Stylework raises Rs 30-crore funding, Karekeba Ventures invests

Workspace Optionality Seen enough just in the last 4 weeks that I want to revise my thumbrules for startups. Startups are sitting on top of unused seats and that is burning a hole. 0-20 people: Coworking passes or short term commitments. 20-60: Coworking spaces with 1 to 2 year commitment 60+: Managed offices and 2+ year commitment (only if data proves it) Be nimble and make office an asset not a liability. Be wary of consultants and brokers that pitch you otherwise. #Coworking #ManagedOffices #RealEstateWithHeart

Factorial Capital, an early-stage, New York-based venture capital firm with its own unique twist on AI investing, just closed its second fund with $25 million in capital commitments. How is it different from traditional VCs? It has assembled a network of technical founders -- people who've built companies like Venmo, Giphy, and Hugging Face -- who keep building their own companies but also recommend investments to Factorial. When one of these "sourcing partners" brings a deal that makes money, Factorial splits its 20% carry evenly, with 10% going to Factorial GP and 10% to that sourcing partner. https://lnkd.in/d4Vg-qxY

Everyone talks about venture capital as the “only way” to scale a brand. Then Trisha Reddy, a 25 year old founder builds a 3 year old, bootstrapped D2C brand, hits 70 Cr revenue, getting 95% acquired for 195 Cr with zero external funding. Some numbers that make this even crazier: 1. Acquisition ~3× revenue multiple 2. Men’s grooming market growing ~25% YoY 3. 25 person team → hyper efficient operations Here’s the contrarian takeaway: 1. You don’t need VC to create category defining brands. 2. Discipline, focus and cash flow positive growth often beat rapid funding led expansion. 3. Timing + niche insight can multiply outcomes far faster than chasing capital. Most of us are conditioned to measure “potential” by the size of the funding round. Stories like this are a sharp reminder: real impact is built by those who execute relentlessly, not those who pitch relentlessly.

Today it is imperative for companies to innovate or be left behind. For this reason, companies need to not only build new businesses but also develop “business-building muscle” through a new venture factory. A successful venture factory hinges on three core pillars: robust incubation capabilities (tools, talent, capital), seamless access to company assets (data, experts, infrastructure), and strategic portfolio management (aligning with corporate goals, resource allocation, risk distribution) to consistently build and scale new, innovative businesses. #buildingbusinesses #innovate #growrevenue #newventures #innovation #ceo https://lnkd.in/ejKZfMhu

Why venture building exists is rarely the question. Most organizations have no shortage of ideas. The challenge is moving those ideas from a slide or a pilot, into market-ready products and services without losing structure, speed, or accountability along the way. Progress tends to stall quietly, mostly because responsibility fragments across stages. Strategy engagements often end with recommendations. Agencies frequently focus on launch. Internal teams are often constrained by existing priorities, operating models, and governance structures. Each function plays a role, but no single one owns the full journey. Venture building exists to address that gap. It brings strategy and technology together to design, build, and scale new ventures across the full lifecycle. From problem definition to launch, and into growth and operationalization, the work is treated as a continuous system rather than a series of handoffs. The goal is not a single successful launch, but a repeatable capability. One that combines the systems of a mature organization with the agility of a lean startup, enabling teams to move from idea to impact with focus, momentum, and control. #venturebuilding #innovation

There's a moment in every startup's journey where the scrappy early-stage brand stops working. It usually happens somewhere between Seed and Series A. The product has matured. The team has grown. Things are working. But the brand still feels immature and scattered. Buyers notice. Investors notice. Don't wait until it's painful. Invest in the brand while you've still got momentum.

Breaking into 2026 with a new website for Revolution, the venture firm co-founded by Steve Case, co-founder of AOL, that's been backing transformational companies across America for nearly two decades. Revolution has invested in some of the most recognizable brands reshaping industries: companies like Sweetgreen, LegalZoom, and Tempus AI. Their "Rise of the Rest" initiative has deployed over $350M into startups outside traditional tech hubs, proving that world-class founders exist everywhere. The new site we designed reflects their unique position in the venture landscape: institutional scale with an outsider's perspective. Grateful to work with investors who actually walk the talk on geographic diversity and backing founders building real businesses. https://lnkd.in/gcsKV4m3

Stage Venture Partners does not read like a VC firm optimized for vibes. It reads like one built for consequence. Since 2015, this Los Angeles firm has made its name backing founders who choose the hard path on purpose, the problems with long sales cycles, real physics, and customers who can smell bullshit in the first five minutes. This is conviction capital, not trend participation. Alex Rubalcava and Rob Vickery built Stage Venture Partners around a belief that sounds simple and is rarely practiced. Founders come before frameworks. Domain depth matters more than narrative. Conviction shows up long before traction does. Alex Rubalcava brings capital markets discipline shaped by public markets and early work at Anthem Venture Partners. Rob Vickery brings enterprise scar tissue from BNY Mellon and Lloyds International, where software either survives scale or quietly disappears. Stage Venture Partners invests pre-seed and seed, often as the first institutional check, writing $100K to $500K when the product is early and the primary risk is not go to market but does this even work. The filter is sharp. Can the founder ship. Can the founder sell. Can the founder hire. Not eventually. Right now. That mindset explains the portfolio. GrayMatter Robotics went after #industrial surface finishing, one of manufacturing’s messiest problems, with #AI-driven #robotics. Founded by GrayMatter Robotics, Ariyan Kabir, and Brual Shah, the company grew from #research into production systems that earned a $45M Series B led by Wellington Management. Hard problem. Real factories. No shortcuts. Epsilon3 followed the same logic but left Earth. Laura Crabtree and Max Mednik built mission management software after Laura Crabtree spent a decade inside SpaceX operations. Today Epsilon3 supports ~20% of U.S. #orbital launches and raised a $15M Series A led by Lux Capital. That outcome does not come from polish. It comes from trust earned under countdown clocks. Sound Commerce came from Eric Best and Jared Stiff, Amazon veterans who knew #ecommerce breaks in ops, not ads. Their platform now runs for brands like Eddie Bauer after backing from Defy Partners and Emergence Capital. Balto Software, founded by Marc Bernstein, brought real-time #AIcoaching into #contactcenters and scaled with #enterprise buyers who pay for results, not demos. NotiSphere closed the loop. Guillermo Ramas built recall management software for #healthcare supply chains, then exited to PAR Excellence Systems in Jan 2025. Quiet win. Clean logic. Very on brand. Stage Venture Partners does not chase sectors or zip codes. It backs people who know something the market has not priced yet. Portfolio companies are hiring across #engineering, #product, and #gotomarket. #VentureCapital #VCSpotlight #VCFirm #Startups #Founders #FounderJourney #StartupJourney #StartupFunding #InvestmentCapital #Technology #Innovation #TechEcosystem #StartupEcosystem #Hiring #TechHiring

Productivity software startup Notion told its employees Monday that they can sell some of their shares at an $11 billion valuation ahead of a potential initial public offering, people familiar with the matter told Forbes. Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures and the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC will purchase the shares, and the deal is expected to be for about $300 million worth of shares, the people said. The share sale comes after Notion recently passed $600 million in annual recurring revenue, half of which is coming from its artificial intelligence products, and is cash flow positive, the people said. https://lnkd.in/gFseDzWS 📸: Cody Pickens for Forbes

Productivity software startup Notion told its employees Monday that they can sell some of their shares at an $11 billion valuation ahead of a potential initial public offering, people familiar with the matter told Forbes. Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures and the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC will purchase the shares, and the deal is expected to be for about $300 million worth of shares, the people said. The share sale comes after Notion recently passed $600 million in annual recurring revenue, half of which is coming from its artificial intelligence products, and is cash flow positive, the people said. https://lnkd.in/gFseDzWS 📸: Cody Pickens for Forbes