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What most VCs won’t tell you about raising capital

Venture capitalists Ross Fubini (XYZ Ventures) and Leslie Feinzaig (Graham & Walker Ventures) pull back the curtain on how VCs build their own go-to-market strategies— not just how they evaluate startups, but how they win over LPs and founders alike. In this episode of Build Mode, they share hard-won lessons from raising their first funds…

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Venture capitalists Ross Fubini (XYZ Ventures) and Leslie Feinzaig (Graham & Walker Ventures) pull back the curtain on how VCs build their own go-to-market strategies— not just how they evaluate startups, but how they win over LPs and founders alike. In this episode of Build Mode, they share hard-won lessons from raising their first funds and how that experience allows them to empathize with founders. They discuss why “founder-market fit” applies to VCs too, how authentic thought leadership beats manufactured content, and why the best investor relationships start years before you need the money. Plus, the importance of building trust over transactions and why your network truly is your competitive advantage in venture.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:01 Meet the VCs: From Netscape to Costa Rica
03:06 The Horror Show of Raising a First Fund
05:29 Building a Fund as Proof of Concept
08:52 The Schtick: Why VCs Need a Unique Thesis
11:44 Thought Leadership That Actually Works
15:34 The Qualification Process: Knowing in Two Minutes
19:06 Authentic vs. Manufactured Content
27:59 Building Relationships Before You Need Money
30:00 Founder-Market Fit for VCs
32:52 Key Takeaways: Person, Firm, Terms—In That Order
36:45 Field Notes: Creative Ways VCs Court Founders

New episodes of Build Mode drop every Thursday. Isabelle Johannessen is our host. Build Mode is produced and edited by Maggie Nye. Audience Development is led by Morgan Little. And a special thanks to the Foundry and Cheddar video teams.

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  1. @JaykeshShahDuniya

    December 16, 2025 at 1:36 pm

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Science & Technology

Neko Health raised $700M to scan your body. Is it worth it? | Equity Podcast

Spotify founder Daniel Ek’s Neko Health raised $700 million to build a business around scanning your body, but it’s not the only company centering its roadmap around a new kind of preventative healthcare. Midjourney is building its own body scanner, while Function Health has also raised significant capital to build out its preventative-health platform. Why…

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Spotify founder Daniel Ek’s Neko Health raised $700 million to build a business around scanning your body, but it’s not the only company centering its roadmap around a new kind of preventative healthcare. Midjourney is building its own body scanner, while Function Health has also raised significant capital to build out its preventative-health platform. Why are investors betting so big on this category?

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Dominic-Madori Davis talks with Farooq Abbasi, founder and general partner of Preface Ventures and an investor in Neko Health, about how Neko compares with other consumer-health startups. They discuss what has to happen for body scanning to become part of the broader healthcare system.

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

Chapters

00:00 Intro

1:44 From Spotify to Neko Health: the pitch that got him investing

6:22 Why preventative care is so hard to access

8:23 Inside a Neko scan

12:03 Scaling from Sweden to the world (sorry, not SF yet)

14:20 The dark side of VC-backed health: subscribers, not patients

19:14 Open Evidence and the rise of vertical AI in medicine

22:00 IPO or bust? What “winning” looks like in healthcare

24:12 Outro

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Bloomberg Technology

CoreWeave CEO on New AI Products, Computing Demand

CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator discusses the launch of Forge, a new suite of development tools designed to help clients train and improve AI models, as the company seeks to broaden its offerings beyond the “neocloud” label. He speaks with Ed Ludlow on “Bloomberg Tech” during the company’s first large-scale user conference in San Francisco. ——–…

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CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator discusses the launch of Forge, a new suite of development tools designed to help clients train and improve AI models, as the company seeks to broaden its offerings beyond the “neocloud” label. He speaks with Ed Ludlow on “Bloomberg Tech” during the company’s first large-scale user conference in San Francisco.
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CNET

OpenAI Dev Day 2026: Everything Announced in 15 Minutes

OpenAI’s annual Dev Day 2026 introduced dots, which are AI agents within ChatGPT that can execute tasks on your behalf and even answer phone calls and text messages. CEO Sam Altman also introduced a faster and more powerful model called GPT-6.1 Sol for professional coding and work applications. Read more about OpenAI on CNET.com: OpenAI’s…

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OpenAI’s annual Dev Day 2026 introduced dots, which are AI agents within ChatGPT that can execute tasks on your behalf and even answer phone calls and text messages. CEO Sam Altman also introduced a faster and more powerful model called GPT-6.1 Sol for professional coding and work applications.

Read more about OpenAI on CNET.com:
OpenAI’s Latest Personal AI Agents Have a Cute Name and Never Stop Working

Timecode Chapters:
0:00 Introduction & Codex Updates
0:22 Introducing AI Agents: Dots
1:18 How Dots Delegate & Automate Work
1:37 ChatGPT Space: Team & Agent Collaboration
3:06 Live Demo: Dots in Action
4:15 Hands-Free Catchup & Voice Features
4:53 Live Demo: Working inside ChatGPT Space
6:04 Integrating Dots into Slack & Workflows
7:56 Specialist Dots & Enterprise Availability
8:52 Launching GPT 6.1 Soul & UltraFast Speed
10:14 Decisions API & Luna Model
10:55 Codex in the Cloud & 3D Interactive World Demo
12:23 Refreshed Codex CLI & Real-time App Building
13:38 Autonomous Browser Control & Robotics Demo
13:51 OpenAI Marketplace Launch & Wrap-up

Video Credits:
Host: OpenAI
Scripted by: OpenAI
Producer: OpenAI & Jonathan Gomez
Camera: OpenAI
Video Editor: Jonathan Gomez
Thumbnail Designer: Tharon Green

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#openai #samaltman #ai #artificialintelligence #superintelligence #chatgpt #aiagents #aiagent #dots

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