Good day. We wrote about founders who get inundated with new investor interest immediately after announcing funding from big-name venture firms. What does that trend indicate about the venture market? Does delaying announcements make sense? We'd like to hear from you. Please email responses to vcnews@wsj.com.

Last week, we asked about AI agent startups facing competition from large enterprise software companies launching similar technology. Here are edited and condensed responses: 

• Ilya Sukhar, general partner at Matrix: “AI agents might be an arena where incumbents are less advantaged than usual. Agents are most powerful and perform the best on hard tasks when they can synthesize information from many diverse sources and use tools from a lot of outside providers. But incumbents don’t have the right incentives and integration capabilities to build agents that break out of their own walled gardens they’re typically trying to protect.”
   
• John Cowgill, general partner at Costanoa: “SaaS was about workflows and seats. Agents are about outcomes and autonomy. Legacy platforms were never built to give an AI system clean context, reliable data or the ability to act across boundaries. So, the big players can announce AI ‘agents’ that wrap their existing products, but they cannot easily deliver true autonomous performance inside the messy reality of large enterprises.”
   
• Yuechen Zhao, partner at Informed Ventures: "While SaaS incumbents have the advantage when it comes to distribution, many have to deal with the internal politics of launching a brand-new product that may challenge their existing business model and cannibalize current revenues. Further, most will not be able to move as quickly as startups when it comes to adapting their offering to maximize value creation as the technology landscape shifts. But their entrance makes an already crowded landscape even more so."
   
• Bob Ackerman, managing partner and co-founder of DataTribe and founder, managing director and chairman, AllegisCyber Capital: "The history of major corporations experimenting with cutting-edge innovation, like AI, is long and consistent—advance their knowledge and comprehension. The end result is not that they create better tools but that they develop a better understanding of how to use the tools the innovation economy creates."

And now on to the news...

SEC drops case against SolarWinds. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission dismissed its case against SolarWinds on Thursday, ending a yearslong legal battle that had unnerved the cybersecurity industry. The agency filed a joint stipulation with SolarWinds and its chief information security officer, Timothy Brown, to drop its case with prejudice. The agency sued SolarWinds in 2023 after the software company disclosed a major cyberattack in 2020 that affected thousands of customers and dozens of federal agencies. The watchdog alleged that the company made false and misleading statements about its cyber risks before the hack and in its investor disclosures afterward.

As private equity’s slump approaches the four-year mark, more younger professionals are considering taking roles outside the industry, according to a forthcoming report on private-equity pay and job satisfaction from recruiting firm Odyssey Search Partners. The report highlights the challenges both firms and workers face as private equity’s downturn in dealmaking and fundraising drags on. Asset managers accustomed to having their pick of top candidates are now in the unfamiliar position of trying to keep younger dealmakers engaged.

• Related: The ‘Golden Handcuffs’ Are Off: Private-Equity Employees Leave for Smaller Firms

Teens regularly turn to generative-AI chatbots in search of mental-health support. A report on a study said this practice is one of the most dangerous uses of the technology. Artificial intelligence can miss critical warning signs and fail to detect psychiatric emergencies, yet because the chatbots show competence in some areas, teens might assume they are reliable for mental-health support, the study found. The child-advocacy nonprofit Common Sense Media and Stanford Medicine’s Brainstorm Lab for Mental Health Innovation teamed up to test how well four leading AI chatbots handled mental-health conversations with researchers posing as teens.

Funds

Bessemer Venture Partners’ BVP Forge strategy rounded up $1 billion for its second private-equity fund, which is considerably larger than the $780 million raised for a predecessor fund in 2022.

Meron Capital closed its third fund at $70 million to make pre-seed and seed investments across AI, cybersecurity, fintech, digital health, climate tech and robotics. The Tel Aviv-based firm also appointed Gil Shai as managing partner.

People

Vendor risk management provider Viso Trust appointed Corentin Le Reun as chief executive officer. Co-founder and former CEO Paul Valente will assume the role of chief customer officer.

MyPhysician360, a digital health provider focusing on underserved populations,  appointed Elizabeth Halkos as chief executive officer. She previously held executive leadership roles at Fullscript and Purchasing Power.

China’s Moonshot AI is nearing a dollar funding round that could boost its valuation to around $4 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The Beijing-based AI start-up is in talks with global investors, including investment firm IDG Capital, for the fundraise, which could total several hundred million dollars, some of the people said.

Luma AI, an AI startup whose flagship platform enables the creation of professional-grade video and images, scored $900 million in Series C funding. Humain led the round, which included participation from AMD Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Amplify Partners and Matrix Partners.

Physical Intelligence, a San Francisco-based robotics startup bringing general-purpose AI into the physical world, picked up a $600 million investment valuing the company at $5.6 billion. CapitalG led the funding, which saw participation from Lux Capital, Thrive Capital, Emergence Capital, Index Ventures and Jeff Bezos.

Genspark, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup building agentic AI for knowledge workers, fetched $275 million in Series B funding at a $1.25 billion post-money valuation. Investors included Emergence Capital, SBI Investment, LG Technology Ventures, Pavilion Capital and UpHonest Capital.

Ursa Major, a Berthoud, Colo.-based aerospace and defense company delivering mission-ready propulsion across missile defense, hypersonics, in-space mobility and launch, completed a $100 million Series E round led by Eclipse, alongside $50 million in debt funding commitments.

Amperesand, a Singapore-headquartered developer of power infrastructure for AI data centers and critical power applications, closed an $80 million Series A round co-led by Walden Catalyst and Temasek.

Doppel, a social engineering defense platform, raised $70 million in Series C funding, bringing the company's valuation to over $600 million. Bessemer Venture Partners led the round, which included contributions from Aurum Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Sozo Ventures and others.

Flexion, an intelligent software layer powering humanoid robots, landed $50 million in Series A funding from investors including DST Global, NVentures, Redalpine, Prosus Ventures and Moonfire Ventures. The company is co-headquartered in Switzerland and San Francisco.

AI Proteins, a Boston-based protein therapeutics startup, secured $41.5 million in Series A financing led by Mission BioCapital and Santé Ventures.

Archetype AI, a startup enabling businesses to build and deploy physical agents that turn sensor data into actionable insights, collected $35 million in Series A funding. IAG Capital Partners and Hitachi Ventures led the round, which included additional support from Bezos Expeditions, Venrock, Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund and others.

Chargeflow, a New York-headquartered automated chargeback management platform for merchants, grabbed $35 million in Series A funding, including a $10 million debt facility, led by Viola Growth.

Point One Navigation, a San Francisco-headquartered high-precision location technology provider, raised $35 million in Series C funding led by Khosla Ventures.

• Don’t Let AI Ruin the Em Dash

• The Pentagon Can’t Trust GPS Anymore. Is Quantum Physics the Answer?

• Nvidia’s Strong Results Show AI Fears Are Premature

• Bitcoin Slides Below $87,000, Down 30% From All-Time High

• The Ex-FBI Agent Who Spent Four Years Hunting Down a North Korean Spy

This newsletter was compiled by 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.