The Venture Capital Podcast with Fexingo: VCs, Term Sheets, and Startup Investing

Lucas and Luna explore the rise of rolling funds—a venture capital structure that allows investors to raise money on a quarterly basis rather than locking up capital for a decade. They dive into how firms like First Round Capital and AngelList are using this model to attract limited partners who want more flexibility, and why startups are increasingly comfortable with shorter-term capital commitme...

Lucas and Luna dive into the booming secondary market for startup shares, where employees and early investors are cashing out before an IPO. They analyze a recent $150 million tender offer at Stripe, the rise of new platforms like Forge Global and EquityZen, and how secondary markets are reshaping the venture capital landscape. Along the way, they touch on the data showing a surge in secondary tra...

In this episode of The Venture Capital Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into the booming secondary market for startup shares in 2026. With companies staying private longer, platforms like Forge Global and Carta Secondary are seeing record volumes—Forge alone facilitated $6.8 billion in trades last year. The hosts break down why VCs are increasingly using secondaries for portfolio construction, the ris...

Episode 102 of The Venture Capital Podcast with Fexingo dives into the surging venture capital interest in AI voice startups. Lucas and Luna break down Gradium's $100 million seed round backed by NVIDIA, and explore why VCs are placing huge bets on synthetic voice technology for enterprise, customer service, and media. They discuss the market dynamics, the technology leap from text-to-speech to re...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna dive into the growing venture capital interest in defense technology, from autonomous drones to space contracts. They discuss why VCs like a16z and Founders Fund are pouring capital into startups like Anduril and Shield AI, and how a recent $1.5M SEC settlement involving Elon Musk signals shifting regulatory winds. Lucas breaks down the numbers: global defense tech...

In episode 100 of The Venture Capital Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore why top venture firms are pouring capital into startups building AI-native operating systems — new layers that sit between users and traditional OSes. They dissect the $150 million Series B raised by /dev/agents earlier this year, the thesis behind AI agents that control your apps, and what it means for platform incumbents like...

In episode 99 of The Venture Capital Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into the red-hot market for AI inference infrastructure. Just this week, SambaNova raised another $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation — its second mega-round in five months. Meanwhile, French startup ZML released a free tool to speed inference across multiple chips. Lucas explains why venture investors are pouring capital into ma...

In this episode of The Venture Capital Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into the mechanics of earnouts in venture capital deals in 2026. Using the recent Figma acquisition of a vibe coding app team as a case study, they explore why earnouts have become more common, how they're structured to align incentives post-acquisition, and the tax implications founders need to watch. Lucas breaks down typical ea...

This episode dives into the booming secondary market for startup equity, where employees and early investors are cashing out before an IPO. Lucas and Luna explore how a record $15 billion in secondary transactions closed in Q2 2026 alone, driven by companies like Palantir, Coinbase, and Rivian — whose shares have surged this week. They discuss what this means for liquidity, valuation, and the shif...

Episode 96 of The Venture Capital Podcast with Fexingo dives into the resurgence of travel tech venture capital, anchored by Airbnb's strong performance and a recent $200 million Series C for a startup redefining hotel distribution. Lucas and Luna explore why VCs are backing companies that blend AI with physical travel infrastructure, how the post-pandemic travel boom has shifted from recovery to...

This episode of The Venture Capital Podcast dives into a surprising new trend: VCs and startup founders are increasingly using AI agents to negotiate term sheets. Lucas and Luna explore how one firm, SignalRank Ventures, deployed a custom LLM to analyze every term sheet they received in Q2 2026, flagging non-standard clauses and suggesting counter-offers in real-time. They discuss the data: Signal...

Episode 94 of The Venture Capital Podcast explores the growing trend of revenue-based financing (RBF) as a deal structure for late-seed and Series A startups in 2026. Lucas and Luna break down how VCs are blending equity with revenue-linked repayment terms to reduce risk for early-stage companies with recurring revenue. They reference recent data showing almost 90 new unicorns minted this year and...

Tender offers and secondary sales are reshaping how startup employees cash out before an IPO. Lucas and Luna break down the mechanics, the 2026 landscape, and why VCs are leaning into liquidity programs as a retention tool. They discuss a typical structure — a $50 million secondary pool at a $1.2 billion valuation — and how companies like Stripe, SpaceX, and Klarna have set the precedent. Lucas ex...

This episode dives into the growing venture capital interest in nuclear fusion energy startups. Lucas and Luna explore why VCs are pouring billions into fusion, despite decades of hype and technical hurdles. They break down the recent $500 million round for Commonwealth Fusion Systems, the role of government partnerships, and how fusion compares to other clean energy bets like solar and battery st...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna dive into the sudden venture capital rush around carbon accounting software. They discuss why investors are pouring money into startups like Persefoni and Watershed, the regulatory tailwind from the SEC's climate disclosure rules, and how this differs from broader climate tech. With Palantir up 14.5% in the last five days, they also explore the data infrastructure a...

Episode 90 of The Venture Capital Podcast explores why VCs are investing in browser startups again in 2026, a space long dominated by Chrome, Safari, and Edge. Lucas and Luna dive into the rise of Arc Browser, which raised a $125 million Series C at a $1.5 billion valuation earlier this year, and the browser wars shifting from search to productivity and AI-native experiences. They discuss how star...

This episode of The Venture Capital Podcast examines the emerging trend of venture capital firms backing private space pilots flying orbital missions for the US Space Force. We discuss a recent deal involving Thiel Capital's Jack Selby, who has been quietly acquiring stakes in defense-focused space startups through Arizona connections. Lucas and Luna dig into why VCs are increasingly seeing the Sp...

In episode 88 of The Venture Capital Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore why venture capitalists are doubling down on vertical AI copilots — specialized assistants for law, medicine, construction, and more. They dissect a recent $75 million Series B for a legal AI startup, compare it to the horizontal AI platform race, and examine the economics that make niche copilots attractive: lower customer acqui...

Bending Spoons defied the SaaS downturn with a $1.8 billion IPO that surged 40 percent on its first trading day. Lucas and Luna break down how the Italian app-maker pulled it off — bootstrapped for years, no VC money until late stage, and a controversial founder-CEO model that keeps control tightly held. They explore what this means for VCs hunting for the next breakout, and why the IPO's success...

In this episode of The Venture Capital Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into Together AI's massive $800 million Series B, valued at $8.3 billion. They explore what this means for the AI infrastructure market, how VCs are thinking about the shift from model companies to compute providers, and why this round signals a new era of capital concentration in AI. Lucas breaks down the economics: the $800 mill...

When Wayve, the autonomous driving startup, launched an $85 million employee tender offer in July 2026 at an $8.5 billion valuation, it joined a quiet revolution in how startups handle liquidity. Lucas and Luna dig into the mechanics of these secondary sales: why founders and VCs are using them to retain talent, how employees can diversify without waiting for an IPO, and whether this trend signals...

Episode 84 of The Venture Capital Podcast explores the shift in climate tech venture investing away from headline-grabbing carbon capture toward harder, less flashy problems: industrial heat, steelmaking, and long-duration storage. Lucas and Luna break down why firms like Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital are backing startups such as Rondo Energy and Electra, how the Inflation R...

Chamath Palihapitiya just raised a $135 million Series A for his AI coding startup Base44 and took the CEO role himself. Lucas and Luna dig into what this means for venture capital in mid-2026. They discuss the growing trend of VCs-turned-founders, the optics of a billionaire raising from his own network, and what it signals about the AI startup landscape. Along the way, they connect it to broader...

In this episode of The Venture Capital Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into the surge of venture capital flowing into energy startups. With global energy demand skyrocketing due to AI data centers and electrification, VCs are pouring money into fusion, long-duration storage, and grid software. We look at a specific deal: Pacific Fusion's $900 million Series B, and how it reflects a shift from hardwar...

In this episode of The Venture Capital Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore why venture capital firms are increasingly funding industrial robotics startups, moving beyond warehouse automation into complex manufacturing and construction. They discuss the recent Ford decision to rehire experienced engineers after AI fell short, the $3.2 billion invested in industrial robotics in Q1 2026, and how startups...