Venture Capital News & Analysis — The Information

Recent Articles about Venture Capital

Alex Ferrara, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. Photo courtesy of Paul Clarke for Resilience Media.

Bessemer Bets on War Worries in Europe

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 16, 2025 2:38pm PDT

The name of Bessemer Venture Partners is tied closely with the cloud software boom of the 2010s. The backer of Twilio, Shopify and Zoom even created its own Nasdaq index of cloud software companies, which I look at often to track the ups and downs of the market.But it’s not a good time to be a software investor. That index of cloud stocks has... The name of Bessemer Venture Partners is tied closely with the cloud software boom of the 2010s....

Illustration by Mike Sullivan; Getty Images

XAI’s Unusual Dealmaking to Fund Musk’s Colossus 2

By Theo Wayt and Miles Kruppa · Oct 16, 2025 10:02am PDT · 3 comments

Elon Musk’s xAI is aiming to build and control the world’s most powerful data center and a massive natural gas plant to power it. The scale of the project and xAI’s precarious finances are forcing the company into unusual financial arrangements that rely on outsiders to raise funding and shoulder much of the risk. XAI wants to have as much... Elon Musk’s xAI is aiming to build and control the world’s most powerful data center and a...

Sam Altman. Getty Images.

OpenAI’s Growing Ecosystem Play

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 16, 2025 7:00am PDT · 2 comments

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on a podcast last week that he wanted ChatGPT to become “people’s personal AI subscription.” The company last week made moves toward that goal with “apps in ChatGPT,” which lets people use the chatbot to search for homes on Zillow or make Spotify playlists, for instance.In another example, OpenAI has pitched companies... OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on a podcast last week that he wanted ChatGPT to become “people’s...

Photo by Craig Warga and Jamie Watts

AI Agenda Live Recap: Why AI Pilots Fail—and How to Find ROI

By The Information Partnerships · Oct 15, 2025 2:01pm PDT · 1 comment

Photo by Craig Warga and Jamie Watts

Partner Content

AI Agenda Live Recap: Why AI Pilots Fail—and How to Find ROI

By The Information Partnerships · Oct 15, 2025 2:01pm PDT · 1 comment

For every enterprise artificial intelligence success story, there are several cautionary tales—pilots that falter due to poor adoption, privacy headaches or bad-fit use cases. Recent studies point to a majority of AI pilots failing. While some dispute the figure, what’s clear is that many projects never make it past the pilot stage, making... For every enterprise artificial intelligence success story, there are several cautionary tales—...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Universities Are Part of the Cursor Resistance

By Rocket Drew · Oct 15, 2025 7:00am PDT

I recently reported on the software engineers who have resisted using AI coding tools such as Cursor and Claude Code, even when their managers strongly encourage their use. AI still has technical limitations—and it threatens to make engineering jobs obsolete, they say. But there’s a wrinkle to this story: some engineering students have... I recently reported on the software engineers who have resisted using AI coding tools such...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Anthropic Gets Ready to Go Startup Shopping

By Valida Pau and Sri Muppidi · Oct 15, 2025 6:00am PDT

OpenAI has spent roughly $6.4 billion in stock to buy three startups over the last 16 months, while its smaller rival Anthropic has done barely any deals. But Anthropic, recently valued at $170 billion in a funding round, told investment bankers in recent weeks that it is getting ready to move off the sidelines and do more acquisitions,... OpenAI has spent roughly $6.4 billion in stock to buy three startups over the last 16 months,...

Reflection AI CEO Misha Laskin and The Information reporter Akash Pasricha.

Why Nvidia Is Shying Away From the ‘Lead Investor’ Mantle

By Miles Kruppa · Oct 14, 2025 2:11pm PDT · 1 comment

When somebody writes the biggest check in a round of venture funding, they usually want to shout it from the rooftops. Not so for Nvidia in its latest investment.The chip giant caused a stir last week when it objected to being called the lead investor in a $2 billion round of funding for Reflection, a one-year-old company developing open-source... When somebody writes the biggest check in a round of venture funding, they usually want to shout...

Together AI CEO Vipul Ved Prakash. Photo via Getty

The Race to Rent Out Nvidia Chips in the Cloud Intensifies

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Wayne Ma, Miles Kruppa and Katie Roof · Oct 14, 2025 6:00am PDT

Together AI CEO Vipul Ved Prakash. Photo via Getty

The Race to Rent Out Nvidia Chips in the Cloud Intensifies

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Wayne Ma, Miles Kruppa and Katie Roof · Oct 14, 2025 6:00am PDT

Demand for Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips has spawned half a dozen multibillion-dollar cloud providers that buy the chips, install them in data centers and rent them out to OpenAI and other AI developers. Another upstart, Together AI, is now joining the race among these neoclouds, which compete against traditional cloud providers such as... Demand for Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips has spawned half a dozen multibillion-dollar...

A rendering of Inversion's Arc spacecraft in orbit. Credit: Inversion

The Robots that Could Beat Optimus to Space

By Rocket Drew · Oct 13, 2025 7:10am PDT

Before we get to our column, we should acknowledge OpenAI’s latest chip deal, this time with Broadcom, announced Monday morning. The Information first reported the two companies were in talks in July of last year but a lot has happened since then. Most obviously, OpenAI has also struck deals for supplies of AI chips with both Nvidia and AMD. We’... Before we get to our column, we should acknowledge OpenAI’s latest chip deal, this time with ...

Art by Clark Miller

E-Commerce Startups Are Back From the Dead

By Ann Gehan · Oct 10, 2025 9:24am PDT · 1 comment

Lately, venture capitalist Ben Lerer has found himself experiencing a bit of déjà vu: Once again, there’s a whole nest of thriving e-commerce startups worth his attention. When I reached him a couple weeks ago, his firm, Lerer Hippeau, was just putting money into two of them: Elm Biosciences, a new skin care startup, and Stiller’s... Lately, venture capitalist Ben Lerer has found himself experiencing a bit of déjà...

Venture capitalist Ben Horowitz and Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch. Photos via Getty and YouTube

Ben Horowitz Hires His ‘Jensen’; Vercel Starts a Venture Fund

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Oct 9, 2025 2:30pm PDT

Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz says only a small subset of AI companies, such as portfolio companies Safe Superintelligence Inc. and Thinking Machines Labs, need massive compute contracts. But many AI startups still need help getting access to bottlenecked resources, like chips to train their models.The venture firm said Thursday it... Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz says only a small subset of AI companies, such as...

DocuSign CEO Allan Thygesen. Screenshot via YouTube

OpenAI, Software’s Grim Reaper?

By Aaron Holmes and Erin Woo · Oct 9, 2025 10:30am PDT

DocuSign CEO Allan Thygesen. Screenshot via YouTube

OpenAI, Software’s Grim Reaper?

By Aaron Holmes and Erin Woo · Oct 9, 2025 10:30am PDT

OpenAI can hardly announce a new product before a chorus of tech pundits declare it will kill a bunch of other applications. In the most recent example, investors in several public software companies went into a panic last week after OpenAI showed a demo of an internal artificial intelligence tool it developed to analyze contracts. The... OpenAI can hardly announce a new product before a chorus of tech pundits declare it will kill a...

Art by Mike Sullivan

OpenAI Is Catching Up To Anthropic in AI Coding

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 9, 2025 7:00am PDT

OpenAI’s effort to catch up to Anthropic in code-generating artificial intelligence seems to be working. New data show OpenAI’s Codex coding assistant has pulled ahead of Anthropic’s Claude Code assistant in certain coding capabilities. Codex usage among developers is also catching up to Claude Code’s.Developers approved 74.3% of code... OpenAI’s effort to catch up to Anthropic in code-generating artificial intelligence seems to be...

Cursor CEO Michael Truell. Art by Clark Miller; screenshot via YouTube

Cursor-Maker Anysphere Considers Investment Offers at $30 Billion Valuation

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Oct 8, 2025 6:15pm PDT · 1 comment

Anysphere, the maker of coding assistant Cursor, is considering offers to invest in the startup at around a $30 billion valuation, roughly triple its valuation in a round that closed mid-year, according to people familiar with the discussions. The offers indicates that investor excitement about the three-year-old startup has remained high... Anysphere, the maker of coding assistant Cursor, is considering offers to invest in the startup...

Relace cofounders Preston Zhou and Eitan Borgnia. Photo courtesy of Relace.

Andreessen Backs a Startup Developing Tools That Coding Agents Use

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 8, 2025 7:00am PDT

Countless startups sell tools to software engineers, such as version control systems to track who’s making changes to a codebase, and sandboxes where code can be safely run and tested without affecting the main system.Now, a startup is building such tools for artificial intelligence agents that aim to do the work of human coders. Andreessen... Countless startups sell tools to software engineers, such as version control systems to track who...

Peter Thiel. Photo via Getty

Why I’m Covering Defense Tech; Founders Fund’s Concentrated Bets

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 7, 2025 1:47pm PDT

Peter Thiel. Photo via Getty

Why I’m Covering Defense Tech; Founders Fund’s Concentrated Bets

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 7, 2025 1:47pm PDT

Greetings from Los Angeles, where I’ve taken up a new residence after a cross-country road trip from New York. During a tour of a defunct U.S. Steel mill in Pittsburgh and a visit to the uranium boom-and-bust town of Moab, Utah, I spent time thinking about the technology that has reshaped national security, industrialization, energy and... Greetings from Los Angeles, where I’ve taken up a new residence after a cross-country road trip...

Stoke Space tests its advanced full-flow staged combustion rocket engine. (Image courtesy of Stoke.)

Space Startup Stoke Nears $2 Billion Valuation in New Financing

By Cory Weinberg and Katie Roof · Oct 7, 2025 11:59am PDT

Stoke Space, a startup building reusable rockets that are smaller than SpaceX’s, is raising hundreds of millions of dollars in a funding round that would value it at nearly $2 billion, roughly double its last private round, two people familiar with the matter said. The new lead investor is Thomas Tull’s U.S. Innovative Technology Fund, one of... Stoke Space, a startup building reusable rockets that are smaller than SpaceX’s, is raising...

Sam Altman. Screenshot via YouTube

OpenAI’s Walled-Garden Moment

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Catherine Perloff · Oct 7, 2025 7:00am PDT

OpenAI on Monday unveiled its biggest-yet effort to bring all of the web’s consumer activities directly into ChatGPT, as it aims to turn the chatbot into a so-called superapp that people can use to control any app in their lives—similar to Facebook’s efforts from 15 years ago. But before we get too excited, we should remember we’ve been... OpenAI on Monday unveiled its biggest-yet effort to bring all of the web’s consumer activities...

Art via Mike Sullivan

Why OpenAI Offered to Pay $500 Million For A Startup With Videogame Data

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 6, 2025 7:00am PDT · 2 comments

Before we get to today’s column, in a sign of how insatiable OpenAI’s appetite for computing power is, the ChatGPT-maker and Nvidia rival Advanced Micro Devices announced a partnership Monday morning that would see OpenAI deploy six gigawatts of AMD’s chips over multiple years, starting in the second half of next year. As part of the deal,... Before we get to today’s column, in a sign of how insatiable OpenAI’s appetite for computing...

Sam Altman, left, and Peter Thiel. Photos by Getty

Founders Fund Shifts From Caution to Concentrated Bets on AI

By Miles Kruppa · Oct 6, 2025 6:00am PDT · 4 comments

Sam Altman, left, and Peter Thiel. Photos by Getty

Founders Fund Shifts From Caution to Concentrated Bets on AI

By Miles Kruppa · Oct 6, 2025 6:00am PDT · 4 comments

Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund is doubling down on its biggest artificial intelligence bets, embracing a concentrated strategy as rivals spread their bets across a wide swath of startups. Among them are OpenAI, data center builder Crusoe and General Matter, a nuclear fuel startup the firm has incubated, Founders Fund said at its recent annual... Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund is doubling down on its biggest artificial intelligence bets,...