Good day. MVP Ventures, which invests in sectors such as artificial intelligence and defense tech, knows that engaging with the federal government is vital for startups across various sectors. But it also recognizes that speaking with lawmakers is often difficult for entrepreneurs more accustomed to pitching investors.

To bridge this gap, MVP has hired Jonathan Rue to help startups land Washington connections that could lead to government funding. Rue was an adviser and consultant to MVP and recently became a partner at the firm. He is a Marine Corps veteran who from September 2024 to early 2025 was deputy assistant secretary of defense for force development and emerging capabilities. Menlo Park, Calif.-based MVP recently raised $125 million for its second fund.

We spoke with him and MVP co-founder and Managing Partner Weston Moyer about how entrepreneurs can build relationships with federal lawmakers and officials. Here are excerpts from the conversation, edited for length and clarity.

WSJ Pro: Why is it important for startups to have a strategy for engaging with the federal government?

Weston: When founders plan for government dynamics early, that allows them to preserve more optionality down the road. Oftentimes startups only think about the government if they’re in defense tech. If you look at any physical-world infrastructure product, the government could potentially be a huge source of non-dilutive capital.

Rue: There’s also a benefit to having established relationships for policy reasons. When the government starts considering making a major, or even a minor, change to policy, having those relationships established so you can be a part of those conversations and shape outcomes beforehand, rather than react after them, is a big deal.

WSJ Pro: For a startup, is there a risk that it will invest in cultivating Washington connections, only to see policies or priorities change?

Rue: The short answer is no if you are intentional about the outreach you are doing. The polarization [in Washington] is real, but there is still a wide group of policymakers who work across the aisle with one another to move the ball forward. You have to build relationships across the aisle so the outcome of the election isn’t going to introduce a whole bunch of additional risk to your business.

Moyer: What the founders are trying to do is less about politics than building a great product that allows the country to achieve its goals better. It is critical for companies to have that fluency and start early.

WSJ Pro: What mistakes do founders make when approaching lawmakers and government agencies?

Rue: There’s an issue of timing and translation. A lot of founders wait too long before they engage, and then when they do, they do it without understanding the government audience is different than an investment audience or a technical engineering audience.

And now on to the news...

Nvidia's inference push. Baseten, a startup specializing in AI inference, has raised $300 million at a $5 billion valuation, according to people familiar with the matter, more than doubling its valuation.

• The round was led by venture-capital firm IVP and CapitalG, Alphabet’s independent growth fund, with participation from Nvidia. The chipmaker is investing $150 million into the company as part of the deal.
   
• The deal highlights Nvidia’s increasingly aggressive push into startups focused on inference—the process of AI models generating output in response to prompts—as the industry shifts its focus from training models to powering them at scale. It is also the latest example of Nvidia investing in a customer of its AI chips.

Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei predicted a future in which artificial intelligence will spur significant economic growth—but could lead to widespread unemployment and inequality. Amodei is both “excited and worried” about the impact of AI, he said in an interview at Davos Tuesday with Wall Street Journal Editor in Chief Emma Tucker. “I don’t think there’s an awareness at all of what is coming here and the magnitude of it.”

Business leaders’ faith in the productivity-boosting powers of AI is getting a reality check—from their own workforces. Employees said AI isn’t saving them much time in their daily work so far, and many report feeling overwhelmed by how to incorporate it into their jobs. Companies, meanwhile, are spending vast amounts on artificial intelligence, betting that the technology’s power to speed everything from sales to back-office functions will usher in a new era of efficiency and profit growth. The gulf between senior executives’ and workers’ actual experience with generative AI is vast, according to a new survey from the AI consulting firm Section of 5,000 white-collar workers.

Join us for a deep dive into the challenges that CFOs and other top executives are seeking to overcome, including the impact of tariffs and geopolitical conflicts on corporate finance and private equity.

People

VMG Partners promoted Robin Tsai to managing partner; McConnell Smith to general partner, consumer; and Angad Hira to partner, chief financial officer and chief operating officer.

Bull City Venture Partners, a B2B software-focused investor based in Durham, N.C., appointed Carly Connell as a principal and Joseph Dougherty as an analyst.

humans&, a San Francisco-headquartered human-centric AI lab, landed $480 million in seed funding from investors including SV Angel, Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, GV, Emerson Collective, DCVC, Felicis and others. The investment brings the company’s valuation up to $4.48 billion.

Pennylane, a French accounting production and financial management platform, scored a $200 million investment led by TCV.

DealHub.io, a San Francisco-based end-to-end revenue platform, nabbed a $100 million growth round led by Riverwood Capital.

Ethernovia, a San Jose, Calif.-based semiconductor startup, closed on over $90 million in Series B funding. Maverick Silicon led the investment, which included participation from Socratic Partners, Qualcomm Ventures and Fall Line Capital.

Datarails, an AI-native finance operating system, raised $70 million in Series C funding. One Peak Partners led the round, which saw additional participation from Vertex Growth, Innovation Endeavors, Zeev Ventures and others.

Emergent, a San Francisco-based AI software creation platform, snagged $70 million in Series B funding. Khosla Ventures and SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the round, which included additional support from Prosus, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Y Combinator.

Pomelo, a Buenos Aires-based payments infrastructure startup, secured $55 million in Series C financing. Insight Partners and Kaszek led the round, which included contributions from Index Ventures, S32, Endeavor Catalyst and others.

Jetson, a startup offering all-electric heat pump systems, grabbed $50 million in Series A funding. Eclipse Ventures led the investment, which included participation from 8VC, Activate Capital and others. The company is headquartered in Vancouver and Denver.

Fracttal, a Madrid-based startup specializing in AI-powered maintenance management and physical asset software, closed a $35 million growth round led by Riverwood Capital.

TitanX, a Knoxville, Tenn.-headquartered startup that predicts which prospects will answer cold calls before reps dial, collected $27 million in Series A financing from Updata Partners.

Atlas Invest, a commercial real estate lending startup, fetched a $25 million investment led by BlackRock.

Cloover, a Berlin-based startup building a clean energy operating system, raised $22 million in Series A equity financing led by MMC Ventures and QED Investors, alongside a $1.2 billion debt facility.

Statusphere, a Winter Park, Fla.-based influencer marketing platform, secured $18 million in Series A funding led by Volition Capital. 

Cosmos, a New York-headquartered online images platform, obtained a $15 million Series A round from investors including Shine Capital and Matrix.

• The Messy Human Drama That Dealt a Blow to One of AI’s Hottest Startups

• The Inventions Ranking Game
   
• Netflix Revenue and Profit Rise as Subscriptions Top 325 Million
   
• Trade Spat Deepens Uncertainty for U.S. Tech Business
   
• SpaceX Spat Ends in Defeat for Activist Boaz Weinstein
   
• EDO Ordered to Pay $18.3 Million to iSpot for Breach of Contract

• An AI startup says it wants to empower workers, not replace them (New York Times)
   
• The race to build the DeepSeek of Europe is on (Wired)
   
• Is a billion dollars still cool? (Rest of World)

This newsletter was compiled by Yuliya Chernova 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, and Brian Gormley.

Join us on LinkedIn.