Sponsored by
Happy Tuesday. The founder of a Pre-IPO platform was charged with fraud, the jobs report beat expectations, VC funding has more than doubled in a year, and Thinking Machines is tripling its valuation. Let’s dive in!
🎫 Register: For our next investor briefing focusing on the future of defense tech, looking at companies like Hadrian, Castelion, and Neros.
This issue is brought to you by Hubspot - Smarter CRM. Less Busywork.
📈 WEEKLY MARKETS
❗ LINQTO INDICTMENTS
William Sarris, founder of the bankrupt pre-IPO investment platform Linqto was charged with multiple criminal counts over his alleged role in defrauding 13,000 customers who had invested $450 million. The company's former CEO Joseph Endoso has already pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy and is cooperating with government investigators. Linqto allegedly manipulated prices by placing steep markups on private shares of companies like Anthropic and SpaceX, while telling investors that they were “market” prices. The platform went bankrupt last year and investors are still trying to recover their funds.
➨ TAKEAWAY: Because of its lack of transparency, the Pre-IPO space carries a significant amount of platform risk. Investors are often buying shares in a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) and not direct shares in a company, which means they have little control over their holdings. The frenzy for shares in companies like SpaceX and Anthropic has opened the door for bad actors to take advantage, which is why it is essential that investors only deploy capital with trusted partners and legitimate platforms. Even still, be aware of the inherent risks in an opaque private market.
Partner
Smarter CRM. Less Busywork.
Disconnected data and tools make it harder to understand your customers. HubSpot's Agentic Customer Platform brings your data, teams, and tech stack together with AI built in to help your business work faster and create more personalized customer experiences.
Why HubSpot and what's new
Use AI powered tools to take action faster
Unify your data, teams, and tech stack in one place
Create one shared view of customer data
Connect teams around the same customer context
Bring your business tools into one place
Connect more of your business in one place and give every team a smarter way to work. Get set up quickly and start checking off your hardest tasks.
📺 UPCOMING EVENT
Join Vincent’s Slava Rubin and Sacra’s Marcelo Ballve for a closer look at the private companies driving the next generation of defense technology. We’ll explore startups across AI, autonomous systems, drones, advanced aerospace, and next-generation hardware, examining where innovation is accelerating, which companies are gaining traction, and what investors should watch as defense spending and strategic competition reshape the market.
Thursday September 17 at 11 AM ET
📰 NOTABLE NEWS
📈 Hot jobs report: The U.S. added 162,000 jobs last month, more than triple the pre-release expectations, with numbers from the two prior months also revised upwards. This confidence booster could give the Fed more reason to raise rates, as a lower interest rate is not needed to stimulate the labor market. Currently the CME FedWatch tool pegs the chances of a hike next week at 60%.
🚀 Venture funding doubles: Global venture funding hit $42 billion in August, up 122% year-over-year, but down from July’s number as August tends to be a slower month for business. There were seven billion-dollar rounds, led by Databricks’ $5 billion round, with another from Hadrian also topping $1 billion, which we will discuss in our next investor briefing.
🤖 Thinking Machines fundraise: The AI startup led by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati is in talks for a $5 billion funding round at a $40 billion valuation, which would be more than triple its seed stage valuation of $12 billion, but below the earlier reported target of $50 billion. Nvidia is reportedly considering an investment of up to $2.5 billion as part of the round.
🏢 Demand exceeding new supply: For the first time in five years, U.S. apartment absorption outpaced the number of new deliveries, with Class A apartments benefiting the most, while Class C apartments continue to lose tenants.
🪙 Clarity Act prediction: SEC Chairman Paul Atkins expects the Senate to pass the long-awaited Clarity Act by mid-September, but Kalshi’s prediction market gives the Clarity Act just a 16% chance of becoming law by the end of the year.
👛 Rare dime sale: One of only nine known 1894 “Barber” dimes minted in San Francisco just sold for $1.25 million at auction. It last sold at auction for $93,500 in 1990, a 7.5% annual rate of return.
📆 LOOKING FORWARD
Today: NFIB small business optimism index released.
Wednesday: The NFL season opens at 8:20 ET with a Super Bowl rematch between the New England Patriots and defending champion Seattle Seahawks.
Thursday: Existing home sales report released; Producer price index (PPI) inflation report released.
Friday: The 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks; Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown; Consumer price index (CPI) inflation report released; consumer sentiment index released.
Weekend: The U.S. Open Women’s singles final will take place on Saturday, the Men’s singles final on Sunday.
