Deek Velagandula

Backing awesome people @WaverleyCapital Formerly @CorazonCap @BainAlerts @LiveNation Forever @NU_Sports

[V ⚔️ @VSwordH]

Some cool news from the Sword universe… we’re acquiring Headspace.

Our ambition has always been to build a world where the poorest person has access to the same quality of care as the richest. This acquisition brings that future a little bit closer.

Headspace has built one of the most loved and trusted brands in mental health. And the scale of what the team has accomplished is extraordinary:

• 100M lives touched across 200+ countries since launch

• 3.3M people turning to Headspace for support each year

• More than 30M employees have accesss to Headspace across 20,000 enterprises, including Amazon, Starbucks and Nike and other 50+ Fortune 500 companies.

• A really strong clinical foundation built through 84 peer-reviewed studies published in top medical journals.

Sword has built the clinical intelligence, powered by our frontier AI research lab.
Headspace brings the trust, reach, and deep understanding of how people seek support for their mental health.

Together, we can build the future of mental health care by bringing our AI Care model to millions more people through a brand they already know and love.

A future where care is Personal, Proactive and Present. Care that understands you, reaches out before things get worse, and is there whenever you need it.

To everyone at Headspace, welcome to Sword. I’m incredibly excited to work with you, and so is everyone here. You’ve built something that matters to millions of people. I can’t wait to see how much further we can take it together.

(Still only 5% done)

[Deek Velagandula @deekvel]

For every founder whose best idea got shot down in a pitch or board meeting……

@elonmusk

[Bharat Vasan 🇺🇸 @bharatvasan]

An homage to one of our favorite companies, @SpaceX.

Built using Grok + Intangible.

[Gaurav Sharma @gsharmanyc]

AI platforms are stealing from artists

> Millions spent on data centers to replicate human music
> Rarely pay the musicians they train on

AI should amplify creativity, not steal from humans

Introducing Hook: the world’s first social platform for music that pays artists & fans

To celebrate our launch, we’re picking the 10 best tracks made on Hook.

There's $10,000 up for grabs plus a repost from your favorite artist.

Comment your favorite artist below and we’ll send you a link to the challenge.

[Gaurav Sharma @gsharmanyc]

I helped build one of the biggest music streaming services in India when I was 25.

it grew to 300 million users. You probably know it as Jio Saavn.

then I took some time and watched what happened to music. and music changed more in the last 10 years than in the 50 before it.

streaming saved distribution but turned music into a utility.

it lacks expression while artists get scammed. artists are now numbers on a playlist.

fans are data points. the whole thing got reduced to algorithms.

then Al came in and it got even worse. one side says AI will replace artists. the labels just want every platform playing by their rules first.

everyone's fighting over control. nobody's talking about expression.

Al should help the artist and allow people to express themselves however they want, not stunt it.

the way i see music: true creativity has always resulted from breaking the expected pattern.

when someone scratched a vinyl record for the first time, hip hop was accidentally born.

the next biggest change to music streaming is going to break the pattern

if you're looking for what's next in music, i've been cooking something. more soon.

[Deek Velagandula @deekvel]

@FDavidsonT ✈️🚙🚞 would love to try it!

[Deek Velagandula @deekvel]

@AngelList @usvc_ this is a great deal for Angellist.....

[noscroll @no_scroll]

X has the best information on the internet and the worst incentives & culture.

meet noscroll — the AI that doomscrolls it for you and texts you just the things that matter.

no feed. no brainrot. no ragebait. just signal.

try it for free → https://t.co/XqdExWR13j 🙅🏼‍♂️

[Deek Velagandula @deekvel]

chefs kiss

[Acyn @Acyn]

Trump: I hang out with losers because it makes be feel better. I hate guys that are very, very successful and you have to listen to their success stories. I like people that like to listen to my success.

[Mike Solana @micsolana]

turning jimmy kimmel into a free speech icon rather than letting his show wither and die from poor ratings

dumb

[PFL @PFLMMA]

𝗪𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗧𝗼 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗴𝘂𝗲 @JohnMartinPFL ! 🤝

We would like to welcome our new CEO as we enter a new era for the Professional Fighters League ➡️⏳

[Deek Velagandula @deekvel]

@nicochristie Code plz!

[OpenAI Developers @OpenAIDevs]

.@weekendhq is developing a fantasy RPG featuring an AI dungeon master powered by the Realtime API. They found the latest model was better at following game rules while generating a more creative narrative, delivering a smoother and more engaging gameplay experience. https://t.co/pybtxT87nv

[Deek Velagandula @deekvel]

@mlchild @weekendhq @M12vc @lightspeedvp 🚀🚀🚀

Proud to be a part of the journey!

[Max Child @mlchild]

Excited to officially announce @weekendhq’s $55M Series C, co-led by Microsoft's @M12vc and @lightspeedvp!

We founded Volley with the belief that talking is the easiest way to communicate, and that games are the most fun way to learn about the world.

In the last few years, technology has begun to catch up with our ambition. Leaps forward in speech recognition and LLMs have made our games much better. Hardware has continued to improve—nearly every new TV has a microphone on the remote and every mobile phone has robust voice support.

This funding lets us push the pace even further in bringing our top games—Volley originals like “20 Questions”, “Karaoke”, as well as cherished TV game shows like “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune”—to new devices, as well as letting us capitalize on technologies like GPT 4o to launch new categories of voice gaming.

If nothing else, our goal of Volley is to have fun making entertainment—if this resonates with you, please join us! Read more about our fundraise and our goals here: https://t.co/e6d9cU2nhu

[Deek Velagandula @deekvel]

Everything old is new again. https://t.co/JSJlWt4ODl

[Travis Chen @TravisChen]

Had a blast chatting with the folks at a16z about the future of daily play 😃 Give it a listen!

[Sar Haribhakti @sarthakgh]

“Barbie…passed one of the “Harry Potter” movies as the top-grossing Warner Bros. film of all time

Mattel earned 5 percent of the box office revenue, as well as a percentage of eventual profits…At $2 billion in box office revenue, that amounts to $100 million”
https://t.co/s7VDunLXdb

[Deek Velagandula @deekvel]

@karantalati wrong.

[Deek Velagandula @deekvel]

@davidrgoldberg 👋 @waverleycapital

[Siqi Chen @blader]

deleted recent tweets about svb.

1. people who Know Things still believe SVB will be fine

2. fanning the flames of a bank run is a bad look for everybody and i don’t want to be a contributor

3. svb is good people and good partners for the ecosystem and deserve our support