Trying to slow China's AI momentum

Top News

• US clamps down on AI chips (again): Today on the podcast, the TWiST team discussed a series of rapid-fire AI releases from Chinese tech companies. We are not the only group paying attention. The United States government has added “80 companies and organizations to a list of companies that are barred from buying American technology,” most of which were Chinese companies. The gist? Work to keep the most advanced AI-crunching chips out of server racks in China is no small task, and won’t be solved by any single salvo in the present trade war.

• Stripe is firing on all cylinders: Klarna, CoreWeave, StubHub, and eToro are racing towards the public markets. Stripe? Not so much. The Information reports that the payment company’s revenues grew about 28% last year to $5.1 billion, yielding a stonking $2.2 billion in free cash flow. Why go public when your company kicks off $180 million worth of cash every month? Stripe’s impressive scale and margins imply that there is margin for competitors to attack, but it seems that Stripe’s sitting pretty — and pat, in its private-market perch. (Stripe is a TWiST500 member.)

• CoreWeave’s mistake: IPO sleuths over at the FT noticed a material mistake in CoreWeave’s IPO filing. The GPU cloud entered technical default with a key credit facility, which doesn’t cast its internal controls in strong light. While CoreWeave did not miss any payments on the loan, making a mistake so large that it makes it into your S-1 filing is far from ideal. CoreWeave, a TWiST500 company, is expected to price its IPO tomorrow and begin trading Friday.

TWiST500

With all the TWiST500 companies making news above, what did we conserve for the section of this newsletter dedicated to discuss their news? A huge headline:

This company’s capital accumulation is incredible. From a $1.3 billion valuation set during a March 2022 Series B, to a $100 million round in late 2023 that pushed its valuation to $1. 5 billion, to a mid-2024 Series C that raised its worth to about $3 billion, to today’s news, Island’s secure browser technology aimed at enterprise customers is making waves.

Revenue data for the startup is scarce, but Island wrote in its own announcement that since leaving stealth in 2022 it “has won 450 customers, with annual recurring revenue more than doubling each year following.” That’s solid. It’s not Wiz or Cursor speed, but impressive all the same. So much so that Island has managed to raise its most recent round!

What we wouldn’t give for a chart of Island’s ACV over time, and its net retention numbers. Sadly, we’ll have to wait, but in terms of companies that appear steaming towards an IPO in a year or two, Island is up there. Unless, like Stripe, it decides to simply never leave the private markets. Heaven forfend. — Alex

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This Week in Startups

E2102: On a shockingly Jason-free episode of This Week in Startups (he was traveling!), Lon and Alex talk about 23andMe’s dramatic collapse and MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin mega-strategy. PLUS we’re featuring THREE fresh interviews with the teams behind some of our favorite startups: chipmakers Etched, security and privacy stack Skyflow, and smart medical cabinet makers MedServe.

E2101: On an all-new This Week in Startups, Jason, Lon and Alex answer burning questions from founders and entrepreneurs about running their companies, from tips for smoothing out collaborations to building products in public. THEN, more creators are jumping in with their own Tesla self-driving experiments, TechCrunch quietly sold itself to Regent, and more from the world of tech news.

E2100: It’s a contentious, divisive, no-holds-barred episode of TWiST! First, Jason, Lon, and Alex survey the aftermath of Mark Rober’s viral Tesla Experiment gone wrong. Was this just a fun YouTube goof that people are taking too seriously? Serious journalistic malpractice? Something WORSE? PLUS Google’s Wiz acquisition, the SEC drops its case against XRP, and much much more.

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Angel University is back! Jason and Mike, President at LAUNCH, are hosting our next live Angel.University workshop in person on Wednesday, April 23rd, in NYC. Jason will be teaching the strategies he’s used to invest $100M+ in 300+ startups over the past decade. Register at: angel.university.

Founder University

Applications are open for Founder University Cohort 10, a 12-week remote pre-accelerator program tailored towards navigating early-startup practices, building an MVP, and growing traction. Submit your application at Founder University— Cohort 10 will kick off Spring 2025!

LAUNCH Accelerator

Applications are open for the 34th cohort of the LAUNCH Accelerator; a 14-week program focused on fundraising and growth. We invest $125K in our accepted companies and help them raise their pre-seed or seed round. Submit your application at LAUNCH Accelerator.

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