The Startups VC

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💸 Strategy sold Bitcoin to reduce its financing costs Strategy sold 1,638 BTC last week, about 0.19% of its holdings. The move sparked concerns that the company was abandoning its long-term Bitcoin strategy, but the numbers tell a different story. The company says its cost of capital is 10.8%, while its STRC preferred stock is currently yielding around 13.4%. Instead of holding Bitcoin, Strategy used part of the proceeds to repurchase STRC below par, reducing future dividend obligations. The rest went toward preferred dividends and strengthening the cash reserve backing those securities. At the same time, Strategy issued 3 million new common shares, raising $290.6 million, with $250 million added to its reserve. The key point is that Strategy is optimizing its capital structure, not exiting Bitcoin. The company still holds 842,138 BTC, has paid preferred dividends for 18 consecutive months, and Michael Saylor says it remains a net buyer over the long term. One number stands out: Strategy generated $122.4 million in quarterly software revenue, while annual preferred dividends and interest are approaching $1.76 billion. The balance sheet is becoming just as important as the Bitcoin holdings themselves. ✔️ @venture

❕ Goldman warns up to $185B of forced selling could hit global stocks Goldman Sachs says systematic funds could sell up to $185 billion of global equities over the next month if markets keep falling. These funds, known as CTAs (Commodity Trading Advisors), don't react to news or earnings. They follow price signals. When key levels break, their models automatically reduce exposure. Goldman's base case points to $7.5 billion of selling next week, including $4.5 billion from the S&P 500. A deeper decline could push that to $31.5 billion, with a worst-case estimate of $185 billion over one month. According to Goldman, the recent weakness in tech stocks is being driven more by systematic positioning than by deteriorating fundamentals. If the selling continues, algorithms could become the market's biggest sellers. ✔️ @venture

🎸 Arduino Robot Plays Your Guitar via Wi-Fi A Reddit user named MegCell built a robot that attaches to almost any guitar in about 3 minutes and plays it via smartphone control. It uses an Arduino to operate servos that press strings and strum, all housed in a complex 3D-printed frame around the guitar body and neck. The robot reads MusicXML files sent over Wi-Fi, so it can theoretically play any song with a digital score. The creator plans to release 3D models and firmware for a true DIY version and improve the playing technique and noise from the servos. 📊@technco

🤖 Italian Startup Builds Robot with Sensor Skin Italian startup Generative Bionics created the robot Gene.01 covered in sensor skin that tracks touch, temperature, proximity, and force. This lets it detect humans before contact and adjust movements. Gene.01 learns by physical guidance instead of video. Holding its hand and moving it teaches the robot the right grip strength, solving a key challenge in humanoid robotics. The robot is based on research from the Italian Institute of Technology published in Nature Machine Intelligence. It took six months to build Gene.01 from concept to a working humanoid. Gene.01 is a platform for specialized robots with customizable AI, outer shells, and interchangeable limbs for different tasks. 📊@technco

Ⓜ️ Meta AI joins Threads private chats Threads added a private chat with Meta AI, letting users send posts, photos, or videos for one-on-one discussion. This feature was already on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp before arriving on Threads. In five countries, Meta AI also posts publicly in Threads feeds under @meta.ai. Users cannot block these posts, only mute them. The AI’s presence in feeds is permanent, unlike the optional private chats. 📊@motekico

Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. Today, YouTube generates $1.65 billion of revenue every 13 days. ✔️ @venture

🛁 Reformation is pitching its $1 billion IPO from a bubble bath Most companies use charts and financial forecasts to sell their IPO. Reformation took a different approach. Its executives explained the business in a video featuring a model relaxing in a bubble bath with a glass of champagne, a direct reference to The Big Short. The company calls its business case "sexy math." Behind the marketing, the numbers are solid. Reformation is targeting a valuation of up to $1 billion, generated more than $500 million in revenue last year, and says nearly 70% of its direct-to-consumer sales come from returning customers. About 80% of its products sell at full price, while its AI-powered Retail X stores generate an average order value 8.5% higher than traditional locations. ⠀ The IPO story isn't just about fashion. It's about proving that loyal customers, pricing power, and technology can justify a premium valuation even as profits come under pressure. ✔️ @venture

❓ Why retail investors keep underperforming Retail portfolios are down around 12.7% this year as many investors crowded into the same high-growth stocks. When those trades reversed, losses spread across entire portfolios. The biggest mistake wasn't picking the wrong stock. It was poor risk management. Large positions, no exit plan, and portfolios concentrated in a handful of names amplified the drawdown. ⠀ Simple rules can make a big difference: limit position sizes, rebalance regularly, keep cash for market selloffs, and compare your returns against the S&P 500 instead of chasing the next hot trade. ⠀ Long-term performance is often driven more by risk management than stock picking. ✔️ @venture

🕸 Final Trailer for Spider-Man: New Day The final trailer for Spider-Man: New Day is out ahead of its July 31 premiere. The film stars Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, John Bernthal as Punisher, and Mark. 📊 @motekico

❕ Big Tech Drives Record $182 Billion Bond Issuance in 2026 Amazon, Alphabet, Nvidia, Meta, Oracle, and SpaceX have issued a record $182 billion in investment-grade bonds this year, a 1,300% jump from $13 billion last year. These six firms now account for nearly 15% of total US corporate bond issuance year-to-date and over 50% of this year's market growth. A record 7 bond deals of $25 billion+ have occurred, matching the total from 2019 to last year. Six are from these Big Tech firms, one from Salesforce. ✔️ @venture

⚡️ AI Discovers Two New Superconductors A team at Aalto University used machine learning to identify two previously unknown superconductors, confirmed later in lab tests at Rice University. This marks a shift from decades of manual trial and error that found about 7,000 superconductors so far. Superconductors conduct electricity without resistance or heat loss, enabling powerful magnets for MRI machines and maglev trains. The challenge remains their need for extreme cooling, limiting practical use. The AI approach scans billions of material candidates, speeding up discovery. The goal is to find a superconductor that works at room temperature by 2033, which would revolutionize energy and computing. 📊@tech

🔽 SpaceX lost most IPO gains within days. Shares peaked at $225, valuing the company near $3 trillion, then fell to $150 before recovering to $162. At its peak, SpaceX surpassed Microsoft and Amazon in valuation despite lower revenue and profitability. Comparison: • Microsoft: $318B revenue, $125B profit • Amazon: $743B revenue, $91B profit • SpaceX: $19B revenue, -$9B profit Only 5% of SpaceX shares are publicly traded; this float sets the valuation for the 95% held by Musk, employees, and investors. The xAI acquisition also raised debt and integration concerns. IPOs often follow a pattern: excitement first, fundamentals later. ✔️ @technco

Examples of companies who have successfully utilized the "7 Powers" framework ✔️ @tcenco

🍏 iOS 27 Spatial Reframing pushed to extremes The new Spatial Reframing feature in iOS 27 uses AI to adjust the angle of a photo after it's taken, allowing users to slightly rotate and improve the shot's composition. A blogger named itsjackington tested the feature to its limits, pushing the reframing far beyond typical use cases. The results are striking and show how far the AI can manipulate images, for better or worse. 📊@tech

📊 Free collection teaching AI coding agents senior engineering skills. Named agent-skills. 60,800+ GitHub stars. Integrates with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or Gemini CLI. Features: → /spec: Define requirements before coding. Always. → /plan: Break specs into atomic tasks. No giant PRs or mystery diffs. → /build: Implement one slice at a time. Test-driven and individually committed. → /build auto: Generate plan and run tasks in one pass. Single approval. Autonomous execution. Pauses on failures or risky steps. → /test: Verify code works. Tests are proof, not afterthoughts. → /review: Enforce code health pre-merge. Real quality gate. → /code-simplify: Rewrite for clarity. Remove cleverness. → /ship: Run full production checklist. Speed requires no skipped steps. Context-aware activation: Building an API triggers api-and-interface-design. Building UI triggers frontend-ui-engineering. No config needed. 100% Open Source. Repo: https://github.com/rosnjs/agent-skills

🔗 MiniMax launches AI-powered creative Hub MiniMax introduced Hub, a local workstation where AI agents handle creative tasks like research, scripting, image creation, music, and final editing. It supports multiple projects and an infinite canvas for seamless workflow. Hub runs directly on your computer, integrating local files and apps for instant import and export. Early users before July 1 get 3000 credits, and points from Hailuo AI transfer fully to MiniMax Hub. 📊@tech

📣 SpaceX to Merge with Cursor for $60B SpaceX and Cursor signed a final merger agreement valuing Cursor at $60 billion. The deal will be done through a stock swap and aims to close in Q3. Cursor is a coding tool with a loyal user base, unlike SpaceX's Grok, which failed to gain traction in vibe coding and had an unnoticed Grok Build release. 📊@tech