Good day. Venture capitalist Max Gazor has raised a $165 million debut fund at his firm Striker Venture Partners to pursue a high-risk strategy: invest in just 10 startups, prerevenue and even pre-product.

Gazor has been an investor at venture firm CRV for the past 14 years, backing app-building company Airtable, general-purpose robotics startup DYNA Robotics, Reflection AI, which is developing open-source AI models, and others.

His focused approach at Striker stands in contrast to the asset and capital expansion many established venture firms have undertaken in recent years.

“I will invest in 10 inception-stage companies per fund,” Gazor said. “I’m concentrating at the farthest end of what you would perceive as the risk spectrum.”

San Francisco-based Striker’s debut fund was raised from just 10 limited partners, all of them institutional investors. That compares with the median count of 77 LPs for funds with sizes between $100 million and $250 million and closed in the past three years, according to data from financial-software firm Carta. Striker’s fund closed in September.

Striker’s LPs include TrueBridge Capital Partners, StepStone Group and Makena Capital Management, as well as university endowments and sovereign-wealth funds. The fundraising took a few weeks start to finish, Gazor said.

The firm will focus on AI, cybersecurity and infrastructure software, while avoiding consumer deals. Gazor said the startup founders he will be looking for will be “proven in terms of credentialing and referenceability, but there’s no business, there’s no product, there’s no revenue.”

Initial checks from Striker will likely range from $6 million to $8 million, but could be as high as $30 million, Gazor said. “I’m not doing $300,000 checks and indexing. This is about conviction,” he said.

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And now on to the news...

OpenAI launches video generator app. OpenAI is squaring up to TikTok, Google’s YouTube and Meta with a new social-media app for its AI video generator that allows users to create high-definition video clips with audio from text prompts. Users can upload short clips of themselves and insert them into Sora-generated worlds, describing the idea, style and scene they want to see. They can also connect with other users, watch and comment on their content.

Texas Stock Exchange, the Dallas-based listing venue taking aim at New York’s dominance, is one step closer to being open for business.

• TXSE received approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday to operate as an exchange, paving the way for the new entrant to start listing shares next year.
   
• The idea for TXSE, pronounced “tex-ee,” came after some public-company executives groused that the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq saddle them with onerous regulations, TXSE Chief Executive James Lee says. TXSE hopes to leverage Texas’ growing reputation as being pro-business.

The Federal Trade Commission said it sued Zillow and Rocket Cos.-owned Redfin, alleging the two platforms made an unlawful deal that suppresses competition for advertising rental housing online.

• The FTC said Tuesday its complaint alleges that Redfin agreed to end its contracts with advertising customers and help Zillow take over that business in exchange for a $100 million payment.
   
• It also claims that Redfin agreed to stop competing in the advertising market for multifamily properties for up to nine years, and to serve as an exclusive syndicator of Zillow listings.

Funds

Woven Capital, Toyota's growth-stage venture investment arm, launched its second fund with $800 million in commitments. The new vehicle, which matches the size of the firm’s previous fund, will make 20 to 25 investments in Series B through late-stage companies.

Notion Capital, which focuses on European business software and fintech investments, closed its third growth fund with $130 million in commitments. Additionally, Jess Bartos has joined the firm to help drive its growth strategy. She was previously at Salesforce Ventures.

Cerebras Systems, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company specializing in designing chips for training and running AI models, completed a $1.1 billion Series G round at a $8.1 billion post-money valuation. Led by Fidelity Management & Research Co. and Atreides Management, the investment included participation from Tiger Global Management, Valor Equity Partners, Benchmark, Altimeter and others.

Vercel, a San Francisco-based platform for building AI-native applications and agents, closed a $300 million Series F round at a post-money valuation of $9.3 billion. Accel and GIC co-led the round, which included participation from Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, GV, Salesforce Ventures and others.

Eve, a legal AI platform for plaintiff law firms, landed $103 million in Series B funding at a more than $1 billion valuation. Spark Capital led the round, which included contributions from Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures.

Axiom Math, a San Francisco-based startup building self-improving superintelligence, was seeded with a $64 million investment led by B Capital.

Neptune Robotics, a Singapore-based startup building underwater robots for vessel cleaning, scored $52 million in Series B funding led by Granite Asia.

Vibe.co, a New York-based streaming ad platform, closed a $50 million Series B round led by Hedosophia. Nirav Tolia, chief executive of Nextdoor, joined the company’s board of directors.

Descope, an external identity- and access-management platform, added $35 million in new seed funding from investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners and Dell Technologies Capital.

Bite Investments, a provider of software to the alternative-investments sector, secured $25 million in funding from NewSpring Capital's dedicated growth equity strategy.

MAI, a San Francisco-based AI platform that automates and optimizes performance marketing, was seeded with a $25 million investment led by Kleiner Perkins.

Alex, a San Francisco-based AI recruiting startup, has raised $20 million, including a $17 million Series A round led by Peak XV Partners.

Zania, an agentic AI startup for security governance, risk and compliance, fetched $18 million in Series A funding led by New Enterprise Associates.

Lastro, a Brazil-based autonomous AI platform for real estate transactions, picked up $15 million in Series A funding led by Prosus Ventures.

Umony, a London-based financial services communications compliance platform, closed a $15 million Series A round led by Notion Capital. 

Electroflow Technologies, a Burlingame, Calif.-based startup that aims to make it cheaper and easier to extract lithium from brines, raised a $10 million seed round led by Union Square Ventures and Voyager Ventures. Existing investors Fifty Years and Harpoon Ventures also participated.

Notch.cx, an autonomous AI customer support platform, collected $7 million in seed funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

• Silver Lake Finally Sealed a Dream Deal. Jared Kushner Was Key.
   
• Spotify Founder Daniel Ek Leaving CEO Job
   
• This Windowless Plane Is Vying to Be the Private Jet of the Future
   
• Why General Motors Boss Mary Barra Is Slamming the Brakes on Lofty EV Ambitions

• ‘Semiconductor slush fund’: How the Trump admin seized control of Biden’s $7.4 billion chips initiative (Politico)

This newsletter was compiled by Yuliya Chernova, Matthew Strozier and Zachary Cole.

WSJ Pro Venture Capital is a premium service of The Wall Street Journal. We cover venture capital and the global startup ecosystem. Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The Team: Matthew Strozier, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley and Marc Vartabedian.