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• Linda Yaccarino, CEO of eMed, an employer platform for clinically supervised GLP-1 weight loss programs achieving 90%+ member adherence, raised $200M at a $2B+ valuation led by AON Consulting.

• Galina Antova, Co-Founder & CEO of Kai, an agentic AI platform rebuilding cybersecurity to defend against machine-speed attacks, raised $125M in funding led by Evolution Equity Partners.

• Michelle Nguyen and Natalie Serrino, Co-Founders of Gimlet Labs, a multi-silicon inference cloud that runs AI workloads across diverse hardware to deliver 3x to 10x faster inference at the same cost, raised $80M in Series A funding led by Menlo Ventures.

• Samantha Pelletier, Co-Founder & CTO of Highlight AI, an intelligent operating system that captures context across tools and teams so humans and AI agents can stay aligned without the coordination overhead, raised $40M in Series A funding led by Khosla Ventures.

• Tess Bloch, Co-Founder & COO of Spade, a data and AI platform that turns messy transaction strings into verified merchant intelligence for banks and fintechs like Stripe, Bilt, and Mercury, raised $40M in Series B funding led by Oak HC/FT.

• Suneera Madhani, Co-Founder of Worth, an AI platform that helps financial institutions onboard and underwrite small businesses in seconds instead of days, raised $30M in Series A funding led by Fulcrum Equity Partners.

• Irina Denisenko, CEO of Knox Systems, an AI-managed cloud provider giving SaaS companies a faster, cheaper path to FedRAMP authorization for the US federal government, raised $25M in Series A funding led by B Capital.

• Tess Michaels, Founder & CEO of Clasp, a platform that helps healthcare employers recruit and retain clinical talent by replacing sign-on bonuses with student loan repayment tied to tenure, raised $20M in Series B funding led by Crosslink Capital and Digitalis Ventures.

• Zoë Weil, Co-Founder & CEO of Sequen, a real-time personalization and ranking platform bringing TikTok-style recommendation technology to Fortune 500 consumer companies, raised $16M in Series A funding co-led by White Star Capital and Threshold Ventures.

• Adaeze Enekwechi (CEO) and Zawadi Bryant (COO), Executives of Nadia Care, a hybrid in-home and virtual maternal care model for pregnant women and new mothers, raised $12M in funding led by Valtruis.

• Anna Berger (CEO) and Cara Kessler (CTO), Co-Founders of Trayd, an all-in-one payroll, HR, and compliance platform built specifically for specialty trade contractors, raised $10M in Series A funding led by White Star Capital.

• Emma Gilsanz, Co-Founder of Meadow, a startup letting families plan and arrange funerals online or over the phone at a fraction of the cost of traditional funeral homes, raised $9M in Series A funding co-led by Lachy Groom and Haystack.

• Sam Wu, Co-Founder & CEO of Understood Care, an AI-native patient advocacy platform helping Medicare patients navigate the healthcare system, raised $8.4M in funding led by Rethink Education and Zeal Capital Partners.

• Anvisha Pai, Founder & CEO of Moda, an AI design agent that learns a company’s brand and creates fully editable, on-brand presentations and visual assets, raised $7.5M in Seed funding led by General Catalyst.

• Neeka Mashouf and Leila Mashouf, Co-Founders of Rubi, an enzyme platform that converts waste carbon into essential materials for textiles, CPG, and aerospace manufacturing, raised $7.5M in funding led by AP Ventures and FH One Investments.

• 🖋 Renee from Chronicle is hiring a Brand Designer to own visual storytelling and creative campaigns for the AI-powered presentations platform.

• 🌿 Grace from Eucalyptus is hiring 10 interns across analytics, creative strategy, and AI-driven growth at a fashion-tech company.

• 🐕 Emily from Corgi is hiring a Strategy Lead (SF or Chicago, in-person).

• 🏠 Jackie from Daisy is hiring Account Coordinators to join a PropTech startup rethinking property management, with real ownership from day one.

• 🧡 Sabah from Etsy is hiring a Community & Social Coordinator (Brooklyn, hybrid) to support seller-focused social media, events, and community outreach.

• ⚙️ Michelle from Twill is hiring a Summer Engineering Intern (fully remote, US) to build and break things alongside an eng lead who scaled teams at Google and Automattic.

• 📸 Janelle from Isle of Monday is hiring a Campaign & Content Marketing Manager (NYC, part-time to full-time) to shoot, create, and capture content for a fashion and culture brand.

• 🌱 Elise from Biom is hiring a Community Coordinator to manage creator outreach, gifting, and brand relationships at a social-first wellness brand.

• 🍬 Emily from POCA is hiring a Gen Z Culture & Partnerships Intern (SF, on-site) to shape how a pocket-sized wellness brand shows up across creators, campuses, and culture.

• 🌍 Mary from Twilio is hiring a Social Impact & Community Engagement Intern to scale global CSR programs and drive community engagement.

• ⚡ Jianna from Cardinal is hiring Founding Engineers, an AE, and a Designer (SF, in-office) to build the AI-native outbound platform.

• 📊 MaryKate from Rilla is hiring its first FP&A Analyst (NYC) to build the finance function from scratch at an early-stage startup.

• ✈️ Eni from Travel Spoken is hiring a Growth & Marketing Intern with a path to Head of Growth for someone obsessed with social distribution and consumer AI in travel.

• 🎮 Hailey from Lil Snack is hiring an MBA Intern (remote, 10 weeks, paid) to build a user acquisition engine for the consumer gaming platform.

• 🏙 BEZI is hiring a Summer Intern (NYC, part-time) for a CPG retail ops platform.

• 🥚 Halle from Cofertility is hiring across five roles, including Head of Marketing, Analytics Engineer, and Clinical Operations Specialist — at the startup making egg freezing free for women who donate to families who can’t conceive.

• 🎮 Nicole from Roblox is hiring a Communications Intern (Summer 2026) to pitch creators to media and shape the brand’s public narrative.

• 💰 Origami is hiring Founding GTM/Sales roles ($150K+/yr) for cold outbound, early-stage GTM, and lead list building.

• 🎨 Gretel is hiring a Spring Design Intern (Brooklyn, in-person, April 6 – July 2) to join a creative studio team.

• 🖌️ Kettle is hiring 4 Summer Interns across Design, Motion, Copy, and Strategy (remote, June 8 – August 7) to work on real client briefs at a creative agency.

• 🛡 ViaShield is hiring summer interns across engineering, growth, data analytics, and biz ops at a safety intelligence and urban mobility startup.

• 🧬 Soleil from age1 is hiring a Venture Intern (SF, on-site) to back biotech and longevity companies changing civilization.

• 💸 Paige from K Street Capital is hiring a VC Analyst/Associate to source deals, support portfolio companies, and build out investment ops at a seed-stage fund.

• 🏛 Ana from MIT is hiring an Entrepreneur in Residence to shape startup programs and mentor the next generation of founders.

• 💼 Olivia from Forum Ventures is hiring an Investment Analyst (Toronto, full-time) to source B2B founders, sit in on investment decisions, and work inside a fund that backs 75+ companies a year.

• 🚀 645 Ventures is hiring a Summer 2026 Investment Fellow (SF, in-person) to source deals and work directly with the investment team on AI dev tools and infrastructure.

• 🏆 Next Legacy Partners is accepting applications for its 2026 Venture Capital Fellowship (Bay Area, April 3 deadline), a four-day immersive for pro athletes and entertainers breaking into VC.

• 🎓 .406 Ventures is accepting applications for its Student Fellows Program (Class XVIII) for undergraduate and graduate student entrepreneurs.

• ⚡ Selena from OpenAI is searching for 26 high-agency students (18-25, US/Canada) for the ChatGPT Class of 2026, with a $10K grant and access to OpenAI’s latest tech.

• 🏆 TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield 200 nominations are still open. Nominate your startup before May 27 for a shot at $100K equity-free funding and VC access.

• ✨ Phoebe from Phia is hosting a Hackathon (NYC, April 18-19) with $5K for first place, dinner with founders, and a fast-track interview at the $43M-backed AI shopping platform.

• AI's Boys Club Problem. TechCrunch covered Rana el Kaliouby's SXSW talk where she said it plainly: if women aren't founding AI companies, getting funded, or investing in the funds backing them, the wealth gap won't just persist, it'll explode.

• The Startup Selling Fake Compliance. A deep investigation into Delve, the YC-backed compliance platform that raised $32M from Insight Partners, alleges the company has been handing clients fabricated audit reports, pre-generated fake evidence, and rubber-stamp certifications from Indian cert mills it calls “US-based auditors.” Hundreds of startups, including some well-known YC companies, may have unknowingly misrepresented their security posture to customers and investors.

• What 81,000 People Want From AI. Anthropic ran the largest qualitative AI study ever, interviewing Claude users across 159 countries and 70 languages. The top ask wasn’t productivity, it was time. More of it, for family, rest, and life outside work. People in developing countries see AI as an equalizer. People in wealthy ones are mostly just trying to keep up.

• Her Campus 22 Under 22. Her Campus and e.l.f. Beauty just named their Class of 2026, spotlighting 22 college students already making moves.

• Why OpenAI Really Killed Sora. Per WSJ, Sora peaked at 1 million users, fell to under 500k, and was burning $1M a day in compute costs. Sam Altman killed it, freed up the chips, and moved on. Disney had committed $1B to the partnership and found out it was dead less than an hour before everyone else did.

• 50 Startups Defining Physical AI. Bessemer put together a list of the most promising private companies in robotics and autonomous systems, spanning defense, healthcare, industrial, and consumer. The macro stat worth knowing: by 2035, there are expected to be over 2.5 billion robots worldwide.

• What YC W26 Says About Where We're Headed. Someone analyzed all 198 companies in the batch. 85% are AI-first, 56 are building fully autonomous agents, and healthcare is the biggest vertical by far. The most common company-building pattern: take a horizontal AI breakthrough and compress it into a vertical workflow.

• How AI Startups Beat the Big Labs. a16z’s Olivia Moore’s take: the big labs look unstoppable but they’re more constrained than people think. Every hour OpenAI spends on a video model is an hour not spent on AGI, and ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are already diverging in ways that create real gaps. The durable startups will be the ones that live in those gaps, own the messy vertical workflows, and build deep enough that the labs never bother to catch up.

• 13 Women Shaping VC. Venture Forward spotlighted 13 women investors and emerging managers for Women's History Month.

• SF Investors by Stage. A crowdsourced map of SF VCs organized by stage, from pre-idea funds to multi-stage giants.

📈 Partner with Her Hustle & Teli Labs if you are an early-stage startup interested in hiring top talent.

🗞️ Explore our other newsletters: Builders Report, spotlighting standout young founders, and Teli Digest, a roundup of startup hiring, funding, and ecosystem insights.

Welcome to our new readers, and if you have not yet subscribed, join the community below!

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• Zunu Mittal, Co-Founder of Quince, the manufacturer-to-consumer e-commerce brand known for affordable luxury products, raised $500M in Series E funding at a $10.1B valuation led by ICONIQ.

• Carina Hong, Co-Founder & CEO of Axiom, an AI startup building systems that formally verify and debug AI-generated code, raised $200M in Series A funding led by Menlo Ventures.

• Lalitha Rajagopalan, Co-Founder of ORO Labs, an AI-powered enterprise platform that orchestrates procurement workflows across large organizations, raised $100M in Series C funding led by Brighton Park Capital and Goldman Sachs Growth Equity.

• Ivana Tesanovic, Co-Founder of Pepper, an AI-enabled software platform modernizing workflows for independent food distributors, raised $50M in Series C funding led by Lead Edge Capital.

• Meriem Sefta, Co-Founder & CEO of Waiv, a Paris-based AI precision oncology testing platform spun out of Owkin, raised $33M in funding co-led by OTB Ventures and Alpha Intelligence Capital.

• Emma Zhang (CEO) and Alexa Valle Burguete (CTO), Co-Founders of PactFi, an end-to-end operational platform for the private credit market, raised $25M in Series A funding led by 7RIDGE.

• Sylvia Hastanan, Founder & CEO of Greater Good Health, a value-based primary care platform focused on improving outcomes and lowering costs for Medicare patients, raised $20.5M in Series B funding led by Allumia Ventures.

• Anne Ouyang, Co-Founder of Standard Kernel, an AI startup generating ultra-optimized GPU kernels to improve AI workload performance, raised $20M in seed funding led by Jump Capital.

• Ria Shah, Co-Founder & CPO of Handl Health, an AI-powered platform helping employers design more affordable health insurance plans, raised $14.2M in Series A funding led by Arthur Ventures.

• Jennifer Wirt, Founder & CEO of Coral Care, a platform connecting families with licensed clinicians for in-home pediatric therapy, raised $13M in Series A funding led by Haymaker Ventures.

• Sherry Liu, Co-Founder of Tamarind Bio, an AI platform enabling scientists to run molecular AI models for drug discovery, raised $12M in Series A funding led by Dimension Capital.

• Manal Habib, Co-Founder & CEO of MightyFly, an autonomous air logistics company building hybrid eVTOL cargo aircraft for expedited deliveries, raised $10M in funding led by Draper Associates.

  

• Kristen Habacht, Founder & CEO of Elly, an AI-native recruiting platform that helps talent teams manage sourcing, interviews, and applicant tracking in one system, raised $8M in funding led by Sorenson Capital.

• Charlotte Bax, Founder & CEO of Captur, an AI infrastructure platform that verifies user-submitted photos in real time directly on-device for enterprise mobile apps, raised $6M in seed funding led by Rally Ventures.

• Elena Wagenmans, Founder & CEO of Taya, a wearable AI pendant that records and transcribes only the user’s voice for private note-taking, raised $5M in seed funding led by MaC Venture Capital and Female Founders Fund.

• Vanessa Galarneau, Co-Founder & CFO of Pluvo, an AI-native financial analysis platform helping CFOs and finance teams turn data into decision-ready insights, raised $5M in seed funding led by a16z.

• Cami Tellez, Co-Founder of Devotion, an AI-powered platform helping brands scale influencer discovery, management, and creator marketing programs, raised $4M in funding led by Basecase and Will Ventures.

• Marie Schneegans, Co-Founder of 14.ai, an AI-native customer service agency that replaces traditional support teams for startups, raised $3M in seed funding led by YC.

• Aditi Kothari, Co-Founder & CEO of Potpie AI, a platform enabling spec-driven development for large enterprise codebases, raised $2.2M in pre-seed funding led by Emergent Ventures.

• 🏗️ Patra from Structured AI (YC F25) is hiring NYC-based interns to help build AI agents that design and review infrastructure like hospitals, bridges, and cities.

• 🏡 Brianna from Copperlane (YC W26) is hiring Growth and SWE Interns (Spring & Summer 2026) to help build an AI mortgage loan officer.

• 🔗 Shensi from Merge is hiring across Sales, Engineering, Data, Marketing, Security, Finance, and Customer Success (SF & NYC) to help scale its integrations platform.

• 🛸 Taryn from Big Spaceship is hiring Summer Interns, an Associate Creative Director (art + copy), and an Associate Strategy Director to help shape culture-driven creative campaigns.

• 📣 Kawtar from Wealthsimple is hiring an Influencer & UGC Marketing Intern (Summer 2026, Toronto) to help run creator partnerships at the Canadian fintech.

• 🧩 Annette from Amdahl AI is hiring a Founding GTM hire to build the early sales, marketing, and growth engine.

• 🌍 Nell from EN-POWER Group is hiring a Marketing Intern (NYC) to work on sustainability and clean energy communications.

• 🎒 Nabila from Dose of Travel Club is hiring a Creative Producer & Content Lead to build scale the brand’s travel storytelling.

• 🎬 Sarina is hiring a Fractional Content Lead to run her founder content engine and build the brand voice for a stealth AI startup in the creator economy.

• 📊 Trata (YC W25) is hiring a Chief of Staff to help scale a platform delivering unfiltered stock insights from hedge fund analysts.

• 🌱 Synthica is hiring Growth Interns (no experience required) to help run a major marketing campaign and grow its platform bringing research opportunities to high school students.

• 🌊 Pond is hiring a Growth Manager (SF, new grads welcome) to own influencer partnerships, BD collaborations, and end-to-end growth strategy at his AI and crypto startup.

• 🎉 Partiful is hiring Campus Growth Managers (US, part-time) to launch the social events app on campuses.

• 🌱 Earth Brands is hiring a Head of Growth to own revenue across sales + marketing and scale sustainable packaging to businesses nationwide.

• 💸 Amy from defy.vc is hiring an Analyst to join the early-stage VC firm.

• 🧬 Morgan from M13 is hiring a Summer Investment Associate (NYC) to source AI-native founders and connect with technical builders across top universities.

• 🧪 Eigenprize is offering $100K (plus $250K total across 23 prizes) in no-strings-attached funding for builders, scientists, and operators through a ~10-min application.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Join here! Check out our job board with 10k live startup roles.

• Women’s Sports Sundays. After opting out of its “Sunday Night Baseball” deal, ESPN is launching “Women’s Sports Sundays,” a new summer primetime slot featuring WNBA (basketball) and NWSL (soccer). The move reflects rising demand for women’s sports with WNBA games averaging ~1.3M viewers in 2025 and NWSL ratings up 22% year over year.

• AI bodyguard for women. eNO badge, the world’s first mini AI bodyguard designed to detect threats and protect women walking alone, will debut at a private NYC event on March 19. Join using code HerHustle.

• Making female founders visible. Diversify: Female Founders in Focus will showcase 200+ female founders who have collectively raised over $1B in venture funding at a portrait exhibition in SF on May 6, highlighting women building companies across AI, fintech, health, and climate.

• From PE to India startup success. At 22, Anjali Sardana left a private equity career to launch Pronto, a marketplace connecting customers with trusted temporary house help in India. Just 12 months later, the company reached 18,000 bookings per day, $10M in GMV, and a $100M valuation.

• AI reflects historical bias. Data scientist Amelia Bentley asked ChatGPT more than 50 times to name the ten most important people in history. The result was always ten men and zero women, highlighting how AI systems can mirror the gaps and biases embedded in the historical record.

• AI notes for real life. YC W26 startup Pocket built a small device that records conversations and automatically generates transcripts and summaries. The company has shipped 30,000+ units in five months and reached a $27M annualized run rate.

• Inc.’s 2026 Female Founders 500. The list highlights women leading 500 organizations across the U.S. and globally whose companies generated $12.3B in revenue in 2025 and $12.2B in funding to date.

• The consumer AI race. In the latest a16z Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps, ChatGPT remains dominant with 900M weekly active users, 2.7× larger than Gemini and 28× larger than Claude on web, while the broader ecosystem is splitting across Western, Chinese, and Russian AI platforms.

• The new playbook for vertical AI. Forerunner’s Kirsten Green argues that the next wave of AI companies will build a single compounding engine across consumer and infrastructure, launching a consumer product first and then expanding into APIs, agents, and enterprise infrastructure that others build on.

📈 Partner with Her Hustle & Teli Labs if you are an early-stage startup interested in hiring top talent.

🗞️ Explore our other newsletters: Builders Report, spotlighting standout young founders, and Teli Digest, a roundup of startup hiring, funding, and ecosystem insights.

Welcome to our new readers, and if you have not yet subscribed, join the community below!

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• Fei-Fei Li, Co-Founder & CEO of World Labs (and the godmother of AI), an AI company building world models that generate and reason about immersive 3D environments, raised $1B in funding including a $200M strategic investment from Autodesk, with participation from AMD, Nvidia, Fidelity, and Emerson Collective.

• Lejla Bajic, Co-Founder & COO of Taalas, a Toronto-based semiconductor startup building custom AI inference chips that hardwire specific models into silicon to run faster and more efficiently than conventional GPUs, raised $169M in funding led by Quiet Capital and Fidelity.

• Katrin de Proyart, Co-Founder & CEO of Vizzia, a French AI-powered video surveillance startup helping local authorities detect crime and antisocial behaviour while remaining GDPR-compliant, raised €30M in Series B funding led by Base10 Partners.

• Rotem Lurie, Co-Founder & CEO of Venice, an identity and access management platform consolidating privileged access across cloud and on-prem environments, raised $25M in Series A funding led by IVP.

• Mary Antony (CEO) and Kelsey Gootnick (COO), Co-Founders of InScope, an AI-powered financial reporting platform for accounting teams, raised $14.5M in Series A funding led by Norwest.

• Arushi Vashist, Co-Founder & CTO of Amari AI, an AI-powered platform automating customs paperwork and compliance workflows for brokers navigating evolving trade regulations, raised $4.5M in seed funding co-led by First Round Capital and Pear VC.

• 🏁 Samira from a16z Speedrun is hiring an Events & Community Marketing Lead to produce founder events and build the community engine behind their early-stage accelerator.

• 🚛 Laura from Garage (YC W24) is hiring across GTM (AE, Growth Ops, Client Ops), Engineering (SWE), Design, and Recruiting to scale its AI-powered marketplace for essential vehicles.

• 📞 Michelle from Twill is hiring a Founding BDR (fully remote, US) to help scale its referral-based recruiting platform.

• 👩‍🍳 Siddhi from yhangry (YC W22) is hiring one paid AI Intern to build and ship AI agents with Claude at her YC-backed chef marketplace (London).

• 🎥 Nali from Creative People is hiring a NYC-based Social Media Specialist ($40/hr, 15 hrs/week) for a 1-month hybrid project focused on short-form video and content design.

• 🌿 Zainabou from Sunu Body is hiring PR & Influencer Outreach and Email Marketing Interns to help grow a modern African self-care brand rooted in ancestral wellness.

• 🛍️ Hana from VIA is hiring student ambassadors to create TikTok content and help launch her secondhand fashion discovery platform (no experience required).

• 🥜 Arshdeep from Stesh Butter is hiring a Social Media & Marketing Intern (remote, flexible) to create short-form content and help grow her better-for-you pistachio butter brand.

• 🏛️ Cherie from Holly (gov workforce AI) is hiring a Senior Software Engineer in NYC or SF to build AI tools for government compensation and classification.

• ⚖️ Rebeccah from Kneupper & Covey is hiring a part-time AI Intern (10–20 hrs/week, remote) to build and scale AI systems for a consumer-focused law firm.

• 💼 Jillian from 221B Capital Partners is hiring two Summer 2026 interns for a woman-majority-owned global long/short hedge fund focused on technology, renewable energy, and industrials.

• 🌐 Sapien is hiring their first Community Lead to design and scale the community engine behind their AI platform for finance and operations leaders.

• 🕯️ Encore (YC F24) is hiring a Core Product Designer and a Software Engineering Intern in SF to help scale Candle, their relationship-focused app designed to help couples connect.

• 🎭 Imagine AI (YC F25) is hiring a Founding Account Executive in SF to own the full sales cycle and build the playbook for their B2B AI content platform.

• 🐶 Crew Dog is hiring Campus Partners at select universities to run custom apparel deals for student orgs and earn commission.

• 📈 GEO Machine is hiring Business Development Interns to help scale its AI SEO platform.

• 🚀 Neo is launching Neo Residency, a new ultra-selective program offering up to $750K uncapped funding (plus compute credits) for startups and $40K grants for high-agency student teams.

• 🔥 a16z Speedrun is launching Alpha, offering $20K equity-free + up to $250K investment for pre-idea technical founders ready to start building.

• 🥫 Kelly from XRC is offering a $20–50K non-dilutive Brand Builder Grant for CPG founders.

• 🇨🇭 UBS is launching Project Female Founder 2026, a year-long global accelerator for majority women-owned startups raising up to Seed/Series A, with investor-readiness training and access to UBS’s network.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Join here! Check out our job board with 10k live startup roles.

• Fundraising for The Rest of Us. In 2020, of the 200 bestselling business books, 17 were written by women. The same number written by men named John. Allison Byers, who raised $11M across two companies, is changing that with her new book titled Fundraising for the Rest of Us, a relationship-first guide for founders who are not pre-networked.

• Resolution is activating campuses nationwide. Resolution is an AI-powered community helping young women think through their relationships, careers, and wellness routines. The community is hosting “Breaking Into Venture Capital” at Duke (2/25) and “Investing in Consumer AI” with RRE Ventures at Harvard (3/3).

• What actually matters at the seed stage? In a fireside chat with a16z speedrun, Jack Altman shared five lessons on PMF: hire “diamonds in the rough,” know that real pull shows up fast, protect your product North Star, work proactively not from your inbox, and remember no startup advice is universal.

• Half the AI agent market is one category. Anthropic data shows software engineering drives ~50% of tool calls, while healthcare, legal, finance, and 16 other verticals each sit under 5%.

• The female founders everyone wanted. Anna Goldie and Azalia Mirhoseini, the Google Brain duo behind Alpha Chip and early leaders at Anthropic, were so in demand they received “crazy” recruiting emails from Zuckerberg before launching Ricursive. Known internally as “A&A,” they helped design multiple generations of Google’s TPUs and moved through Google and Anthropic in lockstep before turning that track record into one of the fastest $4B valuations in AI.

• Women shaping the future of food. Myca Collective convenes founders, operators, and technologists across food, climate, and agriculture for intimate NYC gatherings where hospitality leaders compare tech stacks, share what is actually working, and have candid conversations about where restaurant technology still falls short.

• The next wave of women in VC. Girls Into VC introduced its Spring 2026 Fellows, diving into due diligence, venture fundamentals, guest speaker sessions, and investment simulations.

📈 Partner with Her Hustle & Teli Labs if you are an early-stage startup interested in hiring top talent.

🗞️ Explore our other newsletters: Builders Report, spotlighting standout young founders, and Teli Digest, a roundup of startup hiring, funding, and ecosystem insights.

Welcome to our new readers, and if you have not yet subscribed, join the community below!

Subscribe now

To read the full newsletter, please access it through our Substack site here.

• Sara Sargent, Co-Founder & CPO of Solace, a healthcare advocacy platform connecting patients with trained advocates to coordinate care and close gaps between diagnosis and treatment, raised $130M in Series C funding at a $1B+ valuation led by IVP.

• Georgia Gaveras, Co-Founder & Chief Medical Officer of Talkiatry, the nation’s largest full-stack psychiatry provider employing 800+ psychiatrists and delivering in-network care nationwide, raised $210M in Series D funding led by Perceptive Advisors.

• Celine Halioua, Founder & CEO of Loyal, a clinical-stage animal health company developing the first FDA-approved drug to extend dogs’ lifespan, raised $100M in Series C funding led by age1.

• Kate Barnard Roberts (President) and Emma Nosseir (Chief of Staff), Co-Founders of Atlas Oncology Partners, a value-based oncology enablement platform embedding interdisciplinary care teams into community oncology practices, raised $28M in Series A funding led by Flare Capital Partners.

• Richa Kaul, CEO & Founder of Complyance, an AI-native governance, risk, and compliance platform helping enterprises automate continuous data risk monitoring, raised $20M in Series A funding led by GV.

• Catheryn Li, Co-Founder & CEO of Simple AI, a voice AI agent platform automating inbound sales and support calls for consumer brands, raised $14M in seed funding led by First Harmonic with participation from YC.

• Jana Tian, Co-Founder & CEO of Upside Robotics, a Waterloo-based agtech startup building solar-powered autonomous robots that reduce fertilizer use in corn crops, raised $7.5M in seed funding led by Plural.

• Yidian (Loir) Liu, Co-Founder & COO of PolyGone Systems, a Princeton University spinoff developing cleantech solutions to remove microplastics from waterways, raised $4M in seed funding led by FYRFLY Venture Partners.

• Luci Holland, Founder & CEO of Veritas, a commerce security startup building tamper-resistant NFC microchips and digital certificates to make luxury goods impossible to counterfeit, raised $1.75M in pre-seed funding led by Seven Seven Six.

• 👠 Sophia from Phia is hiring an NYC-based Marketing Intern to create viral short-form content and help a $185M Series A startup push toward 1B views.

• 🤖 Shensi from Merge is hiring Product Marketing Managers, Event & Content Marketing Managers, and a Brand Designer in SF & NYC to join their AI integrations platform.

• 💘 Ava from Hoppy is hiring College Membership Leads to launch and grow the video-first, women-curated dating app on campuses, with paid leadership roles and performance bonuses.

• 💁‍♀️ Maggie from Hot Smart Rich is hiring operators to help scale a top business podcast and Gen Z media brand at the intersection of startups and pop culture (LA).

• 🧑‍💻 Patricia from RentAHuman AI is hiring Software Engineer Interns at $60/hr to build AI agents for real-world tasks.

• 💛 Bandana is hiring a Software Engineering Intern in Brooklyn to help build its worker-centric job platform.

• 🏢 SideShift is hiring NYC-based interns across content, marketing, partnerships, growth, and customer success to support their UGC creator marketplace.

• 🎥 Weel (YC S24) is hiring an AI Video Specialist and a Growth Marketer in SF to create AI content, run UGC and micro-influencer campaigns, and scale a driving companion app.

• 💡 Opennote (YC S25) is hiring UGC Creators to make fun productivity & lifestyle content for an AI notebook startup. Paid per post ($30–$75+ & bonuses).

• 🧠 Headstream is accepting applications for Cohort VI of the Headstream Accelerator, offering $30K non-dilutive funding and a 16-week program for early-stage edtech and digital health startups focused on youth mental well-being (apps due March 15).

• 🧬 Redesign Health is launching Spark, a five-week NYC-based intensive for early-career, AI-native builders to develop, validate, and pitch a healthcare startup thesis with hands-on mentorship from operators and AI-focused healthcare leaders (applications close Feb 28).

• 💰 Anna from Female Invest is awarding £10,000 through the Changemaker Award (sponsored by Monzo) to fund a woman’s startup, project, or idea, with finalists pitching live in London for International Women’s Day.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Join here! Check out our job board with 10k live startup roles.

• Young founders are making waves! Check out the last two editions of Builders Report by Teli Labs, where we spotlight standout young founding teams. In each edition, the founders themselves share insights on their business, traction, and vision for the future.

  • Edition 3: Five young teams building in stablecoin payments (Crebit, a16z speedrun), AI video training datasets (Shofo, YC), skiing and snowboarding matchmaking (Shredder), real-time Gen Z social coordination (Pinned Social), and AI-powered sustainable fashion discovery (Masira).

  • Edition 2: Six young teams building voice AI-powered dating (Known, $10M seed), gourmet viral slime (Sliimeyhoney, $2.9M revenue, 1.1M Tik Tok followers), AI-native video production (Cocreate, YC), real-time AI photography coaching (Serve), B2B campus security (LockGuard), and AI drug toxicity prediction (Helios).

• Something big is happening. This article went completely viral this week, racking up 82M+ views on X. The author draws a parallel between today and the calm before COVID: most people think this is overblown when we're actually in the midst of a much larger shift. The piece isn't groundbreaking enough to explain its massive reach, but it offers some solid takeaways. Key advice: pay for the best models, use them daily on real work (not just search-style prompts), automate your highest-leverage tasks, build financial resilience, and develop the habit of adapting quickly.

• Crebit launches on the App Store. The fintech is using stablecoins to make cross-border payments 4–10% cheaper than traditional banks. The team has processed $1M+ in FX volume in the past three months, targeting international students and global payers. Co-founders Jensen Coonradt (MIT) and Simmi Sen (Stanford) both graduated high school in 2024. Jensen previously built a patent-pending algae biofiltration system and an ultrasonic backpack for the visually impaired, while Simmi founded Tints, worn by Offset and Meghan Trainor.

• Health on autopilot. Miora, co-founded by Karina Repko, is building a daily AI health assistant for women that books your workouts (ClassPass integrations), orders goal-aligned meals, and dynamically adjusts fitness, recovery, and nutrition based on your cycle and energy.

• If you are still applying to jobs, read this. Wispr CEO Tanay Kothari (Stanford CS, Forbes 30U30) argues that candidates can skip the line by shipping work before you are hired. Builders ship features, analysts send product teardowns, operators close deals — all before submitting an application. The application is not the beginning.

• The female philosopher in charge of giving Anthropic “soul.” The WSJ profiled Amanda Askell, the resident philosopher at Anthropic, who helps shape Claude’s sense of right and wrong. Her job includes studying the model’s reasoning, correcting misfires with 100+ page prompts, and guiding its personality using Anthropic’s Constitutional AI framework, a process she compares to raising a child. In response to the WSJ piece, Elon Musk, in typical fashion, commented that “Those without children lack a stake in the future” and added, “Anthropic is Misanthropic.”

📈 Partner with Her Hustle & Teli Labs if you are an early-stage startup interested in hiring top talent.

🗞️ Explore our other newsletters: Builders Report, spotlighting standout young founders, and Teli Digest, a roundup of startup hiring, funding, and ecosystem insights.

Builders Report

Builders Report covers young founders, their startups, and the ideas shaping tomorrow.

By Adrian Arnaboldi

Teli Digest

Community news, early-career job market insights, and helpful startup-related lists.

By Adrian Arnaboldi

I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, Hustlers!

Love,

Daniela & Adrian

Welcome to our new readers, and if you have not yet subscribed, join the community below!

Subscribe now

To read the full newsletter, please access it through our Substack site here.

• Joanna Strober, Co-Founder & CEO of Midi Health, a women’s telehealth company delivering AI-enabled, insurance-covered care across every life stage, raised $100M in Series D funding at a valuation exceeding $1B led by Goodwater Capital.

• Stephanie Bonk, Co-Founder & President of Overland AI, a defense technology company building autonomous ground systems for national security and the U.S. Armed Forces, raised $100M in funding led by 8VC, alongside $20M of venture debt.

• Justine Palefsky and Tasneem Amina, Co-Founders of Kindred, a home-swapping travel platform offering a lower-cost alternative to hotels and short-term rentals, raised $125M in new funding, including a $40M Series B co-led by NEA and Dylan Field (Figma CEO) and an $85M Series C led by Index Ventures.

• Clara Bernardes, Co-Founder & CSO of Biorce, a Barcelona-based life sciences startup using AI to accelerate and standardize clinical trial design, raised $52M in Series A funding led by DST Global Partners.

• Adun Akanni, Co-Founder & COO of Alaffia Health, a healthcare technology company using agentic AI and clinical expertise to modernize health plan claims operations, raised $55M in Series B funding led by Transformation Capital.

• Sara Hooker, Co-Founder of Adaption Labs, an AI research startup focused on building smaller, more efficient models that can adapt continuously to tasks without costly retraining, raised $50M in seed funding led by Emergence Capital Partners.

• Susanna Pho, Co-Founder & COO of Forerunner, a software platform helping local governments manage infrastructure and community risk, raised $39M in total funding, including a $26M Series B led by Wellington Management and a Series A led by Union Square Ventures.

• Galina Russell, Co-Founder & CEO of Mitra EV, a commercial fleet electrification company offering no-upfront-cost EV leasing and shared charging for fleet operators, raised $27M in financing, including equity led by Ultra Capital.

• Pauline Roteta, Founder & CEO of Pasito, an AI-native workspace automating insurance and benefits operations from quote to claim, raised $21M in Series A funding led by Insight Partners.

• Veronica Ma and Kelly Zhou, Co-Founders of Arbor, an AI-powered research platform turning frontline employee and customer conversations into operational intelligence, raised $6.3M in combined seed and pre-seed funding led by 645 Ventures.

• Remy Tucker, Founder of On the House, a Brisbane-based startup providing free, organic period products in public bathrooms through an advertising-funded model, raised $1.1M in seed funding led by Purpose Ventures.

Female Founder Spotlight: Jenny Duan (Clair Health)

This week, we spoke with Jenny Duan, CEO and co-founder of Clair Health. The company officially came out of stealth this week with pre-seed funding from a16z speedrun and Reach Capital.

Jenny graduated early from Stanford after creating a custom concentration at the intersection of AI and the social internet. She previously worked at Daydream (fashion tech) in NYC and led Stanford’s creator collective before turning her focus to one of the most underfunded and misunderstood areas in healthcare: women’s hormones.

Clair is building the world’s first non-invasive continuous hormone tracker, a wearable designed to give women real-time insight into estrogen, progesterone, LH, and FSH without blood draws, pee sticks, or guesswork.

The problem space is massive. Today’s solutions are outdated (temperature tracking, expensive lab tests) and exclusionary (period apps don’t work for roughly 30% of women with irregular cycles). Meanwhile, nearly 70% of wearable health data is trained on men, leaving women to navigate their health with incomplete or inaccurate tools.

The Clair team has already tested its prototype with 40+ women across 127 menstrual cycles, achieving 94% cycle classification accuracy using optical sensors. Every layer of the stack has been built entirely in-house.

Next up is a Stanford-run clinical study launching at the end of May, enrolling 150 women over three months. The study will provide scientific validation ahead of Clair’s planned end-of-year launch. While the company is pursuing FDA approval as a medical device, Clair will initially launch as a consumer wellness product to get into women’s hands faster.

• 💄 Astou from e.l.f. Beauty is hiring a Summer Intern in Influencer Partnerships to work hands-on on influencer marketing (NYC).

• 💙 Mackenzie from Marble Health is hiring across GTM roles (BDR, Account Executive, School Success Manager) to help scale school partnerships and tackle the youth mental health crisis.

• ✨ Odette from Licensed to Glow is hiring a Creator & Social Media Marketing Manager to manage a creator network and drive scalable virality for an all-access beauty booking platform.

• 🎉 Shreya from Partiful is hiring Campus Growth Managers (Spring 2026) to launch and grow the social events app on college campuses.

• 🎥 Annie from Dream Ventures is hiring a content + video intern to help launch a new platform in the angel investing space focused on connecting more women to capital.

• 📞 Daryna from Quo (formerly OpenPhone) is hiring an Account Executive to help scale a modern business phone platform.

• ⚙️ Angela from Fearn is hiring a Member of Technical Staff (Infra) and an AI Research Intern to help build the future of intellectual property.

• 🎓 Madeline from Outsmart is hiring a Business Operations Associate to work directly with leadership and help scale a venture-backed startup reimagining higher education for the AI era.

• 🧩 Mints Media (founded by the ex-CMO of Cluely) is hiring an Operations Intern to systemize processes, write SOPs, and help scale a fast-growing content studio.

• 🎙️ Willow is hiring a Founding Full-Stack Engineer and a Founding Growth & Content Lead to help replace keyboards with voice-first AI.

• 🛠️ Probook is hiring founding roles across recruiting, sales, marketing, people ops, and deployment to build AI-powered dispatching software for home service businesses.

• 🧠 Traverse (YC W26) is hiring Software Engineer Interns to build reinforcement learning environments for long-horizon AI agents.

• 🥄 Giant Spoon is hiring Summer Interns across creative, accounts, media, and production to work on brand campaigns at an independent advertising agency (NYC & LA).

• 🏓 CityPickle is hiring across growth marketing, events, hospitality, and on-court roles to staff its new Times Square flagship pickleball venue.

• 📈 Ergo (YC W25) is hiring a Growth Lead to build and own funnel, content, and GTM experiments for an AI revenue automation platform for modern sales teams.

• ⚡ a16z Speedrun Alpha is accepting applications for a new fellowship placing top technical students and recent grads into full-time engineering roles at a16z portfolio companies, with a 2-month in-person SF fellowship. Applications close March 6.

• 🍐 Pear VC is accepting applications for Pear Prime, a highly selective program matching top technical new grads with early-stage founders for founding-engineer roles focused on real ownership from day one. Applications close 2/15.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Join here! Check out our job board with 10k live startup roles.

• Death of Software? Nah. a16z released a newsletter drawing direct parallels to earlier tech shifts where PCs did not eliminate mainframes, e-commerce did not kill physical retail, and streaming did not end media creation. In each case, legacy systems persisted, new platforms layered on top, complexity increased, and the total amount of software, businesses, and work expanded far beyond early predictions. AI, he argues, follows the same pattern.

• The economics of a Super Bowl ad. Ro’s CEO breaks down why they’re spending $16-29M (media + production + talent) on their first Super Bowl ad with Serena Williams. The math: $233k (minimum) per second for airtime, but 100M+ people actually watch the ads. The bet structure is asymmetric: worst case loses ~1-2% marketing efficiency, best case compresses years of brand building into one night.

• Kirsten Green curated a list of 50 consumer AI startups to join now, arguing consumer AI is at an inflection point and highlighting companies building new discovery, personalization, health navigation, financial planning, career coaching, personal productivity, social, and robotics products.

• YC released its Spring 2026 Requests for Startups, highlighting opportunities in AI-native product management, AI-native hedge funds and agencies, stablecoin-based financial services, AI for government and fraud detection, modernized U.S. industrial systems, AI guidance for physical work, large spatial reasoning models, and new infrastructure to make training and deploying LLMs dramatically easier.

• Fort (YC W26) launched to build a wearable that automatically tracks strength training by detecting exercises, reps, sets, form, and fatigue, designed for longevity beyond sleep and heart rate metrics.

• Women across The Nucleus Network are crushing it, including Hot Girl Pickles in consumer food, Goodword in AI-powered networking, The Female Quotient in large-scale women’s community and brand experiences, and French Squirrel in better-for-you chocolate dates.

• What’s working in AI for GTM? 40 GTM workflows where AI is driving real gains, including AI-built competitor comparison pages generating thousands of SEO landing pages, AI-powered outbound producing personalized emails at scale for under $10, and AI copilots synthesizing Gong calls and CRM data for sales prep.

📈 Partner with Her Hustle & Teli Labs if you are an early-stage startup interested in hiring top talent.

🗞️ Explore our other newsletters: Teli Digest, a roundup of startup hiring, funding, and ecosystem insights, and Dorm Report, spotlighting standout young founders.

I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, Hustlers!

Love,

Daniela & Adrian

Welcome to our new readers, and if you have not yet subscribed, join the community below!

Subscribe now

To read the full newsletter, please access it through our Substack site here.

• Anna Goldie and Azalia Mirhoseini, Co-Founders of Ricursive Intelligence, an AI chip startup building self-improving systems to design and optimize silicon substrates, raised $300M in Series A funding at a $4B valuation, led by Lightspeed.

• Raquel Urtasun, Founder & CEO of Waabi, an autonomous vehicle company, raised $1B in funding, including a $750M Series C co-led by Khosla Ventures and G2 Venture Partners, alongside a strategic partnership with Uber.

• Bridgit Mendler, Co-Founder & CEO of Northwood Space, a company building next-generation ground communications infrastructure for satellites, raised $100M in Series B funding led by Washington Harbour Partners and a16z. The company also secured a $50M contract with the US Space Force.

• Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, Co-Founders of Phia, an AI-powered shopping platform helping consumers find cheaper and secondhand alternatives, officially announced $35M in funding led by Notable Capital, with participation from Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins.

• Thuria Wenbar, Co-Founder & CEO of Evaro, a digital health platform enabling consumer brands to embed regulated NHS-backed healthcare services, raised $25M in Series A funding led by AlbionVC.

• Anada Lakra, Co-Founder & CEO of BoldVoice, an AI-powered voice coaching platform for non-native English speakers, raised $21M in Series A funding led by Matrix.

• Sapir Markus-Alford, Co-Founder & CTO of Gigablue, an ocean-based carbon removal company, raised $20M in Series A funding led by Planet Ocean Capital.

• Philippa Brown, Co-Founder of Elyos AI, an AI platform building agents for trades and field services, raised $13M in Series A funding led by Blackbird Ventures.

• Allie Melnick, Co-Founder & CCO of Climatic, a wellness startup focused on lung health, raised $10M in seed funding led by Lerer Hippeau.

• Emily Dong, Founder & CEO of Snout, a pet wellness financing platform turning vet care into monthly memberships, raised $110M across $10M in Series A funding led by Footwork and $100M in debt financing from Clear Haven Capital Management.

• Casey McGinley, Co-Founder of Barnwell Bio, a precision animal health company using metagenomic biosurveillance to detect disease threats in poultry operations, raised $6M in seed funding led by Twelve Below.

• Arantxa Barcia, Co-Founder of MITO AI, an AI-native collaborative video platform for filmmakers and creative teams, raised $4.5M in pre-seed funding led by Lightspeed.

• Nicole Landis Ferragonio, Co-Founder & CPO of Datalinx AI, an AI data refinery helping enterprises turn complex data into AI-ready assets for marketing and analytics, raised $4.2M in seed funding led by High Alpha.

• Anabel González, Founder & CEO of Good Bacteria, a gut health startup building a rotating probiotic supplement system, raised $3.2M in seed funding from BAM Ventures, BrandProject, RiverPark Ventures, and Listen.

• 🥂 Scout from De Soi is hiring a summer MBA intern to work on operations at a non-alcoholic apéritif brand co-founded by Katy Perry.

• 🏦 Julia from Rogo is hiring 5-10 MBA summer interns from top finance programs to work on strategy, product, and GTM for an AI platform serving financial services.

• 🍷 Jess from Theodora is hiring a contract Founding Marketing Lead to own all marketing for a wine rec app that helps people find bottles they'll love.

• 🐔 Andrea from ChicknLegs is hiring across marketing, content creation, apparel design, and e-commerce ops for a creative activewear brand with multiple full-time and intern roles open.

• 💰 Anna from Goodfin (YC W22) is hiring interns across engineering, biz, and marketing to help build an AI-native wealth platform for private markets and pre-IPO investing.

• ✍️ Vedika from Social Capital is hiring Thinker-Writers to create viral Twitter threads for influencers and Silicon Valley companies.

• 📱 Fabiana from Alinea Invest is hiring a Creative Intelligence Strategist to find the next best ad ideas by scrolling with taste and fueling scalable paid social.

• 🎯 Juliette from Rookie Move is hiring a part-time Marketing & Operations Assistant to help develop events and content for an experiential marketing platform.

• 🏥 Erica from Healthie is hiring 5 roles including Senior Account Executive and Director of Product Design (hybrid NYC), plus remote engineering roles in observability, app security, and new products.

• 🛍️ Samantha from Try Your Best (TYB) is hiring across sales, including SDRs, AEs, SDR Manager, and Sales Leaders to scale a community-first commerce platform.

• 🎮 Playad is hiring interns and full-time roles across engineering, design, GTM, and sales to build AI-native ad creatives following a $5.4M pre-seed raise.

• 🍁 Maple is hiring a Founding Customer Experience Engineer and SMB Account Executives (in-person NYC) to build voice AI for restaurants.

• 🎬 Mints Media (founded by the former CMO of Cluely) is hiring a full-stack creative to ideate, film, and edit social media content in NYC.

• 🌐 Posh is hiring 15 roles across Product, Engineering, Data, and GTM to build IRL communities based on shared interests.

• 🤖 Human Archive (YC W26) is hiring Machine Learning Interns to work on VLA model benchmarking, video annotation, and multimodal alignment.

• 🎓 NYU Leslie Entrepreneurial Institute is hiring a Marketing and Communications lead to run social, content, and marketing for programs supporting NYU founders.

• 🍐 Pear VC is accepting applications for its Female Founders Circle, an 8-week in-person program in SF for female and non-binary AI founders with mentorship, workshops, and studio access. Apply by Feb 6th.

• 💼 She Capital is hiring an Analyst in New Delhi to work with early-stage founders.

• 🌱 a16z College Talent Program is hosting spring campus events to connect with the next generation of builders, operators, and investors.

• ✨ 951 fresh startup jobs posted in the past week. Want daily jobs? Check out Teli Labs’ job board!

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Join here!

• The future for women investors is in danger. Anu Duggal (Female Founders Fund) argues that cultural and political shifts and tight markets are making it harder for women-led funds to preserve their gains, as VCs retreat to familiar spinouts from Sequoia, a16z, and Benchmark rather than backing diverse managers despite strong performance data.

• Everything you need to know about Clawdbot (now OpenClaw). The viral AI assistant that can manage your calendar, send messages through your apps, and check-in for flights. The catch: it requires technical setup and carries real security risks.

• Confronting the risks of powerful AI. Dario Amodei (Anthropic CEO) on the five civilizational risks ahead: (1) autonomy risks (AI going rogue), (2) misuse for destruction (bioweapons accessible to anyone), (3) misuse for seizing power (AI-enabled totalitarianism), (4) economic disruption (50% of entry-level white collar jobs gone in 1-5 years), and (5) indirect effects (rapid changes we can’t predict). We’re entering a “technological adolescence” that will test whether our systems have the maturity to wield almost unimaginable power, but he believes we can prevail with the right safeguards, transparency, and international cooperation.

• She was rejected by Y Combinator. Now her bootstrapped startup just passed $36M in ARR. Flodesk hit $36M ARR while staying 100% bootstrapped, supporting 100K+ users and 13B+ emails sent in 2025, with Rebecca Shostak now CEO leading their AI-powered next chapter for small businesses.

• April Koh’s Spring Health acquires Alma. The mental health benefits platform is acquiring the therapist network (24K providers) to solve care continuity when patients switch jobs or insurance, closing Q2 2026.

• Arctis AI raises $1M+ pre-seed to digitize construction paperwork. Dila Ekrem announces funding led by PT1, EWOR, and superangels to build digital infrastructure managing the complex web of contracts and documents buried across PDFs, emails, and spreadsheets.

• VIA launches to unify the fragmented resale market. Hana Elster (BU ‘26) introduces her discovery platform bringing consignment, vintage, and secondhand into one searchable shopping experience.

• The minimum financial model every seed-stage founder needs. Emily Bennet (a16z Speedrun) argues that “we’re too early for a model” is wrong. Build a simple tracker for three things: financial viability (cash, burn, runway), structural goals (north star metric for PMF), and unit economics (LTV/CAC).

• Protein isn't just for gym bros anymore. Natalie Weiner breaks down how GLP-1s are bringing protein to the drive-thru, with 1 in 8 U.S. adults now on GLP-1s driving demand for protein-rich, light, and satisfying products at Starbucks, Chipotle, Dunkin', and Subway, plus emerging brands like Cotto and (P)rind.

• 11 talented women, messy ideas, and a 2026 bingo. A recap of Antler's female founders event in Australia, a low-pressure space for women building or exploring early ideas, with more sessions coming in 2026.

• Clawbot & the Consumer Baby Boomer. This week’s Teli Digest breaks down Dario’s 50% job displacement prediction, why you should develop theses on industries worth attaching yourself to, and deep dives on labor market infrastructure, consumer baby boomers, and sports tech gaps.

• 70+ Top Series C Startups. A list of VC-backed Series C companies with descriptions, raise amounts, employee counts, and industry tags.

📈 Partner with Her Hustle & Teli Labs if you are a early-stage startup interested in hiring top talent.

🗞️ Explore our other newsletters: Teli Digest, a roundup of startup hiring, funding, and ecosystem insights, and Dorm Report, spotlighting standout young founders.

I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, Hustlers!

Love,

Daniela & Adrian

Welcome to our new readers, and if you have not yet subscribed, join the community below!

Subscribe now

To read the full newsletter, please access it through our Substack site here.

• Andi Peng and Yuchen He, Co-Founders of humans&, a human-centric AI research lab focused on collaborative and relational AI systems, raised $480M in seed funding at a $4.5B valuation, with backing from Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, and Emerson Collective.

• Cindy Taff, Co-Founder & CEO of Sage Geosystems, a geothermal energy company pioneering Pressure Geothermal for firm power and long-duration energy storage, raised $97M in Series B funding co-led by Ormat Technologies and Carbon Direct Capital.

• Lalarukh Haris Shaikh, Co-Founder & CTO of Mendra, an AI-enabled biopharma company focused on developing therapies for high-unmet-need rare diseases, raised $82M in Series A funding co-led by OrbiMed, 8VC, and 5AM Ventures.

• Jaclyn Chen, Co-Founder & CEO of Benepass, a benefits capital management platform helping employers control rising healthcare costs, raised $40M in Series B funding led by Centana Growth Partners.

• Irem Sumer, Co-Founder & CEO of TaleMonster Games, an Istanbul-based mobile puzzle game studio, raised $30M in Series A funding led by a16z and Arcadia.

• Leia de Guzman and Stephanie Grayson, Co-Founders of Cambio, an AI-native commercial real estate operations platform using agentic AI to plan and prioritize building retrofits, raised $18M in Series A funding led by Maverick Ventures.

• Kristen Wiley, Founder & CEO of Statusphere, an AI-powered influencer marketing platform helping brands scale micro-influencer programs with trust and compliance, raised $18M in Series A funding led by Volition Capital.

• Claire Hae-Min Gusko, Co-Founder of one.five, an AI-powered sustainable packaging platform, raised €14M in Series A funding led by Dr. Hans Riegel Holding.

• Eva Rosa Bian, Co-Founder & COO of Klearly, an Amsterdam-based payment acceptance platform for European SMBs in hospitality, raised €12M in Series A funding led by PayPal Ventures.

• Jolena Ma and Jessica Ouyang, Co-Founders of Ditto, a product copy management platform that centralizes, governs, and deploys in-product text across teams, raised $12.2M in Series A funding led by Craft Ventures.

• Shrestha Chowdhury, Co-Founder & CPO of GeneralMind, an AI startup building autonomous systems to automate complex enterprise workflows, raised $12M in pre-seed funding led by Lakestar.

• Nancy Zayed, Co-Founder & CTO of MagicCube, a software-based device security company for payments and digital identity, raised $10M in new funding with strategic participation from Verifone.

• Dana Rochman and Shlomit Tennenbaum, Co-Founders of Legato AI, an AI extensibility layer for SaaS platforms, raised $7M in seed funding led by S Capital VC.

• Sara Dwyer, Co-Founder & CEO of Paramibil, an AI platform for tort law, raised $6M in seed funding led by Bling Capital.

• Alexandra Shiluk, Co-Founder & COO of Transition Metal Solutions, a biotech startup reinventing bio-based copper recovery from low-grade and waste ores, raised $6M in seed funding led by Transition Ventures.

• Arthi Rajan Makhijia, Co-Founder & CEO of Pinch AI, an AI-powered post-purchase intelligence platform helping retailers prevent return fraud and reward loyal customers, raised $5M in seed funding co-led by Dynamo Ventures and Infinity Ventures.

• Alfia Ilicheva, Founder & CEO of Formulary Financial, an AI-native fund administration platform modernizing back-office operations for private markets, raised $4.6M in seed funding led by Khosla.

• Corina Marshall, Founder & CEO of Another, an AI-native platform helping brands manage and monetize excess and off-channel inventory, raised $2.5M in seed funding led by Anthemis Group FIL and Westbound Equity Partners.

• Elson Bankoff, Co-Founder of Powertown, an energy infrastructure startup deploying standardized battery systems for American real estate, closed a pre-seed round backed by Vine Ventures, Floodgate, SV Angel, and Nova.

• ✍️ Eve from Alinea is hiring an in-house Performance Copywriter to work closely with the growth team testing and scaling high-conversion copy for a 2M+ user investing app.

• 💘 Celeste from Known is hiring a GTM intern to work with the founding team on launching an AI-powered dating platform.

• 🚀 Christine from Veil is hiring ML talent to work hands-on at a seed-backed healthcare AI startup.

• 📊 Hyun from Terminal X is hiring business, econ, and finance undergrads and grads for part-time, paid roles supporting AI-powered investment research.

• 🎓 Erika from Leland is hiring interns across growth and ops to help build a platform connecting ambitious people with expert coaching and courses.

• 💫 Jolie from Beacons AI is hiring a paid campus ambassador at USC to help grow an all-in-one platform that lets creators build websites, connect with fans, and monetize their brand.

• 💄 Elizabeth from Hero Cosmetics is hiring college ambassadors to represent a skincare brand best known for the Mighty Patch acne patches.

• 🐶 Emily from Corgi is hiring its first BDRs in SF to help handle surging inbound and scale outbound sales following their recent launch.

• 🎥 Merry from Glimpse is hiring a Brand & Marketing Specialist to create fast, short-form video and shape the digital presence of an AI platform that automates revenue recovery for consumer brands.

• 🎙️ Piper from Talentpluto is hiring a founding engineer in NYC to build autonomous voice AI agents that run end-to-end recruiting workflows.

• 🧠 Rithika from Verita AI is hiring across engineering, ops, growth, and design to build high-trust data pipelines that turn human judgment into training and evaluation data for multimodal AI models.

• 📘 Noele from Articulate is hiring a Community Content & Engagement contractor to support its online training platform.

• 🤖 Lynette from 1mind is hiring for CMO, Head of Product, and Enterprise Sales to build AI-powered “superhumans” for GTM teams.

• ⚡️ Crow (YC W26) is opening Software Engineering and Ops & Growth internships to build a chat layer that lets users control apps with text.

• 🛠️ Fresco is hiring summer interns across SDR, growth, and AI engineering to build an AI tool that turns construction site walks into detailed, shareable notes in minutes.

• 🛰️ Constellation Space (YC W26) is hiring Summer 2026 interns to help build AI for space mission assurance.

• 🎥 KupidTV is hiring paid UGC creators to make short-form videos for live shows that power a real-time prediction market where viewers predict outcomes as they happen.

• ⏳ Listen Ventures is recruiting Spring–Summer interns across Investment, Consumer Insights, and Platform for its 2026 Listener Internship Program.

• 🧩 Female Founders Fund is hiring a full-time Platform Operations Associate in NYC to run events, newsletters, systems, and day-to-day execution that power the firm’s platform for supporting female founders.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Join here!

• 23 content creator fellowships, bootcamps, and programs worth knowing.
  Covering traditional media, short-term intensives, and journalism-focused creator tracks.

• America’s power infrastructure is the real bottleneck. A Substack essay by Elson Bankoff, fresh off a pre-seed announcement this week, arguing that the US grid, not energy generation, is now the limiting factor for AI, manufacturing, and economic growth.

• Marketplaces and semantic matching in the AI age. This week’s Teli Digest breaks down how hiring is shifting from keyword matching to semantic matching, why AI is reviving long-dead marketplace models, and more.

• 170+ Top Series B Startups. A list of VC-backed Series B companies with descriptions, raise amounts, employee counts, and industry tags.

• 1,136 fresh startup jobs posted in the last week.

• 1,197 dead startup ideas. A list of startups that died (mostly over the last decade) and burned over $44B VC dollars. One founder’s failure is another founder’s treasure.

• Why you should move to New York in your 20s. Andrew Yeung argues that NYC accelerates ambition, kills limiting beliefs, sharpens decision-making, and creates unmatched serendipity.

• Who wins the AI race? Ethan Choi (Khosla) argues it is still early, model leads will rotate, compute is the real bottleneck, and the major AI labs will all get very big.

📈 Partner with Her Hustle & Teli Labs if you are a early-stage startup interested in hiring top talent.

🗞️ Explore our other newsletters: Teli Digest, a roundup of startup hiring, funding, and ecosystem insights, and Dorm Report, spotlighting standout young founders.

I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, Hustlers!

Love,

Daniela & Adrian

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• Dr. Hanadie Yousef, Founder & Former CEO of Juvena Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing AI-enabled regenerative biologics to restore tissue function, raised $33.5M in Series B funding led by Bison Ventures.

• Sophia Shanko, Founder & CEO of ShanX, a Netherlands-based diagnostics company developing ultra-rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing with an initial focus on UTIs, raised €24M in funding led by Borski Fund.

• Maggie Wu, CEO of VelaFi, a stablecoin-powered financial infrastructure platform enabling global payments for enterprises, raised $20M in Series B funding led by XVC and Ikuyo.

• Katja Rosti, Co-Founder & COO of Avenue Biosciences, a protein engineering technology company developing a platform to enhance therapeutic protein manufacturing, raised $5.7M in seed extension funding co-led by Balnord and Tesi.

• Shalu Mitruka, Co-Founder & CBO of GrowthPal, an AI-powered M&A deal origination platform built to surface off-market acquisition opportunities, raised $2.6M in funding led by Ideaspring Capital.

• Ida Tin, Co-Founder & former CEO of Clue, a Berlin-based period and cycle tracking app used by over 100M users globally, received a undisclosed strategic investment from Verdane; Clue is currently led by CEO Rhiannon White.

• 🦴 Jenny from AlgaeCal is hiring across full-time and internship roles, including a paid marketing intern, PM intern, and business analyst intern, to build and market supplements focused on bone health.

• 📐 Issy from Structured AI is hiring Founding Engineers to teach AI how to read and reason over real-world engineering drawings.

• 🧱 Maya from Traba is hiring SDRs to start within the next three months and sell a labor marketplace for hourly industrial workers.

• 💜 Rebecca from Stan is hiring Dream Builders to get paid to build a business in public, with salary support and resources to turn a personal idea into a real creator-led income.

• 🌽 Madison from Agora Marketplace is hiring a Technical Intern to build a mobile app and backend for an online farmers’ market connecting local food vendors with customers.

• 📱 Nokhez from Mindme is hiring a Social Media Intern to run posts and grow accounts for an AI mental health startup.

• 🎒 Mikaela from Hoppy is hiring a College Partnership Coordinator to manage campus partnerships and student teams for a video-based dating app.

• 🎥 Khloë from Finvest is hiring a Marketing Intern in SF to help film videos, run social media, and support brand marketing at a fintech startup.

• 🚧 Elsa from The FOMO Club is hiring students to help run hackathons and hiring sprints that connect builders with startups and investors.

• 🗓️ Cristina from Linear is hiring an Event Marketing Lead to plan and run in-person events for a software tool that helps product teams track issues and manage projects.

• 🏔️ Mary from Overland Collective is hiring across content, marketing, video, events, and hospitality roles for an outdoor and overlanding media brand.

• 🍊Jennifer from Passionfroot is hiring a Campaign & Brand Success Manager to run creator and brand partnerships for an influencer marketing platform.

• 🤖 Brooke from HappyRobot is hiring a GTM Recruiter to help hire sales and go-to-market roles for an enterprise AI platform that automates business operations.

• ⚙️ Jacqueline from Artie is hiring across engineering, sales, recruiting, and ops to build real-time data replication and streaming infrastructure.

• ✨ Sparkles (YC W26) is hiring interns across engineering, security, and growth to help build a developer tool for safely testing and deploying code from GitHub.

• 🏆 Harlem Capital is welcoming its 25th intern class and opening applications for Summer 2026 at the early-stage investment firm.

• 🏠 FoundHer House is opening applications for a 3-month shared living program for women building startups this summer, with houses in SF and NYC.

• 🏙️ NYC Scale Ready Studio Accelerator is accepting applications for a 12-week NYC accelerator helping women founders tighten operations, grow revenue, and scale their businesses. Apply by Jan 21.

• 🎓 Catalyst Labs is opening applications for a Summer 2026 fellowship that gives college founders non-dilutive funding, support, and a path from idea to investor-ready.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Join here!

• Anthropic introduced Claude Cowork, pitched as Claude Code for non-technical work. Claire Vo shared how it works and then tested it on daily calendar prep, creating a competitive research brief, and turning a document into a presentation, noting solid outputs but too much exposed technical context for non-technical users.

• Halle Tecco joined the AI Health Uncut podcast and argued that healthcare stagnates because resistance to change is systemic, most outsiders fail due to misaligned incentives rather than bad tech, and interoperability remains unsolved because incumbent EHRs profit from the status quo, making it an economic problem, not a technical one.

• Grove AI, co-founded by Trân Lê, was acquired by Hippocratic AI. The company powered 10M+ patient interactions across pharma R&D workflows and will now accelerate agentic AI adoption across life sciences.

• Nabihah Ahmad, founder of SSQRD, announced a partnership with Anthropic, sharing that her three-person team used Claude Code Max to build and refine SSQRD’s global fashion search platform without venture funding.

• Computer Science Girlies is looking for monthly workshop speakers (founders, builders, and operators) to share lessons with 15,000+ Gen Z women in tech through live sessions and recorded workshops.

• Iza Tomica shared a curated list of women creators to follow across marketing, branding, AI, community building, and social media.

Interesting Links of the Week:

• An AI Glossary, explained simply. Good, simple explantations of common AI-related terms.

• What people are actually vibe coding. Real consumer use cases like carb counters, budget tools, family photo-to-video apps, and chore trackers.

• 200+ top Series A startups to know. A clean, scannable list of leading Series A companies with quick descriptions, raise sizes, headcount, and industry tags.

• Best Product Awards from CES 2026.

• Random Quality of Life Improvements. Specific advice on health, time, and money.

📈 Partner with Her Hustle & Teli Labs if you are a early-stage startup interested in hiring top talent.

🗞️ Explore our other newsletters: Teli Digest, a roundup of startup hiring, funding, and ecosystem insights, and Dorm Report, spotlighting standout young founders.

I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, Hustlers!

Love,

Daniela & Adrian

Welcome to our new readers, and if you have not yet subscribed, join the community below!

Subscribe now

To read the full newsletter, please access it through our Substack site here.

• Daniela Amodei, Co-Founder & President of Anthropic, an AI research company building Claude, raised $10B in funding at a $350B valuation led by GIC and Coatue.

• Emily Yuan, Co-Founder & COO of Corgi, an insurance carrier built for startups and technology companies, raised $108M in funding led by YC.

• Marta Bralic Kerns, Founder & CEO of Pomelo Care, a virtual healthcare platform for women and children, raised $92M in Series C funding at a $1.7B valuation led by Stripes.

• Barbara Oliveira, Co-Founder & CCO of Luminate Medical, an Ireland-based medical device company developing patient-centered technologies to prevent hair loss and other side effects during chemotherapy, raised $21M in Series A funding led by ARTIS Ventures.

• María González Manso, Founder & CEO of Tucuvi, an AI care management platform using clinical voice AI to expand healthcare capacity, raised $20M in Series A funding led by Cathay Innovation and Leadwind.

• 🎥 Katrin from Frich is hiring a paid NYC-based Creator Partnerships Intern to help grow creator relationships for the Gen Z money platform making finance relatable.

• 🥕 Madison from Agora Marketplace is hiring a Growth & Community Intern to help grow a digital home for local food, community, and independent producers.

• 🌐 Maggie from The Collective is onboarding founding fellows across media, writing, and operations to join a tight-knit founder and VC community in NYC, SF, and Boston.

• 💼 Anna from Ingeborg Investments is opening applications for a Summer 2026 Internship offering hands-on exposure to venture investing, research, and women-focused capital.

• 🧠 Michelle from Flint AI is hiring a Chief of Staff to help build autonomous websites that design, launch, and optimize themselves.

• 📣 Merry from Glimpse is hiring a content lead to grow community-driven short- and long-form content for the NYC-based startup automating the back office for consumer brands.

• ✨ Aliett from Fazit is gorilla hiring a Head of Partnerships to own brand and cultural partnerships across beauty, sports, and music.

• 🏛️ Pranathi from Holly is hiring a Product Operations Analyst to help scale a govtech platform for local governments.

• 🚀 Jianna from Cardinal is hiring Founding Engineers to help build next-gen document processing and GTM infra.

• ✍️ Jenna from SISU is hiring storytellers to grow its narrative consultancy helping high-growth startups and VC firms shape storytelling, PR, and distribution.

• 🧴 Shai from Bubble is hiring across senior brand, marketing, retail, and creative roles to help scale dermatologist-backed skincare for the mass market.

• 🎬 Maggie from This January is hiring paid interns across social content, copywriting, design, film, and project management at the DC-based creative agency.

• 💜 Melissa from Sibyl is hiring a part-time Growth Marketer to help ethically grow an AI-native mental health platform focused on the reproductive journey.

• 👁️ Ascension from Babe Original is hiring paid Spring 2026 Campus Reps to run campus events, build community, and create content for its lash and beauty brand.

• 🎓 Ohana is hiring paid, remote Campus Marketing Strategy Leads to help build the student housing marketplace for college students subleasing and finding short-term housing.

• 🏙️ Applications are open for NYC Scale Ready Studio, a 12-week accelerator helping NYC-based women founders scale revenue and systems. Apply by Jan 21.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Apply to join here!

• ChatGPT launched ChatGPT Health, a dedicated health and wellness experience, with Halle Tecco backing it as a way to break down healthcare’s paternalistic walls, pushing for free access to medical information, reliable sources over “junk science,” and greater patient autonomy in understanding conditions and treatment options.

• Foundess announced its inaugural Foundess 25 for 2025, spotlighting 25 standout womxn founders across Enterprise, Impact, Frontier, Lifestyle, and Healthcare who are building impactful companies across six countries and four continents.

• Stephanie Roulis launched the Startup Boston Student Ambassador Program to fix Boston’s post-grad startup on-ramp by bringing events, guidance, and ecosystem access directly to students.

• Maya Lekhi kicked off Build ’n Chill, a three-day cabin retreat bringing together 15 female founders for focused building, deep connection, and idea-sharing.

• Airbnb, Amazon Prime, Android, App Store, Bitcoin, Chat GPT, Gmail, Google Maps, Instagram, iPhone, Netflix streaming, Spotify, TikTok, Uber, WhatsApp, X, Zoom, and much more didn’t exist 20 years ago. What do you think the next 20 years will bring us?

• Looking for a job at a top startup? Check out Teli Labs’ new job board with 9.4k+ live roles from 600+ VC-backed startups. Use robust filters and search to find your perfect fit. Updated daily.

📈 Partner with Her Hustle & Teli Labs if you are a early-stage startup interested in hiring top talent.

🗞️ Explore our other newsletters: Teli Digest, a roundup of startup hiring, funding, and ecosystem insights, and Dorm Report, spotlighting standout young founders.

I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, Hustlers!

Love,

Daniela & Adrian

If you have not yet subscribed, you can join us below:

Subscribe now

To read the full newsletter, please access it through our Substack site here.

We tracked 410 venture fundraising rounds by startups with at least one female founder in 2025. FOUR HUNDRED AND TEN! These incredible women raised a cumulative $26B+. The ladies are building and we are here for it. Here’s to even more in 2026!

Note that while this is relatively robust coverage, there are definitely rounds we may have missed. We do try our best to track them all.

As a capstone for the year, we wanted to bring you Her Hustle Wrapped and superlatives for the founders who crushed it in 2025!

Biggest Rounds (The Billionaire Builders):

1. Daniela Amodei (Anthropic): $13B led by ICONIQ

2. Mira Murati (Thinking Machine Labs): $2B led by a16z

3. Luana Lopes Lara (Kalshi): $1B led by Paradigm

By Industry:

1. SaaS (127)

2. Health & Biotech (94)

3. Fintech (45)

4. Climate & Energy (39)

5. PropTech (21)

Most Represented Investors:

1. General Catalyst

2. a16z

3. Accel

Most Common Founder First Name:

1. Michelle (8)

2. Rebecca (6)

3. Anna (6)

👯 Founding Sisterhood (Founding teams of 3+ queens): Perelel, OneSkin, Edera, Millie, BoobyBiome, Sensori

🩺 Queen of Care (Biggest Health & Biotech Round): Pranitha Patil (Function Health): $298M Series B

💳 Capital Queen (Biggest Fintech Round): Luana Lopes Lara (Kalshi): $1B

🌱 Green Empress (Biggest Climate Round): Shannon Miller (Mainspring): $258M Series F

Lastly, thank you to all of our incredible readers! 21% of you are in California, with 17% in Massachusetts and 17% in New York respectively. We also have readers in 47 states (please share with any friends in Alaska, ND, or Wyoming) and 91 countries. Thank you, Hustlers!! Wishing you a happy new year!

• J. Jean Cui, Co-Founder, President & CEO of BlossomHill Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharma developing first-in-class macrocyclic cancer medicines, raised $84M in a Series B extension led by Janus Henderson Investors, Brahma Capital, and BioTrack Capital.

• Ramses Alcaide, CEO of Neurable, a noninvasive brain-computer interface company embedding real-time cognitive insights into everyday devices, raised $35M in Series A funding led by Spectrum Moonshot Fund.

• Riya Grover, Co-Founder & CEO of Sequence, an AI-powered quote-to-cash and billing platform automating custom B2B contracts and pricing models, raised $20M in Series A funding led by 645 Ventures.

• Tamar Gomez and Wiem Gharbi, Co-Founders of Ankar AI, a London-based AI platform streamlining patent filing and intellectual property management, raised $20M in Series A funding led by Atomico.

• Eden Ovadia and Victoria Toli, Co-Founders of Finny, an AI-powered prospecting platform helping financial advisors drive organic client growth, raised $17M in Series A funding co-led by Venrock.

• Molly Sims, Founder of YSE Beauty, a skincare brand designed for women 35+ addressing hyperpigmentation and aging concerns, raised $15M in Series A funding led by Silas Capital.

• Christina LaMontagne, Co-Founder & CEO of Clarity Pediatrics, a virtual pediatric chronic care platform expanding into obesity care, raised $14.5M in Series A funding led by Jackson Square Ventures.

• Caroline Merin, Founder & CEO of Leona Health, an AI-powered healthcare communication platform that helps doctors manage and prioritize patient messages via WhatsApp, raised $14M in seed funding led by a16z.

• Lina Colucci, Co-Founder & CEO of Lemon Slice, an AI avatar platform generating real-time digital video agents from a single image, raised $10.5M in seed funding from Matrix Partners and YC.

• Celeste Amadon, Co-Founder & CEO of Known, a voice-powered dating app that uses AI-driven conversational onboarding to facilitate real-world introductions, raised $9.7M in funding led by Forerunner.

• Marissa Mayer, Founder & CEO of Dazzle AI, a consumer AI company building intuitive, user-centered tools that make everyday technology simpler and more accessible, raised $8M in seed funding led by Forerunner.

• Inna Plumb, Co-Founder & CEO of Auxira Health, a virtual cardiology company embedding remote clinical teams into cardiology practices, raised $7.8M in seed funding led by Route 66 Ventures and Abundant Venture Partners.

• Margaret Upshur, Founder & CEO of Mobius Materials, a safe spot marketplace bringing liquidity, quality control, and price transparency to the secondary semiconductor market, raised $3M in seed funding led by Spero Ventures.

• Jaya Gupta from Foundation Capital shared that the trillion-dollar opportunity isn't better systems of record, it's context graphs. Platforms like Salesforce store what happened but miss the "why": exceptions, approvals, and reasoning that live in Slack threads and people's heads. Startups in the agent orchestration layer can capture these decision traces in real-time, turning precedent into queryable data. Read the full article here.

• There are 20+ startup accelerators founders can apply to right now, including a16z Speedrun ($750k–$1M for ~7–10%), Y Combinator ($500k for ~7%), Techstars ($220k for ~5–7%), NEO ($600k via uncapped SAFE with a $10M floor), South Park Commons ($400k for 7% plus a $600k guaranteed follow-on), and more.

• a16z shared its State of Consumer AI 2025, finding that consumer AI is increasingly winner-take-most, with ChatGPT dominating usage and retention, Gemini rapidly accelerating on growth and paid users, and the biggest breakout opportunities shifting to focused, opinionated consumer apps rather than general-purpose assistants.

• New York’s startup ecosystem had a booming 2025, with $23.5B raised across 1,087 deals, accelerating Series A activity, surging AI and enterprise startups, and a rapidly growing talent base.

• Ready Together launched on the App Store, introducing a relationship-focused app designed to help couples build trust, communication, and emotional attunement through daily check-ins, shared reflections, and intentional relational practices.

• Pebble unveiled a $75 AI-powered smart ring that lets users capture quick voice notes with a press-and-hold button, positioning it as a privacy-first “external memory” device with no subscription and years-long battery life.

• The FDA approved Addyi, known as the “little pink pill,” for postmenopausal women, making it the first medication approved for low sexual desire in both pre- and postmenopausal women under 65 and expanding treatment options in women’s sexual health despite modest benefits and notable side effects.

• ⚙️ Katie from Khosla Ventures is hiring a winter / spring SWE Intern to help build internal automation tools with the investing team in Menlo Park.

• ✍️ Sophia from Trust Fund is hiring a Newsletter Writer to support her weekly Substack, helping turn ideas on startups, business, and entrepreneurship into sharp, engaging long-form writing (UK or NYC).

• ✨ Sophie from Fazit is hiring a paid NYC-based Intern to support content creation, street marketing, and social media activation for the viral glitter freckles beauty brand ($20/hour).

• 🚀 Selin from Delve is hiring scrappy growth talent to help scale its AI-native compliance platform, building a high-output B2B growth engine run like an engineering team across multiple channels.

• 🍽️ Jake from 3rd Space is hiring a NYC-based Intern to support newsletter research and writing, help produce curated dinner events, and build relationships across the startup, media, and culture ecosystem.

• 🎨 Zoey from Flick is hiring a Design Intern to work closely on crafting a first-principles, aesthetics-driven product experience at the YC-backed consumer app.

• 🏛️ Madeleine from Civic Roundtable is hiring across Growth Marketing, Senior Software Engineering, and Senior Visual Design to help build mission-driven technology focused on more effective government.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Apply to join our talent pool!

🚀 Share this newsletter with a friend and start growing your network.

📈 Partner with Teli Labs if you are a early-stage startup interested in hiring top talent.

🗞️ Explore our other newsletters: Teli Digest, a roundup of startup hiring, funding, and ecosystem insights, and Dorm Report, spotlighting standout young founders.

I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, Hustlers!

Love,

Daniela & Adrian

Welcome to the new readers who have joined us since the last issue!

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• MeeLan Lee and Sara Achour, Co-Founders of Unconventional AI, a research lab building highly energy-efficient AI-first chips, raised $475M in seed funding at a $4.5B valuation co-led by a16z and Lightspeed.

• Shiyu Wang, Co-Founder & CSO of Sanegene Bio, a clinical-stage biotech developing RNAi-based therapeutics, raised $110M in Series B funding.

• Michelle Lee, Founder & CEO of Medra, a Physical AI platform automating end-to-end laboratory experimentation, raised $52M in Series A funding led by Human Capital.

• Ioana Hreninciuc, Co-Founder of Runware, a real-time AI inference platform for generating images, video, and audio, raised $50M in Series A funding led by Dawn Capital.

• Ori Cohen, Co-Founder & COO of Parametrix, a provider of parametric cyber insurance for digital business interruption, raised $27M in Series B funding led by Mundi Ventures.

• Chloe Marie Songer, Co-Founder & CEO of SuperCircle, a full-stack textile waste management platform for retail brands, raised $24M in Series A funding led by Foundry.

• Diana Helfond DiGia, Founder & CEO of Parallel Learning, a virtual special education platform connecting schools with licensed providers, raised $20M in Series B funding led by Valspring Capital.

• Yi Zhong, Co-Founder of Besimple AI, a data platform providing ethically sourced conversational audio and human-level transcription for voice and multimodal models, raised $3M in seed funding led by YC.

• A number of female-founded startups have recently secured major exits, including a $6.5B SoftBank acquisition of Ampere and Eventbrite’s ~$500M sale. In addition, 10+ VC-backed, female-founded companies are actively hiring.

• Kirsten Green highlighted a 10-week NYU study on AI therapy chatbots, finding that users of Slingshot AI’s Ash reported reduced depression and anxiety comparable to traditional therapy, as regulators weigh whether AI mental health tools should be treated as medical devices.

• Carta-backed research finds solo founders now start over one-third of new companies, a 53% increase from 2019, as AI leverage and falling startup costs make solo founding increasingly common.

• Carta data shows 66% of top-decile seed valuations go to startups in SF or NYC, with the Bay Area capturing the largest share as valuations rise.

• As Gen Z loneliness rises (82% report feeling lonely and 91% want more in-person connection), NYC added 8,750+ new funded startups and is tapping into a growing talent pipeline from CUNY’s 243,000+ students to meet demand for IRL tech communities.

• A new Female Funders Monthly Deal Flow Call is bringing together 40+ pre-seed and seed-stage women investors across the US and Canada, giving female founders dedicated time to pitch directly to active checks.

• Multiple women-led VC firms announced new funds this week, including Valkyrie’s $45M AI-focused fund, Female Founders Fund’s $29M Fund IV, Chui Ventures’ $17.3M first fund for sub-Saharan Africa, and more!

• 🌍 Crebit Pay is hiring 10 paid Growth Interns to help scale its stablecoin-powered cross-border payments product for international students.

• 🧑‍🚀 Lovable is recruiting its first cohort of Campus Leaders across US campuses to run events, lead hackathons, and grow Lovable’s presence on campus.

• 🔥 Jack & Jill is recruiting a small group of SF Ambassadors to help launch its AI recruiting platform in SF.

• ⚡ SideShift is hiring a Growth Operator in NYC to help scale its UGC distribution engine.

• 🟡 Yelo is hiring Growth Interns, SWE Interns, and more to help build its Gen Z transportation platform.

• 🎥 Golpo is hiring paid Content & Marketing Interns to scale its AI explainer video platform across creators, educators, and enterprises.

• 🎨 Unscript.ai is hiring a Creative Operations Intern for a full-time, 3-month, remote-friendly role to support AI-driven creative workflows and brand video production.

• 🐝 Hive Markets is hiring interns to help onboard local businesses and grow an e-commerce platform that helps small businesses sell online.

• 💼 Wischoff Ventures is hiring an Associate and investment + social media interns in SF to work hands-on on pre-seed and seed deals.

• 🏮 Two Lanterns Venture Capital is hiring VC Fellows this spring for a part-time, hands-on fellowship in sourcing, diligence, portfolio support, and community building.

• 🗽 Supermomos is accepting applications for its NYC VC Internship Program, featuring a VC bootcamp and a paid summer internship at a NYC-based VC (only for students attending college in NYC).

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Apply to join our talent pool!

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Daniela, Adrian, & The Teli Team

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• Luana Lopes Lara, Co-Founder of Kalshi, a prediction market, raised $1B in funding led by Paradigm at an $11B valuation. At 29, Luana is world’s youngest self-made female billionaire.

• Jana Jensen, Co-Founder & COO of Excelsior Sciences, a platform developing AI-enabled chemistry for automated small-molecule discovery and manufacturing, raised $95M in funding co-led by Deerfield Management, Khosla Ventures, and Sofinnova Partners.

• Sanaz Yashar, Co-Founder & CEO of Zafran Security, an Tel Aviv-based AI-native threat exposure management platform, raised $60M in Series C funding led by Menlo Ventures.

• Cecilia Ziniti, Co-Founder & CEO of GC AI, an AI platform for in-house legal teams, raised $60M in Series B funding led by Scale Venture Partners and Northzone.

• Anna Goldie and Azalia Mirhoseini, Co-Founders of Ricur­sive Intelligence, a frontier AI lab accelerating semiconductor chip design, raised $35M in seed funding led by Sequoia Capital at a $750M valuation.

• Rebecca Schaevitz, Co-Founder & CPO of Mixx Technologies, a silicon-integrated optical connectivity platform for AI infrastructure, raised $33M in Series A funding led by ICM HPGC Fund.

• Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni, Co-Founders of Phia, an AI-powered shopping platform, raised $30M in funding led by Notable Capital at an $180M valuation.

• Rebekah Gee and Rebecca Kavoussi, Co-Founders of Nest Health, a whole-family primary care platform for Medicaid households, raised $22.5M in Series A funding.

• Diane Yu, Co-Founder & CEO of Tidalwave, an agentic AI mortgage point-of-sale platform, raised $22M in Series A funding led by Permanent Capital.

• Kaledora Fontana Kiernan-Linn, Co-Founder & CEO of Ostium, a decentralized derivatives exchange for real-world assets, raised $20M in Series A funding co-led by General Catalyst and Jump Crypto.

• Helen Hastings, Founder & CEO of Quanta, an AI-powered accounting platform, raised $15M in Series A funding led by Accel.

• Janine Sengstack, Co-Founder & CSO of Junevity, a biotech developing siRNA-based metabolic therapeutics, raised $10M in new seed funding led by Goldcrest Capital and Godfrey Capital.

• Hala Borno, Founder & CEO of Trial Library, an AI-enabled clinical trials access platform, raised $10M in Series A funding co-led by SemperVirens Venture Capital and Next Ventures

• Ariadna Font Llitjós, Co-Founder & CEO of Alinia AI, a compliance platform for regulating and controlling AI systems at scale, raised $7.5M in seed funding led by Mouro Capital.

• Simone Korgsgaard Jensen, Founder & CEO of Radical Health, an AI oncologist platform designed to give every patient access to expert-level cancer care, raised $5M in pre-seed funding led by Khosla Ventures.

• Caroline Dell, Co-Founder & CEO of Goodword, an AI-powered networking copilot to helps users build and maintain professional relationships, raised $4M in seed funding led by Human Ventures.

• Chloe Samaha, Co-Founder & CEO of BOND, an AI Chief of Staff platform for executives, raised $3M in seed funding led by Fellows Fund.

• Ina Jovicic, Co-Founder & CEO of eNOugh, a chest-worn wearable that uses AI for threat detection and autonomous protective responses, raised $2.7M in funding led by A*Ventures.

• Logan Brown, Founder & CEO of Soxton, an AI-native legal platform automating and democratizing startup legal services, raised $2.5M in pre-seed funding led by Moxxie Ventures.

• Michelle Masek & Nadia Jamshidi, Co-Founders of Honeyjar, a PR-focused AI workspace unifying media research, list building, event tracking, and comms workflows, raised $2M in pre-seed funding led by Human Ventures and SNR Ventures.

• Forbes 30u30 was released this week. Here are some of the ladies doing big things!

  • AI: Carina Hong (Axiom), Selin Kocalar (Delve), Eden Ovadia (Finny), Victoria Toli (Finny), Isa Fulford (OpenAI), Grace Magny-Fokam (Folia Technologies), Hahnbee Lee (Mimily), Sharon Lee (Moonlake AI), Emma Qian (Nova Intelligence), Alejandrina Gonzalez Reyes (Sonant AI), Cecilia Shen (Utopia Studios), Sarah Wooders (Letta)

  • Retail & E-commerce: Jenny Wang (Alta), Aliett Buttelman (Fazit Beauty), Nina La Bruna (Fazit Beauty), Chloe Beaudoin (Apicotton), Jessica Miao (Apicotton), Olivia Bae (Perseve Hair), Marilyn Califano (Hempress Hygienics), Elisabeth Detrow (Ace Grip Socks), Stephanie Devli (Happy Camper), Sarah Cheung (SACHEU), Sarah Ebert (Pressed Floral), Sarah Ganzenmuller (Rediem), Phoebe Gates (Phia), Sophie Hengst (The Dailee), Alexia Ioannou (Nou), Paige Lorenze (Dairy Boy), Onama Okeke (Corvane), Abigail Price (Abrode), Ruth Sack (Streets Ahead)

  • See the winners in the other categories here.

• Valerie Chapman introduced Ruth AI, an AI-powered career platform helping women negotiate salaries, build personal brands, and navigate careers with confidence to close the gender wage gap.

• Women drive 60% of US healthcare spending and remain the system’s most underserved users. Kathrin Folkendt highlighted 8 venture opportunities for 2026 including hormonal health solutions, AI as the first clinical touchpoint, early detection models, and more.

• Carta data shows that 2021 and 2022 VC fund vintages are deploying capital more slowly and may struggle to finish investing, while 2024 funds are deploying faster than normal.

• Spring Cash offers fast, flexible PO and invoice financing for CPG brands at industry-low rates, helping emerging consumer companies access working capital without traditional fundraising friction. Learn more here.

• Adobe data shows AI-driven shopping referrals now convert about 16 percent higher than non-AI, with AI conversion rising sharply while traditional conversion declines.

• Later-stage companies have cut headcount the most, with $50M+ ARR teams down 59% from 2022.

• ✨ CharCharms is hiring Spring & Summer 2026 interns across finance, marketing, content creation, influencer management, graphic design, and operations for its water bottle accessory brand making hydration fun and personalized.

• 📘 RippleMatch is hiring an Account Executive to help expand its verified-skills marketplace that connects students and recent grads with early-career opportunities.

• 📦 Garage (YC W24) is hiring an Executive Assistant in NYC to support its founders and ops for its marketplace for emergency vehicles and surplus equipment.

• 💧 Relixir (YC X25) is hiring a full-time Growth & Ops generalist to support its inbound engine that powers AI search traffic for brands.

• 📵 Kanso is hiring a full-time Operations & Experience Coordinator in NYC to help run its phone-free community events, manage venues and partners, and support expansion into new markets.

• 🐦 Jobright.ai is hiring a Growth Intern to run its Campus Ambassador squad and own end-to-end growth projects for its AI job search agent.

• 💖 Not Your Mother’s Haircare is hiring Spring 2026 Campus Ambassadors, targeting students at Syracuse, UCF, Houston, SDSU, Indiana, Western, Toronto, and more for its salon-inspired haircare brand.

• 📣 Verbatim is hiring a Campaign Manager to run influencer campaigns and manage creator relationships for its boutique marketing agency supporting SaaS and eComm brands.

• 🍞 One Mighty Mill is hiring two Boston-based creative interns, a YouTube Content Intern and a LinkedIn Content Intern, to help capture and share brand storytelling for its bread & bagel company.

• 🌟 Foundess issued a last call for nominations for Foundess 25, its annual list spotlighting impactful womxn redefining entrepreneurship. Nominate by December 12th.

• 🔥 Buildn’Chill opened applications for Canada’s first all-expenses-paid retreat for female founders. No panels, no pitches, just s’mores over a campfire, vision boards and quality time with the girls that get it.

• 🌏 MLV opened applications for its Product Management Associate Program for US college students with roots in Hong Kong, Vietnam, or Singapore, offering spring startup training remotely and a summer in Asia launching a revenue-generating education venture.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Apply to join our talent community!

🚀 Share this newsletter with a friend and start growing your network.

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• Pranitha Patil, Co-Founder & CBO of Function Health, a personalized health platform turning lab results and biometric data into AI-driven insights, raised $298M in Series B funding led by Redpoint Ventures at a $2.5B valuation.

• Michelle Carnahan, Co-Founder & CEO of Arbiter, a healthcare AI platform that automates administrative workflows, raised $52M in seed funding at a $400M valuation co-led by TriRidge Investments and MFO Ventures.

• Yael Shemer, Co-Founder & CCO of TULU, a platform offering in-building smart units for on-demand access to shared household products, extended its Series A to $37M co-led by GreenSoil PropTech Ventures, Bosch Ventures, and New Era Capital Partners.

• Jaime Lien, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist of Archetype AI, which converts sensor data into real-time AI agents for physical-world tasks, raised $35M in Series A funding led by IAG Capital Partners and Hitachi Ventures.

• Victoria Thain Gioia, Alex Taylor, and Dr. Banafsheh Bayati, Co-Founders of Perelel, a women’s health company offering clinically backed, stage-specific prenatal and hormonal supplements, raised $27M led by Prelude Growth Partners.

• Jenny Button, Founder & CEO of Emm, a London-based developer of smart menstrual cups with embedded sensors to deliver reproductive health insights, raised $9M in seed funding led by Lunar Ventures.

• Maggie Chung, Co-Founder & Medical Lead of Voio, an AI lab building models to interpret medical images with higher accuracy, raised $8.6M in seed funding led by Laude Ventures and The House Fund.

• Jessica Gaulton, Founder & CEO of FamilyWell Health, an integrated women’s mental health platform supporting patients from pregnancy through menopause, raised $8M in Series A funding led by New Markets Venture Partners.

• Laura Tortosa Sancho, Co-Founder & CPO of Lative, an AI-powered sales planning platform, raised $7.5M in funding co-led by Act Venture Capital and Senovo VC.

• Samira Daswani, Founder & CEO of Manta Cares, a platform that helps cancer patients navigate treatment decisions through personalized guidance tools, raised $5.4M in seed funding led by Pear VC and Sozo Ventures.

• Sahitya Sridhar, Co-Founder of Synthio Labs, a clinical-grade voice AI platform for life-sciences customer engagement, raised $5M in seed funding led by Elevation Capital.

• Charlene Wang, Co-Founder & CEO of Ember, an AI platform that reduces healthcare claim denials by automating coding and documentation, raised $4.3M in seed funding led by Nexus Venture Partners.

• Shivi Sharma, Co-Founder & President of Kaaj, an AI platform that automates credit-risk analysis for small-business loans, raised $3.8M in seed funding led by Kindred Ventures.

• Cameron Hardesty, Founder & CEO of Poppy, a tech-enabled wedding floral platform modernizing sourcing and design, raised $2.7M in Series A funding led by Michigan Capital Network.

• November 19th marked Women’s Entrepreneurship Day!!!! The Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Organization celebrated by ringing the Closing Bell at Nasdaq, shining a global spotlight on the power, impact, and unstoppable energy of women founders everywhere!

• LinkedIn flagged a post for using the word “vagina,” highlighting how women’s health content is still getting censored in 2025.

• Normal, the female-founded sexual wellness startup, is turning to equity crowdfunding after VC “vice clauses” blocked traditional funding, rallying its 40k-member community to fuel its next stage of growth.

• Thanksgiving Day, the day after “Blackout Wednesday” (notorious for reunions and hookups), drives a surge in emergency contraception sales. Winx Health is responding with its “Thankful for Contraception” campaign, offering major discounts and reminding consumers that EC is legal in all 50 states, with Winx now stocked in 6,000+ Walgreens for easier, stigma-free access.

• a16z’s newsletter broke down the “bitter lesson” in AI: brute-force compute wins. Small teams with huge GPU budgets can now turn capital directly into capability, which is why AI startups are growing faster and raising more than any past software cycle.

• Hannah Zhang reflected on choosing marketing over more “prestigious” MBA paths, noting that her friends in strategy know frameworks and her friends in banking know models, but she’s learning how to make people care about something that didn’t exist yesterday, which she sees as the real skill of building from zero.

• 🎤 swsh is hiring a full-time Account Executive (Sales + Ops) in NYC to help live events turn fan photos and videos into real marketing results and CRM data.

• 💬 OGTool is hiring a Customer Success / Account Manager to support clients using its platform that finds targeted Reddit posts and generates on-brand replies to drive startup growth.

• 📸 Hosts of Influence, founded by Gigi Robinson, is hiring a Winter/Spring Brand & Creative Ops Intern to support her creator-education platform.

• 🎥 Robyn is hiring a Social Media Strategist and Content Creator Intern to help lead video creation and grow its presence across IG and TikTok for its emotionally intelligent AI partner product.

• 📊 CapsLock is hiring its first full-time generalist in LA across strategy, operations, marketing, and AI for its placement agent helping funds outsource their fundraising.

• 💳 Fizz is hiring a Software Engineering Intern (Summer 2026) to work on its AI money advisor, payments stack, and web/mobile products.

• 🧩 Contrario is hiring Growth Interns, SWE Interns, Founding Ops, and Founding Engineers in-person in SF for its AI-powered recruiting platform.

• 📚 AfterQuery is hiring 11 Growth Strategists for Spring 2026 for its research lab investigating the boundaries of AI capabilities and curating high-quality human-generated data.

• 🌱 Eleni Zervos shared 5 social impact funding opportunities, including the Yale World Fellowship for global social impact leaders, MIT Climate & Energy Prize funding for student-led climate startups, and more!

• 🗂️ Change Raven is hiring a remote Ops Manager (20-30 hrs/week, Fall 2026) to support its career coaching practice led by Alana Lerch.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Apply to join our talent community!

🚀 Share this newsletter with a friend and start growing your network.

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• Kim Kardashian & Emma Grede, Co-Founders of Skims, a shapewear and apparel brand, raised $225M at a $5B valuation led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives.

• Jennifer Smith, Co-Founder & CEO of Scribe, an AI-powered workflow platform that turns processes into shareable playbooks, raised $75M at a $1.3B valuation led by Silversmith Capital Partners.

• Amanda Kahlow, Founder & CEO of 1mind, an AI sales agent platform, raised $30M in Series A funding led by Battery Ventures.

• Melisa Tokmak, Founder & CEO of Netic, an AI revenue engine that automates outreach, bookings, and analytics for home-service businesses, raised $23M in Series B funding led by Founders Fund.

• Christine de Wendel, Co-Founder & CEO (US) of sunday, a scan-to-pay and ordering platform for restaurants, raised $21M in Series B funding led by DST Global Partners.

• Emily Greenberg, Co-Founder & President of Joy, an AI-powered parenting support app, raised $14M in Series A funding co-led by Forerunner Ventures and Raga Partners.

• Liz Dennett, Founder & CEO of Endolith, a bio-intelligence platform that uses AI-guided microbes to extract copper and critical minerals, raised $13.5M in Series A funding led by Squadra Ventures.

• Jenny Shao, Founder & CEO of Robyn, an emotionally intelligent AI support app, raised $5.5M in seed funding led by M13.

• Melissa Pancoast, Founder & CEO of The Beans, a financial wellness platform for frontline workers, raised $5.4M in seed funding led by Alloy Alchemist Fund.

• Anna-Julia Storch (CEO) & Leonie Freisinger (CTO), Co-Founders of Dryft, an AI operating system automating manufacturing decisions, raised $5M in seed funding led by General Catalyst.

• Gamma’s CEO shared the playbook behind scaling from $0 to $100M ARR and 70M users in under 2.5 years, covering one-day feature loops (masterclass in execution!), hiring top 0.01% talent, and influencer-driven growth.

• World Labs, led by Fei-Fei Li, launched Marble, a 3D world-generation model that lets anyone create persistent, high-fidelity 3D worlds from a single image, video, or text prompt.

• Cursor raised $2.3B at a $29.3B valuation, nearly triple its June valuation, to accelerate development of its in-house model Composer. Cursor also acquired Growth by Design Talent, a startup recruiting firm, amid media discussion about Cursor’s hiring practices, which reportedly include posting candidate names in a #hiring-ideas Slack channel, swarming consensus “yes” candidates with attention, and running two-day onsites for engineering and design roles.

• YC has shifted under Garry Tan. Founders are younger (avg 26), over 50% now come from top-20 universities, more previously worked at YC-backed startups, and nearly 85% of new YC companies are based in the Bay Area.

• Forbes highlighted the top startups from YC’s Fall 2025 batch, noting the rise of B2B AI infrastructure companies including Multifactor (zero-trust security for AI agents), Metorial (MCP infrastructure), Unsiloed (unstructured data APIs), Hyperspell (AI memory layers), and Lightberry (humanoid interaction software).

• Creators already have what most founders fight for: trust and built-in distribution, with new support from Slow Ventures’ $60M creator fund, a16z’s New Media Fellowship, and Erica Wenger’s Park Rangers Capital.

• Rudiment Skincare, a woman-founded biotech company, is pioneering the first non-invasive RNA patch test that uses mRNA analysis and AI to create precision skincare formulas tailored to your unique skin biology. Use code EARLY2929 for 30% off your first order.

• Vine is back! diVine, a reboot that restores 150k+ archived Vines and lets users post new ones, uses decentralized tech and blocks suspected AI-generated content.

• Fireflies’ CTO revealed their “AI notetaker” began as two founders manually joining 100+ meetings as “Fred from Fireflies,” silently taking notes by hand while living on pizza. Wow.

• 🗂️ DonorAtlas is hiring a Software Engineer and Founding Customer Success Manager in NYC for its donor intelligence platform.

• 📅 Luma is hiring a Chief of Staff in NYC to help scale its platform powering millions of event each month.

• 🎨 Icon is hiring Creative Strategists to help build AI-powered advertising products for brands.

• 📈 IntentPost is hiring a Head of Growth + interns for its platform that turns digital intent signals into direct mail for B2B teams.

• 📞 Traba is hiring SDRs in NYC to start in January 2026 for its staffing platform helping businesses fill hourly shifts.

• 📊 Ramp is hiring a Summer 2026 Economist Intern to analyze spend data and build economic indicators

• 📣 Vocal is hiring part-time meme makers, fan-cam editors, social media fellows, and early-career community/partnerships roles at its creator-driven social impact media company.

• 🎬 Golpo (YC S25) is hiring Marketing & Content Interns to help grow its AI platform that turns any script or document into an explainer video.

• 📍 Unfabled is hiring a Founder’s Associate at its London-based women’s health startup transforming access to wellness products.

• ✍️ Canary Technologies is hiring a freelance Content Marketing Editor to support its hospitality software platform.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Apply to join our talent pool!

• November 16 | ⚙️ Dex Cafe: Productivity Hackers Meetup (SF)

• November 18 | 🧠 AI & Early-Stage Tech in Decarbonizing the Built World (Boston)

• November 18 | 🛠️ Bessemer Builders Night (Boston)

• November 19 | 💻 Cursor Women in AI (SF)

• November 19 | 🧘 Recovery Night: Sauna, Cold Plunge & Founder Mixer (NYC)

• November 21 | 💡 AI for Social Good: Women’s Vibe Coding Hackathon (SF)

Hosting an event for women in entrepreneurship? Share the details with Her Hustle’s community by filling out this form!

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I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, Hustlers!

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Daniela, Adrian, & The Teli Team

Welcome to the new readers who have joined us since the last issue!

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• Cindy Hao, Co-Founder of Reevo, an AI-native go-to-market platform unifying sales, marketing, and customer success workflows, raised $80M in funding co-led by Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins.

• Elizabeth Nammour, Founder & CEO of Teleskope, a company developing an agentic data security platform that autonomously detects, contextualizes, and remediates data risks across enterprises, raised $25M in Series A funding led by M13.

• Eugenia Kuyda, Founder & CEO of Wabi, a personal software platform described as the “YouTube of apps” that lets anyone build and share AI-powered mini-apps, raised $20M in pre-seed funding led by a16z.

• Qiyun Cai, Founder & CEO of Fintary, an AI-powered financial operations platform automating insurance commission management, raised $10M in Series A funding led by Infinity Ventures.

• Arti Raman, Founder & CEO of Portal26, a GenAI governance and adoption management platform helping enterprises securely manage and measure AI deployment, raised $9M in Series A funding led by Shasta Ventures.

• Nicole Wagner, Co-Founder & CEO of LambdaVision, a biotech developing a protein-based artificial retina to restore vision lost to retinal diseases, raised $7M in seed funding co-led by Seven Seven Six.

• Savannah Cofer, Co-Founder of Subtle Computing, a Stanford-founded startup developing “subtle voice computing” technology that makes voice AI private, precise, and reliable in real-world environments, raised $6M in seed funding led by Entrada Ventures.

• Dr. Poulami Chaudhuri (CEO) and Rohini Kalvakuntla (CBO), Co-Founders of Helex, a biotech developing programmable non-viral lipid nanoparticle therapeutics for kidney diseases, raised $3.5M in seed funding led by pi Ventures.

• Piper Cyterski, Founder & CEO of Pipelines, an AI R&D toolkit helping companies accelerate model development and experimentation, raised $3.5M in seed funding led by Sierra Ventures and Boldstart Ventures.

• 💻 Veil is hiring a Frontend Engineer to help build AI tools reshaping how businesses grow through agentic commerce.

• 🍽️ Beli is hiring full-stack engineers to build features that shape how millions of people track, share, and discover restaurants.

• 🧠 ProDex Labs is hiring 7 engineers in NYC to build simulation and optimization tools that help factories plan and run production lines more efficiently.

• 🚀 Selfin (YC F25) is hiring marketing interns to grow the first AI bank’s presence across TikTok, X, Reddit, and Instagram ahead of YC Demo Day.

• 🎥 Giant Spoon is hiring a Strategy Intern in NYC for Spring 2026 to support research, insights, and creative strategy across clients in culture, media, and tech.

• 🌐 DoorList is hiring for Growth to scale its social platform helping students create, manage, and grow real-world events across 500+ campuses and 100k+ gatherings.

• ⚙️ Rubie is hiring a Founding AE and Founding Growth hire in NYC to scale its platform helping companies onboard customers for complex products faster.

• 📣 Chloe Capital Founder Fellowship is open to NYC founders building in climate, health, or workforce innovation. Apps open Nov 12.

• 💼 Hummingbird Ventures is hiring for its 2026 Analyst Program, a two-year launchpad into early-stage investing with six months of training in London.

• 💡 Precursor Ventures is accepting applications for its Graduate Internship Program.

• 🚀 YC is accepting applications for its Winter 2026 batch (January-March in SF). Apply by Nov 10.

• 🪞 a16z launched the New Media Fellowship, self-described as “the Thiel Fellowship for the terminally online,” for creators shaping the future of essays, video, podcasts, and digital media.

• 🌟 Foundess opened nominations for its 25 for 2025 list celebrating women founders breaking barriers and building on their own terms.

• 🏡 Harvard St. Commons opened applications for its Spring 2026 Cohort, a Boston founders and creators residency backed by YC, a16z, and top VCs.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Apply to join our talent pool!

Hustlers, for more roles like these, head to the new Teli Labs job board (updated daily) for curated early-stage startup opportunities across growth, ops, marketing, and design in NYC, SF, and remote. Check it out here!

• Cluely founder Roy Lee admitted that viral hype alone won’t lead to sustained growth, as the startup pivots from its “cheat on everything” origins to focus on becoming an AI note-taking assistant for meetings.

• a16z shared Stripe data showing US startups growing 1400% in revenue since 2020, outpacing EU and UK peers by over 2x, driven by faster tech adoption and a stronger customer appetite for innovation.

• a16z shared 25 book recommendations from its founders and partners.

• Former Meta designers launched Sandbar, the company behind Stream, a smart ring that records voice notes, controls music, and lets users interact with AI assistants through touch gestures.

• YC-backed Nessie Labs launched a tool that transforms ChatGPT histories into searchable, topic-organized knowledge maps, founded by Yale grads Anna Zhang and Tiger Wang.

• Foundess hosted a Halloween Yacht Party for cracked Gen Z founders, builders, and engineers, bringing together 320 people.

• 18 femtech startups raised $1.4B in October alone, marking a record month for women’s health innovation across fertility, menopause, and diagnostics.

• Harvard Undergraduate Women in Entrepreneurship launched its new Builder’s Cohort with Xfund, bringing together top student founders from across Boston.

• November 8 | 🏋️ Women Who Lift: Lift & Brunch (SF)

• November 10 | 🏙️ NYC B2B: Pre-Seed + Seed Founders & Investors Meetup (NYC)

• November 10-13 | 🤖 AI Week by Leland (Virtual)

• November 11 | ✨ Femme Founder Showcase (Austin)

• November 12 | 🃏 Wild Card: Game Night by The Collective (Boston)

• November 13 | ⚙️ Women in AI Meetup (Boston)

• November 18 | 🧠 AI & Early-Stage Tech in Decarbonizing the Built World (Boston)

Hosting an event for women in entrepreneurship? Share the details with Her Hustle’s community by filling out this form!

🚀 Share this newsletter with a friend and start growing your network.

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I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, Hustlers!

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Daniela, Adrian, & The Teli Team

Welcome to the new readers who have joined us since the last issue!

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• Lin Qiao, Co-Founder & CEO of Fireworks AI, a company building cloud infrastructure that enables developers to access advanced AI chips and deploy large-scale inference models, raised $250M in Series C funding led by Lightspeed and Index Ventures, valuing the company at $4B.

• Kathleen McMahon (CEO) and Tess van Stekelenburg, Co-Founders of Valthos, a company developing AI systems that identify biological threats and design adaptive medical countermeasures in real time, raised $30M in seed funding led by OpenAI Startup Fund, Lux Capital, and Founders Fund.

• Laura Behrens Wu, Co-Founder & CEO of Shippio, a global shipping and logistics platform, raised $21.6M in Series C funding led by DNX Ventures.

• Julia Reisser, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Uluu, a climate-tech company producing compostable bioplastics from seaweed, raised $16M AUD in Series A funding led by Burda Principal Investments.

• Mandi Zhou, Co-Founder & CPO of SweatPals, a community-driven fitness platform transforming how people build real-world connections through shared movement experiences, raised $12M in seed funding led by Patron.

• Georgia Vidler and Kate Lambridis, Co-Founders of Human Health, a digital health platform using AI to help patients track chronic conditions and access personalized care, raised $8.5M AUD in funding led by LocalsGlobal.

• Yasmin Dunsky, Co-Founder & CEO of Wild Moose, an AI-powered platform for site reliability engineering that automates root cause analysis and accelerates incident response, raised $7M in seed funding led by iAngels.

• Michelle Marcelline, Co-Founder of The Prompting Company, a platform for brands to create AI-facing web content that makes their products discoverable within gen AI assistants, raised $6.5M in seed funding led by Peak XV Partners.

• Ksusha McCormick (CEO) and Charlotte Ng (CPO), Co-Founders of OneAM, an early pay platform that uses AI and quantitative modeling to help small and midsize suppliers unlock working capital by turning receivables into cash, raised $4.7M in seed funding led by TTV Capital.

• Riya Jagetia, Co-Founder & CEO of Socratix AI, a company building autonomous AI coworkers for fraud and risk teams, raised $4.1M in seed funding led by Pear VC.

• Campbell Brown, Co-Founder & CEO of Forum AI, a company leveraging expert judgment to evaluate how AI models handle complex and nuanced topics like politics, foreign affairs, and mental health, raised $3M in seed funding led by Lerer Hippeau.

• Josephine Rode Bager and Mikala Skov, Co-Founders of Marleybones, a premium dog food brand offering slow-cooked, nutritionally complete meals, raised £2.5M in funding led by TAW Ventures.

• 💘 Known is hiring an Ops/GTM generalist to join its founding team building an AI-powered dating platform.

• 🔮 Manifest is hiring multiple roles across marketing and sales to help small businesses grow through software that supports training, onboarding, and performance tracking.

• 📋 Founders You Should Know is hiring an Operations Intern to support logistics and operations for its startup showcase connecting top talent with breakout founders.

• 🎟️ Fibe is hiring an Events & Marketing Coordinator (NYC) to plan and market CEO dinners, tech conferences, mansion parties, and founder communities (100 events/year).

• 🧬 SimCare AI (YC S24) is hiring paid interns in SF as it grows its AI-powered “virtual patients” for clinical training and healthcare provider education.

• 🤖 Inkeep is hiring growth and engineering interns to help build AI-powered assistants and automations that streamline workflows for teams and businesses.

• 💸 MongoDB Ventures is hiring a Ventures Intern in SF to support sourcing, memo writing, and investment research across startups and infrastructure software.

• 🚀 YC is accepting applications for its Winter 2026 batch (January-March in SF). Apply by Nov 10.

• 💡 NEA is accepting applications for its Spring 2026 Undergraduate Fellowship. Apply by Nov 3.

• 🏛️ The MBA Fund is hosting its annual Multi-School Pitch Competition for founders from Harvard, Stanford, Penn, and Berkeley. Finalists will pitch to NEA and Accel for a $25K investment prize. Apply by Nov 3.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Apply to join our talent pool!

• 1X unveiled Neo, a $20,000 humanoid home robot that can clean, water plants, and assist with chores. For now, tasks are still remotely operated by humans via VR.

• Sequoia Capital launched $950M in new early-stage funds — $750M for Series A and $200M for Seed — doubling down on backing founders earlier amid the AI boom.

• OpenAI is reportedly preparing for a potential IPO that could value the company at up to $1 trillion, following a major restructuring to move away from its nonprofit roots.

• a16z built more than a fund. They created an ecosystem of media, founder circles, talent networks, expert advisors, and investors, competing not on capital but on attention and community.

• A wave of founder-led community initiatives is energizing Europe’s startup scene from Entrepreneurs First’s European Builders League to Project Europe and more.

• Lore unveiled its platform that centralizes fandom discovery, fixing the fragmented online fan experience by organizing all your favorite stories and lore in one place.

• Stanford CS grad Cole Lee shared that just a month ago, she transitioned from product and engineering into being a full-time content creator. Since then, she’s been featured in Times Square and collaborated with Adobe and Samsung.

• Mappa, a voice AI interviewer reinventing hiring, analyzes tone, pace, and word choice and is part of the agentic AI in HR market projected to grow from $842M in 2024 to $23B by 2034.

• November 3 | 🌸 Femtech Insider IRL (NYC)

• November 4 | 🍸 SF Pre-Seed Happy Hour (SF)

• November 4 | 💼 Aspiring Female Partners: Back to the Office (London)

• November 5 | 💜 Making Tech [HER]Story, presented by Miro (Chicago)

• November 6 | 🍷 HUMN x Rho Female Founder Dinner (Boston)

• November 10 | 🏙️ NYC B2B: Pre-Seed + Seed Founders & Investors Meetup (NYC)

• November 18 | 🧠 AI & Early-Stage Tech in Decarbonizing the Built World (Boston)

Hosting an event for women in entrepreneurship? Share the details with Her Hustle’s community by filling out this form!

🚀 Share this newsletter with a friend and start growing your network.

💁‍♀️ Connect with me on LinkedIn for daily insights on women in entrepreneurship.

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I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, Hustlers!

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Welcome to the new readers who have joined us since the last issue!

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• Emma Tinsley, Founder & CEO of Elevara Medicines, a biotech developing therapies for rheumatoid arthritis and chronic inflammatory diseases through fibroblast-targeted approaches, raised $70M in Series A funding co-led by Forbion and Sofinnova Partners.

• Brooke Boyarsky Pratt (CEO) and Angela Fitch (CMO), Co-Founders of knownwell, a company delivering comprehensive, weight-inclusive primary care and obesity medicine, raised $25M in funding led by CVS Health Ventures.

• Amy Ouellette, Co-Founder & COO of Aboon, an AI-powered 401(k) platform that helps financial advisors design and manage retirement plans with greater speed and transparency, raised $17.5M in seed funding led by Bain Capital Ventures.

• Ellen Rudolph, Co-Founder & CEO of WellTheory, a platform delivering AI-powered personalized care for autoimmune diseases, raised $14M in Series A funding led by General Catalyst.

• Lydia Hylton (CEO) and Priya Krishnan (COO), Co-Founders of Strella, a customer research platform that automates qualitative research through AI moderated interviews, raised $14M in Series A funding led by Bessemer.

• Michelle Nguyen and Natalie Serrino, Co-Founders of Gimlet Labs, an applied AI research company developing infrastructure that decouples agentic AI workloads from underlying hardware to optimize compute performance, raised $12M in seed funding led by Factor.

• Alina Rui Su, Co-Founder & CEO of Generation Lab, a longevity biotech developing personalized epigenetic testing and therapies to extend healthy lifespan, raised $11M in seed funding led by Accel.

• Cathy Di, Co-Founder & CEO of Dedalus Labs, a developer platform that helps engineers build and deploy AI agents with just a few lines of code, raised $11M in seed funding co-led by Kindred Ventures and Saga Ventures.

• Maggie Tang, Founder & CEO of Magic, an AI company bringing personalized experiences to the hospitality industry through its CRM platform Loyalist, raised $10M in seed funding led by Lerer Hippeau, with participation from several angels, including celebrity chef Mario Carbone.

• Léa Wenger, Founder & CEO of Cyclana Bio, a UK-based biotechnology company developing tissue-based disease models to discover new treatments for endometriosis and other women’s health conditions, raised £5M in pre-seed funding co-led by NFX and Eka VC.

• Michelle Lim, Co-Founder & CEO of Flint, a platform that builds autonomous websites that design, test, and optimize themselves using AI, raised $5M in seed funding led by Accel.

• Priyanka Kulkarni, Founder & CEO of Casium, an AI-powered immigration and mobility platform helping employers streamline global talent hiring and visa management, raised $5M in seed funding led by Maverick Ventures.

• Aune Aunapuu, Co-Founder & CEO of Yaga, an Estonian-based sustainable online marketplace for secondhand fashion, raised €4M in funding led by Specialist VC.

• Lauren Gage, Founder & CEO of Triplemoon, a digital health platform providing integrated behavioral care for pediatric patients and their families, raised $3.5M in seed funding led by Activate Venture Partners and LiveOak Ventures.

• Christina Brady (CEO) and Jodi Mesa (CPTO), Co-Founders of Luster, an AI-powered training and skill proficiency platform that predicts where sales reps are likely to make mistakes, raised $3M in seed funding co-led by High Alpha and Ivy Ventures.

• 🪞 Biography is hiring Paid Growth and Marketing Interns (SF or remote) to join its team building socially-aware AI assistants that use personal data you control to help schedule events, make introductions, and even find your next hire.

• 🧸 Pixley AI (YC F25) is hiring Full Stack Dev and Marketing Interns to join its team building a platform where kids and parents co-create AI-powered cartoons.

• 🎙️ Geni Computers is hiring a contract Content Creator to help showcase its AI-powered, screen-free storytelling toys that let kids create their own audio adventures.

• 💼 AfterQuery is hiring an Operations + Technical Sales Intern in SF to help power data infrastructure and partnerships for leading AI labs.

• 💸 Six VC internships/fellowships are open — including Flare Capital, Thrive, LvlUp, and more.

• 🚀 Eleven new accelerators launched or opened recently, including programs from 2048 Ventures, Thrive Capital, Databricks, Snowflake, and Entrepreneurs First.

• 💡 Black New Venture Competition at Harvard Business School is now accepting applications for 2026 — offering non-dilutive funding, VC access, and programming for early-stage Black founders.

• 💰 Princeton TigerLaunch, one of the world’s largest student startup competitions, offers $60K in non-dilutive funding with regional pitches worldwide and finals at Princeton. Apply by Nov 1.

• ✨ 8 female founders who recently raised are actively hiring across roles!

• 💁‍♀️ Teli Labs matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Apply to join our talent pool!

• OpenAI launched Atlas, an AI-powered web browser that embeds ChatGPT into any site, letting users chat, search, and complete tasks directly as they browse.

• Sam Altman said ChatGPT will soon allow erotica for verified adults under a “treat adults like adults” policy — clarifying later that it reflects a broader push for adult user freedom and responsible age-gating, not relaxed safeguards for minors or mental health.

• A leading VC firm outlined the Undergrad Capital Cycle, showing how every tech era starts in dorm rooms — from Microsoft to Facebook to Ethereum to today’s AI startups like Cursor/Mercor. Early undergrads win through curiosity and freedom from legacy systems, but their edge fades once experience and networks take over.

• A* Capital has invested nearly 20% of its fund in teenage founders, betting that Gen Z’s native understanding of new tech and willingness to take bold risks will drive the next wave of breakout startups.

• Tally, co-founded by Marie Martens, bootstrapped to $4M ARR — built on simplicity, constant user feedback, and a relentless focus on doing one thing exceptionally well.

• A major AWS outage took down major platforms including Amazon, Snapchat, Coinbase, and Zoom for hours, disrupting governments, airlines, and financial services worldwide.

• LinkedIn released its Top Startups 2025 list, spotlighting the fastest-growing US companies.

• Oura is winning young women and losing gym rats — with 80% of users now female, its smart ring has become a lifestyle accessory more than a fitness tracker.

• A new GWI chart shows social media use peaked in 2022 — with Gen Z leading the decline. For the first time in history, time spent online is shrinking.

• Owala turned a viral TikTok of someone using its bottle to fight off an intruder into a marketing win, sending the creator a branded safe, replacement bottles, and an all-expenses-paid getaway — leading to millions more views.

• Jenny Stojkovic, General Partner at Joyful VC, wrote about the rising “She-cession,” noting record numbers of college-educated moms leaving the workforce

• The new Women’s Health Fund, a fund of funds, aims to channel life sciences capital to women’s health, addressing the long-standing research gap and that women weren’t included in clinical trials until 1993.

• Nema Health, a platform helping survivors find lasting peace from trauma and PTSD, was featured on Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky, with founder Sofia Noori joining Monica and Gabrielle Union for a conversation on trauma and healing.

• Former OpenAI researcher Karina Nguyen launched Maison AGI, a fashion house creating cultural artifacts for the AI era — debuting with Relic of Thought, a collaboration with Ilya Sutskever blending art, philosophy, and design.

• October 28 | 💸 Creatives in Finance by GenZtea (NYC)

• October 30 | 🚀 Afore Capital’s 8th Annual Pre-Seed Summit (SF / Virtual)

• November 3 | 🌸 Femtech Insider IRL (NYC)

• November 4 | 💼 Aspiring Female Partners: Back to the Office (London)

• November 6 | 🍷 HUMN x Rho Female Founder Dinner (Boston)

• November 16 | 🧬 Explore Careers in Biotech Workshop (Virtual)

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• Luana Lopes Lara, Co-Founder of Kalshi, a prediction market platform that allows users to trade on future events, raised $300M in funding led by Sequoia and a16z.

• Serena Ge, Co-Founder & CEO of Datacurve, a startup building high-quality AI training data for software development, raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Chemistry.

• Catherine Jue, Co-Founder & CEO of Kernel, a company providing browsers-as-a-service so developers can build and run AI agents on the web, raised $22M in Seed and Series A funding led by Accel.

• Ana Montero, Co-Founder & CEO of Atlas, a developer of a wearable that measures brainwave activity to improve mental wellbeing and performance, raised $14M in funding from Acrew Capital, Compound, HOF Capital, Unshackled Ventures, and others.

• Romi Gubes, Co-Founder & CEO of Sensi.AI, a company using AI to detect and predict care events and improve outcomes in senior care, raised $45M in Series C funding led by Qumra Capital.

• Anita Modi, Co-Founder & CEO of Peer AI, a company using agentic AI to automate regulatory documentation and accelerate drug approvals, raised $12.1M in funding led by Flare Capital Partners and SignalFire.

• Alisa Wu, Solo Founder & CEO of Lucent, a company building training data for browser agents that help AI models use the internet to get things done, raised $2M in pre-seed funding from Horizon VC, Long Journey Ventures, and others.

• Alison Alvarez, Co-Founder & CEO of BlastPoint, an AI-driven customer intelligence platform helping utilities and financial institutions deliver equitable, data-driven insights to their customers, raised $10.6M in growth funding led by MissionOG.

• Adele James, Co-Founder & CTO of Phagos, a France-based biotech developing bacteriophage-based therapies as a sustainable alternative to antibiotics, raised €25M in Series A funding led by CapAgro, Hoxton Ventures, CapHorn, and Demeter.

• Rumala Sheikhani, Founder of Everyset, an entertainment tech company streamlining background casting and payroll for film and TV productions, raised $9M in funding led by Crosslink Capital and Haven Ventures.

• Ana De Sousa, CEO of Agio Ratings, a London-based company providing quantitative risk insights for digital assets to help financial institutions assess exchange and custodial risk, raised $6M in funding led by AlbionVC.

• Melissa Chambers, Co-Founder & CEO of Sitehop, a UK-based company developing quantum-ready encryption hardware to secure high-speed data networks, raised £7.5M in funding led by Northern Gritstone.

• Rachael Annabelle Yong, Founder & CEO of Gullie, a company reinventing employee relocation with the world’s first full-stack AI relocation platform, raised $2M in funding led by B Capital.

• ✍️ A fast-growing startup that helps founders generate pipeline through executive-led LinkedIn content ($1M ARR in six months) is hiring Content Writers. Email info@telilabs.com if interested.

• 📊 Truewind (YC S23) is hiring a Growth Intern to drive social, content, and community-led growth at its AI-powered platform redefining how startups and accounting firms manage their books.

• 🤖 Born is building its NYC office and hiring engineering and growth/community talent to shape the future of social consumer AI.

• 🎥 Cocreate (YC S25) is hiring Software Engineering interns (paid, hybrid SF/Palo Alto) to build features in Electron + React, optimize media pipelines, and shape product architecture.

• 🌴 Dose of Travel Club is hiring a contract Event & Retreat Coordinator to plan global retreats and activations, manage vendors and logistics, and bring creative, community-driven travel experiences to life.

• 🚀 Afore Capital is flying college founders to SF and providing $20K–$100K, mentorship, and VC access to turn AI ideas into startups over two months; applications for the winter cohort are now open.

• 💡 Robin Hood Catalyst, a four-month accelerator for pre-seed social impact founders in education, financial access, health, housing, hunger, and jobs, is now accepting applications.

• 💸 Alma is hosting a $100K pitch competition for immigrant-led startups (pre-seed or <$2M raised), with 10 teams pitching live in Palo Alto on November 20; applications are open until November 6.

• 🧠 An exited founder is investing in 15 non-technical founders before year-end, seeking vibe coded prototypes and market-savvy builders using AI to launch products without code.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Apply to join our talent pool!

• A founder shared a list of 50 VC funds that actually invest at inception, including Hustle Fund, Pear VC, Dorm Room Fund, Afore Capital, Better Tomorrow Ventures, and more.

• a16z shared “Fruits of the Walled Garden,” arguing that the next edge in AI won’t come from bigger models but from access to trusted, permissioned data. As OpenAI’s Sora 2 and Anthropic’s Claude Teams move up the stack, startups like VLex and OpenEvidence show that real moats come from owning unique, defensible data ecosystems — not compute.

• Sugar Free Capital raised a $32M inaugural fund to back early-stage MIT founders, led by Sheena Jindal, with plans to invest in companies founded by the university’s alumni and community.

• Vega, co-founded by Madeline Park, is building a social network focused on authentic recognition and real human connection. Instead of algorithms or AI agents, profiles are shaped by what real people say about you — aiming to create a more meaningful, people-first social fabric.

• Natalie Neptune highlighted the rise of student VC funds across continents — from Dorm Room Fund and Rough Draft Ventures in the US to Protégé Ventures in Asia and ASIF Ventures in Europe.

• Raf Sabawi launched Elora App, a platform that connects clients with their ideal hairstylists through personalized hair profiles and a smart matching system, now live on the App Store.

• Nuttall Women’s Health launched research funding and investment programs focused on female-specific biology and women’s health companies, offering $500K-$5M grants per project.

• Atlas (featured above for raising $14M), after 5 years of R&D, unveiled a new wearable that sits discreetly behind the ear and measures brainwave activity in real time, translating mental states into insights to improve focus, energy, and stress management.

• Lucy Nicholls of Intelligence Node is competing to speak at the eCommerce Summit Berlin in the “Bold Predictions and Forecasts” category, highlighting AI, media, and entrepreneurship. Vote for her here!

• Emma Conant announced the upcoming launch of EVERYBODY, a gender-inclusive swim and activewear brand on Kickstarter, aiming to create gender inclusive swim and activewear.

• October 13 - 19 | LA Tech Week by a16z (Los Angeles)

• October 20 - 24 | DC Startup & Tech Week (Washington DC)

• October 14 | 🧩 Cofounder Matching: Meet Your Future Founding Team (Cambridge, MA)

• October 16 | 💼 Healthtech Chief of Staff Mixer (NYC)

• October 17 - 19 | 🧬 Women Longevity × London Hackathon (London)

• October 20 | ☕ Women’s AI Breakfast: Raising Capital in AI (London)

Hosting an event for women in entrepreneurship? Share the details with Her Hustle’s community by filling out this form!

🚀 Share this newsletter with a friend and start growing your network.

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I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, Hustlers!

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Daniela & The Teli Team

Welcome to the new readers who have joined us since the last issue!

If you haven’t yet, join our community of 11,500+ readers by subscribing below.

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• Carina Hong, Founder & CEO of Axiom Math, a startup building an AI mathematician to solve complex math problems and generate new proofs, raised $64M in seed funding led by B Capital.

• Sharon Lee, Co-Founder of Moonlake AI, a developer of AI reasoning models to let anyone build interactive 2D and 3D game worlds in minutes, raised $28M in seed funding led by AIX Ventures, Threshold, and Nvidia Ventures.

• Katie Hoffman, Co-Founder & COO of Phaidra, a company building AI agents to optimize data centers into AI factories, raised $50M in Series B funding led by Collaborative Fund.

• Shruti Gupta, Founder & CEO of Zania, an AI security company for governance, risk, and compliance, raised $18M in Series A funding led by NEA.

• Jane Jin, Co-Founder & Chief Innovation Officer of OXCCU, an Oxford spinout developing technology to convert waste carbon into sustainable aviation fuel, raised $28M in Series B funding from IAG Ventures, Safran Corporate Ventures, Orlen VC, and more.

• Martina Domenicali, Co-Founder & CSO of Lexroom.ai, a Milan-based legal tech startup using generative AI to accelerate legal research and drafting, raised €16.2M in Series A funding led by Base10 Partners.

• Elizabeth Burstein, Co-Founder & CEO of Neura Health, a virtual neurology clinic improving access and quality of care for patients with chronic neurological conditions, raised $11.4M in Series A funding led by the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women Venture Fund.

• Antonia Unger, Co-Founder & CEO of Arqh, a Zurich-based startup developing AI-powered decision intelligence tools for logistics, raised $3.8M in pre-seed funding led by Founderful.

• Bailey Renger, Co-Founder & CEO of BeSound, a breast cancer screening startup, raised $6.8M in seed funding co-led by Overwater Ventures, Kindred Ventures, and Muse Capital.

• Amy Green, Co-Founder & CEO of Mamaya Health, a mental health platform expanding from maternal care to comprehensive family mental health services, raised $3M in Series A funding from LFE Capital and Spitha Capital.

• OpenAI launched Sora 2, its next-gen video generator with more realistic motion and speech, paired with a TikTok-style social app to boost adoption. The rollout has been met with strong reception.

• Taya launched an AI-powered necklace that doubles as real jewelry, capturing moments, reflections, and ideas in real time.

• Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 4.5, its strongest coding model yet — scoring 77.2% on SWE-bench Verified and adding upgrades like a new VS Code extension, context editing, memory tools, and more.

• a16z released the AI Apps 50: Startup Edition, ranking where startups spend most on AI tools, with insights on horizontal vs. vertical apps, the rise of vibe coding in enterprises, and B2C products making the leap into B2B.

• Hyperliquid, a little-known crypto company generating over $100M in revenue per employee — far outpacing giants like Tether ($93M), OnlyFans ($37M), and Apple/Meta (~$2M) — underscoring how crypto firms are quietly operating at a scale of profitability most AI companies can’t match.

• Oxford neuroscientist Jiali Zhang is building Soma, a cognitive fitness tracker like Strava for the brain, and is opening a private beta for the first 100 people who complete the survey at soma-health.co.

• Avenir AI, founded by MIT alums Ariadne Dulchinos and Maria Z., joined a16z’s Speedrun after refining their healthcare platform to help HR leaders better support employees, with a journey shaped by pivots, product lessons, and traction built this summer in LA.

• ThirdLayer is hosting the first-ever Dex Growth Games, a 36-hour “growthathon” where 100 hackers and GTM minds compete live to launch bold experiments, with winners crowned — or roasted — on stage.

• Anada Lakra, Co-Founder and CEO of BoldVoice, shared that the AI-powered speech and accent coaching app has scaled past $10M ARR with a lean team of 7 and is on a mission to help 1.5B non-native English speakers communicate with confidence.

• V11, an invite-only network of elite builders, researchers, and engineers, has already gathered 1K+ members in SF and NYC — plugging founders into top funds, key hires, and exclusive resources to back the next $10B companies.

• Kanjun Qiu, CEO of Imbue, introduced Sculptor, a desktop app that lets developers run multiple Claude coding agents in parallel and edit code in real time, turning one developer into the equivalent of a full team.

• Health and wellness funding climbed in Q3 2025, led by Nudge and Eight Sleep raising $100M each, Bloom Nutrition securing $160M, Unmind pulling in $61M across rounds, and Unrivaled Basketball closing a $340M Series B.

• A tier-1 VC reminded a pre-seed founder that not every company is a billion-dollar outlier in three weeks — progress takes time, moats take time, and success comes from grinding forward rather than comparing yourself to TechCrunch headlines.

• Wispr Flow raised $56M after eight pivots by starting with co-founder conversations about values like ambition, what to do if someone leaves, and the kind of team they wanted to build before in-depth conversations on product or ideas.

• Zoe Lynch announced that Variant, her AI social gaming platform, joined a16z’s Speedrun cohort and launched its closed beta, aiming to let anyone turn their stories into playable games.

• A founder who once needed years and a full team to launch a startup says he has now built more advanced software solo in months, showing how AI has lowered the barrier to creation — and why there has never been a better time to experiment and build.

• Next-Gen PayPal Mafia? The rising circle of young women in tech & venture.

• After losing a $30M deal from getting defensive in a meeting, Acquisition.com CEO Leila Hormozi shared how she spent 72 hours beating herself up until a friend reminded her that champions recover faster instead of wasting time in self-pity.

• 🌍 Endeavor is hiring Summer Analysts (internship) and Full-Time Analysts (3-year program, start 2026) to join its Entrepreneur Selection team supporting high-impact founders worldwide.

• 💼 Thrive Capital is opening applications for its 2026 Summer Fellowship, a program for college freshmen, sophomores, and juniors who have a deep interest in technology and exceptional ability.

• 🔎 Evertune AI is hiring a Chief of Staff in NYC as the company builds AI search visibility & GEO tools that help brands win when AI makes the recommendations.

• 🎙️ Liva AI is hiring a Founding Operations Lead in SF to help build the world’s richest library of human voice and video data and design its internal ops systems.

• 🚀 Userjourneys.ai is hiring a GTM Intern to help grow its platform, which uses AI to analyze session replays and pinpoint where users get stuck, confused, or drop off.

• 🌳 Treeswift is hiring Deployment Leads (Bay Area + NYC) and an Account Executive (NYC) to help utilities manage risks from vegetation to power lines.

• 🧵 Weave is hiring its first AE, Technical CSM, and Operations Lead to help build its ML platform that measures engineering by scanning every PR for expected time, review quality, and type of work.

• 💻 Ellipsis Labs is hiring New Grads and Intern engineers to build high-performance products and infrastructure in decentralized finance.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Apply to join our talent pool!

• SF Tech Week (October 6 - 12)

  • Tons of great events, including Women’s Health Happy Hour by H*QUOTIENT, Beyond the Algorithm: Leading Women in AI, Egg Freezing, IVF, and Surrogacy for Women in Tech, and so much more!

• October 4 | 👩‍💻 Hack the Valley X – Women in Tech Summit (Toronto)

• October 6 | 🧠 (Un)employment in the Age of AI (Austin)

• October 7 | 🌿 Women Who Lead: World Mental Health Day powered by Shopify NY (NYC)

• October 7 | 👩‍🔬 Women Building AI: Beyond Boundaries (Amsterdam)

• October 9 | 🍊 AI Talent & Startup Showcase (Boston)

• October 14 | 🧩 Cofounder Matching: Meet Your Future Founding Team (Cambridge, MA)

• November 8 | 📣 Women’s Health Summit @ Harvard Business School (Boston)

Hosting an event for women in entrepreneurship? Share the details with Her Hustle’s community by filling out this form!

🚀 Share this newsletter with a friend and start growing your network.

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I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, Hustlers!

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Love,

Daniela & The Teli Team

Welcome to the new readers who have joined us since the last issue!

If you haven’t yet, join our community of 11,500+ readers by subscribing below.

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• Laura Deming, Co-Founder & CEO of Until Labs, a biotech company developing organ cryopreservation technology to extend transplant viability, raised $58M in Series A funding led by Founders Fund.

• Athena Countouriotis, Co-Founder & CEO of Avenzo Therapeutics, a biotech company developing next-generation oncology therapies, raised $60M in Series B funding led by OrbiMed and SR One.

• Daryna Kulya, Co-Founder & COO of Quo (formerly OpenPhone), a business phone platform for small and growing businesses, raised $105M in growth financing led by General Catalyst.

• Meena Mallipeddi, Co-Founder & CEO of AmplifyMD, an AI-enabled virtual care platform for health systems, raised $20M in Series B funding led by Forerunner Ventures.

• Hala Sarkis, Co-Founder & CEO of Epic Padel, an operator of padel clubs, raised $10M in seed funding led by NowaisWorld and Stryde Ventures.

• Rebekka Mikkola, Co-Founder & CEO of Trismik, a Cambridge University spin-out building an LLM evaluation platform for AI scientists and engineers, raised £2.2M in pre-seed funding led by Twinpath Ventures.

• Divya Aathresh, Founder & CEO of MaxHome.AI, an AI-native platform automating real estate transactions, raised $5M in seed funding led by Fika Ventures.

• Agata Krawiec-Rokita, Co-Founder & CEO of sun.store, Europe’s largest B2B marketplace for solar and storage components, raised €6M in seed funding led by Contrarian Ventures, Market One Capital, and Movens Capital.

• Eden Canillar, Co-Founder & CTO of Helios, an AI platform delivering forecasts on prices, climate risk, and supply chain disruptions, raised $4.7M in seed funding led by Collide Capital.

• May Chen-Contino, CEO of Unit 221B, a cybersecurity company tracking and disrupting global hacking groups, raised $5M in seed funding led by J2 Ventures.

• 🌐 Top AI orgs are running Campus Ambassador Programs (Anthropic, Perplexity, OpenAI, Simplify) where students can lead clubs, host events, promote tools, and earn rewards.

• 🚀 Beagle (YC24), the first AI insurance startup, is scaling fast and hiring a Go-To-Market Associate (BDR/SDR) and a Partnership Executive (AE) to help transform the insurance industry.

• 🎓 Dayli is opening applications for its invite-only High School Fellowship, giving ambitious students hands-on startup growth + social media experience, mentorship, and a community of student founders from top colleges.

• 🔥 Polari Labs is hiring a Founder Associate in London to support fundraising, ops, HR, and marketing as they build a bold new science-backed sexual health brand preparing for launch.

• 🧠 Impression Ventures is hiring an AI Venture Analyst in Toronto to evaluate cutting-edge startups, track industry trends, and help shape the future of fintech.

• 🔥 Khosla Ventures is creating a brand-new role for a technical polymath who thrives in hackathon-style environments, loves traveling nonstop, and can hold their own in conversations with engineers — an intense, personality-driven hire to work closely with the KV team.

• 💸 Forum Ventures’ Olivia O’Sullivan is backing 3 founders in October (no warm intros required) with $50K–$200K checks plus a spot in their pre-seed accelerator.

• 🚀 A founder whose previous venture was acquired by Revolut is hiring a Founder’s Associate (flexible location) to analyze data, speak with customers, and tackle product, research, and strategy challenges for a new AI venture.

• 🌟 Sondra Y. curated a list of 8 remote early-career roles across sales, marketing, ops, and HR (entry-level to 2+ years experience).

• 💜 Aimee Says is offering AI-powered support for founders and creatives navigating life during or after a controlling relationship, while also seeking partnerships in tech, advocacy, and philanthropy to scale survivor-led justice. Use code: HerHustle.

• 💁‍♀️ Teli matches and introduces young talent to founders at top early-stage startups & SMBs. Apply to join our talent pool!

• Immigration lawyer Sophie Alcorn breaks down the new $100K H-1B fee in conversation with Menlo Ventures’ Deedy Das, clarifying what it means for renewals, transfers, F-1 OPT applicants, and families.

• Tian Shi (Industry Ventures) crowdsourced 18 must-attend events for SF Tech Week, including female founder brunches, AI mixers, happy hours, and even a founders + investors yacht outing.

• Cloudflare announced plans to hire 1,111 interns in 2026 — a nod to its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver — aiming to give students hands-on experience and mentorship at scale.

• Faith Edmonstone (Co-Founder of Kwenched) shared that she’s been running her startup while working as a self-employed nail tech and reminded founders that it’s totally okay to work another job to cover expenses while staying fully committed to building your company.

• A co-founder of Juicebox, which announced a $30M Series A from Sequoia this week, noted that after interviewing 50+ AE candidates (many stumbling on product demos or needing extra walkthroughs), the standouts are those who grasp the flow instantly, understand buyer priorities, and handle tough objections. New AE Celina Chen did just that.

• Oura’s valuation doubled from $5B to $11B in a year, shipping 5.5M+ devices and cementing itself as the smart ring category leader, now battling giants like Apple and Samsung while positioning as a daily health OS.

• 🚀 A new “Forward Deployed Angels” list spotlights early backers like Lisa Kleinsorge (Puzzle), Lisa Yu (99VC), and Jean Yang (Postman).

• 📺 Kalshi, the prediction markets platform co-founded by Luana Lopes Lara, was featured in a South Park episode, with the show satirically portraying its app as part of a broader cultural moment for prediction markets.

• September 26 | 🤖 Abaka AI x 2077AI @Harvard: Happy Hour (Boston)

• September 29 | 🍂 VC Gals Get Cozy! (Toronto)

• September 29 | 📊 NYC B2B: Pre-Seed + Seed Founders & Investors Meetup (NYC)

• September 30 | ✨ The New Founder Playbook: Redefining Success for Women (London)

• October 1 | 🤝 Boston Founders & Funders Mixer (Boston)

• October 6-12 | SF Tech Week (SF)

  • Tons of great events, including Women’s Health Happy Hour by H*QUOTIENT, Beyond the Algorithm: Leading Women in AI, Egg Freezing, IVF, and Surrogacy for Women in Tech, and so much more!

• November 8 | 📣 Women’s Health Summit @ Harvard Business School (Boston)

Hosting an event for women in entrepreneurship? Share the details with Her Hustle’s community by filling out this form!

🚀 Share this newsletter with a friend and start growing your network.

💁‍♀️ Connect with me on LinkedIn for daily insights on women in entrepreneurship.

📈 Partner with Teli if you are a early-stage startup interested in hiring top talent.

🌟 Promote yourself to 11,500+ subscribers by sponsoring this newsletter.

I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, Hustlers!

Feel free to share your feedback on this newsletter with me by filling out this form!

Love,

Daniela & The Teli Team