Velocity, a stablecoin treasury and settlement platform, raised a $38M Series A led by Dragonfly and FirstMark, bringing its total funding to around $50M
THE SO WHAT
A $38M Series A into stablecoin treasury and settlement is a bet that USDC/USDT rails are becoming institutional plumbing, not just crypto-native tooling. If you move money across borders or manage multi-currency balances, it’s time to benchmark stablecoin-native platforms against your existing treasury stack.
READ THE SOURCE
MORE FROM THE WIRE
Startups & VentureDeepSeek reportedly in talks to raise $1.5B, then IPO
A $1.5B raise at a reported $71B valuation for a Chinese LLM developer signals that capital markets are willing to fund multiple regional AI champions at hyperscaler scale. If you’re building on these models, vendor risk now includes geopolitics and listing venue, not just model quality.
Startups & VentureVieu launches AI-ready map of business relationships, challenging tech incumbents
A live "Business Graph" built from observed signals — shared work history, boards, co-investors — is a direct shot at self-reported networks like LinkedIn. GTM and BD teams should expect prospecting to shift from who-you-know to who-you’re-actually-connected-to in the data.
Startups & VentureLaunch HN: Agnost AI (YC S26) – Extract user feedback from agent conversations
Reading production chat and voice logs for rageprompting, repeated requests, and drop‑offs turns agent UX into a measurable funnel, not a black box. If you’re deploying customer‑facing agents, you need this style of behavioral analytics in place early—otherwise you’re flying blind on where the model is actually failing users.
Startups & VentureSources: data center operator Switch has hired investment banks for a US IPO that could raise up to $10B and value it at $80B, set for as soon as Q4
An $80B data center IPO is another marker that compute and power are becoming their own asset class, not just a cost center behind cloud logos. If AI is material to your roadmap, treat long‑term colocation and power availability as strategic inputs on par with model access and talent, not afterthoughts.