Ben Decker

Meta’s $200B AI Bet Is Reshaping Louisiana Meta is building Hyperion, one of the world’s largest AI data center projects, in Richland Parish, Louisiana. Thousands of acres. Gigawatts of power. Hundreds of permanent jobs. Massive new energy and infrastructure development. The bigger story: AI infrastructure is moving beyond Silicon Valley. The next AI hubs will be built where land, power and energy can scale. The AI race isn’t just about better models anymore. It’s about who can secure the megawatts. #Meta #Hyperion #AI #AIInfrastructure #DataCenters

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Nine years. Zero institutional VC dollars. A customer list that reads like a VC's dream portfolio: Waymo, Anduril, Relativity, K2 Space, and 60% of the Fortune 500.   That's SendCutSend's record before this spring, when Sequoia partner Andrew Reed heard about the company, got on a flight from San Francisco to Reno, and was reportedly bending sheet metal on the shop floor about 14 hours later. Founder Jim Belosic's instructions for the visit: wear boots.   The backstory is almost too on-brand for a company that cuts custom metal parts: Belosic started SendCutSend in 2018 because he needed tiny laser-cut letters for a steam-powered car he was restoring, and couldn't find anyone to make them. The first real order through the new business was a batch of pickleball keychains. Nine years later, it's a company that 60% of the Fortune 500 relies on for parts they can't get made anywhere else, fast enough.   Reed's visit turned into a Series A at a $1.1 billion valuation. This week, about five months on, SendCutSend raised a Series B led by Spark, with CRV, MHS, Sequoia, and Paradigm all participating. New number: $2.1 billion.   Belosic isn't using the money to chase growth-at-all-costs. He's using it to fund payroll.   "My favorite use of VC dollars is turning it into mortgages, turning it into baby formula, turning it into onesies, turning it into opportunities for our guys to go from a bicycle to a car," he told Fortune. "I love taking VC dollars and putting it directly in the payroll."   "There's a difference between a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and an owner," Belosic said. He's clearly decided which one he is.   Reed, who's been at Sequoia for over 12 years, called Belosic's run "the ultimate example of suction" -- building a business to nine figures of revenue before a single institutional dollar showed up. That timing is the actual lesson here, more than the metal or the laser cutters. When you raise after you've already proven you don't need the money, you get to negotiate like it. Belosic took VC cash on his terms, for purposes he picked, at a valuation set by people who flew out to him instead of the other way around.   The question is, is this still truly "venture" capital, or is it private equity? Sequoia Capital like many VCs is changing their stripes. There are only so many billion dollar valuation AI startups to go around this close to the bubble pop, and they're sitting on too much capital - which has to be invested somewhere.

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“Most accelerators had negative value-add for founders.” A recent NBER study looked at roughly 750,000 startups across 329 accelerators and found that most programs underperformed a no-accelerator benchmark!!! And it’s tragic that I don’t find this surprising We’ve been a part of our fair share of accelerators, venture builder programs, cohorts (or whatever fancy name they get) Some accelerators have materially changed Breshna’s trajectory. Others, in hindsight, were probably not worth our time Here’s a checklist of sorts: 💰Does it come with capital? At the bare minimum, does it unlock cash flow! One of the first accelerators I ever joined came with our first check and moved the needle in a massive way for us! Thanks Mark Phillips 🌍Does it unlock a market I actually care about? Many accelerators open doors to different ecosystems (Qatar Development Bank gave us capital and a go to market pathway into Qatar) . Entering a new market cold is hard. A trusted local institution can compress months of outreach into one warm introduction. ⚽️Does it put me closer to a real customer or pilot? We’re currently part of a program connected to one of the largest sports organizations in the world. The value for us is simple: Can this lead to a real use case Because one good pilot can give you revenue, validation, product feedback, a case study and credibility in a new vertical. That is worth a lot more than another workshop. 🤜🏾Are the introductions real? Almost every accelerator promises “access to our network.” That can mean everything. Or absolutely nothing. Blockchain Founders Fund & Aly Madhavji are the gold standard for epic intros! I’ve also seen the other side, where introductions were promised and barely materialized. A network slide is not a network. 💡Am I learning something I can easily learn elsewhere? If the main value is: How to build a pitch deck. How to make a data room. How to define your ICP. How to talk to investors. Most of that is searchable, templated, or one good AI prompt away now. ******* Accelerators can mean travel, mentor calls, workshops, pitch prep, demo days and hours of follow-up. Your company still needs to be built while all of that is happening. A great accelerator can absolutely change a company’s trajectory. But founders should stop treating acceptance itself as the win. The win is what you actually walk away with.

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Transcend Portfolio Spotlight: Brain Jar Games 🪩 Genre-defying game studio creating bold and vibrant games that players feel compelled to share, founded by industry AAA veterans Will Cook, Rohan K., and Krys H Kozlowski 🏆 With 700K+ Steam wishlists, 275M+ TikTok views, 1M+ demo players, and a 98% overwhelmingly positive review score, the first public demo for their flagship title Dead as Disco debuted to an incredible reception powered by viral UGC ◾ Transcend. co-led the oversubscribed $6.7M Seed with Menlo Ventures accompanied by a standout syndicate of executives from gaming (Blizzard, Activision, Sony, Riot, Oculus, Netflix, Zynga), music (Harmonix, Octone Records), and live streaming (CohhCarnage, Sacriel) 📌 Learn More: ➤ VICE: https://lnkd.in/dZNTMiKq ➤ GameDiscoverCo: https://lnkd.in/dRUym_Q8 ➤ VentureBeat: https://lnkd.in/dBDsvW4x ➤ Transcend: https://lnkd.in/dsY-kqGx #venturecapital #startups #innovation

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FreightScout Secures Investment from the Chang Robotics Fund 🚀 FreightScout, an innovative software company based in Jacksonville that develops an operating system for transportation agencies, has entered into a due diligence process to receive investment from the Chang Robotics Fund. This announcement follows its outstanding performance in the Jacksonville Entrepreneurship Competition 2026, where it won both the judges' award and the audience award. 🔑 Key Points of the Announcement: 🌟 FreightScout has positioned itself as a key player in the transportation industry, providing solutions that optimize the processes of freight agencies. 🏆 The company was recognized in the competition, which led to it being considered for significant investment from the fund that supports the event. 🗣 "We look at the founder first and foremost. Connor spent twelve years in this industry before developing software for it, which is reflected in the product," commented Matthew Chang, founder of the Chang Robotics Fund. 📈 FreightScout's platform is already in production at a medium-sized freight agency, managing approximately 3,000 shipments per month. 📅 The company is expected to initiate full production with its founding client in September 2026, continuing its mission to transform the industry. For more information, visit: https://lnkd.in/d38piaEj #FreightScout #Investment #Technology #Logistics #Startup #Innovation #Fintech If you like our content, consider making a donation here: https://lnkd.in/dJva_i9u Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/dNzGgCM2 The future of transportation is here, and FreightScout is leading the way. 📅 Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:21:02 +0000 🔗Subscribe to the Membership: https://lnkd.in/eh_rNRyt

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YC hard-tech milestones over the past ~12 months: • Boom Supersonic broke the sound barrier with XB-1. • Heart Aerospace (W19) flew the largest battery-electric aircraft ever flown. • Helion Energy raised a Series F to advance its fusion program toward net electricity, with power already contracted to Microsoft. • Solugen commissioned a world-class chemical plant in 11 months—50% under budget. • Astranis continued proving that dedicated GEO broadband satellites can be built and deployed faster. • Relativity Space progressed Terran R toward its first flight. • Stoke Space advanced its fully reusable orbital rocket. • AstroForge continued building toward asteroid-resource prospecting. + many more!! YC is the YC for hard tech.

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Florida isn’t replacing Silicon Valley. It might be building something Wall Street is underestimating. A Palm Beach venture capital firm just raised $411 million to invest in only 10 startups. And that’s not even the most interesting part. Snowpoint Ventures is betting on dual-use technology: startups building products with both commercial and military applications. The firm also reportedly secured $125 million in financing through a Department of Defense and Small Business Administration initiative. Why does this matter? Because venture capital is becoming increasingly concentrated, and Florida offers a fascinating example. In 2025, Florida startups raised $5.83 billion across 575 deals, a 41% increase in funding despite a 2% decline in deal count. Read that again. More money. Fewer deals. Investors aren’t necessarily funding more innovation. They’re increasingly concentrating capital in fewer companies. Snowpoint is taking that strategy further. Rather than spreading capital across dozens of startups, it’s making 10 highly concentrated bets on technologies tied to national security. The opportunity? Government demand, commercial applications, and potentially enormous barriers to entry. The risk? Defense procurement cycles are long, hardware is expensive, exits are uncertain, and debt introduces another financial obligation. There’s also an important distinction: attracting venture capital firms to Florida isn’t the same as attracting investment into Florida startups. That’s what investors should be watching. The next chapter of venture capital may be less about who has the most startups and more about who controls the capital financing strategically important industries. And Florida is positioning itself to compete. The question isn’t whether Florida can attract money. It’s whether that money can generate returns. #FloridaVC #VentureCapital #SnowpointVentures #DefenseTech #PrivateMarkets

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Skipping your studio fundamentals? Prepare to struggle. We developed the 9point8 Collective Foundations program with a simple premise based on years of studio operations. 🏗️ Before a studio scales, raises, or launches publicly, its core assumptions need to be explicit and testable. Why it matters: 🚄 Venture studios accumulate decisions quickly. 🔹 Governance, economics, staffing, venture pacing. Each choice narrows future options. 🛑 When those choices are implicit or borrowed from other models, you lose adaptability without realizing it. Corrections later are possible, but they’re slower, costlier, and more disruptive. Go deeper: Foundations is designed to slow teams down at the right moment. The program focuses on structural clarity: 👉 what kind of studio this is 👉 how it actually creates value, 👉 what success looks like across ventures 👉 how decisions get made when tradeoffs appear. What’s been encouraging is the mix of participants. Early-stage teams who want to do this right from the start, but also more established studios who recognize the drag that unclear foundations have already introduced. Monthly cohorts are filling up and the signal is clear: This work is uncomfortable, but critical. If you’ve built, or are building, a studio, when did you realize foundations mattered more than speed? And comment or DM for the link to our sign-up page

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Some people are saying: “AI makes code cheap, so new software won’t be defensible.” I think that misses the exciting bit. We’re getting new builder archetypes. Operators and creators can build now. Less “ticket submitted,” more “I built the first version myself.” And engineers don’t become less important. Their job elevates. Less boilerplate, more building systems that can actually run: safe, reliable, rights-aware, governable. That’s the shift: code gets cheap, judgment gets expensive. What new experience can we finally build now that we couldn’t before? Full article link in the first comment below 👇 #founders #startups #MediaTech

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