Emergence Capital vs Khosla Ventures

Verda Raises $189M to Expand AI Cloud and Compute Capacity

European AI cloud company Verda, formerly DataCrunch, has raised $189 million (€164.8 million) in Series B funding, propelling it to unicorn status with a valuation over $1 billion. The oversubscribed round was led by Emergence Capital, with participation from MUFG Innovation Partners, Supermicro, Varma, Lifeline Ventures, 6 Degrees Capital, byFounders, Tesi, and angel investors including Ola Tørudbakken and Mark Saroufim. This brings Verda's total funding to over $450 million (€392.3 million). The company plans to scale its full-stack AI cloud, accelerate product development, multiply compute capacity, and expand internationally, including deploying Nvidia's upcoming VR200 NVL72 generation. Verda's renewable-powered data centres in Finland support its operations across Europe, the US, and Asia. The company reported an annualized revenue run rate of $165 million (€143.85 million) in July 2026, serving customers in over 50 countries.

• Verda raised $189 million (€164.8 million) in Series B funding led by Emergence Capital.
• The funding values Verda at over $1 billion, making it Europe's latest unicorn, with total funding exceeding $450 million (€392.3 million).
• Investors include MUFG Innovation Partners, Supermicro, Varma, Lifeline Ventures, 6 Degrees Capital, byFounders, Tesi, and angel investors.

Emergence Capital Publishes New Thought Leadership on AI Workforce and Open-Weight AI

Emergence Capital's thoughts page now features two new articles: 'Building the AI Workforce for Construction Finance' (September 17, 2026) and 'Our Open-Weight Bet on American AI Leadership' (September 16, 2026). The latter discusses the firm's investment in Arcee, an open-weight AI company, and its stance on American AI competitiveness.

AI-Native Services (AINS) as the Next SaaS

Investor Jake Saper and Emergence Capital are promoting the idea of AI-Native Services (AINS): startups that pair human professionals (lawyers, accountants, insurance brokers) with AI-focused engineers to sell the underlying services rather than standalone software. AINS firms aim to boost practitioner productivity with AI and price by outcome (e.g., per completed contract) instead of billable hours. The concept was presented at a small summit held at AI-native law firm Crosby in New York City; Saper shared a private deck outlining a playbook for founders building these businesses.

• Jake Saper (Emergence Capital) is promoting the concept of AI-Native Services (AINS).
• AINS combines human professionals (accounting, insurance, legal) with AI-focused software engineers.
• AINS business models often charge for outcomes/results rather than billable hours.

Sabi Raises $50M Seed for Brain-Reading AI Cap

Sabi, a Silicon Valley startup, has raised a $50 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures to develop a baseball cap that reads brain signals via EEG to convert thoughts into text and AI commands. The cap uses non-contact dry EEG sensors that measure brain activity through hair, eliminating the need for gel or surgery. The company has designed a custom EEG chip and is training a Brain Foundation Model on over 100,000 hours of EEG data. The product aims to enable faster human-AI interaction, with a prototype planned for CES in January. However, a Meta study shows high error rates in EEG-based brain-to-text decoding (67% character error), highlighting technical challenges. Sabi has not yet released independent accuracy data.

• Sabi raised $50 million in a seed round led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Accel, Initialized Capital, DST Global, Collaborative Fund, Ascend, and Kevin Weil.
• Sabi is building a baseball cap that uses dry, non-contact EEG sensors to capture brain signals through hair and convert thoughts into text or AI commands.
• Sabi has designed its own EEG chip and is training a Brain Foundation Model on over 100,000 hours of EEG recordings.

OpenAI Fires Safety Researchers; GPT-6.1 Ultrafast Launch

This AINews newsletter covers several significant developments: OpenAI has fired three safety researchers linked to a METR audit, citing mishandling of confidential information. OpenAI also launched GPT-6.1 Sol Ultrafast, a faster and cheaper model, and introduced an intelligent UI for ChatGPT. Anthropic released Claude Haiku 5.5 and cut Sonnet 5.5 cache-read prices. Additionally, Arena raised $200M, and there are reports about OpenAI's revenue figures. The newsletter also includes various model launches, benchmarks, and safety research updates.

• OpenAI fired three safety researchers: Tomek Korbak, Mikita Balesni, and Jasmine Wang.
• OpenAI launched GPT-6.1 Sol Ultrafast at $12/$60 per million input/output tokens.
• Anthropic released Claude Haiku 5.5 with a 1M context window and 128K max output.

Khosla Ventures Opens First New York Office on 14th Street

Khosla Ventures, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm, is expanding to New York with its first office outside Sand Hill Road. The new outpost on 14th Street is expected to open this fall, according to partner Keith Rabois. The office will house several investors and feature an 'executive briefing center' where portfolio companies can meet with Fortune 500 companies. Rabois discussed talent density in New York, noting strong junior talent but challenges in hiring senior executives due to commuting. The move follows his relocation to the East Coast and comes as a CBRE report shows New York overtaking the Bay Area in tech talent headcount.

• Khosla Ventures is opening its first office outside Sand Hill Road in New York on 14th Street, expected this fall.
• The office will include an 'executive briefing center' for portfolio companies to meet with Fortune 500 companies.
• Keith Rabois confirmed the opening at TechCrunch's StrictlyVC event in New York.