Fraud, Funerals, Fintech
The Delve compliance scandal, Meadow's online funeral startup, Spade and Worth reshaping SMB finance, plus $200M for eMed, 30+ roles across startups and VC, and what 81,000 people want from AI.
TL;DR: Happy Tuesday ladies! Linda Yaccarino’s eMed hit a $2B+ valuation with a $200M raise. Gimlet Labs pulled in $80M to make AI inference 10x faster. Plus 30+ startup roles and VC opportunities, Anthropic’s landmark study on what 81,000 people actually want from AI, the story behind OpenAI killing Sora, and a deep dive into the YC-backed compliance startup allegedly selling fake certifications to hundreds of companies.
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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.