May 14, 2025
Kaley Ubellacker
Market Stirrings 🚩
Here's what the week looked like in pre-seed:
$26.2M
9
Data aggregated from proprietary research and Crunchbase; valuation estimate based on 10-20% ownership stake.
APRIL SHOWERS BRING MAY FLOWERS?
Was last month the weakest fundraising turnout in recent venture capital history? So far, the data points to yes—though it’s worth noting that stealth rounds may still surface in the coming weeks. As it stands, April saw a 50% year-over-year decline and came in 12% below April 2021, which was previously considered a low point.
Good Reads 📖
For the rushed reader …
"AI agent" has quickly become the buzziest term in tech, but there’s still no consensus on what it actually means.
Autonomous trucking is about to take a major leap forward, with Aurora Innovation launching fully driverless trucks on I-45 between Dallas and Houston by the end of the month.
Mercury CEO Immad Akhund is launching a $26 million early-stage fund to back startups tackling $10B+ markets with a mission to “advance humanity.”
For the less rushed reader …
Prompt and circumstance
007 isn’t the only agent shrouded in mystery. "AI agent" has quickly become the buzziest term in tech, but there’s still no consensus on what it actually means. On a recent podcast, a16z partners Guido Appenzeller, Matt Bornstein, and Yoko Li tried to pin down a definition, landing on this: a true AI agent is a reasoning, multi-step language model with a dynamic decision tree. Despite bold marketing, most so-called agents today are glorified task automators, not autonomous entities with long-term memory or persistent goals. Even companies like Artisan, which went viral for its “stop hiring humans” campaign, admit the tech isn’t yet ready to replace actual workers. Still, the hype continues: for example, Y Combinator is narrowing its focus for summer 2025 to startups building vertical AI agents, those that automate entire workflows. As far as jobs are concerned, for now, AI agents are more “license to assist” than “license to kill.”
Trucking around
If this isn’t Optimus Prime in real life, I don’t know what is. Autonomous trucking is about to take a major leap forward, with Aurora Innovation launching fully driverless trucks on I-45 between Dallas and Houston by the end of the month. After years of testing with backup drivers, this marks a pivotal moment for the industry, as Aurora begins commercial operations on a key freight route. While proponents of AVs tout the benefits, including reduced costs by over 40% and the ability to address the driver shortage, critics are concerned about safety and the lack of federal regulation. You could say AVs are getting wheely good at hauling freight.
Startup from the bottom, now we here
I guess you could say Mercury is out of retrograde. Mercury CEO Immad Akhund is launching a $26 million early-stage fund to back startups tackling $10B+ markets with a mission to “advance humanity.” After angel investing in over 350 companies including Airtable, Substack, and Rappi, Akhund is teaming up with longtime collaborator Yash Doshi to formalize his investing playbook and provide support to founders overwhelmed by high-volume, low-touch capital. The move comes as Mercury itself is on a tear, having recently raised $300 million at a $3.5 billion valuation, and now serving 100,000+ startups. While Akhund says he’s still “100% focused on Mercury,” this new fund leverages his platform’s growing deal flow to build a flywheel between funding and fintech. And yes, in case you’re wondering, we did just cite a Perplexity-curated article for the first time in Nuggets’ history.
Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥
Highlights from this week’s pre-seed raises:
healthtech
Novoflow - On call 24/7; no ifs, ands, or buttons.
Novoflow raised $500k from Y Combinator. Novoflow is developing an AI receptionist for medical clinics, designed to automate appointment scheduling, patient intake, and follow-ups.
Entropic Biosciences - Tissue is not an issue.
Entropic Biosciences raised funding from Little Green Bamboo. Entropic Biosciences is creating a novel, bio-inspired approach to create 3D tissue for drug discovery, lifescience, and food security applications.
AI
Persona AI - Bots with biceps.
Persona AI raised $25 million. Persona AI is building humanoid robots for tough, skilled industrial work, on a mission to redefine human-machine collaboration.
Outro🚪
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Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
