Accel

Travis Kalanick: '1% of VCs Are Helpful'

On David Senra’s podcast (aired the prior weekend), Travis Kalanick — founder of Uber and founder of robotics company Atoms — criticized venture capitalists, saying roughly 10% meet a ‘do no harm’ standard and only about 1% are truly helpful. The interview revisits Kalanick’s 2017 boardroom battle involving Benchmark’s Bill Gurley; Kalanick says founders should avoid a victim mentality, sharpen pitches to create bidding wars, and be cautious about management optics. The piece notes Atoms recently raised $1.7 billion in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Ben Horowitz joining Atoms’ board. The article also records other founders (including Mark Pincus) airing grievances about VC behavior.

Thrive Capital Raises $2B, Eyes Lakers Stake

Thrive Capital announced a $2 billion outside fundraise for its AI roll-up vehicle, Thrive Holdings, at a $12 billion valuation with investors including SoftBank, Altimeter Capital and D1 Capital Partners. Founding partner Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger agreed to acquire Mark Walter’s reported 80% stake in the Los Angeles Lakers partly via a separate vehicle, Thrive Eternal. The firm is positioning three core theses: traditional venture investing (including a Thrive X allocation), AI-driven transformation via Thrive Holdings (noting OpenAI’s reported stake in the vehicle), and investments in cultural/live assets through Thrive Eternal. An investor letter disclosed strong paper returns (a 2022 vintage marked at 10.5x gross) and noted past cash returns to LPs. The piece also summarizes adjacent industry items including large raises at prediction-market operators and various AI funding moves.

Decagon Hits $100M ARR, Rejects Forward-Deployed Engineers

Decagon, an AI customer service startup led by CEO Jesse Zhang, told the reporter it has crossed $100 million in annualized revenue. The three-year-old company differentiates itself by avoiding reliance on forward deployed engineers (FDEs), arguing that a product that’s quick to customize and requires minimal services wins enterprise customers. The article positions Decagon against larger competitors — named Sierra (with CEO Bret Taylor) and Salesforce — noting Sierra has surpassed $200M ARR and Salesforce’s Agentforce exceeded $1B ARR and that Salesforce agreed to buy Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B. Decagon’s investors include Bain Capital Ventures, Accel, and a16z.