Fusion42

We’re teaming up with our Channel Champ Ray Gibson, Founder and Chairman of Funded.club to dive into strategies that make founders and startups more resilient. Expect actionable takeaways you can start using right away. What’s on the Agenda? ➡️ Rethinking Hiring: What Startups Get Wrong ➡️ The Anti-Job Description ➡️ Interviewing & Selecting High-Impact Talent ➡️ Q&A Looking Forward to this.

💸 New Funds Looking to Give You Cash 🚀 $7.8 Billion Across 19 New Funds 🌍 Where’s the Money Flowing? 🇺🇸 USA (36.8%) – Leading AI investments 🌍 Global (15.8%) – Innovation-focused capital 🇪🇺 Europe (10.5%) – Strategic expansion 🌎 Rest of World (36.8%) – Africa, UK, Canada, Nordics & more 🎯 Sectors Getting Funded 💡 AI (6 funds) – Top priority 🔒 Cybersecurity (3 funds) – Growing focus 💰 Fintech (3 funds) – Market expansion 🚚 Supply Chain (3 funds) – Next wave of investment 📈 Investment Stages 💡 Early Stage (47.8%) – AI & emerging tech 🚀 Growth Stage (52.2%) – Cybersecurity & scale-ups 🔥 What Founders Need to Know If you're in AI, SaaS, Healthcare, Deep Tech, or Climate Tech—here are the funds with fresh capital to invest Link to all the Funds details in the comments below 👇 For the ❤️ of startups –––––––––––––––––––––– Connect or Follow | DeReK WaTSoN | Kurt Walker🌶 | Henrik Peter Bærentsen #Fusion42 #Startups #AI #GTM #VentureCapital See you next Wednesday for more insights!

This is moving way faster than anticipated ... and those doing it are winning.

🚀 Your Monday Brief from Fusion42 Here’s this week’s dose of The F42 Brief—everything founders, framers, and funders need to stay ahead: 📈 Trending Now – Elon Musk's xAI Unveils Grok 3 Elon Musk's xAI has launched Grok 3, an AI model claiming to outperform industry leaders like OpenAI and DeepSeek. Trained on an unprecedented 200,000 GPUs, Grok 3 introduces innovative features such as "Think" and "Big Brain" modes for enhanced reasoning and problem-solving. Early benchmarks suggest superior performance in mathematics, science, and coding tasks. Is opensource at this level just going to smash any change of closed source surviving? 💸 New Funds Looking to Give You Cash This section has moved to a new publication out every Wednesday. Subscribe now to stay updated on the latest early-stage funds being launched. 💡 Innovator Spotlight The UK government's "Future of Flight" action plan aims to integrate flying taxis and drones into daily life by 2030. Check out what the plan and timeline is and what other countries have planned. 🛠️ Tool of the Week Proxy by Convergence.ai is an AI assistant automating tasks through conversational commands, enhancing productivity by handling repetitive activities. For the ❤️ of startups –––––––––––––––––––––– Connect or Follow | DeReK WaTSoN | Kurt Walker🌶 | Henrik Peter Bærentsen #Fusion42 #Startups #AI #GTM #VentureCapital

🚀 Everything42: Life, the Universe, and Fusion42 #007 is LIVE! 🔥 Last week at Fusion42 was a mix of wins, challenges, and hard truths. Here’s what’s inside this week’s edition: 😇 The Good ✅ Startup Hiring: A Game-Changer for Founders Hiring makes or breaks a startup. That’s why Channel 19 is no longer just a job board—it’s now an active channel led by our new Channel champ. ✅ Masterclasses & Startup Learning We’re doubling down on real startup impact with amazing upcoming sessions and workshops 📅 Hiring Blueprint – How to build a rockstar team 🎨 Product Design Deep Dive – Get the dos & don’ts right And all content is being made available to F42+ members insights.fusion-42 🚀 Raise Summit Investor Interviews – 50+ hours of investor wisdom 😈 The Bad ➡️ Community Growth Has Flatlined last week. Boooo We’ve had solid momentum this year, but engagement just stalled. We need to fix this—and we need your help. 📊 Vote in the Community Polls: Your feedback shapes what’s next. 🤢 The Ugly 🚨 Execution Needs to Move Faster We’re not shipping fast enough. Period. And we know it. ✅ Clearer priorities – What matters most gets done first. ✅ No wasted cycles – Every move must drive real impact. ✅ Momentum over perfection – Because speed beats theory. We’re making sharp shifts to fix this. 💬 Drop a comment below with your biggest win (or toughest lesson) from last week. 👇 Read the full issue link below: For the ❤️ of startups DeReK WaTSoN | Kurt Walker🌶 | Henrik Peter Bærentsen #Fusion42 #Startups #Hiring #Execution #VentureCapital

💸 Where’s the Money, Really? Welcome to the first stand-alone edition of the RAISE REPORT (formerly part of the F42 Brief). We’ve tracked 400+ funds raising over $100B—capital is abundant, but getting it, just getting in front of it, well that is the issue. 🚀 This Week’s Fresh Capital 13 new funds, ~$688M+ for Healthcare, AI, Fintech, and Deep Tech Global coverage: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, plus cross-border Web3 and climate deals 🔎 Sector Snapshot Healthcare (~25%) – Medtech, biotech, consumer health AI (~20%) – Advanced analytics, robotics, automation Fintech (~15%) – Payments, digital lending, regtech Deep Tech (~10%) – Next-gen computing, advanced materials Others (~30%) – Climate, Web3, space, manufacturing 💰 Funding Stages Early Stage (~65%) – Pre-seed to Series A Growth Stage (~35%) – Scaling resource-heavy tech and fintech 🤔 What It Means for Founders Healthcare, AI, fintech, and deep tech—especially at early stages—are hot. Growth-stage plays in proven verticals still enjoy strong backing. Shape your narrative around these thriving themes to capture investor interest. Link to all the unds in the comments below 👇 For the ❤️ of startups –––––––––––––––––––––– Connect or Follow | DeReK WaTSoN | Kurt Walker🌶 | Henrik Peter Bærentsen #Fusion42 #Startups #AI #GTM #VentureCapital See you next Wednesday for more insights!

All Startup Founders should be joining this one! For the ❤️ of Startups

🚀 Your Monday Brief from Fusion42 Here’s this week’s dose of The F42 Brief—everything founders, framers, and funders need to stay ahead: 📈 Trending Now – The Application Layer Myth is Dead The graphic’s everywhere—Midjourney, Eleven Labs, Cursor, Lovable skyrocketing while the “don’t build at the application layer” crowd scrambles for cover. 🚨 Newsflash: Just because a company has an application does not mean it’s built at the application layer. DUH. These startups own infrastructure, data loops, and workflow integration—the real moats. If they were just wrappers, they’d already be dead. 💸 New Funds Looking to Give You Cash Funding insights now drop every Wednesday. Get the latest on the newest early-stage VC funds and where the money is flowing. Subscribe to stay ahead. 💡 Innovator Spotlight Last year, we predicted climate-adaptive clothing would go mainstream. Now, it’s here. AI-powered jackets regulate temperature, shift colour, and personalise comfort in real-time. Patagonia vests are out—smart fabrics are in. 🛠️ Tool of the Week Forget static websites. Unusual and Coframe are AI-driven GTM machines that adapt in real-time to maximise conversions. If you're still running the same landing page for every visitor—you're already behind. 📌 Note to Self Stuff I constantly remind myself about, don’t want make the same mistakes again. For the ❤️ of startups –––––––––––––––––––––– Connect or Follow | DeReK WaTSoN | Kurt Walker🌶 | Henrik Peter Bærentsen #Fusion42 #Startups #AI #GTM #VentureCapital

🚀 Everything42: Life, the Universe, and Fusion42 #006 is LIVE! 🔥 Last week at Fusion42 was a rollercoaster—epic wins, tough lessons, and some hard truths. Here’s what’s inside this week’s edition: 💡 What’s Inside? ✅ ⚡️ FUSED ⚡️ Pitch Night: The Highlights Our first startup pitch session was pure fire! 4 phenomenal startups pitched to a packed audience of investors and founders, with serious networking energy. Want to pitch at ⚡️FUSED⚡️? Drop your 2-min video in the 🚨 Danger Room for real feedback. Sharpen your delivery in Pitch Kung Fu—we practise because we pitch. Top founders secure a spot in our ⚡️FUSED⚡️ live pitch events, where investors with cash are waiting! ✅ Survey – We need your voice! A few survey responses are in, but we need way more to level up the Fusion42 Telegram Community. Share your thoughts and help us make it even better. ✅ The Data Rabbit Hole – Data is fantastic until you’re stuck in it. A week of if this, then that loops taught us one thing: clarity is key before action. ✅ The FUSED pitches Get in there and check them out. 🚀 Investment-ready startups with committed capital. 🔥 AI, FinTech & EdTech ventures – scaling fast. 💡 Serial founders, real traction, market-ready strategies. ✅ Upcoming Events AI for Startups: February 18 – Can We Build an MVP with Just AI? The Perez Project Fundraising Fluency: February 19 – What a 1M Crowdfund Raise Taught Me About Fundraising 👀 Don’t miss this week’s letter if you’re serious about AI, fundraising, and building startups the right way. 💬 Drop a comment below with your biggest win (or toughest lesson) from last week. 👇 Read the full issue here For the ❤️ of startups DeReK WaTSoN | Kurt Walker🌶 | Henrik Peter Bærentsen #Fusion42 #Startups #Venturecapital