Hi there. Not only did a humanoid beat Bolt's 100m record, China has overtaken the US for robotics VC rounds. 🤖

Hugging Face's biggest winners 🤗

Nvidia has reportedly agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9B. The price is 2.9x the $4.5B valuation from their 2023 Series D, in which Nvidia also participated.

But who are the biggest winners from the exit? We estimate the Hugging Face founders and team retain a combined 42% stake, meaning $5.4B at the reported acquisition price.

Onto the investors:  betaworks invested an  estimated $2M across four early rounds. Its stake could now be worth approximately $1.3B: that's 610×.

Other estimated outcomes include:
• Lux Capital: ~$1.4B
• Addition: ~$900M
• SV Angel: ~$630M

We unpacked the acquisition in numbers, the valuation ladder, how the exit multiple compares, and Nvidia's major moves into startup acquisitions and VC. 

✨ Startup spotlight: Symbric

Founded by second-time founder Angeline Guo (prev. Zeni Arts, ex. Data Science at Meta & DoorDash, and Risk Oversight at Amex. Master's in Statistics from Cornell.

Symbric gives direct answers to business questions sourced from a company's own systems and data, with verification and explanations attached, essentially a trustworthy Q&A layer on top of internal company data.

Founded July 2026.

Upcoming Briefings 📹

• 10 Sep: Transatlantic Deep Tech, w/ Drumbeat Capital
• 23 Sep: Unlocking pension capital & LP index
• 1 Oct: Inside the new Dealroom API
• 7 Oct: South Caucasus & Central Asia Tech Briefing

Also

🤖 Claude skews Gen Z. Millennials love ChatGPT. Gen X overindex on Copilot. Boomers use Alexa & Siri. YouGov on AI brand use across the (UK) generations. 

🩷 Lovable just bought lovable.com, having reached a $13.3B valuation with lovable.dev. Here are some other decacorns without their .com domain. 

📊 New report: From Savings to Sovereignty – Pension and Growth Capital in Europe.

☕️ The Big Mac Cappuccino Index, from the coffee guy James Hoffmann. 

🤗 Co-founder Thomas Wolf on Hugging Face's journey from Europe, to the US and mostly back again. 

🎓 The Midwest College Rankings 2026 - based on startup output, from StartMidwest. 

🗞️ These young companies are benefiting particularly from US investors' money - Handelsblatt (DE), with Dealroom data.