Soul at Half Tempo
Your Wednesday VC Breakfast Rundown
Wednesday hits different in NOLA. Not slow, just deeper. The brass is resting, the biscuits still warm, and the city’s catching its breath before the next crescendo.
It’s the sweet spot, where reflection meets momentum, where founders sharpen the vision before the next sprint.
This isn’t about coasting; it’s about recalibrating. Because when Jazz Fest picks up again, we won’t just be back in it; we’ll be leading it.
Nous Research banks $65M Series A (Paradigm, Delphi, Balaji Srinivasan) to build decentralized AI from the ground up. Jeffrey Quesnelle, Karan Malhotra, Teknium, and Shivani Mitra are scaling open-source Hermes models across X, Discord, and Telegram, backed by 15,000+ community devs.
P-1 AI pulls $23M seed (Radical Ventures, Village Global, Jeff Dean, Peter Welinder) to engineer AI that designs physical systems like a veteran. Paul Eremenko, Aleksa Gordić, and Adam Nagel are building Archie, an autonomous agent for aerospace, automotive, and heavy industry.
Transverse Medical locks $10M+ Series B2 to bring full-brain protection to TAVR. Eric Goslau and Dr. Michael Reardon’s POINT-GUARD™ is entering pivotal trials after clearing feasibility studies in Australia, no half-measures, just full arch coverage.
Kiwi lands $10M seed (MVRK Capital, WDC Genesis) to reinvent healthcare finance in LATAM. Sebastian and Gabriel Chirinos are rolling out BNPL for dental, fertility, and vision clinics across Peru and Mexico, with 73 clinics already live.
Eden plants $3.7M seed (Climactic, Better Ventures) to digitize contractor sales in the $400B home services market. Ben Phillips and Josh Koplin’s Instant Quote platform is already powering $9M+ in installs across HVAC and solar.
Sennos brews $15M growth round (TomEnterprise) to bring real-time, AI-native fermentation to food, protein, and biopharma. Jared Resnick and John Considine have built the world’s largest live fermentation dataset, and they’re just getting started.
Basil Systems closes $11.5M Series A (Golden Ventures, Hearst Ventures) to unify life sciences data. Anthony Cirurgiao’s platform ingests 600M+ records and powers 4 of the top 5 global MedTech giants with full-cycle regulatory intelligence.
Growers Edge cultivates $25M Series B-II (S2G, Cibus Capital, Lowercarbon) to de-risk precision ag finance. Matt Hansen and Joe Young are protecting 1M+ acres with warranty-backed crop plans and scaling RangeAg to digitize lending across 144M U.S. acres.
Apex fires off $200M Series C (Point72 Ventures, a16z, Upfront, StepStone) to dominate satellite manufacturing. Ian Cinnamon and Max Benassi’s Aries platform set records for design-to-orbit speed, and they’re now eyeing global defense and commercial scale.
Blooming Health blooms with $26M Series A (Insight Partners, Metrodora Ventures). Nima Roohi and Kavitha Gnanasambandan’s multilingual SaaS platform is live in 22 states, delivering 5.4M+ engagements to older adults and underserved populations.
Forge Nano powers up $40M Series C-II (RockCreek, Ascent Funds) to bring atomic-scale coatings to batteries, semiconductors, and aerospace. Paul Lichty and James Trevey are scaling a 3GWh gigafactory and licensing Atomic Armor™ to OEMs worldwide.
Utilidata energizes with $60.3M Series C (Renown Capital, NVIDIA, Quanta Services) to embed real-time AI into the edge of the grid. CEO Josh Brumberger’s Karman platform is transforming smart meters into decentralized energy AI nodes.
Villa assembles $40M across platform and PropCo deals (Atomic, Tectonic Ventures, Unless) to prefab America out of its housing crisis. Sean Roberts is leading California’s #1 ADU install brand into Colorado with hundreds of units already built.
indiGOtech shifts gears with $54M Series B (FedEx, Foxconn, FM Capital). Ian Hunter and Will Graylin are reengineering fleet EVs with SmartWheels™, launching DASH and FLOW vehicles to serve ridehail and last-mile logistics with in-wheel propulsion.
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.
Let’s connect on LinkedIn and keep the conversation going.