Hacker News with Generative AI: Venture Capital

A16Z Speedrun (a16z.com)
We invest in global startups that build experiences, products, and platforms shaping tomorrow’s AI and creative landscape—everything from groundbreaking tools to 3D, gaming, XR, next-gen entertainment, and more.
Venture Capital, Artificial Intelligence, Creative Industries
27 points by scapecast 6 days ago | 12 comments
2025 will likely be another brutal year of failed startups, data suggests (techcrunch.com)
More startups shut down in 2024 than the year prior, according to multiple sources, and that’s not really a surprise considering the insane number of companies that were funded in the crazy days of 2020 and 2021.
Startups, Venture Capital, Economics, Predictions
11 points by Bluestein 12 days ago | 0 comments
In 2025, venture capital can't pretend everything is fine any more (pivot-to-ai.com)
Venture capital is screwed. A bubble in AI is their last hope, and they’re betting everything on Sam Altman. It’s heartwarming.
Venture Capital, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Economics
282 points by namanyayg 12 days ago | 260 comments
Ask HN: Anyone else roll eyes at startups that went from "X" to "AI-powered X"? (ycombinator.com)
This feels like the original idea wasn't good enough to work on its own and so jamming AI into the idea might get some VC capital to sustain a failed idea. Or am I thinking of this wrong?
Startups, Artificial Intelligence, Business, Venture Capital
72 points by ronbenton 20 days ago | 49 comments
Trump's Border Crackdown Spooks International Founders and VCs (newcomer.co)
This week, we heard from 10+ immigrant startup founders and investors who have been making contingency plans after President Trump ramped up immigration enforcement.
Immigration, Startups, Venture Capital, Politics, United States
9 points by thm 20 days ago | 0 comments
New Way to Fund Solo-Founders? (ycombinator.com)
I dare to say that ‘Pre-Seed funding’ is dying. And maybe the next unicorn isn’t the only target anymore.
Startup Funding, Venture Capital, Solo Founders
11 points by Slava27 23 days ago | 17 comments
VC Funds Struggling (ycombinator.com)
Many emerging managers and first time VCs that raised in past 5 years are struggling to raise new funds
Venture Capital, Finance, Fundraising
12 points by kayovin1 27 days ago | 15 comments
A Postmortem of a Startup (buildwithtract.com)
Between May 2023 and March 2025, Tract attempted to build a venture-backed company to address Britain’s housing crisis by improving the planning permission process.
Startup Postmortems, Housing, UK, Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital
168 points by jamierumbelow 37 days ago | 129 comments
UK founders grow frustrated over dearth of funding: 'problem is getting worse' (techcrunch.com)
According to Dealroom data cited by the Financial Times, British startups raised just £16.2 billion last year, far less than the more than £65 billion raised by their counterparts in Silicon Valley during the same period.
Startup Funding, United Kingdom, Venture Capital, Technology
14 points by nradov 39 days ago | 1 comments
A Postmortem of the startup Tract (buildwithtract.com)
Between May 2023 and March 2025, Tract attempted to build a venture-backed company to address Britain’s housing crisis by improving the planning permission process.
Startup Postmortem, Housing, UK, Venture Capital
11 points by Ozarkian 39 days ago | 2 comments
Rescale (YC W12) raises $115M for 1,000x faster physics – Bezos, Altman, Nvidia (venturebeat.com)
Rescale, a digital engineering platform that helps companies run complex simulations and calculations in the cloud, announced today that it has raised $115 million in Series D funding to accelerate the development of AI-powered engineering tools that can dramatically speed up product design and testing.
Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Venture Capital, Engineering, Startups
5 points by gpoort 45 days ago | 0 comments
Senior partners are leaving their big venture capital firms in droves (cnbc.com)
Venture Capital, Finance, Business, Personnel
13 points by kjhughes 46 days ago | 3 comments
How to Think About Raising Venture Capital for Your Startup (sillymoney.com)
Startup Funding, Venture Capital, Business
6 points by baxtr 47 days ago | 6 comments
Big VC Tech Money Has Greatly Misunderstood Real Estate (medium.com)
Let’s cut through the mythology: Silicon Valley’s or Big Tech’s decade-long attempt to disrupt real estate represents one of the most fascinating case studies in digital transformation failure of our time. After pouring north of $30 billion into “revolutionizing” how the world buys and sells homes, the tech industry has accomplished remarkably little in fundamentally changing how transactions actually happen.
Venture Capital, Real Estate, Technology, Business
10 points by simondodson 50 days ago | 0 comments
Andreessen Horowitz in talks to help buy out TikTok's Chinese owners (ft.com)
Venture Capital, Social Media, China, Acquisitions
6 points by doom2 51 days ago | 2 comments
Things No One Tells You About Raising from LPs (taghash.io)
Raising from LPs is easily one of the murkiest parts of starting a fund. There’s no playbook, no cold email template that magically works, and no YC-style demo day to get you momentum. The process is slow, nuanced, and entirely relationship-driven.
Venture Capital, Fundraising, Startups, LPs
3 points by koolhead17 51 days ago | 1 comments
OpenAI Close to Finalizing Its $40B SoftBank-Led Funding (bloomberg.com)
OpenAI is close to finalizing a $40 billion funding round led by SoftBank Group Corp. — with investors including Magnetar Capital, Coatue Management, Founders Fund and Altimeter Capital Management in talks to participate, according to people familiar with the matter.
OpenAI, Funding, Investment, Venture Capital, Technology
17 points by saeedjabbar 58 days ago | 16 comments
Did A16Z get it wrong about stablecoins? (ycombinator.com)
Here is the article from a16z about how stablecoins will change daily payments:
Cryptocurrency, Finance, Stablecoins, Venture Capital
23 points by axelwang 58 days ago | 28 comments
20 Years of YC / HN (vickiboykis.com)
I saw recently that YCombinator celebrated its 20th anniversary.
Y Combinator, Startups, Anniversaries, Venture Capital
175 points by mooreds 67 days ago | 42 comments
Y Combinator founders raising less money signals a 'vibe shift,' VC says (techcrunch.com)
Silicon Valley has been captivated by the prospect of AI, not only as a productivity enhancer but also as a catalyst for creating successful companies with much leaner teams than in the past.
Venture Capital, Artificial Intelligence, Startups
6 points by crones 69 days ago | 0 comments
The End of YC (benn.substack.com)
If chefs start to come from anywhere, we might find out that current ones aren’t as talented as we thought they were.
Startups, Venture Capital, Talent Acquisition
26 points by matthewsinclair 70 days ago | 18 comments
5% in EU innovation funding yields a 4,300% ROI (karlsnotes.com)
While only 5% of the EU innovation funding (about €12B) goes directly to startups, these same startups have raised an additional €70B in private capital and created €520B in combined enterprise value, representing a 4,300% return on investment.
Startups, Venture Capital, European Union, Innovation, ROI
6 points by valkrieco 73 days ago | 0 comments
Happy 20th birthday, Y Combinator (twitter.com)
Something went wrong, but don’t fret — let’s give it another shot.
Anniversaries, Venture Capital, Startups
1421 points by btilly 73 days ago | 276 comments
The Hottest AI Companies Are "Apps" (bloomberg.com)
Forget LLMs. Silicon Valley investors have a new favorite AI play.
Artificial Intelligence, Startups, Silicon Valley, Venture Capital
3 points by zuhayeer 78 days ago | 0 comments
GDP shock: Venture Capital's government bailout begins (nextwave.partners)
As GDP contracts, venture capital abandons private markets for government funding, rebranding struggling startups as "strategic assets" to capture Trump's new sovereign wealth fund. A new innovation model emerges where political connections matter more than business fundamentals.
Venture Capital, Government, Economy, Startups
29 points by dollar 78 days ago | 21 comments
Scientist Left OpenAI Last Year. His Startup Is Already Worth $30B (wsj.com)
Silicon Valley’s hottest investment isn’t a new app or hardware product. It’s one man.
Artificial Intelligence, Startups, Business, Venture Capital, Silicon Valley
10 points by gwintrob 80 days ago | 1 comments
Vultr Secures $3.5B Valuation in Financing from LuminArx and AMD Ventures (vultr.com)
In a landmark move for the cloud computing industry, Vultr has completed a growth financing round at a $3.5 billion valuation.
Cloud Computing, Funding, Venture Capital, Technology, Business
4 points by keepamovin 83 days ago | 0 comments
Ask HN: Ethical VC Funds? (ycombinator.com)
Are there any ethical VC funds? This is a genuine question. It feels like the majority of venture firms can rationalise away their position as doing good for the world but when you start to dig into it, the sole goal is making money and who they make money for isn't always the most righteous of people or entities.
Venture Capital, Ethics, Finance, Business
63 points by asim 86 days ago | 38 comments
Y Combinator Supports AI Startup Dehumanizing Factory Workers (404media.co)
A venture capital-backed “AI performance monitoring system for factory workers” is proposing what appears to be dehumanizing surveillance of factories, where machine vision tracks workers’ hand movements and output so a boss can look at graphs and yell at them about efficiency.
Artificial Intelligence, Labor, Surveillance, Venture Capital
67 points by cratermoon 87 days ago | 8 comments
Y Combinator Supports AI Startup Dehumanizing Factory Workers (404media.co)
A venture capital-backed “AI performance monitoring system for factory workers” is proposing what appears to be dehumanizing surveillance of factories, where machine vision tracks workers’ hand movements and output so a boss can look at graphs and yell at them about efficiency.
Artificial Intelligence, Surveillance, Labor, Venture Capital
151 points by marban 87 days ago | 36 comments