Swing and a Mistral

Author

Alex Wilhelm
June 11, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Top News

  • Mistral to the moon? Right after dropping a thinking model, and just after it launched a coding agent and a new developer-focused model, TWiST500 member company Mistral has even bigger plans. The Journal writes that the French AI foundation model company is nearing, already at, or maybe even over the $100 million ARR mark. Recall that we covered the FT noting that the company was heading for just that milestone. But there’s more, as Mistral intends to build a “40-megawatt AI data center, powered by 18,000 cutting-edge Nvidia chips” near Paris. Per Mistral, the US Vice President’s AI chest thumping earlier this year about American dominance spurred demand for the European startup. Cause, meet effect.

  • Meta’s AI pockets are, in fact, deep enough: The Meta superintelligence push — Alex wrote about it here — is predicated on the company’s ability to spend like money rots. Reports of eight-figure payouts to key talent currently working on AI at other companies appear to be working, according to Bloomberg. The publication reports that DeepMind’s Jack Rae “is expected to join” the new Meta supergroup. Presumably for a small venture-fund worth of comp. The question for Meta is how quickly it can expand its pool of targeted human intelligence to try and create artificial general intelligence, and if it can truly catch market leaders. More like LOLma4, right?

  • Stripe snaps up Privy: Today in dealmaking news, payments giant Stripe has snapped up Privy, a three-year old startup building crypto wallet products. The context here is Stripe’s push into the stablecoin space; a reasonable move given that stables unlock payments in more places, and Stripe makes its bread by securing a cut of global digital transaction volume. Well, if you’re going to do stables, you had best have a crypto wallet service too, yeah? Privy may have cost a pretty penny to boot, having raised a $15 million round just a few months back.

TWiST500

Lon and I are in the final processes of getting the next batch of TWiST500 companies ready for you — and there are some insanely cool startups joining the group. To wit, a small taste of what we have brewing as we close in on 400 startups out of our eventual target.

  • Cortical Labs: Cortical is building brain-silicon computers employing both neurons (the biological bits that form the brain you are using to read this) and chips. It long ago managed to get the two forms of proto-intelligence to play nice, and recently put an early model of its CL1 device onto the market, with deliveries expected early next year. The company will also offer its “biological computer” as a managed service. Early applications for the company’s technology include biology-related tasks, for obvious reasons. While the world is hellbent to sort out completely synthetic (digital?) intelligence, the idea of fusing meat with sand strikes me as a brilliant alternative route to improving the overall compute power of humanity. LFG.

  • n8n: Adding another European company to the TWiST500 is always good fun, as the list is very US-heavy and could use a bit more geographic diversification. But don’t think that we’re adding n8n simply because we want the EU to like us. No, the company’s revenue growth (5x in the year preceding its early 2025 Series B) and approach to open-source code were more important to us. And the fact that when you hunt for folks using n8n’s workflow automation tool, you see a small army of enthusiasts swapping tips and tricks. That smells like community momentum to us, which when crossed with the other facts we know about the company have us hype.

  • RevenueCat: Our bet on RevenueCat is somewhat predicated on its recent fundraising, but not entirely. Sure, it’s impressive that the company landed a new round with Bain at the helm, and prior backers like Index and SaaStr Fund chipping in more,. But mostly we think that RevenueCat — which offers mobile application monetization and targeting tools — is perfectly situated to benefit from courts forcing Apple to allow web-based payments to avoid the Cupertino tax, a ruling that was recently underlined. Go forth and crush, Revenuecat!

And with that, I am off to get the list ready for upload to the full TWiST500. More tomorrow! — Alex

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This Week in Startups

E2136: Jason’s calling in from the coast for a special Monday episode, chatting with Alex about the sky-high valuations for many new Y Combinator companies, despite their relatively low ARRs. What does this mean for the investment landscape more generally? Plus the guys are taking Office Hours with CustomerIQ founder Sean Steigerwald, exploring his startup’s AI sales agents that live inside your email inbox.

E2135: On a brand-new bicoastal TWiST, Jason checks in from LA, while Alex remains at home on the East Coast. They’re talking about Circle’s explosive IPO, and what it means for the markets and crypto looking forward. PLUS the benefits of tokenizied venture capital funds, more crazy Cursor growth, deeper insight into the Anthropic-Windsurf kerfuffle and more details on the Deel-Rippling espionage saga.

E2134: Jason’s away, so Alex and Lon are handling TWiST all on their lonesome. They’re talking about Anthropic cutting off Windsurf ahead of its rumored OpenAI deal, the ongoing deal between Rippling and Deel, and a few stories that don’t actually contain the word “deal.” PLUS Alex chats with Garrett Langley from the in-the-news surveillance startup Flock Safety. (Don’t worry, Jason will be back on Friday.)

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