Neo, Neophytes, and Necromancy

From $20K humanoid robots doing your house chores to accelerator and funding opportunities for first-time founders from YC, Neo, the MBA Fund, and more!

This is Teli Labs’s weekly newsletter: Her Hustle, a place to learn all about the new and the next in female entrepreneurship. We highlight the women who are building startups—from those launching from dorm rooms to experienced professionals turning their bold visions into reality.

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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)

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Love,

Daniela & The Teli Team