Newcomer

A newsletter focusing on startups and venture capital, authored by Eric Newcomer.

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OpenAI's Simmering Microsoft Battle & VCs Offloading Shares in Secondaries

6 days ago | newcomer.co | Tom Dotan |Eric Newcomer |Madeline Renbarger

OpenAI steals Instacart’s CEO as Sam Altman’s negotiations with partner Microsoft are increasingly shaky. Secondary share sales have become the easiest way for VCs and LPs to land liquidity in this frigid exit market, but some can come at a steep loss compared to a startup’s 2021 valuation. Read on for exclusive data on the current prices for 60+ startups. We also have more details on OpenAI’s decision to call off its for-profit conversion, for now, in a win for Elon Musk.
CEOs of Ramp, Tala & Digits Join Breaking the Bank As Speakers

1 week ago | newcomer.co | Eric Newcomer

It’s not too late to grab a ticket to our quickly approaching Breaking the Bank Summit in San Francisco on Tuesday, May 20. Attendees will get to participate in small group discussions with with the likes of Oak HC/FT’s Annie Lamont, Synctera’s Peter Hazlehurst, Treasury Prime’s Chris Dean, Canvas Prime’s Rebecca Lynn, and many more. We’re proud to announce that Ramp CEO Eric Glyman is joining our speaker roster, as are Tala CEO Shivani Siroya and Digits CEO Jeff Seibert.
Trump’s Border Crackdown Spooks International Founders & VCs

1 week ago | newcomer.co | Madeline Renbarger

This week, we heard from 10+ immigrant startup founders and investors who have been making contingency plans after President Trump ramped up immigration enforcement. Sarah Tavel takes a step back at Benchmark, while fresh analysis shows Benchmark is among the highest-performing investors at Series A, alongside the megafunds a16z, Sequoia, and Accel. Elon Musk returns to an impatient Tesla board and Sam Altman’s iris-scanning World network hits the streets.
In Washington, Silicon Valley’s Iconoclasts Cheer an America-First Consensus

2 weeks ago | newcomer.co | Madeline Renbarger

After years of cool, sometimes hostile relations between the tech sector and the federal government, the once-fringe Silicon Valley cohort that got behind Trump now wields outsized power in Washington — and is leading the charge on the need to beat China at advanced weaponry and AI, and to reinvest in American industrial power.
Microsoft’s Big AI Hire Can't Match OpenAI

2 weeks ago | newcomer.co | Tom Dotan |Madeline Renbarger

From Tom Dotan, our new senior correspondent, fresh off two years covering Microsoft for the Wall Street JournalAt Microsoft’s annual executive huddle last month, the company’s chief financial officer, Amy Hood, put up a slide that charted the number of users for its Copilot consumer AI tool over the past year. It was essentially a flat line, showing around 20 million weekly users.
AI Keeps VC Dealmaking Afloat While Biotech, Consumer Goods Falter

3 weeks ago | newcomer.co | Madeline Renbarger

AI dealmaking remains steady while other sectors are suffering, per comments from 20 VCs we checked in with this week. Early stage investors like Precursor’s Charles Hudson have kept chasing the best startups, but retail and biotech companies face a harsher reality. Mark Zuckerberg takes the stand at Meta’s antitrust trial, and Parker Conrad raises even more funding for Rippling. Reminder, don’t forget to apply for Breaking the Bank if you’re a fintech founder, investor, or insider.
Tariff Chaos & China Decoupling Pose Twin Threats for Startups & VCs

1 month ago | newcomer.co | Madeline Renbarger |Jonathan Weber

Tariff turbulence continued this week and VC’s are divided. We have commentary from Mark Suster, Joe Lonsdale, Brad Gerstner, Paul Graham, and more, along with a new tech stock index from Nate Silver. We also make our case for why Trump fealty is bad for Silicon Valley. Plus, the top AI models are surpassing human benchmarks, per Stanford. The Main ItemThe financial markets this week showed what they think about our mad king and his love of tariffs — and chaos.
How VCs Are Navigating the Tariff-Driven Stock Market

1 month ago | newcomer.co | Eric Newcomer

Where technology and venture capital intersect: A deeply reported newsletter on the inner workings of the startup industry. Helmed by Eric Newcomer with writing from Madeline Renbarger. Over 100,000 subscribersBy subscribing, I agree to Substack’s Terms of Use and acknowledge its Information Collection Notice and Privacy Policy“Eric Newcomer is the rare Substack journalist who thrives on breaking news.
Darks Clouds & Silver Linings as Fintech Rebound Hits Tariff Turmoil

1 month ago | newcomer.co | Madeline Renbarger

Greetings on this not-so-happy Friday for the markets and the global economy. We’re looking at early-stage fintech startups this week and the news isn’t all gloomy, though Klarna and Chime can’t be happy. Read on for bits about OpenAI & SoftBank, Elon Musk’s potential step-back, the TikTok tick-tock, and what the likes of Shaun Maguire and Ryan Petersen are saying about tariffs.
We're Bringing the Cerebral Valley AI Summit to London on June 25

1 month ago | newcomer.co | Eric Newcomer

Big news. We’re taking our mid-year Cerebral Valley AI Summit to London. CVAI has built a reputation for attracting top-tier speakers, super legit AI founder attendees, megawatt deals, funding rounds, founder matches, and an overall good time. We’re the only AI conference to spark a $1.3 billion acquisition. We’re bringing our twice annual invite-only artificial intelligence summit abroad for the first time.