And another great Warriors game in the books! Have a great weekend, everyone.

X moved Grok image generation behind a paywall after global backlash over non-consensual sexual images, drawing criticism that Elon Musk is monetizing abuse while regulators, app stores, and watchdogs weigh tougher action. The Washington Post has more here.

Meta says that it has contracted to secure power from three nuclear plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania to support its fast-growing network of AI data centers. TechCrunch has more here.

In related news, OpenAI and SoftBank have agreed to invest $1 billion in SB Energy to build and operate a 1.2 gigawatt Texas data center as part of their $500 billion Stargate push. OpenAI has now committed to spend over $1.4 trillion on infrastructure projects. CNBC has more here.

Sponsored by... Affinity 

Affinity helps private equity firms win where it matters most: sourcing proprietary deals, managing banker coverage, and accelerating portfolio value creation. In today’s market, capital is abundant, but the firms that outperform know how to activate their networks strategically. This guide highlights seven best practices leading PE teams are using to uncover warm paths into targets, eliminate blind spots across their deal teams, and position portfolio companies for stronger exits. 

Read the report 

By Connie Loizos

Andreessen Horowitz just announced the firm has raised a little more than $15 billion in new funding. The haul represents over 18% of all venture capital dollars allocated in the United States in 2025, according to firm co-founder Ben Horowitz, but even more jaw-dropping is that it brings the organization to more than $90 billion in assets under management, putting it neck-and-neck with Sequoia Capital as among the largest venture firms in the world. Which is fitting, since a16z appears to be very friendly with actual sovereign wealth funds, including at least one from Saudi Arabia.

The firm, which employs hundreds of people across five offices — three in California, plus New York and Washington, D.C. — has become a globe-spanning operation with employees on six continents. In December, it opened its first Asia office in Seoul for its crypto practice.

That newly committed capital breaks down across five funds: $6.75 billion for growth investments, $1.7 billion each for apps and infrastructure, $1.176 billion for “American Dynamism” (more on that shortly), $700 million for biotech and healthcare, and another $3 billion for other venture strategies. It’s the kind of money that makes you wonder where it all comes from and, more importantly, where it all goes.

The “where it comes from” question is one the firm has historically declined to answer. When we asked a16z this week about its limited partners and its distributed-to-paid-in capital ratio — the DPI, or how much actual cash the firm has returned to investors over its 16-year history — the firm didn’t respond. What we do know is that CalPERS invested $400 million in 2023, marking the first time in a16z’s history it took money from a major California pension fund, probably because institutions with transparency requirements don’t really align with the firm’s preference for opacity. We also know that Sanabil Investments, the venture arm of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, lists Andreessen Horowitz among its portfolio holdings.

The Saudi connection isn’t subtle. Back in 2023, Horowitz and Marc Andreessen appeared onstage with WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann to discuss their $350 million investment in his then-new residential real estate venture, Flow. The venue was a conference backed by one of Saudi Arabia’s largest sovereign funds. Horowitz praised Saudi Arabia as a “startup country,” adding that “Saudi has a founder; you don’t call him a founder, you call him his royal highness.” 

AirNexis Therapeutics, a recently founded Palo Alto startup that is developing a PDE3/4 inhibitor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, raised a $200 million Series A round led by Frazier Life Sciences, with additional participation from OrbiMed, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, SR One, Longitude Capital, and Enavate Sciences. Fierce Biotech has more here.

Beacon Therapeutics, a three-year-old startup based in Alachua, FL, and London that is developing gene therapies for ocular diseases, raised a $75+ million Series C round led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives, with the Retinal Degeneration Fund, Syncona Limited, Forbion, Oxford Science Enterprises, and Advent Life Sciences also participating. More here.

Bit.bio, a nine-year-old startup based in Cambridge, UK, that is developing human cell programming technology for drug discovery and toxicology, raised a $50 million Series C round. M&G Investments was the deal lead. More here.

EpiBiologics, a four-year-old startup based in San Mateo, CA, that is developing protein-degrading drugs for cancer and immune diseases, raised a $107 million Series B round co-led by GV and Johnson & Johnson, with Novartis Venture Fund, Samsara BioCapital, and Polaris Partners also stepping up. BioPharma Dive has more here.

Rain, a five-year-old New York startup that provides infrastructure for issuing and managing stablecoin-linked payment cards and wallets, raised a $250 million Series C round at a $1.95 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by ICONIQ, with Sapphire Ventures, Dragonfly, Bessemer Venture Partners, Galaxy Ventures, FirstMark, Lightspeed, Norwest, and Endeavor Catalyst also participating. The company has raised a total of $338+ million. Reuters has more here.

Aurora Therapeutics, a newly founded startup based in Cambridge, MA, that is developing gene editing treatments for rare diseases, raised a $16 million seed round led by Menlo Ventures. BioPharma Dive has more here.

Boltz, a one-year-old Boston startup that is building open AI models and agents for molecular modeling and drug discovery, raised a $28 million seed round. Investors included Zetta, Amplify, and Andreessen Horowitz, Factorial Capital, Obvious Ventures, and Clement Delangue. More here.

Engitix, a 10-year-old London company that is developing therapies targeting the extracellular matrix for cancer and fibrosis, raised a $25 million Series A extension round led by Netherton Investments. EU-Startups has more here.

Enodia Therapeutics, a one-year-old Paris startup that is developing a small-molecule platform for targeted protein degradation using proteomics and machine learning, raised a $25 million seed round co-led by Bpifrance, Elaia, and Pfizer Ventures, with Argobio Studio, InvestSud, MACSF, Mission BioCapital, Sambrinvest, The Institut Pasteur, and Wallonie Entreprendre also taking part. Medical Device Network has more here.

Topos Bio, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that is developing AI-driven drug discovery for intrinsically disordered proteins, raised a $10.5 million seed round co-led by Boldstart, Threshold, and Neo, with Dara Khosrowshahi and Naveen Rao also participating. HLTH has more here.

Vizgen, a seven-year-old startup based in Waltham, MA, that is developing spatial multi-omics technologies for biological and drug discovery research, raised a $48 million round co-led by ARCH Venture Partners, M Ventures, and Northpond Ventures. CityBiz has more here.

Arm’s 20 predictions for the future of intelligent computing. 

As AI moves beyond centralized clouds, computing is entering a new era defined by distributed, power-efficient intelligence across cloud, edge, and physical systems. In a new predictions blog, Arm shares 20 technology predictions for 2026 and beyond, from modular chiplet design and secure-by-design silicon to smaller, purpose-built AI models and the rise of physical AI. Together, these predictions highlight why intelligence-per-watt will shape the next wave of innovation.  

Read Arm’s predictions for 2026 

Lambda, a 13-year-old company based in San Jose, CA, that offers GPU-based cloud compute, is reportedly in talks to raise a $350 million pre-IPO round led by Mubadala Capital, according to The Information. The company is supposedly targeting an H2 2026 public offering. Data Center Dynamics has more here.

Sergey Brin is joining his fellow Google co-founder Larry Page in moving California entities out of state ahead of a proposed 5% wealth tax. The New York Times has more here.

Eric Schmidt is backing a Silicon Valley-style sprint to build four major telescopes, including an orbital observatory, within four years, betting hundreds of millions to fast-track astrophysics and complement NASA amid federal budget uncertainty. The New York Times has more here.

A former SandboxAQ executive filed a wrongful termination suit last month filled with such scandalous allegations against the company’s famed CEO, Jack Hidary, that the plaintiff himself redacted the most salacious details. TechCrunch has the story — along with exclusive news about Hidary’s response — here.

According to a report in The Information, DeepSeek plans to launch a new LLM in February that its internal tests suggest could outperform Claude and ChatGPT in coding and other developer tasks. The Economic Times has more here.

Craigslist is quietly enjoying a millennial revival as users turn to the bare-bones classifieds site for jobs, housing, romance, and creative projects. WIRED has more here.

What’s in your sleep stack?

“Orbiting” is the latest dating trend you need to avoid.

Get ready for season four of Industry this Sunday night.

Acura NSX, back from the dead.

Cool camper.

Harmonic

Market maps in one click. 

Trusted by BCV, First Round, Spark and thousands of others. 

Please send all of your hot gossip to [email protected] or [email protected].

To book ads directly, contact us at [email protected].