On the eve of a historic IPO for Silicon Valley’s investor community, the fragilities of venture are as clear as they’ve ever been to me. I’ve been thinking about this irony for days: Anthropic is set to go public as soon as next week (everything I’m hearing says “Jensen Huang’s affair be damned, all systems
Update: This story has been updated to reflect that ServiceNow says it is no longer in talks with Decagon. Buzzy AI agent startup Decagon could be the latest company swept up in a growing wave of AI dealmaking. The company, which was last valued at $4.5 billion earlier this year, has hired a bank to
Listen Labs, a market research startup that uses voice AI to conduct customer interviews, recently signed a term sheet for a $125 million Series C at a $1.5 billion valuation, with Menlo Ventures set to lead the round, according to several people with knowledge of the matter. But that round never closed, the people said.
Publicly traded e-commerce marketing automation platform Klaviyo has agreed to acquire Agency, a three-year-old AI-powered customer success startup founded by serial entrepreneur Elias Torres. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 2023, Agency had raised $32 million from investors including Sequoia, Menlo Ventures, and Felicis prior to the acquisition. As part of
