Weber W.

Excited to announce that New Renaissance Ventures portfolio company Wonder Studios just closed a $12 million seed round, led by Atomico, investing alongside LocalGlobe, Blackbird, Adobe as well as leading angels from the world of tech, entertainment and media. Wonder is building an AI-native entertainment studio, reimagining how stories are created and shared globally. To all the AI native creators out there: The Wonder Studios Community is life. Demand is through the roof. Supply is still in the lab. Wonder is here to change that. Xavier, Justin and team, this is just the beginning, happy to be a small part of your journey since day 1! 💙

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$2.5 billion in music M&A happened this week. UMG closed Downtown for $775M. CMG bought Nettwerk for $300M. The Weeknd's catalog: $1 billion. Iconoclast shopping at ~$500M. Here's what most coverage misses: Every acquisition creates new metadata seams. And royalties leak through seams. 1% misallocation on a $10M catalog = $100K recoverable. When your distributor buys your publisher, you don't have two partners competing for your business anymore. You have one entity controlling the full stack. For independent operators, this is the moment where boutique becomes the differentiator. New post on what $2.5B in consolidation means for your operations. Link in comments. #musictech #dstro7

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"When choosing angel investors, we look for people who can really support us on our journey. Many had already helped us by making introductions and taking calls. Bringing them on as investors formalizes that support – when people are on your cap table, it's easier to ask for introductions and insights because you have an ongoing relationship." - Lennart Bock, Proxima Fusion As Europe's fastest-growing fusion energy startup and the first spin-out from Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Proxima Fusion needed to onboard strategic angels globally while keeping operations lean. Here's how Roundtable streamlined their Series A angel syndicate: ✅ Full SPV management: Roundtable handled setup, compliance, and internal administration – team received POA without operational burden ✅ Real-time visibility: Dashboard tracking of investor status and commitments at a glance ✅ Global reach: Accommodated international investors with proactive compliance support ✅ Automated KYC/KYB: Seamless process whether angels invested individually or through entities ✅ Strategic focus: Clean cap table (1 SPV entry) enabled focus on high-value relationships vs. admin ✅ Speed: Once angels ready, entire process can complete in 1-2 weeks "One feature I particularly liked was the visibility into investor progress. With other providers, everything may be taken off your plate, but then you're left in the dark. Roundtable gives you a bird's eye overview, which we found very useful." By giving experienced ex-founders and industry leaders the chance to invest (vs. paying them as advisors), Proxima aligned their interests with company success and gained invaluable access to networks and guidance. Want to see how they're building the future of fusion energy with strategic angels? Link in comments 👇

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Some news: Finch has raised a $20M Series A, led by Satish D. and Meera Clark at Redpoint. We’re grateful to welcome them as partners alongside Alfred Lin at Sequoia Capital, Matthew Mulvey at Liquid 2 Ventures, and generational operators like Tony Xu, Christopher Payne, and Jason Boehmig backing Finch. This funding helps us move closer to our mission: ensuring every American has access to the counsel they deserve. More than 75% of Americans can’t access counsel when they need it. At the same time, law firms are buried in admin work that limits their capacity to serve more clients. Finch is the first AI-powered pre-litigation team for personal injury, combining exceptional legal operators with AI agents to handle cases from intake to outcome. We help plaintiff firms say yes to more cases, without additional overhead. In the last 6 months, we’ve grown more than 10x. Firms we’ve worked with have tripled their case volume, secured seven-figure settlements, and expanded into new markets. We are a team of talented, curious, customer-centric operators, recently adding folks like Taylor Welch, Thea Feeney, Stacey Matheson, Jasmine Harris and (soon) Kelly Jacques, Rachel Fuld Cohen & Alex Gouchtchina. If you’re looking to shape the future of legal tech, we’re growing fast and hiring across the board. And if you’re an attorney ready to serve more clients, book a demo in the comments below. Let's get to work.

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Check out the latest funding news from across the Techstars portfolio. → Zipline (Techstars 2011), a drone delivery and logistics startup, raises more than $600M in new funding, boosting its valuation to $7.6B, as it expands commercial deployments. → Language learning startup Preply (Techstars 2015) raises $150M and becomes the 23rd known unicorn from Techstars accelerators. → Hydrosat (Techstars 2019) raises $60M in Series B funding → Tive (Techstars 2017) receives a $20M investment, valuing the shipment-tracking systems developer at slightly more than $500M. → Parambil (Techstars 2023) raises an additional $6M in seed funding ($8M to date). → Seasats (Techstars 2021) receives $24M in Department of War APFIT funding to accelerate the fielding of its autonomous surface vessels. → Hawaiian Airlines’ newly announced $600M Kahuʻewai Hawai‘i Investment Plan features a strategic investment in Ampaire (Techstars 2018) to support hybrid-electric aviation in the islands. → Fintalo (Techstars 2025) secures $500K+ in oversubscribed Pre-Seed funding. → PraxisPro (Techstars 2024) closes an oversubscribed $6M seed round. → Samara Aerospace (Techstars 2024) closes $10M seed round to help bring more stability to sats in orbit. → MyARC (Techstars 2022), a platform that enables fitness creators to train their communities at scale, secures £1.5M investment. Massive congratulations to these incredible portfolio companies!   🔗  Read more at https://lnkd.in/dxtCTvrg 

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THERE'S NO COMPANY EXECUTING FANDOM FIRST BETTER THAN SANRIO! (by Taiga Kunii) Yesterday, Sanrio Just Turned Fans Into Shareholders 📈 A $3B+ Character Company Using Capital Markets as a Fandom Engine This week, they proved it again. 🔹 1 → 5 Stock Split (Access Strategy, Not Optics) - Share price: $30.74 → $6.14 (¥4,764 → ~¥952 at $1 = ¥155) - Minimum investment (before split): ~$3,225 (~¥500,000) Tokyo Stock Exchange guidance suggests a preferred retail entry around ~$645 (¥100,000). Sanrio was priced too high for many individual fans. So they lowered the barrier. Shares outstanding: 255,408,303 → 1,277,041,515 Market cap? Unchanged. Value wasn’t diluted. Access was expanded. That’s fan acquisition through the stock market. 🎟 Shareholder Benefits → Now Fully Digital Sanrio redesigned its shareholder perks: - Theme park tickets → Electronic tickets - ~$6.45 (¥1,000) coupons → Digital coupons - Option to donate instead of redeem 💡Why this matters - Lower operational costs - Fraud prevention - Seamless integration into Sanrio+ membership ecosystem - Direct data capture Investors now must register digitally. That means: Shareholder → Account holder → CRM profile → Lifetime customer. They’re merging fandom infrastructure with capital markets. 🧸 3+ Year Holders Unlock IP Collectibles Long-term shareholders receive: -Exclusive acrylic stands -Limited plush toys -Online events Most companies reward loyalty with yield. Sanrio rewards loyalty with identity. That is emotional equity layered on financial equity. 📊 Why Investors Should Pay Attention • Retail investor expansion • Increased liquidity • Stronger fan-shareholder alignment • Owned ecosystem integration (Sanrio+) • Lower physical benefit costs via digitization • Long-term retention incentives Entertainment companies talk about “community.” Idols managements talk about "paid fan club." Sanrio built a flywheel: Fans collect → Fans invest → Fans hold → Fans evangelize → Brand strengthens → Equity benefits. That is extremely hard to replicate. If you want to understand how Japanese IP companies convert emotion into enterprise value, study Sanrio, carefully. And they are just one of the many case studies. 👉 Follow Taiga Kunii for Japan’s Fandom First strategy.

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I was honored to join Fox 5 Newsroom Live in New York recently to unpack the dynamics transforming the streaming industry. We’re moving past the era of simple expansion into a period defined by consolidation, fragmentation, and strategic M&A. This isn't just about who offers the most content—it's about who can build a sustainable, viewer-centric model in an increasingly complex ecosystem. The key question now is: How do platforms balance scale with relevance, and what does that mean for the viewer experience? These shifts will separate the resilient players from the rest. Grateful for the opportunity to share my perspective. You can watch the full segment below—I’d welcome your thoughts on where the industry is headed next. #StreamingWars #MediaStrategy #ThoughtLeadership #FutureOfTV #MergersAndAcquisitions #LinkedInNews

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Today we’re excited to share that Flai (YC S25) has raised a $4.5 million seed round led by First Round Capital with participation from Y Combinator SV Angel, Liquid 2 Ventures, Innovation Endeavors, and many other terrific funds and angel investors. This funding fuels our mission to bring customers to automotive dealerships by handling all communication before they walk in the door. After visiting hundreds of dealerships and speaking with service advisors, BDC managers, GSMs, and GMs across the US, the pattern was clear: missed calls, full inboxes, long hold times, and customers who don’t try again. In fact, 70% of people who hit voicemail call a competitor within 30 minutes, translating directly into lost revenue for the dealership. Flai has already handled tens of thousands of customer calls and is live in dozens of dealerships. Some dealers have told us Flai has paid for itself on a single Sunday and we’ve generated millions in revenue in the last two months. For our biggest location, we’re generating about 150k in revenue each month. With this funding, we’re pushing the product to new levels to build the AI communications platform for auto dealerships where every customer interaction outside of the store is taken care of.

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Ross Overline sits down with Christopher Lyons, President of Web3 Media at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z Crypto) — a visionary leader bridging culture, technology, and venture capital. From his early days as a music producer to building the Cultural Leadership Fund at a16z, Chris has championed access, ownership, and opportunity for Black creators while redefining what principled innovation looks like. In this episode, he unpacks his “hide the wires” philosophy for Web3 adoption, the power of service-first leadership, and why courage and authenticity are the foundation for lasting impact. This is a masterclass in mentorship, innovation, and values-driven leadership. 🎧 Access the full episode via the link in the comments. #Leadership #Web3 #VentureCapital #CultureAndInnovation

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Zingage showed up to make rhythm. Founded in 2023 by Victor Hunt and Daniel Tian, this NYC-born team just raised $12.5M in seed funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with TQ Ventures, South Park Commons & WndrCo in the mix. That's not just capital, it's a power-up for the $500B home care market, where minutes lost mean care missed. Zingage isn't chasing the hype cycle; it's building the pulse that keeps #homehealth running on time. Victor Hunt, who built Astorian before turning toward healthcare, saw firsthand how broken the coordination game was. #Familycare, agency chaos, endless admin loops, it was a system built on duct tape and hope. Daniel Tian, ex-Ramp & TikTok engineer and The Wharton School/ University of Pennsylvania grad, brought the technical firepower to turn that chaos into clean code. Together, they turned lived pain points into a precision platform that runs #careops with the same intelligence that runs #logistics networks, minus the red tape, plus the human touch. Zingage's Operator platform automates #intake, #scheduling, #billing & compliance, while Perform keeps #caregivers motivated & connected through data-driven engagement. The numbers hit hard: 400+ agency customers, ~50K caregivers supported, and 10M+ visits coordinated every year. Customers like Sunny Days In-Home Care (PA) & Senior Helpers have seen 70%+ less time spent on scheduling and near-zero missed shifts. That's what happens when AI stops being a buzzword and starts being a backbone. This round signals something bigger than another seed announcement. It's the start of a shift where #carelogistics become as smart as fintech and as reliable as cloud ops. Bessemer's Steve Kraus & Sofia Guerra saw it early, the intersection of empathy & efficiency is where the real market alpha hides. With TQ Ventures' Schuster Tanger & South Park Commons backing, Zingage is scaling a system that doesn't just talk automation; it delivers it 24/7. The roadmap's clear: expand the AI, grow the team, onboard more agencies, and make Zingage the platform every home care operator swears by. In a business where compassion meets compliance, Victor Hunt & Daniel Tian are proving precision isn't a luxury, it’s a form of care. Zingage isn’t just syncing schedules; it’s syncing humanity with technology in real time. #Startups #StartupFunding #VentureCapital #SeedRound #AI #Automation #HomeCare #HealthTech #Healthcare #Data #DataDriven #Compliance #Technology #Innovation #TechEcosystem #StartupEcosystem #Hiring #TechHiring If software engineering peace of mind is what you crave, Vention is your zen.

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Grifin Raises $11M Series A to Democratize Investing for Everyday Shoppers Grifin: Buy Stock Where You Shop™ has secured an $11 million Series A round led by Nava Ventures, bringing its total funding to $22 million. Founded by Aaron Froug, Bo Starr , and Robin Froug, the app automates investing in the brands users shop from, making the stock market more accessible—particularly for women, who have historically faced barriers to entry. With over 500,000 registered users and 100,000 monthly actives, Grifin’s traction highlights strong product-market fit, especially among women aged 18–24 and 40–60. The U.S. #fintech is rolling out new features like family plans and an #AI chatbot to boost financial literacy and personalize investing. By prioritizing education and inclusion, Grifin is reshaping how Americans—especially women—engage with wealth-building. #VentureCapital #Startups #Funding #Investment #AngelInvestor #Founders #Finance #MergersAndAcquisitions #Valuation

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