Good day. The secondary market, where shares of private companies that have yet to go public are traded, has ballooned. With exits still difficult, the niche arena for shares of those companies and stakes in venture funds has grown exponentially, and recent policy changes could bloat it further. Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” to name one, created a new incentive for shareholders of venture-backed startups to sell their shares. How much further can the secondary market go? Please email responses to vcnews@wsj.com.

Last week, we asked if venture has a down season anymore, or if venture capitalists feel pressure year-round to be on given the hyper-competitive AI environment. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

• Maria Palma, a general partner at Freestyle Capital: “There’s no such thing as a down period, at least not this year. I’ve always done deals in August, but this summer’s pace has been on another level. I just closed my fourth deal in seven weeks. In this environment, if you want the right to win, you have to move fast and spend meaningful time with founders as soon as they start engaging.”
   
• Bob Ackerman, managing partner and co-founder of DataTribe and founder, managing director and chairman, AllegisCyber Capital: “Venture capitalists, like most investors, are driven and motivated by the ‘fear of missing out.’ This phenomenon runs independent of the seasons when conviction runs deep that we are in the middle of a gold rush, AI or otherwise.”
   
• Terri Burke, senior partner at Intuitive Ventures: “Medical-tech has no downtime. The pace has picked up even more this summer with several high-quality companies shopping for financing. We see strong syndicates coming together and the performance of Heartflow’s recent IPO helps further open the market for compelling AI-driven medtech.”
   
• Ankur Saxena, investment director at TDK Ventures: “Late summer once meant a slowdown for VCs—August vacations, delayed decisions and quieter deal flow. In the brave new AI world, that rhythm is gone. Talent gets poached in weeks, breakthroughs can spark funding frenzies overnight and global deal-making erases downtime. Rounds can close in days and partners now operate like founders—always connected and responsive, even on vacation.”
   
• Terrence Rohan, managing director of Otherwise Fund: “Unlike 10 years ago, the venture market now essentially never sleeps. AI is creating a generational market opportunity to invest. Multistage VCs battle each other at seed more than ever, meaning smaller checks, less due diligence and less partners needed for quorum, which boosts the efficiency of the VC market. Once one fund decides to be offensive year-round, others have to follow suit. The only week where the VC market essentially pauses is from Christmas to New Year’s. A close second used to be the last week of August during Burning Man, but that week can be busy, too.”

And now on to the news...

Gemini’s energy needs. Every time you ask Google’s Gemini a query, it takes the same amount of energy as watching nine seconds of TV. That’s what the tech giant says in a new report detailing the energy consumption, emissions and water use of its generative AI that users turn to for everything from writing tips to fact checking.

• A single Gemini text query emits 0.03 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent and consumes about five drops of water, according to Google.
   
• Google, which included its methodology in the report and the formulas it used, says other tech companies don’t disclose the energy demands of their power-hungry AI models in this much detail, but it is hoping that will change.

Ether, the cryptocurrency long overshadowed by bitcoin, has surged this month. One big beneficiary: billionaire Peter Thiel. The venture-capital investor has been among those piling into ether, betting that the token’s underlying blockchain, Ethereum, could become Wall Street’s platform of choice to launch new financial products and services.

Bank of America’s newly appointed Chief Technology and Information Officer Hari Gopalkrishnan said he expects to push a steady stream of AI-focused releases in the coming months. To do so, he is tapping the company’s $13 billion technology budget for 2025, $4 billion of which has been set aside for developing new technologies like artificial intelligence, he said. Plans include building more job-specific AI features for employees and serving more personalized financial information to customers.

Funds

BDC launched its Industrial Innovation Venture Fund II with commitments of 200 million Canadian dollars ($144 million) to invest in early-stage Canadian startups focusing on advanced manufacturing, agtech, foodtech, extractive industries and critical minerals.

People

Enterprise browser startup Island appointed Tim MacCarrick as chief financial officer. He was previously at project44.

Upbound, a startup empowering infrastructure and platform teams with intelligent control planes, appointed Sarah Strobhar as chief revenue officer. She was previously at Amazon Web Services.

Andreessen Horowitz said Anne Neuberger joined the firm as a senior adviser.

Exits

Workday agreed to acquire Paradox, which uses AI to automate recruitment and hiring processes, for an undisclosed amount.

FieldAI, an Irvine, Calif.-based developer of software that powers robots in diverse environments, raised $405 million in two funding rounds from investors including Bezos Expeditions, NVentures, Canaan Partners, Intel Capital and Khosla Ventures.

Ontic, an Austin, Texas-headquartered software platform for connected security intelligence, scored $230 million in Series C funding. Funds managed by KKR led the investment, which included participation from Ten Eleven Ventures and others.

Nuro, a Mountain View, Calif.-based autonomous driving technology provider, added $97 million in Series E funding, closing the round at $203 million and giving the company a $6 billion valuation. Series E investors included Uber, Nvidia, Baillie Gifford, Icehouse Ventures, Kindred Ventures and Pledge Ventures.

TinyFish, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based enterprise web agent infrastructure startup, launched with $47 million in funding led by Iconiq.

Wellth, a digital health company helping high-risk populations build healthy habits, closed a $36 million Series C round led by Mercato Partners.

Loft Dynamics, a virtual reality flight training startup headquartered in Santa Monica, Calif., and Switzerland, secured $24 million in Series B financing. The Friedkin Group led the round, which included participation from Craft Ventures, UP.Partners and others. Dan Friedkin, chairman and chief executive officer of The Friedkin Group, will join the Loft Dynamics board.

Phoebe, a London-headquartered startup building an AI agent platform that continuously investigates and preemptively fixes software failures, launched with $17 million in seed funding led by GV and Cherry Ventures.

Garage, a New York-based online marketplace for specialized equipment including emergency vehicles and government surplus, grabbed $13.5 million in Series A funding. Infinity Ventures led the round, which included additional contributions from Initialized Capital, Y Combinator and others.

Irys, a London-headquartered programmable datachain startup, landed $10 million in Series A funding led by CoinFund.

TensorZero, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based startup building an open-source stack for industrial-grade LLM applications, was seeded with a $7.3 million investment led by FirstMark.

CareCycle, a San Francisco-headquartered AI voice platform helping seniors with access to the right health insurance, gathered $2 million in seed funding from investors including Strike Capital and Pioneer Fund.

• GM raided Silicon Valley to build its new AI Team. Here’s what it’s doing.

• Tesla hasn’t filed crash reports on time. Federal investigators want to know why.

• Duolingo’s departing social media manager talks virality, anxiety and mental health

• The Pentagon’s mysterious X-37B space plane embarks on new mission

• Microsoft AI chief says it’s ‘dangerous’ to study AI consciousness (TechCrunch)
   
• Why did a $10 billion startup let me vibe-code for them—and why did I love it? (Wired)

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.

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