That's None Of Your(opean) Business!

Also Jack Altman raised $150M for a fund and a former secret agent raised $40M for "non-human" identity management.

Author

Adam Hardej
February 05, 2024

Daily(ish) news and live events for venture nerds.

EU and UK antitrust authorities have now blocked over $70B worth of planned acquisitions… I dislike monopolies as much as the next guy, but this is getting a bit silly. Meanwhile, the other Altman (Jack) has raised $150M to invest in early stage startups which totally has nothing to do with the position his brother is in (Sam Altman runs OpenAI) and a former secret agent named Brickman raised $40M to solve “non-human” identity.

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US Tech Giants Have Scuttled Over $70B In M&A Deals Following EU, UK Pushback

“By this sampling alone, more than $70 billion worth of planned acquisitions by American technology companies have not come to fruition following scrutiny and objections from EU and U.K. antitrust authorities.”

Alt Capital Raises $150 Million Fund Extending Altman Brothers Funding Spree

“Sam Altman's younger brother Jack has raised a $150 million venture fund to invest in early-stage startups through his VC firm Alt Capital”

Oasis Security leaves stealth with $40M to lock down the wild west of non-human identity management

“Brickman’s track record is as elusive as the threat that his startup is aiming to contain, but the basics of it give some clue as to why investors were willing to give him money before the product even launched”

Hot Links

AI & B2B SaaS

Join us live TOMORROW - Tuesday, February 6th - at 3pm EST to learn more about the role of AI in B2B SaaS from three world class operators:

  • ​Wade Foster: Co-founder and CEO of Zapier.

  • ​Des Traynor: Co-founder and CSO of Intercom.

  • Benjamin Gammell: CFO at Brex.

Another shoutout to Walter Chen from Sacra for helping put this together and for helping me prepare some smart questions 🤓 

Howard Lindzon and This Is Not Financial Advice

This was great and I think I’m a better investor now after talking to Howard. We even broke the news that he is returning to Stocktwits as CEO after 8 years away!

Check out the full recordings below and stay tuned for clips + key takeaways soon:

It was a winding Friday afternoon conversation that covered everything from what This Is Not Financial Advice is really about to how it’s important to know yourself to be a good investor.

NYC’s Definitive Demo Day

Really excited to put this event together alongside our friends at Verci. Our goal is to make this a monthly window into the best of what the NYC startup scene has to offer. Great founders building exciting solutions with smart questions from active investors.

Sign up for updates right here right now.

Me waiting to see if this subject line joke lands.

Letters From The Editor

Misc. (short for miscellaneous)

Genuine Answers

Last week I asked “Can Tech Solve Loneliness?” and this is what you all responded:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes and chatbots are the answer. (9)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Yes but by enabling IRL connections. (19)

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨 Maybe. It's complicated. (25)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 No it's a misguided use of tech. (26)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Other. (9)

I think I agree and this was my favorite explanation:

“I couldn't agree more. Tech has the potential to connect us with distant ones and draw us apart from close ones. But when it comes to human connection, there is no substitute for human touch, an embrace or even just looking someone directly in the eye.”

Overall it doesn’t seem like this specific corner of the internet is very into the idea of everyone sitting solo on their Apple Vision Pros all day.

House Keeping

I don’t think the news section of this email is worth as much text as I give it. The quick summaries just aren’t super differentiated/there are plenty of venture news curation focused newsletters. My thoughts on how to adjust/improve are:

  • Will keep the witty intro.

  • Will keep the meme.

  • Will cut down the news section to be more link headline + link focused. I think this basically brings you the same amount of value and takes less of your time.

  • I will establish more process in the Live event section. Meaning, the first section will be upcoming events. One featured and then short sections for other upcoming ones. The second section will be recaps. One featured (the most recent one) with links to clips/recording and then short sections for other past events.

  • I will keep my ramblings and miscellaneous commentary here at the end.

I’m also thinking we’ll ditch the Friday send (everyone is checked out already) and move to Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Technically I said “Daily(ish) venture news…” in the description so I think that still counts.

Thank you for reading and please let me know what you think!

Talk soon,
Adam

PS - Do you want to sponsor this newsletter or an upcoming live event? Reply to this email and/or shoot a note to [email protected] to learn more.