Good day. San Francisco payments startup Forage is bringing tech savvy to a market that few in Silicon Valley have been interested in: government food assistance.

Fintech venture firm Mouro Capital led a $40 million Series B round for Forage at a $225 million valuation, said Ofek Lavian, co-founder and chief executive of Forage.

Forage is a payments processor that helps retailers and food-delivery companies, including Dollar General, Uber Eats and Save a Lot, accept Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards, which are debit-like cards that consumers use to spend their benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, also known as food stamps.

Forage, which charges transaction fees to the merchants, is generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue, Lavian said. Forage roughly doubled its store count to 100,000 over the past year, while its in-store and online payment volume increased 13-fold.

Forage’s growth comes despite a decline in SNAP enrollment and increased state and federal restrictions around what one can buy with food stamps and which retailers can accept the payments.

The startup also recently launched a consumer app for EBT balance monitoring and shopper rewards and discounts. Forage is planning to introduce other features, such loans and credit building. Another venture-backed company, Propel, has been offering an EBT app for consumers for about a decade.

“Is launching an EBT business the most trendy thing right now? No,” Lavian said. “It certainly feels like every VC is hyperfocused on AI,” he said, adding, “I think we were able to make the case successfully that the problem we are working on is a great opportunity to build a big business and do some good.”

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And now on to the news...

Rocket ship IPO. SpaceX is eyeing a valuation of around $1.75 trillion in its blockbuster initial public offering planned for next week, according to people familiar with the matter. 

• Elon Musk’s rocket-maker is likely to sell under 5% of its shares—a much smaller portion than in a typical IPO—or roughly between $60 billion to $80 billion worth, the people said.

President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday asking artificial-intelligence companies to give the administration access to powerful models 30 days before public release, just two weeks after shelving a previous version.

• The order, which aims to increase the federal government’s oversight of the technology, also asks national-security and cyber officials to work with agency heads and top tech companies to address software vulnerabilities identified by models like Anthropic’s Mythos, the White House said.

NewLimit, a longevity startup co-founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, completed a fundraising that brings its valuation to $3.1 billion, the company said, more than triple what it was a year ago, on growing enthusiasm for drugs that promise to slow or reverse aging.

• In a funding round that closed Friday, investors poured $435 million into NewLimit, which is focused on reversing cellular aging but doesn’t have any products on the market yet. Its first drug, for alcohol-related liver disease, will begin human studies next year.

WSJ Sports: The Next Sports Economy will bring together investors, team owners, executives and advisers at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York July 15-16 for conversations on the forces transforming the business of sports. Join leaders from across finance, media, ownership and operations as they sit down with WSJ reporters to explore the future of investment, governance and value creation across the global sports landscape.

Funds

Vancouver-based Version One Ventures raised $78 million for its Version One Fund V and $30 million for its Opportunities Fund III.

New York-based Blue Cloud Ventures, a venture growth firm focused on enterprise software startups, held the final close of its fifth fund.

People

Woven Capital promoted Jarek Khoilian and Manas Punhani to principal. Prior to  joining Woven, Khoilian was a senior associate on CIBC’s energy, infrastructure and transition team. Punhani was an associate at Andreessen Horowitz.

William Hess was promoted to principal at 645 Ventures. Before joining the firm, he was on the investment team at Thrive Capital.

Ingenia.ai, an AI platform and venture studio, appointed Nicolas van Dyk as chief executive officer. He previously held senior executive positions at Walt Disney and Activision.

Boosted.ai, an agentic AI platform for investment management, named Jackie Wylie as chief marketing officer. She was most recently at Middesk.

DriveNets, an Israel-headquartered provider of large-scale networking solutions for AI infrastructure and service providers, landed $410 million in Series D funding from investors including Bessemer Venture Partners and Red Dot Capital.

Mach Industries, a Huntington Beach, Calif.-based startup building advanced unmanned systems for defense, scored $300 million in Series C funding, valuing the company at $1.8 billion. Infinite Capital and Ribbit Capital led the round, which included participation from Bedrock, Sequoia Capital and Khosla Ventures.

Findigs, a New York-based leasing decisioning platform for residential operators, closed a $32 million Series C round. Marc Weiser of RPM Ventures led the investment, which included participation from Nyca Partners, Frontier Venture Capital and Western Technology Investment.

Tilt, a London-based live shopping app, added $26 million in new funding from investors including Vinted Ventures and Balderton Capital.

Uncover, a Brazil-based media measurement platform, nabbed $16 million in Series A funding. Cloud9 Capital led the round, which included contributions from ABSeed Ventures and Endeavor.

Gradient Labs, a London-based startup building AI agents focusing on customer operations for financial services, doubled the size of its Series A round to $26 million with a new investment led by Octopus Ventures and CommerzVentures.

Westmag, a South San Francisco, Calif.-based manufacturer of drone motors and robot actuators, emerged from stealth with $11 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz.

Plot, a New York-based social-video-intelligence platform for enterprise brands, picked up a $10 million seed investment co-led by XYZ Venture Capital and Mischief.

Alitheon, a Bellevue, Wash.-based optical AI technology startup, picked up $8 million in Series A1 funding led by Emerald Technology Ventures.

Bayshore, a Germany-based startup building an agentic AI platform that performs complex legal and compliance tasks, was seeded with an $8 million investment led by Earlybird Venture Capital.

Paypercut, a Bulgaria-based payments platform serving online merchants across Central and Eastern Europe, snagged a €5 million (almost $6 million) seed round co-led by Concentric, Passion Capital and Araya Ventures.

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• Palo Alto Networks Revenue Rises as Customers Beef Up Cyber Defenses

• EVs are getting more affordable worldwide — except in the U.S. (Rest of World)
   
• A startup, Everand, is now bundling e-books, audiobooks, and book clubs in challenge to Amazon (TechCrunch)

This newsletter was compiled by Yuliya Chernova and Zachary Cole.

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

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

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