Happy weekend, all! The Warriors held off the Wizards tonight — 131-126, phew — so we can all relax. Two quick things. First, our first StrictlyVC night in San Francisco is coming together for April 30th, a Thursday, South of Market. It's going to be a fun, insidery evening filled with cocktails and great conversation. Grab your spot before they're gone. (Giant thanks to TDK Ventures for partnering with us on the evening and for landing a beautiful cultural center for us to meet up.) Excited to see some of you there.:)

Also, I have a hot tip about a 16-year-old who's raising money for deserving seniors graduating from the San Francisco Unified School District who will otherwise be without computers for this next chapter of their lives. Yes, he's my kid — my own little Alex P. Keaton — but he's also proven he can deliver: he raised money to buy laptops for 35 kids at another Bay Area school this year. If you want to have a direct impact on some graduating students' lives, this is as straight a line as you'll find. — CL

Cybersecurity stocks slid Friday after reports surfaced that Anthropic is testing a powerful new model with advanced cyber capabilities, reviving investor fears that AI labs are starting to encroach on the security industry’s turf. CNBC has more here.

The Nasdaq 100 officially fell into correction territory Friday, down 11% from its October peak, as AI anxiety, a memory-stock selloff, and surging oil prices tied to the Iran war combined to drag tech shares lower. Business Insider has more here.

Headline: "Rank my companies by revenue per FTE last quarter” 

100+ VCs use Standard Metrics' AI Analyst to answer questions like these in seconds. No spreadsheets, no digging through docs. Book a demo. 

By Connie Loizos

For the better part of a decade, Whoop sold itself as a secret weapon for serious athletes. LeBron James was convinced to slap on the company’s fitness band in Whoop’s first year. Michael Phelps came soon after. Other Whoop wearers include Cristiano Ronaldo, Patrick Mahomes, and Rory McIlroy. The message to the public? The world’s best performers track their bodies with this device, and you can, too.

It has worked. Whoop, the Boston-based health wearable company that Will Ahmed founded in his senior year at Harvard, now operates in more than 200 countries, and, according to Ahmed, grew revenue more than 100% last year, as well as reached cash-flow positive. The hardware — a band worn around the wrist, bicep, or torso — measures sleep, recovery, heart rate variability, and a growing list of biomarkers. The subscription model, which bundles hardware and software for between $200 and $360 a year — the device itself included, with no separate purchase required— has proven remarkably sticky: 83% of monthly active users open the app on any given day, a ratio that Ahmed says trails only WhatsApp.

The next chapter is a harder sell.

Ahmed, 36, wants Whoop to be less of a performance tool and more of a life-saving one — a continuous health monitor that doesn’t just help you recover from a hard workout, but one day tells you, unprompted, that you’re about to have a heart attack and need to get to a hospital.

The company has already launched medically cleared features including ECG monitoring and atrial fibrillation detection — a capability that flags an irregular heartbeat that can lead to stroke — and what it calls blood pressure “insights,” which Ahmed says makes Whoop the first wearable to offer the feature.

The FDA challenged that last one in a warning letter last summer, arguing the feature constituted medical diagnosis rather than wellness monitoring; Whoop said the FDA was “overstepping its authority,” and kept building.

Aetherflux, a two-year-old startup based in San Carlos, CA, that aims to run orbital data centers powered by solar energy from satellites, is reportedly in the market to raise a $250 million to $300 million Series B round at a $2 billion valuation. Index Ventures is the purported lead. The Wall Street Journal has the scoop here.

Blossom Health, a two-year-old New York startup that uses AI copilots to help psychiatrists evaluate symptoms, refine diagnoses, plan treatment, and manage administrative workflows for psychiatric care providers, raised a $20 million Series A round led by Headline, with Village Global, TA Ventures, Operator Partners, and Correlation Ventures also participating. Tech Funding News has more here.

Tazapay, a six-year-old Singapore startup that provides regulated payment rails that enable real-time cross-border settlement for businesses in emerging markets, raised a $36 million Series B round led by Circle Ventures, with CMT Digital and Coinbase Ventures as well as previous investors Peak XV Partners, GMO Venture Partners, January Capital, Ripple, Norinchukin Capital, ARC180, and RTP Global also piling on. More here.

Aurora Hydrogen, a five-year-old startup based in Edmonton, Canada, that uses microwave-driven methane pyrolysis to produce hydrogen without CO₂ emissions or water use, raised a $3 million round. Oldendorff Overseas Investments provided the funding. Fuel Cell Works has more here.

CurrentClient, a four-year-old startup based in Provo, UT, that offers phone, text, voicemail, and appointment tools that help financial advisors communicate with clients in ways that meet recordkeeping and compliance requirements, raised a $1.25 million seed round. Thicket Ventures was the deal lead. TechBuzz News has more here.

Galdera Labs, a recently founded Stockholm startup that is developing the capability for finance teams to run financial scenario analysis and forecasting with natural language queries, raised a $1.5 million pre-seed round. J12 Ventures was the deal lead, with Antler also stepping up. ArcticStartup has more here.

Fidelity — Your Pitch Isn’t the Only Thing Investors Are Evaluating.   

Investors don’t just listen to what you say - they look at how your company operates. Is ownership clear? Do your numbers match your story? Can you answer follow-up questions without digging through spreadsheets? The Fundraise-Ready Startup Kit equips founders with the materials investors expect to see, before pressure is on. Because confidence in the room doesn’t come from slides. It comes from preparation. 

SAP has agreed to acquire Reltio, a 15-year-old company based in Redwood City, CA, that provides master data management software to unify and clean enterprise data into a single source of truth for AI and analytics. Terms were not disclosed. Reltio has raised over $230 million from investors like Brighton Park Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Sapphire Ventures, and NewView Capital. More here.

Moonshot AI, a three-year-old Chinese startup that builds large language models and AI agents, is considering scrapping its Cayman Islands holding structure to pave the way for a Hong Kong IPO as Beijing tightens its oversight of offshore-listed Chinese tech firms. The company is also raising new funding that could value it at around $18 billion. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Ross Pomerantz, a former Oracle salesperson, is making millions creating videos that parody tech sales jargon and corporate culture under his “Corporate Bro” persona, as companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Salesforce increasingly pay creators to market enterprise tech. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Beijing’s intervention in Meta’s $2 billion acquisition of Manus is rattling founders and investors who thought “Singapore washing” was a clean way for Chinese AI startups to escape both Chinese and U.S. scrutiny. CNBC has more here.

SoftBank has lined up a $40 billion unsecured bridge loan from banks including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs to fund its $30 billion commitment to OpenAI and broader AI bets, as Masayoshi Son ramps up spending across the sector. Reuters has more here.

A new study found that leading AI chatbots sided with users in interpersonal conflicts 49% more often than humans did, raising concerns that people seeking “objective” advice are instead getting flattery that can reinforce bad behavior. The New York Times has more here.

“Tech neck,” or wrinkles supposedly caused by looking down at your phone, is becoming one of the beauty industry’s fastest-growing sales opportunities.

In yet another sign of the impending apocalypse, ultra-thick pancakes are starting replace diner-style stacks.

The worst airport in America.

Why the ‘90s are now in vogue.

Six cocktails for spring.

This German-made folding kayak fits into a backpack and can be assembled into a rigid, 3.8-meter hard-shell-style boat in just under five minutes.

Dennison has launched new ALD Dual Time “Shades” watches with two independently set dials powered by dual quartz movements – perfect for that bi-coastal person in your life.

UK Quantum – Optimizing energy networks 

By delivering greater computational speed, UK quantum can support complex optimization of renewable energy planning, determining which plants run and when. The result is the potential for lower system costs, higher efficiency, and improved balancing of supply and demand. In addition, to maximize energy output, quantum can assist modeling optimal locations for new offshore wind farms and turbine layouts. 

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