🧑‍🚀 Top Deals You Can’t Miss

1️⃣ Danone – ~€1B ($1.15B) acquisition of Huel, one of the largest consumer nutrition deals in recent years.

2️⃣ Grab – $600M acquisition of Foodpanda Taiwan, expanding beyond Southeast Asia for the first time.

3️⃣ Kandou AI – $225M Series A backed by SoftBank and Synopsys at a $400M valuation.

🧠 Dopamine Dealflow

🌳 Series B+ & Growth

• Zipline, a South San Francisco-based drone delivery company, raised $200 million in Series H funding. Fidelity led the round and were joined by Paradigm and others.

• Dash0, a Berlin-based observability and AI agent platform, raised $110 million in Series B funding. Balderton Capital led the round and were joined by Accel, Cherry Ventures, DTCP Growth, and DIG Ventures.

• Mirage, a New York-based AI video platform behind Captions, raised $75 million in growth funding. General Catalyst led the round through its Customer Value Fund.

• Shepherd, a San Francisco-based AI-native insurance platform, raised $42 million in Series B funding. Intact Private Capital led the round and were joined by Spark Capital, Costanoa Ventures, and additional investors.

• Doctronic, a New York-based AI-powered telehealth platform, raised $40 million in Series B funding. Abstract and Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round and were joined by Union Square Ventures, Tusk Ventures, and Mantis.

🚀 Series A

• Kandou AI, a Saint-Sulpice-based chip interconnect company, raised $225 million in Series A funding. Maverick Silicon led the round and were joined by SoftBank, Synopsys, Cadence Design Systems, and Alchip Technologies.

• Gimlet Labs, a San Francisco-based AI infrastructure platform, raised $80 million in Series A funding. Menlo Ventures led the round and were joined by Eclipse, Prosperity7, Triatomic, and Factory.

🌱 Seed & Early Rounds

• Zalos, a London-based AI workflow automation platform, raised $3.6 million in seed funding. 14 Peaks Capital led the round and were joined by Cohen Circle and 20VC.

🤝 Strategic, M&A & Undisclosed

• Danone, a Paris-based food giant, acquired Huel for around $1.2 billion.

• Grab, a Singapore-based super-app, acquired Foodpanda Taiwan for $600 million.

• Meta, a Menlo Park-based tech company, acquired Dreamer in an acqui-hire deal.

📈 IPOs / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• Unitree Robotics, a Hangzhou-based robotics company, filed for a $610 million IPO on Shanghai’s STAR board.

💸 VC Funds Raised & Raising

• Lead Edge Capital, a New York-based growth firm, raised $3.5 billion for Fund VII.

• Kleiner Perkins, a Menlo Park-based venture firm, raised $3.5 billion across KP22 and KP Select IV.

• Air Street Capital, a London-based AI fund, raised $232 million for Fund III.

• 5(c) Capital, a prediction markets-focused firm, raised $35 million for a new fund.

• BKR Capital, a Toronto-based fund, raised $14.5 million targeting Black founders.

Founders: Want to be featured on @tradedvc? → traded.co/submit/vc

📚 Read of the Day

🤖 Kleiner Perkins Bets $3.5B on the AI Super-Cycle

Kleiner Perkins just made one of the strongest institutional statements yet that AI is the defining platform shift of this decade.

Kleiner Perkins closed two funds totaling $3.5 billion, including a $1B early-stage vehicle (KP22) and a $2.5B growth fund (KP Select IV). On the same day, Lead Edge also raised $3.5B, marking a rare moment where institutional capital moved at massive scale in sync.

The Strategy

KP22 targets founders building entirely new AI-native categories, while Select IV doubles down on breakout winners with concentrated growth checks.

The Backstory

Since 1972, KP has backed Amazon, Google, and Genentech. This raise signals its highest conviction yet that AI eclipses even the internet era in importance.

Why It Matters

This is long-duration capital from endowments and pensions, not fast money. For founders, it means more competition and larger rounds. For markets, it confirms AI infrastructure is a multi-decade buildout.

👉 Read The Whole Story Here

📰 Other News You Don’t Want To Miss

• 🚕 Zoox Brings Its Robotaxis to Austin and Miami — Amazon’s AV unit is expanding commercial rollout after years of testing.

• ⚡ Helion in Talks to Supply OpenAI with Massive Power Deal — Fusion energy could become a critical input for AI infrastructure.

• 🤖 Zuckerberg Is Building an AI Agent to Run Meta — Meta pushes deeper into autonomous AI agents for business execution.

• 🌆 Tulsa’s $10K Relocation Program Generated $878M Impact — Incentives are proving powerful in redistributing tech talent geographically.