Good day. Baby-faced startup founders get a lot of media attention. Yet new data shows founders typically have about a dozen years of experience—or more—before they launch startups that clinch billion-dollar valuations.

Founders had worked for 13.8 years, on average, before starting their companies in 2024, up from 8.2 years for companies set up in 2010, according to an analysis by venture firm SignalFire. The data only included those startups that eventually reached the $1 billion unicorn realm.

“There’s a shift to a more experienced archetype,” said Asher Bantock, head of research at SignalFire.

SignalFire’s findings contrast with the cultural perception of tech startups, he said. “Many of the most hyped startups have young founders,” he said. They do exist, Bantock said, but they aren’t representative. The firm analyzed the backgrounds of more than 2,000 founders across about 800 U.S. venture-backed unicorns.

For Gonen Stein, president and co-founder of New York-based Eon, having worked for two decades before launching the cloud-storage startup in 2024 was crucial, he said. The idea for the business came while he led product lines at AWS, part of Amazon.com.

“It was easy for us to understand what needs to be built and who needs to build it,” Stein said. The founding team also had long-term relationships with many of its customers and partners. “There’s that trust and credibility,” he added.

Venture investors have historically been of two minds on the benefits and drawbacks of founder experience, said SignalFire’s Bantock.

“On the one hand, VCs like industry outsiders and people who are not bought into established paradigms,” he said. At the same time, industry and management expertise can be crucial.

Read the full article.

And now on to the news...

Software, data stock rout. Investors’ fears that new developments in artificial intelligence will supplant software reverberated through the stock market Tuesday, dragging down the shares of companies that develop, license and even invest in code and systems.

• Traders have questioned whether AI will chip away at the competitive moat built by software makers like Adobe and Salesforce ever since generative AI models hit the market several years ago. Recent advancements in tools such as those from AI developer Anthropic are now prompting more scrutiny.
   
• On Tuesday morning, investors homed in on Anthropic’s announcement that it was adding new legal tools to its Cowork assistant meant to help automate a number of legal drafting and research tasks. Shares of Thomson Reuters, Legalzoom.com, and London Stock Exchange, which all provide some form of legal tools or research databases, all fell more than 12%.
   
• By afternoon trading, the downturn had swept through the broader software market. PayPal, Expedia Group, EPAM Systems, Equifax and Intuit were among the hardest hit, all dropping more than 10%. A pair of State Street SPDR exchange-traded funds tracking software, services and financial data stocks lost a combined $300.6 billion in market value.

Secondhand tech is finally catching on in the U.S. The world’s biggest online marketplace of used electronic devices says President Trump’s tariffs are the reason why. Since it was founded in 2014, Back Market—which connects third-party refurbishers with customers—has been cashing in on Europe’s keen adoption of secondhand technology. It has thrived under the continent’s stringent, decadeslong regulation of telecommunications firms and its sustainability conscious consumers. The Paris-headquartered startup’s success in Europe has garnered heavyweight backers including Goldman Sachs, New York investment firm General Atlantic and London growth-stage tech backer Sprints. In January 2022, Back Market clinched a valuation above $5.7 billion.

The AI-chatbot marketing wars are kicking into high gear as Anthropic, the startup behind Claude, takes aim at rival OpenAI in its Super Bowl advertising debut. Its big-game commercial parodies the prospect of intrusive advertising in AI conversations. The 30-second spot features a young man in a park attempting pull-ups, who asks a muscular bystander about achieving six-pack abs. The man starts with a detailed, if somewhat robotic response—like users might get from an AI chatbot—before spewing out an ad for “StepBoost Max” insoles. “The insoles that add one vertical inch of height and help short kings stand tall. Use code ‘HeightMaxing10’ for big discounts,” he says. The man seeking tips looks befuddled. “Ads are coming to AI. But not to Claude,” the screen reads.Though OpenAI isn’t named, the ad is a clear jab at that company, which recently announced it would bring ads to ChatGPT. OpenAI is also airing its own Super Bowl ad.

Funds

CAVU Consumer Partners closed its fifth fund with $325 million in total commitments, exceeding its original $275 million target.

People

New Enterprise Associates promoted Arjun Jain to partner and Mason Murray to principal. Prior to joining the firm in 2021, Jain was a merchant banker at The Raine Group. Murray joined NEA in 2022, and was previously at Bank of America.

Carbon Upcycling, a startup focusing on the production of low-carbon cement materials, appointed Markus Kritzler to chief executive officer. He succeeds co-founder Apoorv Sinha who assumes the role of president.

Skyryse, an El Segundo, Calif.-based aviation automation and simplified flight controls provider, achieved a valuation of more than $1 billion after raising over $300 million in Series C funding from investors including Autopilot Ventures and Qatar Investment Authority.

Overland AI, a Seattle-based developer of autonomous ground systems for defense and national security, scored $100 million in new funding, including $20 million in debt. The equity portion was led by 8VC and included participation from Point72 Ventures, Ascend Venture Capital, Shasta Ventures and Overmatch Ventures.

Kindred, a San Francisco-based home swapping platform, added $125 million in funding, including an $85 million Series C round led by Index Ventures.

Ares Interactive, a game developer and publisher with studios in San Francisco and Berlin, secured $70 million in Series A funding led by General Catalyst.

GenLogs, an Arlington, Va.-based freight intelligence provider, completed a $60 million Series B round. Battery Ventures led the funding, which saw participation from IVP and others.

Orion Security, an AI-driven contextual data security startup, closed a $32 million Series A round. Norwest led the investment, which included contributions from IBM, PICO Venture Partners and Lama Partners. The company has offices in New York and Tel Aviv.

Radicl, a Boulder, Colo.-based AI‑driven cybersecurity provider for small and medium-sized businesses focused on national defense and critical infrastructure, closed a $31 million Series A round led by Paladin Capital Group.

Avalanche Energy, a Seattle-based fusion energy startup developing modular compact fusion machines, added $29 million in new funding. RA Capital Management led the investment, which included participation from Founders Fund and others.

Senai, a Washington D.C.-based online video intelligence platform, was seeded with a $6.2 million investment. Led by 10D, the round included additional support from FS Ventures, 1948 Ventures and others.

Kairos, a Chicago-based startup building a platform for prediction markets trading, nabbed a $2.5 million seed investment led by a16z crypto.

• Google Is Spending Big to Build a Lead in the AI Energy Race
   
• X’s Paris Office Raided by Prosecutors, Musk Summoned for Interview
   
• Walmart Reaches $1 Trillion Market Cap as Its E-Commerce Booms
   
• What Oracle Has to Lose From OpenAI and Nvidia’s Rocky Relationship 
   
• Microsoft’s Pivotal AI Product Is Running Into Big Problems
   
• Varonis to Acquire AllTrue as AI Security Concerns Mount
   
• The Out-of-This-World Reasons for Elon Musk’s SpaceX Deal

• Microbes could extract the metal needed for cleantech (MIT Technology Review)
   
• A social network for AI bots only. No humans allowed. (New York Times)
  ​
• The tech elites in the Epstein files (Wired) 

This newsletter was compiled by Mathew Strozier, Zachary Cole and Brian Gormley. 

Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The team: Matthew Strozier, Yuliya Chernova, and Brian Gormley.

Join us on LinkedIn.