Good day. Forget unicorn status. Today’s founders have an eye toward the labels “decacorn” and “centicorn”—companies worth at least $10 billion or $100 billion, respectively.

The artificial-intelligence boom has made those kinds of valuations more common, but they remain a rarity across even the most valuable venture-backed companies created over the last quarter century, according to a report published this month by early-stage venture-capital firm Founder Collective.

The firm tracked the top 500 most valuable exits by venture-backed companies, looking at mergers and acquisitions as well as IPOs. (Founder Collective defined the value of public companies as their market capitalization at roughly six months post IPO, the point at which VC lockups typically burn off.)

According to the report, the median value of those top 500 companies was $2.6 billion, and just 71 achieved a valuation of $10 billion or more. Only one company is currently on track to achieve a valuation above $100 billion: SpaceX, which went public in June and had a market cap of roughly $1.5 trillion as of Monday.

General Partner Micah Rosenbloom says the Founder Collective list isn't comprehensive. It doesn't account for some liquidity events, like secondaries. Even so, it is a tool for understanding the value created by venture-backed companies in the modern venture era, he said.

“This idea that founders should only play for $10 billion or bust—building a $2 billion company means you’ve built one of the top 500 in the last 25 years,” he said. “Not everybody should play to build the generational company. Not everyone should fund that way. If you get yourself to a $500 million or a billion dollar exit, you’ve done pretty well for yourself, and you can probably do pretty well for your investors.”

As the AI boom sends the valuation of top private companies soaring, some VCs are arguing that the price of their initial investment won’t matter so long as the business is truly exceptional, Rosenbloom said. But there can only be so many of those, he said.

It is quite possible that today’s top private companies—Anthropic, OpenAI, Databricks and others—will rank at or near the top of the Founder Collective list once they go public. But Rosenbloom says the question now becomes: Do those companies represent an exception to historical norms? Or the beginning of a broader disruption of them? Only time will tell.

And now on to the news...

Silicon for SSI. Nvidia is investing in former OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever’s secretive artificial-intelligence lab, part of a long-term partnership that could boost the startup’s access to computing power while helping the chip giant fend off a rival. The chip maker made a “substantial” investment after getting a rare glimpse into the state of the startup’s research, the companies said Monday. Financial terms of the deal couldn’t be learned.

• As part of the pact, Sutskever’s company, Safe Superintelligence, will receive access to large amounts of Nvidia’s flagship graphics-processing unit, or GPU, hardware—enough to increase its computing resources by an “order of magnitude,” the companies said.
   
• It had previously been relying primarily on chips made by Alphabet’s Google, known as tensor-processing units, or TPUs, according to people familiar with the matter.
   

For months, America’s biggest companies have treated hiring as an expensive last resort. Now, a shift is emerging across industries. Companies ranging from railroad giant CSX to Google parent Alphabet have told investors in recent days that they plan to hire to meet growth goals or to seize on emerging technologies.

• The push to expand head count, at least modestly, is a reversal from the prevailing corporate messaging during much of the AI era. Some executives say the costs and limitations of AI now demand that more people be added; others want to hire people back following layoffs.
   
• ​Many companies stopped hiring entry-level employees, thinking AI agents could pick up the slack. They have since realized that humans are necessary to work alongside AI.
   

Former Kirkland & Ellis Partner David Fox is credited with devising the playbook that helped make that law firm the biggest in the world. Now he has a new pursuit that could one day put him in competition with Kirkland and its peers: Irving Technology, which is powering a newly launched law firm called Irving that primarily relies on artificial intelligence and employs only a handful of lawyers.

• Irving Technology has raised a small sum of money so far from investors including Narya Capital, the venture-capital firm co-founded by JD Vance before he entered politics, the New York-based venture firm Addition, Hammes and Fox’s Antiportfolio Ventures. 
   
• Its three other co-founders are engineers with backgrounds at technology and defense companies, including Palantir Technologies.

People

Financial technology startup Capitolis appointed Ashwath Bhat as chief financial officer. He most recently served as CFO at Fractal.

AiM Medical Robotics, a developer of advanced robotic systems for MRI-guided neurosurgery, appointed Andrew "Andy" Aberdale as president and chief financial officer.

Multiverse Computing, a Spain-based startup developing compression technology for AI models, is raising a Series C round targeting up to $570 million co-led by Forgepoint Capital, BNP Paribas Solar Impulse Venture Fund and Bullhound Capital.

Antares, a Torrance, Calif.-headquartered nuclear-energy startup developing compact microreactors for defense and space applications, scored $470 million in Series C funding, including $370 million in equity. Paradigm and Caffeinated Capital co-led the round, which saw participation from Point72 Ventures, Shine Capital, Industrious Ventures and others. 

Humanoid, a U.K.-based startup building industrial humanoid robots, landed $152 million in Series A funding led by Prime Movers Lab at a $1.35 billion post-money valuation.

Enigma, a San Francisco-based startup building an intelligence layer for robotics, emerged from stealth with a $71 million seed round. Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital led the investment, which included contributions from Conviction Partners and others.

Act Security, a cloud security startup, emerged from stealth with $60 million in total funding from investors including Notable Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners.

ZuriQ, a Switzerland-based quantum computing startup, was seeded with a $25.5 million investment. Quantonation led the funding, which saw participation from Forward.one, Extantia and Firgun Ventures.

Nuclear Turbines, a U.K.-based startup developing nuclear power systems, secured a £15 million (about $20 million) investment led by IQ Capital.

Way Security, a Tel Aviv-based identity and access management platform, grabbed a $20 million investment co-led by Insight Partners and Glilot Capital.

Self Inspection, a San Diego-based startup building a system of record for vehicle condition, picked up a $10 million investment led by Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners.

Freight Hero, a Durham, N.C.-based startup that manages back-office operations for freight brokers, closed a $5 million seed round led by Field Ventures.

Frenos, a Fulton, Md.-based operational technology security platform, added $1.5 million in seed extension funding from investors including Momenta and Exposition Ventures.

• Rocket Lab Wins Record $266 Million U.S. Space Force Contract
   
• Nvidia Leads Defense of Open-Source AI With New Cybersecurity Initiative
   
• Chip Stocks Drop, Dragging Down Nasdaq
   
• Corporate ‘Orphans’ Give Dealmakers a Chance to Strike Gold 
   
• The Latest Darlings of Social-Media Marketing? Regular People With 500 Followers

• Inside Microsoft’s AI strategy as pressure mounts on Satya Nadella (Business Insider)
   
• PSA: Your Claude shared chats and Artifacts may have ended up on Google (TechCrunch)

This newsletter was compiled by Matthew Strozier, Sarah Klearman and Zachary Cole.

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

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

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