IVP

Undaunted on the path to extraordinary outcomes.

[Kevin Weil 🇺🇸 @kevinweil]

💥 Introducing Warp Sciences, a new company applying AI and robotics to help the world develop new medicines faster.

We’ve raised a $215M Series A led by @lightspeedvp to bring frontier AI out of the browser and into the lab, and build scientific capacity here in America.

I co-founded Warp with my long-time friend @dpatil, FAIR co-founder @manohar_paluri, and drug hunter Sol Reisberg. The early team is full of incredible people like @bkspears9, who helped achieve Q>1 fusion at LLNL.

[Scuba @withscuba]

Introducing Scuba, the shared context engine for teams and their agents.

Never lose a great idea. Capture anything, share what matters, and keep your people and agents aligned as you move faster together.

We’re emerging from stealth with $34M.

[Grant Lee @thisisgrantlee]

Everyone is sick of generic AI, including us.

Gamma was the first AI presentation platform to reach real scale. But now that AI tools are everywhere, everything looks the same.

Earlier this summer, we came to an uncomfortable conclusion: without a step change in visual variety, Gamma’s output would look and feel too similar to all the other AI tools. The entire point of a presentation is to help someone "get" your idea, to see it as unique and do something with it.

We started over. Today we're shipping Gamma 5, the biggest product overhaul in our company's history.

We rebuilt Gamma to create presentations that actually look like you and your brand. Your teams can design anything they dream up, following your brand's aesthetic or something entirely new, with every frontier and image model under the hood. And the same goes for your docs, social assets, and graphics.

We revamped our agent, design tools, editing, import, export, connectors, and more.

Get your ideas out there.

[Suffiyan Malik @suffiyanmalikk]

My first We The Builders conversation with @someshdash is now available.

Somesh has been investing in startups for over 20 years @IVP where he is a General Partner. IVP is one of the most prominent venture firms in growth stage investing founded in 1980. In the last almost five decades, they have invested in over 400 companies, with over 135 of them going public.

IVP is an investor in generational companies like @AnthropicA, @Uber, @Snap, @CrowdStrike, @RobinhoodApp, @figma, @discord, @coinbase to name a few.

I had a wide ranging conversation with Somesh about his thoughts on the craft of investing itself, immigration, IVP’s firm structure and how the firm works, his role as a leader in the firm now, thoughts on the unprecedented era of AI and how he thinks about investing in this era and more.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00:00 - Introduction
00:00:55 - What 20 Years in VC Teaches You About the Job
00:02:00 - Risk-Taking, Contrarianism, and Dealing with Failure
00:02:45 - The Importance of LP Relationships
00:03:30 - Building and Sustaining a Strong VC Partnership
00:06:05 - Index / Spray-and-Pray vs. High-Conviction Investing
00:08:10 - What Does "Contrarian" Mean at the Growth Stage?
00:11:25 - Investing in Twitter in 2009
00:13:00 - Early Bet on Snapchat in 2013
00:14:45 - How Growth Stage Investing Has Evolved at IVP
00:16:15 - Investing in Anthropic
00:17:55 - How IVP Adds Value
00:20:00 - Founder Mental Health & The VC as Counselor
00:21:15 - Customer Introductions & The Day-to-Day VC Grind
00:26:37 - The IVP Partnership Model & Shared Decision-Making
00:28:05 - Depth vs. Breadth of Networks & Being In-Person
00:29:40 - Cross-Pollination Across Sports, Culture, and other Industries
00:33:33 - Favorite Podcasts, Comedy
00:35:50 - Expanding into New Sectors: Healthcare, Defense Tech & Space
00:37:45 - The Resurgence of Hardware & Semiconductors (Seagate, LSI Logic)
00:41:05 - Silicon Valley, Immigration, and Global Talent
00:45:15 - The Immigrant DNA of Unicorn Founders
00:47:23 - Geopolitics, Soft Power, and Media Narratives
00:52:16 - Immigrant Values, Capitalism, and Democracy as a Startup
00:57:35 - Labor Market Matching and Skilled Immigration
01:02:42 - How IVP Selects 8–10 High-Conviction Investments a Year
01:05:05 - Capital Allocation Lessons from the Clean Tech Boom
01:06:40 - Hot Take: Why Traditional Software/SaaS is Making a Comeback
01:08:45 - VC Firm Governance: CEO Model vs. Pure Partnership Model
01:11:50 - Generational Transition & Internal Mentorship at IVP
01:13:55 - Navigating Market Cycles & Taking $4B in Liquidity in 2021
01:15:15 - How the Investment Committee Works at IVP
01:19:25 - Apprenticeship in Venture Capital & Key Industry Mentors
01:22:42 - Cooperation in VC
01:24:48 - Somesh's Media Diet and High-Signal Information Sources
01:27:25 - The Resurgence of Print Media & Top Book Recommendations

[Wonderful @wonderful_ai]

Wonderful has raised a $550M Series C at a $5 billion valuation.

This latest funding was led by @insightpartners, with @salesforce joining as new investors and @IndexVentures, @BessemerVP, @IVP, @VineVenturesLP, and @9yardscapital returning.

In 20 months since launch, we're in production with hundreds of agents, systems, and workflows across a dozen verticals in over 30 markets.

With this new capital, we’ll be overdelivering for our customers, hiring hundreds of cracked engineers, FDEs, and former founders, and expanding our product capabilities across the entire enterprise.

Stay tuned 👀

[Alex Konrad @alexrkonrad]

Big companies are blowing through AI budgets. CFOs are under pressure.

Pigment co-founder Eléonore Crespo wants to help.

"It's going to be a big topic for everyone, and it goes beyond just understanding your costs," she says.

Founded in Paris in 2019 by Crespo and her co-CEO Romain Niccoli, @gopigment builds AI agents to help finance teams break free from spreadsheets for their planning.

Anthropic, Coca-Cola, Notion, Uber and Unilever are all customers. And increasingly, they're turning to Pigment to manage runaway token and model spend.

On our new episode of The Upstarts Podcast, Crespo share how building in Paris helps Pigment compete at the AI talent "buffet"; how a culture of “unreasonable hospitality” helps it win, from cookies to late-night WhatsApp messages; and how careful communication can help a co-CEO setup actually work.

Plus, she shares her Upstart Moment: closing a key exec hire, with an in-person assist from the actor Tom Cruise.

This season is presented by @Rippling.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:18 What Pigment does, and who it helps
06:06 Seeing Google’s spreadsheet problem first-hand
10:05 Finding a co-founder, CIA style, and a product, Ferrari style
15:49 Cookies, WhatsApp and “unreasonable hospitality” as strategy
18:56 How to make startup co-CEOS work
24:00 Building in Paris versus the Bay Area’s talent "buffet”
30:11 How AI agents change CFO and analyst jobs
34:05 Bringing AI token spending under control
39:02 How Tom Cruise helped close Pigment’s CRO

[Tuhin Srivastava @tuhinone]

https://t.co/aVf5uLG7j5

[Tom Loverro @tomloverro]

Huge announcement today from @chainguard_dev. Chainguard launched Athena, a shared defense network for the AI era for open-source software security.

Athena is the first systematic response to the wave of vulnerabilities AI is uncovering at scale in the post-Mythos era.

Instead of find bug → disclose publicly → patch → hope people update, the coalition works like this: Pool the intelligence → Patch and fix under embargo → Neutralize at network level → Then disclose publicly

Athena is the clearinghouse and Chainguard provides the vulnerability remediation and continuous reconciliation. Founding members include: BNY, Cisco, Cloudflare, Corridor, DepthFirst, Docker, JPMorgan Chase, Kyndryl, LTIMindtree, and PwC.

More here: https://t.co/NF5goZ3p9R

[Chainguard ⛓️ @chainguard_dev]

Introducing Athena: the industry coalition to protect open source software from AI attacks.

Athena is operational today. More than two dozen members. It's processed 20,000+ findings and generated 2,000+ patches across 500+ open source projects.

Join us: https://t.co/PFpmpzkU9W

[IVP @IVP]

Music creation is becoming one of the most human things we do. Today we announced our investment in @Suno's $400M Series D.

More from @Lucas_Shaw:
https://t.co/6JH5EJnvc8

[Tuhin Srivastava @tuhinone]

https://t.co/YPONx4IZSz

[Cowboy Space Corp. @CowboySpaceCorp]

Today marks the beginning of a new era.
Introducing: Cowboy Space Corporation.

We are building orbital infrastructure for the AI era: a fully integrated system of rockets and satellites designed to deliver high-performance compute and optical data transmission directly from Low Earth Orbit.

[IVP @IVP]

AI infrastructure is running into a physical constraint: power.

That’s what drew us to @CowboySpaceCorp. The company is solving that head-on by building a power grid in space. 🚀

More on why we're backing the Series B: https://t.co/hrkQPLGlSi

[Tom Loverro @tomloverro]

Been an interesting past few weeks -- there were 5 major supply chain attacks, but @chainguard_dev customers were protected from each one.

@lorenc_dan has been preparing for this. What he once called "a safe source for open source" is now a trust layer for the AI era. It's what we need as AI accelerates both the pace of software development and software supply chain attacks.

Chainguard is making its Libraries + Actions product free for the next 90 days @ https://t.co/4wqD9M2Rhe

[Wonderful @wonderful_ai]

@wonderful_ai 🤝 @McKinsey x @quantumblack

McKinsey turns AI ambition into strategy. Wonderful turns strategy into agents in production.

See how our new partnership helps enterprises get out of pilot purgatory:

https://t.co/nrpM6nLhWA

[Chainguard ⛓️ @chainguard_dev]

Last month proved that your security is only as strong as your weakest dependency.

The attacks against Trivy, LiteLLM and axios showed that you can’t patch and scan your way out of a broken trust model.

We took an ad out in the @BostonGlobe to share our POV.

[Will Ahmed @willahmed]

BREAKING: WHOOP RAISES $575M AT $10.1B VALUATION 

I am pleased to announce that we’ve raised $575M at a $10.1B valuation to accelerate our mission of unlocking human performance and healthspan globally.

This round was led by Collaborative Fund with participation from 2PointZero Group, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Mubadala Investment Company, Abbott, Mayo Clinic, Macquarie Capital, Glade Brook, B-Flexion, IVP, Foundry, Accomplice, Affinity Partners, Promus Ventures, and Bullhound Capital alongside a group of individual investors including Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James, Rory McIlroy, Virgil van Dijk, and Mathieu van der Poel.

This investor group and this moment reflect a powerful evolution underway for Whoop and the broader healthcare market.

Whoop was born in performance - trusted by the best athletes in the world to train, recover, and compete at the highest level. That foundation remains core to who we are. You see that in the iconic athlete investors joining this round. 

But it also represents our push into broader health. 

In the past 12 months, WHOOP has received medical clearances, launched blood testing, and created a platform that has saved lives. Abbott and Mayo Clinic - two of the most respected and influential institutions in global healthcare - are now investors in Whoop. These are organizations that have shaped modern medicine. Their decision to partner with us is a clear validation of where our technology is headed.

Healthcare systems around the world are reactive. For too long, they have waited for people to get sick, then intervene. Chronic disease is rising and costs continue to climb.

At Whoop, we believe the future looks fundamentally different. We are building the most powerful, personal, preventive health platform in the world - powered by continuous biometric data, advanced analytics, and AI to help people understand their bodies and improve their health in real time.

I am grateful to our team, our members, and our partners for believing in this vision. I’ve been building this company for 14 years and I’ve never been more excited for the future.

[Tom Loverro @tomloverro]

https://t.co/aXdpJ90lGI

[Abridge @AbridgeHQ]

What’s it like building at Abridge? “It feels like the beginning of the Internet… It’s love for software that I have never seen.”

Watch to see what our builders say about working at Abridge.

We’re fortunate to be backed by investors who share our vision, including @a16z @eladgil @khoslaventures @NVIDIA Ventures @IVP @SVAngel @lightspeedvp @Redpoint @sparkcapital @BessemerVP @usv

We’re hiring in SF!

[Wonderful @wonderful_ai]

We’ve raised our $150 Million Series B round at a $2 Billion valuation.

Our investors @insightpartners , @IndexVentures , @IVP, @BessemerVP, and @VineVenturesLP are all tripling down on their conviction in Wonderful’s platform and hyper-local operating model, as we continue deploying production-grade agents across our growing customer base in 30+ countries.

And, we’re hiring globally (a lot): https://t.co/ZxdxcQZeo8