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The High Risk, High Reward Model of Backing Immigrant Founders l Build Mode

Immigrant founders have built some of the world’s most valuable companies, but many still face barriers that make it harder to get a startup off the ground. Visa restrictions, limited access to friends-and-family capital, shallow networks, and a venture industry built around pattern matching can keep promising founders from getting funded before they have a…

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Immigrant founders have built some of the world’s most valuable companies, but many still face barriers that make it harder to get a startup off the ground. Visa restrictions, limited access to friends-and-family capital, shallow networks, and a venture industry built around pattern matching can keep promising founders from getting funded before they have a chance to prove themselves.

In this episode of Build Mode, host Isabelle Johannesen sits down with Manan Mehta, co-founder and managing partner of Unshackled Ventures, to talk about why he believes immigrant founders represent one of venture capital’s biggest overlooked opportunities. Manan breaks down how Unshackled built an investment model designed to help founders navigate immigration barriers, why traditional VC pattern matching causes investors to miss potential outliers, and how his team evaluates founders at day zero—often before they have a product, customers, or traction. He also explains why the structural gaps that make some founders harder to fund may be exactly where investors should be looking for outsized returns.

Subscribe to Build Mode:
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New episodes of Build Mode drop every Thursday.

Chapters:
00:00 – Why VCs Miss Outlier Founders
01:45 – Why Manan Mehta Founded Unshackled Ventures
04:15 – The Problem With VC Pattern Matching
06:15 – The Friends-and-Family Gap for Immigrant Founders
08:18 – How Unshackled Helps Founders Navigate Visas
10:40 – Building a Startup in Today’s Immigration Environment
12:19 – Solving One of Unshackled’s Hardest Immigration Cases
14:39 – What the U.S. Stands to Lose
16:59 – Raising Unshackled’s First Venture Funds
19:40 – Can You Start a Company on an H-1B Visa?
22:13 – How to Evaluate a Founder at Day Zero
28:30 – Measuring IQ, AQ, EQ, and SQ
30:26 – How Fear Drives VC Pattern Matching
33:01 – Why Structural Gaps Create Outlier Opportunities
35:14 – Finding Startup Capital Outside Traditional VC
38:09 – Why Founders Need to Understand Their “Why”

Hosted by Isabelle Johannesen. Produced and edited by Maggie Nye. Audience development led by Morgan Little. Special thanks to the Foundry and Cheddar video teams.

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CNET

Can $5000 Worth of Tech Make You Better at Tennis? | STAT

CNET senior producer Wes Ott takes tech to the court to see what contraptions are actually useful to aspiring tennis pros and which ones are just out of bounds. #tennis #tech #sports #fitnesstech

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September 2, 2026

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CNET senior producer Wes Ott takes tech to the court to see what contraptions are actually useful to aspiring tennis pros and which ones are just out of bounds. #tennis #tech #sports #fitnesstech

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Science & Technology

Pangram’s Max Spero on why AI detection is harder than ‘Real or Fake’ | Equity Podcast

The internet has a trust problem, and it’s not just because social media feeds are filling up with AI slop. AI-generated text and images are now making their way into job applications, product reviews, and even insurance claims, leaving platforms and users alike scrambling to figure out what’s real. A handful of startups have cropped…

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1 day ago

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September 2, 2026

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The internet has a trust problem, and it’s not just because social media feeds are filling up with AI slop. AI-generated text and images are now making their way into job applications, product reviews, and even insurance claims, leaving platforms and users alike scrambling to figure out what’s real.

A handful of startups have cropped up in the past couple of years to become the “trust layer” the internet needs — including Pangram. The startup recently snapped up $9 million for its AI detection system and landed a partnership with Substack, which is now using Pangram’s tech to show readers which of their favorite authors use AI to write their newsletters. Pangram also recently dropped a new AI image detection tool.

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Pangram co-founder and CEO Max Spero joins Rebecca Bellan to dig into the promise of AI detection tools and where to draw the line between AI assisted and AI generated.

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

1:15 Building Pangram: from binary detector to gauging AI assistance

2:06 Why job applications, reviews, and Amazon are drowning in slop

5:39 How Pangram actually spots AI writing

9:26 Where people draw the line on AI-assisted vs. AI-generated

12:50 The false positive problem, and “America has a Pangram problem”

14:30 Detecting fake images, now that AI photos are scarily good

19:13 Competing with GPTZero, Winston, and building “core infrastructure”

21:43 Will good writing jobs actually come back?

23:36 Outro

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CNET

Every Product ACER Announced at IFA 2026 in 14 Minutes

ACER came to IFA 2026 with a stacked product lineup, including the much talked about Project Dualplay Mini, a handheld gaming device with a rotatable screen. See what else ACER showed in our highlight reel of the keynote. You can find the products mentioned in this article linked below Acer Aspire Vero 16 AI Powered…

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1 day ago

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September 2, 2026

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ACER came to IFA 2026 with a stacked product lineup, including the much talked about Project Dualplay Mini, a handheld gaming device with a rotatable screen. See what else ACER showed in our highlight reel of the keynote.

You can find the products mentioned in this article linked below
Acer Aspire Vero 16 AI Powered Laptop 16.0″ IPS WQXGA
*CNET may get a commission on these offers

Read more about Acer’s IFA 2026 press conference on CNET.com
Acer Recommits to Repairability With New Vero 16 Laptop

0:00 Intro
0:03 Packard Bell Returns
0:13 Packard Bell: Bluetooth Turntable
0:43 Packard Bell: Notebook
1:23 ACER SFF RTX Spark
2:21 NVIDIA Talks RTX Spark
4:17 ACER Veriton RI110 AI Mini Workstation
5:03 ACER Swift Blade 14
5:40 ACER Vero 16
6:50 ACER EP 130 K
7:25 ACER PD163Q P3
7:46 ACER Swift Air 16
8:13 GoogleBooks!
9:09 Predator Atlas 7
10:32 Nitro XV275X P
11:33 Predator XB253Q U1
12:11 ACER Aspire G 3D 16
13:00 Project Dualplay Mini

Video Credits:
Producer/Editor: Numidas Prasarn

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#acer #newlaunch #gaming

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