Gil Dibner

Growth and profitability are not opposing forces. If anything, they're sequential. Once your unit economics work - every additional customer can spread fixed costs thinner, every transaction can make ops more efficient, and every bit of volume can give you better terms with suppliers. Solving for fundamentals will ensure growth makes you profitable, and doesn't become the thing that keeps you from it. Shreyans wrote a great piece on it, link in comments.

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AI continues to dominate ETI investment, capturing 51% of Q4 deals. While the platform layer captured the largest share of funding. https://bit.ly/3NqlVlH

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There's no bigger, faster-moving, more competitive market than code gen. Cognition took the harder, more ambitious approach. As models have improved, it's paying off hugely with awe-inspiring revenue and usage growth. More than that, Scott Wu and Russell Kaplan have built an incredible culture -- the company is a gravity-well for talent! It's what makes me and the Bain Capital Ventures (BCV) team so grateful to double-down in this round and continue supporting the Cog team.

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Worth reading (with popcorn) - no really. Thanks to Teel Lidow for sharing :-) Every emerging VC should be reading the SEC’s enforcement releases. It sounds very boring… but it’s actually a surprisingly entertaining way to learn how not to torch your career! Some good starting points: https://lnkd.in/gwuSvFy4 (disturbing because there’s no egregious misbehavior - probably wouldn’t happen under the current SEC) https://lnkd.in/gFHfgTxB (especially the part about exaggerating fundraising progress starting on p.17) https://lnkd.in/gTzA5DTX (just a classic, wild ride)

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Honored and excited to partner with Drew Baglino and the incredible team at Heron Power as they re-imagine the electric grid for the modern world. Power in America is not zero sum. We deserve access to cheap and abundant electricity and we should win the AI race. And we must build the capacity to manufacture critical technology here at home. When faced with existential challenges, we deploy technology against them. And we win.

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Thrilled to share the news of REplace ‘s $2.1M seed round, led by Gravity Climate Fund ! It’s been inspiring to collaborate with such a driven and innovative team, Matias Sigal & Alan Algamis, to refine their unique offerings—solutions the market truly needs, powered by AI. I’m excited to see REplace accelerate the energy transition and meet the world’s surging demand for clean power and compute. Proud to support this mission alongside Adam/a, Techstars, Malbec Ventures, and other strategic investors. The future of sustainable energy is being built today! Read more in the press release: https://lnkd.in/dnQr-Qj2 !

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I recently started analyzing growth rates across the ENR Top 400 over the last 15, 10, and 5 years. What stood out was the gap between the broader industry benchmark and Ediphi’s top enterprise customers. Approximate ENR benchmark growth rates: ~4–5% CAGR over 15 years ~3% CAGR over 10 years ~6% CAGR over 5 years Approximate average growth rates of Ediphi’s top enterprise customers: ~10–12% CAGR over 15 years ~9–10% CAGR over 10 years ~10–12% CAGR over 5 years Obviously software alone does not explain that difference. But I do think there’s an important pattern underneath it. The best-performing contractors tend to build cultures around continuous improvement: they stay curious they modernize systems they evaluate new ideas seriously and they create organizations designed to keep learning One thing I’ve learned over the years in construction technology is that tech adoption is rarely just about technology. It’s usually a signal about culture.

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Excited to share that Miravoice has raised a $6.3M seed round — and we’re proud to partner with Nishant Jain, Danny D. Leybzon, Shreyas Tirumala, along with the whole Miravoice team. From the beginning, what drew Unusual Ventures to Miravoice was how clearly they saw a problem most organizations have simply learned to live with: collecting structured data through voice conversations is still manual, expensive, and slow. Despite all the progress in AI, large-scale phone surveys and interviews are still largely powered by call centers. Earlier voice AI solutions struggled with reliability and accuracy, making them difficult to trust for high-stakes data collection. Miravoice takes a fundamentally different approach. Read our full post below: https://lnkd.in/e8yJEeDS

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Welcome back to #MathMonday. It's pretty clear to us at Veteran Ventures Capital that we're back in conflicts of attrition—something many of us thought was buried in the dustbin of history after the "precision" war against #Iraq in 1991. Two things drove that home this weekend. 1. The exchange rate is breaking #math. Robert #Magyar Brovdi, Commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, recently put a price tag on the new way of war: roughly $878 in matériel to kill a single Russian soldier. The exchange ratio is a staggering 400 Russians lost for every one Ukrainian (according to Brovid). Drones now account for 70–80% of all battlefield casualties on that front, and FPVs alone struck 33,019 Russian troops in December 2025—the first month verified Russian losses from Ukrainian drones exceeded Russian recruitment. Some context on how unprecedented those numbers are: - #WWII U.S. Army Ordnance estimates: ~25,000–50,000 small-arms rounds per enemy combatant killed. - #Vietnam: cited figures climbed past 200,000 rounds per kill. - #British heavy AAA early in the V-1 campaign: roughly 2,500 shells per rocket downed—before the proximity fuze collapsed that ratio to around 100. The cost-per-casualty curve has been bending the wrong way for eight decades. #Ukraine just bent it back—violently. That's why it's a good thing the U.S. is sending more soldiers into Ukraine to learn from them firsthand. 2. Even the "losses" are wins. Ukrainian milbloggers have begun counting it as a kill when an FPV is destroyed by an incoming missile—on the logic that both pieces of hardware are gone, and the exchange still favors them. Makes sense when the Russians have to expend a $100K missile to take down a $1K drone. They're right, and the self-reflection of that math is sobering. We're firing $3M+ Patriot PAC-3 interceptors at $35K Shaheds, resulting in us running a ~100-to-1 deficit—and the Middle East burned through 800+ PAC-3 MSEs in three days in last year's engagement. Unknown what a good unclassified estimate for the current conflict, but it's a big number. Two takeaways: 1) As I've said often, the old adage needs an update. "Amateurs talk tactics, experts talk logistics" should now read: Amateurs talk war, experts talk supply chain. Ukraine is producing over 8 million FPVs per year. Russia claims up to 19,000 drones per day. Whoever scales their factories—and protects them—wins. 2) Cheap defense at single-digit percentages of offense cost is a brand-new kind of deterrent. Being on the wrong side of the cost curve may look good in the short term, but it's really a depletion race to the bottom of your own checkbook. The strategists, operators and investors who internalize this shift first will own the next decade of defense. #MathMonday #VeteranVenturesCapital #DefenseTech #DroneWarfare #AsymmetricWarfare #DefenseInvesting #NationalSecurity #FutureOfWarfare #MilitaryInnovation #SupplyChain

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Super excited to welcome Powerline into the MaC Venture Capital portfolio as we lead their $7M Seed round! Grid-scale battery storage is scaling fast, but operating these assets well is anything but simple. Operators are navigating volatile markets with unique dynamics and real-time tradeoffs. Powerline cuts through that complexity with their AI-powered digital twin that lets teams benchmark outcomes, safely test strategies, and operate with far more confidence and control. We’re thrilled to partner with the exceptional co-founder team Matineh Eybpoosh and Julian Lamy, along with the broader Powerline team, as they build the intelligence layer for modern energy systems.

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My investment framework centers on 7 layers. CASIMIR fits into the first layer which is the Observation Layer. Out of 22 billion IoT devices on earth and ~10k satellites in space in 2026 we may have a 6 billion (and growing) ultra low power devices on earth and space that can one day run on MicroSparc 👍🏼 -> Eternal power chip Harold “Sonny” White + Capital Factory #HardThings #deeptech

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HealthVC x Lusha: Unlocking Smarter Fundraising and Sales Workflows We’re thrilled to announce our newest partnership: HealthVC has teamed up with Lusha to bring next-gen data and prospecting tools to founders, fund managers, and operators across our community. Lusha recently launched a powerful suite of AI-powered features that redefine how go-to-market teams research, prospect, and convert. Now those capabilities are coming to HealthVC Pro subscribers. ✨ With this partnership, you’ll be able to: Surface real-time, accurate, and compliant B2B contact data Use AI Prospecting Chat to instantly uncover new investor or customer leads Tap into CRM-triggered recommendations to stay one step ahead Turn insight into action with Sales Streaming, Lusha’s smarter, connected selling framework. But Lusha’s superpower isn’t just the AI; it’s that the AI sits on top of best-in-class data. That means every signal, every recommendation, and every lead is not just fast, it’s trustworthy. At HealthVC, we’re building more than a newsletter; we’re building the operating system for venture, and this partnership helps our members move faster, pitch smarter, and close better. Available now to all HealthVC subscribers, link in comments.

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Redwood Materials Expands to Energy Storage for AI Data Centers In a strategic move reflecting the growing demand for sustainable solutions, Redwood Materials has launched its energy storage business. This initiative aims at addressing the power needs of AI data centers, which are becoming increasingly energy-intensive. At ElevenX Capital, we believe that investing in companies that meld sustainability with technological innovation is key to future-proofing portfolios. How do you see the role of recycled materials in supporting the burgeoning AI sector? #investing #innovation #venturecapital #entrepreneurship

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From the beginning, we believed Lumana was building much more than a smarter surveillance tool. Lumana's platform reflects the next evolution in video intelligence — physical AI. This approach enables systems to go beyond basic detection capabilities to understanding context, infer intent, and deliver real-time insights that improve safety and operations at scale. Further, we decided to take the longer and more difficult direction of building a whole new generation and fully featured Video Management System (VMS). With the company’s $40M Series A, led by our friend Peter Wagner from Wing Venture Capital and our seed partners from SCAPITALVC, we’re doubling down on a platform that’s already proving its value in the real world. We are serving now close to ten thousands enterprise cameras in production! Founders like Sagi Ben Moshe bring a rare mix of vision and execution to the table. From our earliest conversations as an EIR at Norwest, it was clear that Lumana had the potential to reshape how organizations use video. Congratulations to the team on this well-deserved milestone. https://lnkd.in/gwHdaGPZ

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Another missive from Chuck Cotter and Daniel Faierman. Thanks guys for continuing to help to ecosystem. If you've not seen their posts, peek at https://lnkd.in/gPiu9Z4z. Topics include: · CPG Co-Manufacturing Contracts · Early Stage VC Terms to Rarely Accept · More Dividends (and Dividend Recaps?) · 5 Raises, 5 Takeaways · A Founder's Guide to Secondaries · Standing Out Pre-Traction · The State of VC · Corporate Governance 101 · Anti-Dilution Provisions · Primer on QSBS · 4 Fund Raising DON'Ts · Liquidation Preferences · Understanding SAFEs · Understanding Convertible Notes · Understanding Prorata Rights · Founders & Athletes · Employee Stock Options Demystified · The Art of Start-Up Valuation · What Is A Term Sheet Anyway? Check it out ...

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Building companies in heavy industry calls for a particular kind of resilience: sustained technical iteration, disciplined capital allocation, and leadership teams capable of executing as projects move into full-scale construction and operation. Rodi Guidero shares what that journey has required from our founders, and why the real measure of value creation is the capacity to build businesses designed to operate and lead for decades. 

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Greenfield Partners is proud to be deepening our partnership with Capitolis as they announce today a $56M strategic round. If you’ve spent time in market infrastructure, you know how rare it is to see deep market insight paired with real product velocity. The team at Capitolis has both, and the result is infrastructure that makes capital markets safer and more efficient. We’re increasing our investment alongside Barclays, BNP Paribas, J.P. Morgan, fellow investors Canapi Ventures, 9Yards Capital, and existing investors Citi, Morgan Stanley, State Street, and UBS to fuel the next stages of Capitolis’ Capital Marketplace and Portfolio Optimization solutions. https://lnkd.in/exK8nQYx Kudos to Gil Mandelzis and the entire Capitolis team!

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Two weeks ago on Swimming with Allocators, we sat down with David Clark, CIO at VenCap, to talk about what decades of venture data can teach allocators. One takeaway that stood out: discounts don’t matter as much as people think in venture secondaries. Because venture is such a power-law asset class, outcomes are driven by exposure to a few massive winners. Whether a stake is bought at a small discount, or even a premium, often matters far less than the quality of the underlying company and its upside. Great conversation on venture returns, manager selection, and the nuances of how allocators should think about secondary investments. 👇 Link in the comments.

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Big milestone for Firmable. We’ve raised $14m Series A led by Airtree. Sales has moved through a few big waves: intuition-led, CRM-led, data-led. We’re now entering the next one – intelligence-led sales. The opportunity isn’t just better data. It’s turning that data into clear direction and action, without adding more work for sales teams. That’s what we’re building at Firmable: a foundation of trusted external data, layered with intelligence that helps sellers know who to focus on and when. Led by Airtree, this round supports our expansion across Asia and into the US – and accelerates the build-out of AI agents that take the admin work off sales teams so they can focus on what they do best. Proud of the team, grateful to our customers and investors. We’re just getting started. Read the exclusive in the AFR. https://lnkd.in/gr66uknb Leigh Jasper | Tara Salmon | Karthik Venkatasubramanian| Chester Thompson| Chath Widanapathirana

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