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Gemini's IPO Pops in Nasdaq Debut

Gemini's IPO Pops in Nasdaq Debut

Gemini's public offering was a good sign for IPO watchers, Keith Rabois lays into Opendoor, and "social saunas"

Alex Gove & Connie Loizos
September 13, 2025

We’re just back from comedian Des Bishop’s show in San Francisco; we highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t yet figured out your Saturday night. Also! Before we go, we wanted to leave you with this week’s StrictlyVC Download episode with Marc Bhargava, who leads General Catalyst’s AI roll-up strategy. If you want to understand what the firm is doing (and why other investors are pursuing a similar path), check it out — it’s a fascinating deep dive into how VCs are looking at traditional industries. So far, GC has created nine of these companies to wring software-like margins out of services industries, but the firm plans to launch up to 20 of these ventures altogether in the next couple of years. -CL

Top News

Image Credits: Michael Nagle / Bloomberg News

Gemini, the Winklevoss twins’ crypto exchange, raised $425 million in its Nasdaq debut and closed up 14% at a $3.8 billion valuation, marking another win for the resurgent IPO market despite the company’s mounting losses. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Why the Oracle-OpenAI Deal Caught Wall Street by S …
Massive Fundings
Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings
Smaller Fundings
Going Public
People
Post-Its
Essential Reads
Detours
Brain Rot
Retail Therapy

Why the Oracle-OpenAI Deal Caught Wall Street by Surprise

Image Credits: Algi Febri Sugita / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty Images

By Tim De Chant & Rebecca Szkutak

This week, OpenAI and Oracle shocked the markets with a surprise $300 billion, five-year agreement, part of a surge of new business that sent the cloud provider’s stock skyrocketing. But maybe the markets shouldn’t have been taken by surprise. The deal is a reminder that, despite Oracle’s legacy status, the company still plays a major role in AI infrastructure.

On the OpenAI side, the agreement was more revealing than the lack of details suggest. For one, the startup’s willingness to pay so much for compute provides a measurement of the startup’s appetite — even if it’s unclear where the electricity to power said compute is coming from or how it will pay for it.

Chirag Dekate, a vice president at research firm Gartner, told TechCrunch it’s clear why both sides were interested in this deal. It makes sense for OpenAI to work with several infrastructure providers, he noted. It also diversifies the company’s infrastructure — spreading out risk among several cloud providers — and gives OpenAI a scaling advantage compared to competitors.

“OpenAI seems to be putting together one of the most comprehensive global AI supercomputing foundations for extreme scale, inference scaling where appropriate,” Dekate said. “This is quite unique. This is probably exemplary of what a model ecosystem should look like.”

Some industry watchers expressed surprise that Oracle was involved, citing the company’s diminished role in the AI boom compared to cloud rivals like Google, Microsoft Azure, and AWS. But Dekate argues that observers shouldn’t be so surprised: Oracle has worked with hyperscalers before and provides the infrastructure for TikTok’s sizable U.S. business.

Massive Fundings

Apex, a three-year-old Los Angeles startup that manufactures mass-produced, configurable satellite buses for commercial and government constellations, raised a $200 million Series D round at a $1+ billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Interlagos, with previous investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Point72 Ventures, and 8VC also participating. The company just raised a $200 million Series C in May. More here.

Diana Health, a five-year-old New York startup that partners with hospitals to deliver women’s health programs supported by an AI-powered patient app, raised a $55 million Series C round led by HealthQuest Capital, with additional participation from previous investors Norwest, .406 Ventures, LRVHealth, and AlleyCorp. The company has raised a total of $101 million. Fierce Healthcare has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

AegisAI, a New York startup founded this year that uses autonomous AI agents to block phishing, malware, and business email compromise attacks before they reach inboxes, raised a $13 million seed round co-led by Accel and Foundation Capital. More here.

Alchemab Therapeutics, a six-year-old London startup that develops therapeutic antibodies using an AI-enabled platform to study naturally resilient individuals, raised a $32 million Series A extension round. Investors included Ono Venture Investment, and Eli Lilly as well as previous investors RA Capital, SV Health Investors, DCVC Bio, Lightstone Ventures, and AlleyCorp. The company has raised a total of $114 million. More here.

Goodpath, a five-year-old Boston startup that provides AI-driven virtual care for chronic conditions including weight management, musculoskeletal pain, diabetes, digestive health, sleep, mental health, and cancer survivorship, raised an $18 million Series A round led by MassMutual Ventures, with Healthy Ventures also contributing. More here.

Micro1, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that helps AI companies find and manage human contractors for data labeling and training, raised a $35 million Series A round at a $500 million post-money valuation. The deal was led by 01 Advisors. TechCrunch has more here.

Penguin Ai, a three-year-old Palo Alto startup that uses generative AI to automate administrative workflows for healthcare payers and providers, raised a $25 million Series A round led by Greycroft, with UPMC Enterprises, Snowflake Ventures, SemperVirens, Horizon Mutual Holdings, and Watershed Ventures as well as previous investors ManchesterStory, Overwater Ventures, and California Health Care Foundation also piling on. The company has raised a total of $29.7 million. Mobi Health News has more here.

Smaller Fundings

Altan, a one-year-old Barcelona startup that uses AI agents to autonomously design, build, and run production-ready software, raised a $2.5 million pre-seed round co-led by VentureFriends and JME Ventures, with 4Founders Ventures also anteing up. Tech Funding News has more here.

Hive Robotics, a one-year-old Munich startup that develops an AI-driven control layer to coordinate autonomous robot swarms across air, land, sea, and space, raised a $2.3 million pre-seed round. b2venture was the lead investor, with Firedrop, Pareto, Matthias Hilpert, and Klocke Group also opting in. Tech Funding News has more here.

Lōvu Health, a three-year-old Cupertino startup that provides AI-powered maternal healthcare from conception through postpartum with remote monitoring and personalized support, raised an $8 million Series A round led by SJF Ventures and including Rogue Women's Fund, Symphonic Capital, Emmeline Ventures, Magella Ventures, Oakwood Circle Ventures, Sand Hill Angels, Swizzle Ventures, Terrasys, Stand Together Ventures, and Alumni Ventures. More here.

Messium, a UK startup that uses machine learning and hyperspectral satellite data to help farmers optimize fertilizer use, raised a $4.5 million seed round co-led by UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund and Expansion Aerospace Ventures, with Mudcake, Laconia, GRDC GrainInnovate, Clear Current Capital, Moonstone Venture Capital, and SuperSeed also pitching in. Payload has more here.

ONEiO, a 14-year-old Helsinki company that provides automated managed services to replace manual IT integrations, raised a $9.4 million round led by Bocap, with previous investor Fairpoint Capital also investing. The company has raised a total of $17.6 million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Quack, a two-year-old Israeli startup that develops proactive AI agents to resolve customer service issues before they escalate, raised a $7 million seed round co-led by Hanaco Ventures and Storytime Capital, with Fusion VC, Savyon Ventures, and Seed IL also stepping up. CTech has more here.

Standab, a Swedish startup that provides standardized charging racks for e-bikes and e-scooters to cut costs and reduce street clutter, raised a $4.2 million round co-led by Spintop Ventures and Almi Invest GreenTech. Zag Daily has more here.

Going Public

Via, a 13-year-old New York company that provides routing software cities use to run on-demand shuttles and paratransit services, raised $492.9 million in its IPO at a $3.9 billion valuation, ending its first day of trading just above its offer price. TechCrunch has more here.

People

Robby Walker, Apple’s longtime AI exec who once ran Siri and more recently led its search initiative, is leaving next month, marking another high-profile departure as Cupertino struggles to hold onto key AI talent. Bloomberg has more here.

Keith Rabois, the infamously irascible VC and Opendoor’s newly reinstalled chairman, said the company needs to slash its workforce by as much as 85% and return to in-person work. “There’s 1,400 employees at Opendoor. I don’t know what most of them do,” he griped to CNBC. More here.

Neil Vogel, CEO of People Inc., the publisher behind People, Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure and more than 40 other titles, blasted Google as a “bad actor” for using its search crawler to scrape content for AI while traffic referrals cratered from 65% to the “high 20s.” TechCrunch has more here.

Natalie Massenet, the Net-a-Porter founder turned VC at Imaginary Ventures, filed a blistering suit accusing ex-partner Erik Torstensson of a $95 million grift, a public brawl that now threatens reputational blowback for her fund as portfolio brands like Skims distance themselves from the ugly drama. The New York Times has more here.

Post-Its

SF is wild, even AI agents are out here job hunting.
👀 @ai_affogato
— Jamie Quint (@jamiequint)
6:05 PM • Sep 12, 2025

Essential Reads

OpenAI has committed to spend $400+ billion in long-term deals with Oracle, Broadcom and others, but with billions in annual losses and only a sliver of users paying for AI tools, it will need hundreds of millions of consumers to spend far more than they are paying now. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

“The Parliament of Nepal right now is Discord,” said one activist, after the government’s attempt to ban social media backfired and drove more than 145,000 citizens onto the app to debate and nominate interim leaders. The New York Times has more here.

In San Francisco’s AI boom, the new founder mantra is “No Booze, No Sleep, No Fun,” as 20-somethings grind through 90-hour weeks, crash on office mattresses, and chase trillion-dollar dreams. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm is stumping hard for Elon Musk’s eye-popping $1 trillion pay package, arguing the CEO only responds to moonshot incentives even as Tesla’s profits slide, the Cybertruck flops, and shareholders bristle. The New York Times has more here.

Detours

Elite “social sauna” chains like Othership, Bathhouse and soon-to-open Altar are turning hot-cold therapy into a pricey networking scene, with supersized rooms and programming that blurs wellness, dating and dealmaking

Realistic dad jokes.

Brain Rot

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Retail Therapy

Best known for building expedition yachts, Arksen has launched Arksen Apparel, a technical menswear line that blends expedition-grade durability with minimalist style. (Arc'teryx, you better watch your back.)