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Modal $355M, Mercury $200M & the Infrastructure Thesis | Jun 2
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Eight deals, $900M+ deployed — and not one dollar goes to a foundational AI model. Today's briefing tracks the infrastructure signal across compute, security, fintech OS, and DeFi.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Modal Labs just raised three hundred fifty-five million dollars at a four point six five billion dollar valuation. Six months ago, that valuation was one point one billion.
The same AI code velocity that's driving Modal's growth is creating a different problem downstream. Socket raised sixty million dollars at a one billion dollar valuation on the back of software supply chain security.
Mercury closed a two hundred million dollar Series D at five point two billion valuation. Year-over-year application growth is running at two and a half times.
Variational raised fifty million in a Series A led by Dragonfly to build peer-to-peer perpetual futures tied to real-world assets. Gold, oil, commodities.
The smallest round in today's briefing carries one of the more specific structural bets. Shatterdome Energy raised three point five million pre-seed to build AI-native energy trading tools for data centers.
Step back from the individual rounds and the pattern is clear. Eight deals, over nine hundred million dollars deployed, and not one of them goes to a foundational AI model.
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