Capital for transcription factor medicines targeting aging.

• Lyric Bio: Raised $6.6M Seed led by The Venture Collective for 3D tissue bioreactors scaling donor therapeutics.

🌱 Climate & Consumer

• Ripple Foods: Raised $17M Venture led by Material Impact for plant-based milk with dairy-level protein.

• Rubi Laboratories: Raised $7.5M Venture for biocatalysts turning carbon emissions into textiles.

🚗 Other

• Autolane: Raised $7.4M Venture led by Draper Associates and Hyperplane for curbside autonomy operating system.

• Origin Speech Therapy: Raised $2.6M Seed for platform helping therapists launch private practices.

🌟 Editor's Note

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💭 Parting Thoughts

So there you have it: a week where Netflix decided to buy Hollywood instead of disrupting it, Paramount's hostile bid revealed that Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds and Jared Kushner make excellent co-investors, and President Trump reminded everyone that antitrust enforcement works best when both bidders are lobbying your administration simultaneously.

Forward to a friend or hit reply to let me know what you're seeing in your world.

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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