Good day. More and more people are launching startups and looking for capital. For investors, it means not only more pitches to sift through, but more AI embellishment to screen.

“Last year, we were probably pacing about 12,000 deals per year that we would review. This year, it's going to be closer to 20,000,” said Eric Bahn, co-founder and general partner at pre-seed venture firm Hustle Fund.

Given the sheer number, Hustle Fund relies on AI tools to do "at least the initial filtering," Bahn said. Many of the pitches he receives look polished, but are what he refers to as “AI slop.” 

“It’s been easier than ever for founders to just start using AI tools to create nice-looking pitch decks and memos that sound impressive, but actually have very little substance behind them,” he said.

There were more than 22,000 pre-seed and seed-stage companies in the U.S. as of the end of June, according to the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor report, roughly 5,000 more than at the same time five years prior.

Launching a new business is simpler with AI tools. At the same time, it’s harder for new graduates to land a job and for laid-off employees to find a new one, making the entrepreneurship route a sought-after alternative for more people.

Even though Hustle Fund is getting more pitches than ever, the firm expects to write fewer checks this year.

“We have found ourselves slowing down to be a little bit more picky on valuation, discipline, as well as ensuring we're doing a little bit more due diligence to understand what's behind these pitches,” Bahn said.

And now on to the news...

Corporate VC. The number of active corporate venture-capital units—defined as those making at least one new investment a year—has contracted over the last five years, after heating up around 2021, according to data from PitchBook. The number of active corporate venture units in the U.S. fell from 3,138 in 2022 to 2,030 in 2025, according to PitchBook. There are 1,234 such units year-to-date.

• That has created an opportunity for Chicago-based venture firm TechNexus Venture Collaborative, which is launching SecondWave, a management service for corporate venture portfolios.
   
• SecondWave addresses an acute issue for those companies: management of an existing portfolio they don’t want to divest from completely. Currently, three clients are using SecondWave, but TechNexus expects this number to expand.

Data-security company Cyera has agreed to acquire startup Oasis Security for $1 billion, the latest large deal in a wave of consolidation across the cybersecurity industry fueled by artificial intelligence. The cash-and-stock acquisition would help Cyera bridge its data-protection platform with Oasis’s technology for managing nonhuman identities, such as AI agents and automated software, as companies grapple with the risks of deploying autonomous tools across their businesses. The companies expect the deal to close later this year.

• “The biggest catalyst for this acquisition is the customers,” said Yotam Segev, Cyera’s chief executive, who co-founded the company in 2021. “Our customers, and especially our shared customers, have been telling us that these capabilities belong together.”

Residents of this sleepy farming outpost agree on many things. But whether to put an experimental nuclear reactor a mile deep in the granite beneath their town isn’t one of them.

• Elected officials of Parsons, Kan., and some others see a chance to create jobs and lure data centers and manufacturers to a rural patch whose economy has been flatter than the surrounding cornfields. Another group is effectively saying “not under my backyard.”
   
• No one has tried operating a commercial nuclear reactor deep underground—until now. The so-called Gravity Reactor is the creation of Liz Muller and her father, Richard Muller, emeritus professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley and an inventor. They founded Deep Fission, a three-year-old California startup that has raised around $150 million in the past year, including $40 million last month through an initial public offering, largely to fund the work in Parsons.

People

Cyber incident response management provider BreachRx appointed John Zilinskas as chief revenue officer. He most recently led sales at Seemplicity.

Zingtree, a customer experience AI startup, appointed Venkat Iyer as chief technology officer. He was most recently vice president of products at Talkdesk.

Exits

Leonardo DRS agreed to acquire Raft, a provider of military and defense software, in an all-cash transaction valued at $450 million.

Spur Intelligence, a Lake Mary, Fla.-based IP intelligence provider, picked up a $200 million investment from Insight Partners.

PEX, a New York-based corporate card and spend management platform, secured $160 million in debt and equity financing led by Bluff Point Associates.

Groundcover, a Tel Aviv-headquartered observability platform for engineers and agents, scored $100 million in Series C funding. One Peak led the investment, which included participation from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, Zeev Ventures, Angular Ventures, Heavybit and Jibe Ventures.

Dwelly, a London-based startup building an AI operating system for the residential rental market, landed $170 million in Series B funding, including $95 million in equity. EQT Growth and General Catalyst co-led the round, which saw participation from s16vc, Begin Capital and others.

Freehand, a San Francisco-headquartered startup whose AI agents manage supply-chain spend for large enterprises, raised $75 million in seed funding from investors including Battery Ventures, NewRoad Capital Partners and Nexus Venture Partners. Dharmesh Thakker, general partner at Battery Ventures, will join the company’s board.

ChipAgents, a Santa Clara, Calif.-headquartered autonomous semiconductor design platform, added $60 million in Series A2 funding from investors including B Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners, bringing the company’s Series A total to $134 million.

Fish Audio, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup building human-sounding voice AI for developers and enterprises, gathered $52 million in seed funding led by Coreline Ventures and Capital Today.

Redball Energy, a Washington, D.C.-based solar project owner and operator, closed a $50 million investment from Infranity.

Harmony, a startup that deploys AI agents embedded in workplace platforms to deliver personalized employee support, was seeded with a $34 million investment. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the funding, which included contributions from Hitachi Ventures, Fin Capital, Mercer Ventures and Operator Partners.

COR, a San Francisco-based project management and profitability platform, grabbed a $30 million investment from FTV Capital.

Hush Security, a Tel Aviv-based startup that secures AI agents and non-human identities, snagged $30 million in Series A funding from investors including Akamai Technologies, Battery Ventures and YL Ventures.

Weave, a San Francisco-based engineering and token intelligence platform, nabbed $13.5 million in Series A funding led by Standard Capital.

Credible Data, a Boulder, Colo.-based startup helping bring business context to enterprise AI data, fetched $10 million in seed funding from investors including Gradient, SignalFire and K5 Global.

FAST Metals, a Stamford, Conn.-based mining technology startup recovering base and rare materials from red mud and other iron-rich waste, raised $4.3 million in pre-seed funding led by New Climate Ventures.

• Why Chili’s Isn’t Going ‘All In’ on AI
   
• Meta Is Fighting a Mountain of Social-Media Lawsuits—at Just the Wrong Time
   
• Big Tech Stocks Are Pricing In a Miracle on Costs (Heard on the Street)
   
• Banks Want Technophobes and Late Adopters to Use Digital Wallets. It Isn’t Easy.
   
• Apple Launches Product Leasing Program Through Klarna 
   
• The Latest Darlings of Social-Media Marketing? Regular People With 500 Followers

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, Brian Gormley and Sarah Klearman.

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