Speedrun, Sora, Sonnet
Sora 2 & Sonnet 4.5, Taya’s AI necklace, a new a16z Speedrun cohort — plus Axiom Math $64M, Moonlake $28M, Phaidra $50M, and more!
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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!
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Love,
Daniela & The Teli Team