🎙️12 Months Free ElevenLabs Credits for AI Startups
🎯 Find the Right Customers With AI
In This Edition:
- 🎯 Find the Right Customers With AI
- 💰 30 Startups Just Raised Millions
- 💡How Billion-Dollar Startups Got Their First 100 Users
- 🎙️Free ElevenLabs Credits for AI Startups
- 📈 How Founders Book 30+ Calls Monthly
💰 Series B Spotlight: 30 Startups That Just Raised Big
Fresh capital is flowing—and it's backing serious builders solving real problems.
Here are the standout Series B rounds shaping the next wave of tech:
🛡️ Security & Infrastructure Leading the Pack: → Upwind Security ($250M) - Cloud runtime protection → Harmattan AI ($200M) - Industrial vision AI → Aikido Security ($60M) - Application security scanning
🏭 Defense Tech is Booming: → JetZero ($175M) - All-wing aircraft design → Defense Unicorns ($136M) - Modern defense software → Cambium ($100M) - Advanced defense materials
🤖 AI-Powered Workflows Everywhere: → Tandem ($100M) - Healthcare operations → Apella ($80M) - Clinical copilot → Emergent ($70M) - Agent platform → Listen Labs ($60M) - User research automation
🌍 Notable Mentions: Railway ($100M) simplifying app hosting, Superstate ($82.5M) bringing funds onchain, and Hydrosat ($55M) tracking global water data from space.
The Trend: Series B is where companies prove scalability. These aren't just building products—they're defining new categories.
Want to stay ahead? We track these signals at Foundevo before they become obvious. Capital flows, scaling startups, and the patterns smart operators notice first.
👉 Curious who’s leading the biggest bets right now? Click below to explore deeper investor signals, valuation moves, and funding context. 👇
🎯 Find the Right Customers With AI
🎯How AI Finds Your Perfect Business Contacts in Minutes
Stop manually hunting for leads on LinkedIn. Here's how Lessie AI does the heavy lifting:
The Workflow:
- Log into Lessie AI
- Drop in a natural language search like:
"Find 50+ AI startup founders in the Bay Area with companies valued over $500M"
- Lessie autonomously searches 100+ premium databases and web sources
- Get verified profiles with enriched data and direct contact details
- Launch automated outreach campaigns immediately
Why This Beats Manual Research:
→ No more LinkedIn tab-hopping or dead-end Google searches → AI verifies data accuracy before delivery → Contact info unlocked and ready to use → From search to outreach in one workflow
Real use case: Need to connect with Series B SaaS founders in Europe? One prompt. Minutes later, you have a vetted list with emails.
Spending hours building prospect lists? Let AI do the research while you focus on the actual conversation.
🎯 How Billion-Dollar Startups Got Their First 100 Users
💡How to get your first 100 users by Sam Altman
Most founders sit around waiting for viral growth. Sam Altman says that's a fantasy.
Here's his ranking of what actually works—from best to worst:
1. Email Everyone You Know → Friends, classmates, former colleagues—everyone → If you charge, make them pay (you need honest feedback, not politeness) → This is your highest-conversion channel
2. Targeted Cold Outreach → Research people who need your solution → Email them directly with a personalized pitch → Expect 2-3% conversion—but people help new founders
3. Media & Forums → Hacker News, Reddit, social media, press → Must be ongoing, not one-time → Airbnb mastered this with creative "press stunts"
4. Paid Ads (Dead Last) → Facebook/Google ads are "lazy" → Sam doesn't know any major startup that started this way → Skip it for early growth
The Reality: Viral growth doesn't happen automatically. Your first 100 users come from hustle, not algorithms.
Got zero users? Pick strategy #1 today. Email 50 people before tomorrow. The worst response is still better than waiting for magic.
⚡ 15 VCs Actively Looking for Startups
💰 15 VCs Actively Writing Checks Right Now (Pre-Seed & Seed)
More capital is available at pre-seed and seed than most founders realize. The bottleneck isn't supply—it's awareness.
The edge comes from knowing who's actively deploying today, not who invested five years ago.
🤖 AI & Data Infrastructure → Gradient Ventures (Google): $750K–$8M in AI/ML → Stripe Ventures: $250K–$2M in FinTech + AI → Day One Ventures: $250K–$2M from idea to MVP → Audacious Ventures: $500K–$3M in B2B SaaS → Karman Ventures: $300K–$1M in AI infra
⛓️ Web3 & Blockchain → Coinbase Ventures: $1M–$5M+ in crypto/DeFi → Animoca Ventures: $100M AUM for Web3 gaming → Offline Ventures (Apple-backed): $1M–$2M
🛡️ Hard Tech & Defense → Forward Deployed VC: $500K–$1M in defense tech → Scout Ventures: Pre-seed/seed for dual-use → Harper Court Ventures: Up to A$500K in deep tech → Norrsken Evolve: 2025 launch for climate + biotech
🌍 Regional & Specialized → Day One Capital: €500K–€2.5M across Balkans/CEE → Conexus VC: $30M fund for Canadian startups → Delphinus VC: Evergreen fund tied to Aarhus University
The Pattern: Once founders are in the right stream, intros convert faster and conviction compounds.
Building at pre-seed or seed? Identify which stream matches the company being built, then start mapping warm intro paths to these funds.
See full VC profiles and contact info.
🏆 ElevenLabs Grants for AI Startups
🎙️ 12 Months Free ElevenLabs Credits for AI Startups
ElevenLabs is removing the cost barrier for early-stage teams building with AI voice technology.
What's Included (12-Month Grant): → 33 million characters (~680+ hours of audio) → Full product access: conversational AI, TTS, voice cloning, sound effects → Scale-level infrastructure with high concurrency limits → Support for 70+ languages → Total value: $4,000+
Who Qualifies: ✅ Fewer than 25 employees ✅ Pre-seed to Series A stage ✅ Clear monetization strategy (not one-off projects) ✅ Valid business email required ❌ Not for products targeting children under 18 ❌ Existing enterprise customers excluded
The Trade-Off: Display the "ElevenLabs Grants" logo on the company website for 12 months. That's it. No equity. No reselling restrictions beyond the characters themselves.
After 12 Months: Account converts to free plan unless upgraded. Teams that scale can transition to discounted enterprise pricing.
Applications reviewed on a rolling basis—response within one week.
Building with voice AI? Apply now before grant allocations fill up.
Submit application: ElevenLabs Startup Grants.
📈 How Top Founders Book 30+ Calls Monthly
📈How a Founder Books 30+ Calls a Month from LinkedIn
Founders booking consistent calls from LinkedIn all follow the same playbook—for 90 days straight.
The System:
1. Post 6-7x Per Week Mix top-of-funnel (stories), middle-of-funnel (how-tos), and bottom-of-funnel (case studies). Batch content once weekly.
2. Send 200 Connection Requests Weekly Use Sales Navigator. Target qualified leads. 40 requests/day, Monday–Friday. Manual beats automation.
3. DM Every New Connection Within 24 Hours They're warmest right after accepting. 30 seconds research, then personalized outreach.
4. Follow Up 2-3 Times Day 3: Add value. Day 6: Direct question. Day 9-11: Polite close. Most quit here—don't.
5. Post 2+ Lead Magnets Weekly Focus on outcomes, not templates. Funnel: Comment → Opt-in page → Email sequence → Call.
Why 90 Days? Weeks 1-4: Algorithm learns Weeks 5-8: Momentum builds Weeks 9-12: Compounding kicks in
Over 90 days: 180+ posts, 2,400+ connections, thousands of DMs.
Ready to test this? Block 90 days and execute. Need the full breakdown.
🔥 ICYMI: Founder Resources You Probably Missed
These high-impact reads have been powering sharper pitches, smarter fundraising, and faster investor yeses. If you missed them, now’s the time to catch up before everyone else does.
🚀 Harvard’s Startup Guide: Turning Ideas Into Impact
The hidden frameworks elite founders quietly rely on.
📚 The Ultimate Fundraising Resource Stack
A vault of tools most founders don’t know exists.
🔑 The Most Overlooked Key to Fundraising Success
YC founders swear by this — yet most ignore it.
🔥 Paul Graham’s ‘Small, Intense Fire’
The mindset shift that separates funded from forgotten.
🧠 What Sam Altman Wants Every Founder to Know
The blunt guidance founders rarely hear early enough.
📊 Venture Math Demystified
Why VCs say no — even when your pitch feels strong.
💡 200+ Easy Ways to Make Money Using AI
Surprising, practical income ideas you can start today.
🚀 100+ VCs & Accelerators You Should Know
A curated map of investors actively backing early teams.
📘 Ben Horowitz’s High-Stakes Leadership Playbook
How great founders act when everything breaks at once.
🤖 29 Angels & VCs Funding AI Startups Right Now
Verified, active investors hunting for their next AI bet.
💼 50 Recently Funded B2B Startups
What’s getting funded right now — and why.
🔥WEB PICKS
💰 Anthropic Raises Bigger, But Slower to Profit
Anthropic doubled its fundraising to $20B at a $350B valuation, raised its 2026 revenue forecast to $55B, but delayed cash-flow positivity to 2028—highlighting how expensive frontier AI still is.
⚠️ Zuckerberg Named in AI Chatbot Lawsuit
Mark Zuckerberg was accused in a New Mexico lawsuit of approving minors’ access to AI companions flagged internally for romantic interactions, intensifying scrutiny around AI safety and governance.
🤝 SoftBank Eyes Massive OpenAI Investment
SoftBank is in talks to invest up to $30B more in OpenAI as part of a potential $100B round valuing the company at $830B pre-IPO.
🚚 Gatik Deploys Fully Driverless Trucks at Scale
Gatik claims the first commercial-scale rollout of fully driverless trucks in North America, with $600M in contracted revenue and 60K incident-free deliveries.
🌌 AI Finds 800+ New Cosmic Anomalies
European Space Agency astronomers used AI to uncover over 800 unknown cosmic anomalies in Hubble Space Telescope data—achieved in just 2.5 days.
