June 26, 2025

Breakup season

Hi there,

We’re collaborating with Delphine Le Grand to spotlight the most innovative companies in the longevity tech space, from diagnostics and DTC therapeutics to hormone optimization, AI health tools, and more.

If you're a founder, operator, or investor in the ecosystem, now’s your chance to get on the radar early.

Brief our analysts here. 

And now, here is this week's Hot or Not.

Hot: Y Combinator’s new batch

Y Combinator just dropped its Spring 2025 batch, and it's an agentic AI takeover. Over half of the 144 companies are building AI agents — the clearest signal yet of where enterprise automation is headed.

The accelerator is betting big on 4 key areas: 

• Software development guardrails that de-risk "vibe coding"
• Web-browsing agents
• Backend workflow automation
• Vertical agents penetrating highly regulated industries like healthcare and finance

The timing is critical. 2025 funding to software development AI agents has already outpaced 2024 by 3x, while 32% of verticalized AI agent companies are actively deploying solutions in hard-to-penetrate regulated sectors.

As backend automation moves beyond simple workflows and regulated industries embrace AI agents, the companies that master these areas will define the next wave of enterprise software.

See which agentic AI categories are primed for breakout growth in our full analysis of Y Combinator's Spring 2025 batch.

Not: Novo Nordisk breaks up with Hims & Hers

Novo Nordisk terminated its telehealth partnership with Hims & Hers on Monday, citing illegal mass sales of Wegovy knockoffs. Hims & Hers’ stock plummeted 34% while Novo’s dropped 5% following the news.

After launching the partnership in April to expand Wegovy access post-shortage, Novo accused Hims of selling cheaper, unapproved versions under "false personalization" claims instead of steering patients to the real drug.

The breakup suggests Novo is willing to sacrifice distribution partnerships to protect premium pricing — a risky move as Eli Lilly’s rival GLP-1 medications continue to make market share gains.

CB Insights customers can see how Novo's $33B manufacturing push and strategic investments stack up in our breakdown of the GLP-1 powerhouse.

Hot: Nvidia’s nuclear investment

Nuclear reactor development company TerraPower closed a $650M fundraise this week with NVentures — Nvidia's venture arm — joining Bill Gates and HD Hyundai as backers.

The chipmaker's entry validates that even chip companies need reliable baseload power for AI infrastructure. 

Other big tech companies — including cloud giants Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft — are also vertically integrating into energy-related markets to address a fundamental business challenge: without sufficient power, AI development — and revenue — stalls.

Nvidia is working with energy giants like Schneider Electric to integrate AI into data center operations to increase energy efficiency and sustainability. 

The company has also invested in smart grid startup Utilidata to advance AI use in the utility sector and is preparing for large-scale deployment of liquid cooling to reduce data center energy consumption.

Not: Grid resilience

The Department of Energy declared a power emergency in the Southeast on Tuesday as record heat stresses power grids nationwide. The move allows local utilities to boost generation in North and South Carolina, where temps could break 100 degrees.

The crisis underscores increasing concern about grid vulnerability. Corporate mentions of grid instability in quarterly earnings calls have surged by more than 5x since 2020.

This trend will only accelerate as AI data centers drive unprecedented power demand and as infrastructure buckles under pressure from extreme weather events.

The +1

Green Means Go (Backwards). The EU’s creative solution to bad economic news: make recession look like a healthy lawn.

I love you.

Anand

@asanwal 

Co-Founder & Exec Chair

P.S. Sign up for our upcoming State of Venture Q2’25 briefing to get a midyear outlook on the latest venture funding trends.

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