Recent venture activity spans both ends of the market: a reported billion-dollar OpenAI investment at a $285B valuation alongside new and growing funds targeting vertical AI, spacetech, and regional ecosystems. Deal flow highlights include seed rounds for crypto compliance and cloud infrastructure optimization, plus later-stage financing in legal-tech and biotech. Meanwhile, new California registration and diversity-reporting obligations are coming into effect, adding compliance overhead for venture capital investing companies.
1. Thrive Capital invested about $1 billion in OpenAI at a reported $285 billion valuation, according to a CNBC source report. 2. FutureFirst launched a $50 million fund targeting vertical AI startups and positioning for faster exits, as reported by CTech. 3. FutureFirst also launched a $50M fund to back vertical AI startups, according to Ynetnews’ coverage. 4. Seraphim is raising a $100m+ spacetech fund that harnesses corporate participation, according to Global Venturing. 5. An Arizona venture capital firm rebranded and is eyeing $300 million for its second fund, according to The Business Journals. 6. Crypto compliance startup Bluprynt raised a $4.25 million seed round with participation from Coinbase Ventures and Robinhood, according to The Block. 7. JetScale AI raised $5.4 million in a seed round for a cloud infrastructure optimization platform, according to Pulse 2.0. 8. FirmPilot closed a $22 million Series A-1 round, according to citybiz. 9. Turbine secured a $25M Series B led by Interactive Venture Partners, with participation from Beiersdorf Venture Capital, and announced its first immunology partnership with a top-10 pharma company, according to PR Newswire. 10. New registration and reporting obligations for venture capital investing companies are set to begin in California, according to Morgan Lewis. 11. Foley Hoag reported that California’s venture capital diversity reporting requirements have progressed, with the VCC Portal now open. 12. A Fortune report described a startup seeking to break Nvidia’s ‘stranglehold’ on AI data center workloads that raised $10.25 million. 13. NordSpace launched NordSpace Ventures and made a strategic investment in Wy, according to The National Law Review. 14. Dark Reading reported that as cybersecurity firms chase AI, the VC market is ‘skyrocketing.’ 15. Newcomer reported that Thrive ‘netted 2.4x DPI’ from its 2016 fund and outlined Thrive’s $10 billion pitch. 16. Bloomberg reported that Thrive’s buy-and-hold strategy lifted the value of an early fund sixfold.