VC Breakfast Rundown - April 12th, 2025
Saturdays weren’t made for waiting in line. They were made for diving headfirst into a buffet of breakthroughs where the only limit is your appetite for scale. We’re serving up fresh rounds, fast-moving founders, and tech so sharp it could dice your avocado toast mid-pitch. No weak pours, no cold eggs—just hot capital and full-stack innovation dripping with potential. Come hungry, leave wired. This isn’t breakfast. It’s a funding frenzy in five-star form.
Imbria Pharmaceuticals secures $57.5M Series B (Deep Track Capital, RA Capital, Cytokinetics, SV Health Investors) to power up cardiometabolic drug development. CEO Dr. Alvin Shih and CSO Dr. James Januzzi are leading a clinical push for ninerafaxstat, a pFOX inhibitor flipping heart fuel from fatty acids to glucose—cleaner burn, real efficiency, and a shot at orphan dominance in nHCM and HFpEF.
nEye Systems lands $58M Series B (CapitalG, M12, NVIDIA, Micron Ventures) to rewire data center infrastructure with SuperSwitch, a software-reconfigurable optical switch. Founders Prof. Ming Wu, Tae Joon Seok, and Xiaosheng Zhang are shrinking size, slicing latency, and dropping power usage by orders of magnitude—AI compute is getting a new nervous system.
Illumicell raises $2M pre-seed to bring real-time fertility diagnostics out of the lab and into your pocket. CEO Dr. Michel Bielecki, COO Jeyla Sadikova, and CTO Loup Cordey are building 98% accurate semen analysis tech with FDA 510(k) in view. Backed by KOFA Healthcare and Canaan Partners, this is diagnostic disruption with surgical precision.
incident.io clocks $62M Series B (Insight Partners, Index Ventures, Mike Krieger, Mantis VC) to run full-spectrum AI incident response across Slack, Teams, GitHub, and Datadog. Co-founders Stephen Whitworth, Chris Evans, and Pete Hamilton are replacing pager chaos with structured calm—600+ customers, including Netflix and Ramp, are already tuned in.
8Flow grabs $10M Series A (Caffeinated Capital, ServiceNow Ventures, Okta) to rebuild enterprise workflows with AI-trained agents. Boaz Hecht, Josh Russ, and Yev Goldin are ex-SkyGiraffe veterans watching 600M+ events across Zendesk, Salesforce, and ServiceNow—turning spaghetti workflows into straight-line execution.
Alinea Invest lands $10.4M Series A (Play Ventures, Y Combinator, Gaingels) to become the financial brain of Gen Z. Founders Anam Lakhani and Eve Halimi, with CTO Daniel Nissenbaum, are scaling AI copilot Allie, pushing 6x YoY revenue growth and a $6M run rate. This is fintech engineered for women-first, values-driven investing.
Outtake raises $16.5M Series A (CRV, Pershing Square, Nikesh Arora) to attack phishing and impersonation with self-learning AI scanning 100+ TB of data daily. Founder Alex Arjun Dhillon (ex-Palantir) is protecting the most sensitive AI labs in the world with autonomous takedowns and deepfake defense baked into SOC-ready workflows.
Refiberd locks in $300K (eBay Ventures) to scale AI-powered hyperspectral imaging for textile waste sorting. Co-founders Sarika Bajaj and Tushita Gupta are tracking fiber blends with 90%+ accuracy and scaling across Europe and Asia—7M pounds sorted per unit, and the circular economy is getting real hardware.
Simplifyber raises $12M Series A (Suzano Ventures, At One Ventures, Techstars) to mold biodegradable fashion from wood pulp and ag waste. CEO Maria Intscher-Owrang and Philip Cohen are scaling Fybron™, skipping sewing and weaving altogether—fashion gets sustainable without losing edge.
Solu Therapeutics closes $41M Series A (Eli Lilly, Pappas Capital, Longwood Fund) to drug the undruggables via CyTAC and TicTAC platforms. CEO Phil Vickers and CMO Sergio Santillana are gunning for CCR2 in CMML, with IND-ready assets stacked for 2025. GSK licensing + biotech Avengers board = watch this team sprint.
Auxilium Health secures $1.5M pre-seed + $275K NSF to tackle chronic wound care with biofilm-resistant, infection-detecting smart dressings. CEO Dr. Isaiah Kaiser and CTO Dr. Aparna Agrawal are bringing aerospace materials to medtech—this is wound care done with science and teeth.
Bliss Aesthetics raises $17.5M seed (Shine Capital, Point72 Ventures, Synchrony) to give medical aesthetics a full-stack facelift. Co-founders Gal Yosef and Dr. Michael Salzhauer (Dr. Miami) are building AI-powered outcome previews and concierge surgical matchmaking—500% provider growth, 80% patient conversion rates, and zero filters.
Tuition.io lands venture debt from ORIX USA to scale student loan benefits infrastructure across ADP, Starbucks, and Ford. CEO Scott Thompson (ex-Yahoo, PayPal) is proving real retention ROI—$2B+ in loan balances managed, $250M+ contributed, and 350+ employers already locked in.
Remedy Scientific comes out of stealth with $11M (Eclipse Ventures, Refactor Capital, Cantos) to clean toxic soil onsite with AI-optimized mobile remediation robots. Founder Randol Aikin and team are taking on PFAS with mass spectrometry and industrial grinders—Superfunds meet real-time precision.
Artisan raises $25M Series A (Glade Brook Capital, HubSpot Ventures, YC) to scale Ava, an AI BDR already closing 8–15 weekly leads. Founders Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, Rupert Dodkins, and Samantha Stallings are expanding into Aaron (SDR) and Aria (Meeting Assistant)—250 customers, $5M ARR, and zero {FirstName} fluff.
Base Power grabs a staggering $200M Series B (Addition, a16z, Thrive, Valor) to build decentralized home battery systems across Texas. Co-founders Zach Dell and Justin Lopas are pairing 25–50 kWh units with sub-second energy dispatch, turning homes into grid assets that earn. ERCOT’s watching closely.
Tax Protection Plus takes on strategic investment from Quad-C Management to scale audit defense and post-filing protection. CEO Matt Lievens and COO Jill Evans are already serving 20,000+ tax pros and 10M+ taxpayers—quiet, profitable, and now ready to scale with serious PE muscle.
Let’s 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.