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This Month In Venture With Gavin Appel + Tobi Skovron
This month on In Venture, Gavin and Tobi step into 2026 like it’s Game 7.From December through mid-February, the scoreboard is flashing.💰Funding Is Back. But Smarter.Cut Through Venture’s latest report shows $5.1 billion raised in 2025 - up $1 billion on 2024. Fewer deals, bigger conviction.👀390 investments, down from 47061% of capital - $3.1 billion - flowing into AI-led businessesCheckbox $100mOperata $100mSplose $46mFluency $30mTranslation? Less spray-and-pray. More sniper fire.🦄New Unicorns Enter The ArenaGilmour Space blasted past a $1B valuation after raising $200m+Neara raised $90m using AI to digitise power infrastructureSpace and energy. Not exactly side hustles.🤑VCs Sitting On Dry PowderEVP - $100m new fundSquare Peg - $650m first closeSecond Quarter Ventures - Fund III chasing a $2.6B opportunityCapital is loaded. Now it’s about discipline.🚀IPO Watch. Still Warming Up.ROKT - no IPO in 2026Airwallex - regulatory headwindsCanva - quiet, but now bigger than Atlassian in local tech pecking orderHotDoc - sold to Potentia Capital for $200m+Not a flood of exits. But smart ones.And Then… Elon 🧞Tesla invests $2B into xAIxAI merges into SpaceXCombined valuation - $1.25 trillionFocus - self-growing city on the Moon, then MarsMeanwhile Starlink runs its first Super Bowl ad.🏃People Moves + Local Shake-UpsMichael Batko steps down from Startmate after 8 yearsRobyn Denholm departs Tech Council of AustraliaCulture Amp appoints Caroline Rawlinson as CEO, Didier Elzinga to Executive ChairmanAnd then the harder headlines:Sendle shuts downLaunchVic winds downSXSW Sydney goneWaymo raises $16B to scale robotaxis globallyAnthropic drops Claude updates that rattle marketsIt’s messy. It’s fast. It’s opportunity.This episode isn’t just news. It’s pattern recognition. Funding is up. AI dominates. Fewer but bigger bets. IPOs cautious. Exits selective.The game has changed. The serious players stayed on court.Tune in 🎯
SHOW LINKS
Connect With Gavin:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavinappel/
Connect With Tobi:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobiskovron/
Show Links:
https://www.ignitionlane.com/
https://cubes.co/
View all episodes
By Cubes.CoThis month on In Venture, Gavin and Tobi step into 2026 like it’s Game 7.From December through mid-February, the scoreboard is flashing.💰Funding Is Back. But Smarter.Cut Through Venture’s latest report shows $5.1 billion raised in 2025 - up $1 billion on 2024. Fewer deals, bigger conviction.👀390 investments, down from 47061% of capital - $3.1 billion - flowing into AI-led businessesCheckbox $100mOperata $100mSplose $46mFluency $30mTranslation? Less spray-and-pray. More sniper fire.🦄New Unicorns Enter The ArenaGilmour Space blasted past a $1B valuation after raising $200m+Neara raised $90m using AI to digitise power infrastructureSpace and energy. Not exactly side hustles.🤑VCs Sitting On Dry PowderEVP - $100m new fundSquare Peg - $650m first closeSecond Quarter Ventures - Fund III chasing a $2.6B opportunityCapital is loaded. Now it’s about discipline.🚀IPO Watch. Still Warming Up.ROKT - no IPO in 2026Airwallex - regulatory headwindsCanva - quiet, but now bigger than Atlassian in local tech pecking orderHotDoc - sold to Potentia Capital for $200m+Not a flood of exits. But smart ones.And Then… Elon 🧞Tesla invests $2B into xAIxAI merges into SpaceXCombined valuation - $1.25 trillionFocus - self-growing city on the Moon, then MarsMeanwhile Starlink runs its first Super Bowl ad.🏃People Moves + Local Shake-UpsMichael Batko steps down from Startmate after 8 yearsRobyn Denholm departs Tech Council of AustraliaCulture Amp appoints Caroline Rawlinson as CEO, Didier Elzinga to Executive ChairmanAnd then the harder headlines:Sendle shuts downLaunchVic winds downSXSW Sydney goneWaymo raises $16B to scale robotaxis globallyAnthropic drops Claude updates that rattle marketsIt’s messy. It’s fast. It’s opportunity.This episode isn’t just news. It’s pattern recognition. Funding is up. AI dominates. Fewer but bigger bets. IPOs cautious. Exits selective.The game has changed. The serious players stayed on court.Tune in 🎯
SHOW LINKS
Connect With Gavin:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavinappel/
Connect With Tobi:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobiskovron/
Show Links:
https://www.ignitionlane.com/
https://cubes.co/