Rain Delay at the Garden of Ghosts

Your Thursday VC Breakfast Rundown

There was a moment last night, right after the final dagger dropped, where I didn’t even feel surprised. I just felt hollow. We were at a bar on 35th. Me, a friend, and a packed room full of Knicks fans hoping history would finally break our way. But it didn’t.

Halliburton played like he had Reggie’s playbook memorized. Three after three. Cold. Clinical. A rewind with fresh legs. When it was over, the place just deflated. Nobody reached for jackets right away. We all just sat with it. Then we stepped out into the rain.

Madison Square Garden emptied like a church after a funeral. I stood on the corner, watching strangers nod at each other with that look that says, I know. Me too. My Uber was delayed. My car was far. And the traffic gave me no trouble, but the weight in my chest stayed the whole ride back to Long Island.

This is the part of startup life no one puts in pitch decks. The part where you lose again, and it feels just like before. Like you didn’t learn anything. But you did. Because you know the signs now. You know the ghosts. And you build anyway.

That’s the city’s rhythm. That’s a founder’s rhythm. We hurt. We move. We rebuild.

FanBasis snagged a $20M Series A (Left Lane Capital, Upside Ventures, Connexa Capital) to give digital entrepreneurs the backend they actually need. Yash Daftary, Matt Hobbs, and Alisha Mody built a full-stack platform replacing 14 SaaS tools with one unified system handling checkout, CRM, community, and crypto. 1,200+ creators are already generating tens of millions in GMV with 74% retention, and payment failure rates down 63%. This isn’t a creator tool, it’s infrastructure.

Catena Labs locked in an $18M Series A (a16z crypto, Breyer Capital, Circle Ventures, Coinbase Ventures) to build the financial stack for autonomous AI agents. Sean Neville and Matt Venables are shipping infrastructure that lets agents execute contracts, handle identity, and move money at machine speed. The open-source Agent Commerce Kit is already live and packed with compliance primitives. It’s not a crypto play, it’s the backbone of the $15T agent economy.

The Nuclear Company raised a $51.3M Series A (Eclipse Ventures, CIV, True Ventures, MCJ Collective, Wonder Ventures, Goldcrest Capital) to bring gigawatt-scale nuclear to market with factory speed. Founders Jonathan Webb, Kiran Bhatraju, and Patrick Maloney are using NRC-approved designs and pre-permitted sites to launch reactors faster than regulators can blink. With Greg Reichow (ex-Tesla) on the board, they're building nuclear like semiconductors, repeatable, scalable, and just in time.

Biostate AI landed a $12M Series A (Accel, Gaingels, Mana Ventures, InfoEdge Ventures, Matter Venture Partners, Vision Plus Capital, Catapult Ventures) to make RNA predictive and profitable. David Zhang and Ashwin Gopinath built a diagnostics engine using AI and wetlab tech that slashes sequencing costs by 80%. With 10K+ samples processed and 66 research partnerships inked, they’re already reshaping oncology and autoimmune R&D. RNA-as-a-service just went enterprise.

Dazos grabbed a $25M Series A (Radian Capital) to give behavioral health providers a system of record that finally works. Founders David Farache and Louis Devaleix built Dazos after running treatment centers buried in outdated tech and denial-rate hell. Now they’re automating admissions, insurance verification, and billing with global support from Medellín and Noida. It’s not just a CRM, it’s the operating system for a $42B market.

Kincell Bio raised a $22M Series A (NewSpring Capital, Kineticos Life Sciences) to power the next generation of cell therapy manufacturing. CEO Mark Bamforth, with Bruce Thompson and Stewart McNaull, is building a dual-site CDMO across Florida and North Carolina with scale-ready cGMP infrastructure. They’re already layering in mRNA and viral vector capabilities to meet clinical demand head-on. This isn’t contract manufacturing, it’s kinetic biotech.

Eagle Merchant Partners closed a $415M Fund II (Piper Sandler, Kirkland & Ellis) to scale platform companies across the Southeast with operator muscle. Stockton Croft and Bill Lundstrom built a portfolio of 16+ businesses by backing founders in fragmented, founder-rich sectors. From Caliber Car Wash to Code Ninjas, their formula blends sweat equity with strategic bolt-ons. No financial engineering, just disciplined, boots-on-the-ground execution.

SparkCharge scored a $15.5M Series A-1 (Monte’s Fam, Cleveland Avenue, Collab Capital, Elemental Impact, MarcyPen, Non Sibi Ventures) plus a $15M venture loan (Horizon Tech Finance) to deliver EV charging without the grid. Josh Aviv and team rolled out mobile DC fast chargers to 121 cities, enabling Kia, Hertz, and Uber to power up anywhere, no trenching required. With 12 patents, $15.9M in revenue, and hydrogen-compatible systems coming, SparkCharge isn’t following the current, it is the current.

Factorial Funds locked in a $200M Fund II (Hyundai Motor Company, Kia Corporation) to back the software and silicon reshaping AI infrastructure. Sol Bier and Rich Miner don’t just fund founders, they’ve been them, from Android to Cruise. Their portfolio includes Anthropic, Mistral AI, and Ayar Labs, and they’re now diving into reinsurance with the same precision. Factorial isn’t a venture firm with edge, it is the edge.

Greenlite AI raised a $15M Series A (Greylock Partners, Thomson Reuters Ventures, Canvas Prime, Y Combinator) to turn compliance noise into high-signal automation. Founders Will Lawrence and Alex Jin are replacing outsourced bodies with AI agents that actually investigate, not just alert. Their Trust Infrastructure scans 200+ data sources and slashes due diligence time by 70%. Early adopters like Grasshopper Bank and Ramp are already scaling ops without scaling headcount.

Let’s connect and keep the momentum going across the tech ecosystem. Whether you’re a founder shaping the future, a leader driving change, a VC backing bold ideas, or an investor spotting the next big thing—together, we’re pushing boundaries. Proud to be building the future with you.

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