AI, Clean Energy, & Carbon Vodka?

Welcome back to another issue of Why Join.

Now, here’s something I think you'll love — six must-read publications:

Alternative Investing Report, The Hustle, A Smart Bear: Longform, TLDR Newsletter, The Neuron, and The Office Party.

Check them out, and thank me later!

Weekly Startup Spotlight

Recently funded startups and their open roles: see what they’re building and who they're hiring.

🇺🇸 fal

Seed + Series A - $9M + $14M; Investors - Kindred Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, First Round Capital

What it does: fal is a developer-focused platform for AI-generated media, including audio, video, and images. It provides compute and workflow management for generative AI models, along with APIs for media generation. It boasts a robust infrastructure capable of handling millions of requests, with notable clients including Photoroom, Freepik, and PlayHT. fal was also an early host for Black Forest Labs' Flux model, used in X's Grok chatbot.

💼: GTM (Go-To-Market) Lead - Remote; Researcher in Residence (3-Month Role) - Remote

🇺🇸 Orb

Series B - $25M; Investors - Mayfield, Menlo Ventures, Greylock Partners, South Park Commons, Scribble Ventures, Uncorrelated Ventures, Basecase Capital

What it does: Billing may not be top of mind for most people, but for software companies, it’s crucial. Outdated billing systems consume valuable engineering time and struggle with modern pricing models—usage-based, hybrid, or outcome-based.

Orb’s next-gen billing platform consolidates billing and data, enabling quick adaptation to these pricing models. It simplifies revenue recognition, financial forecasting, and sales compensation, allowing engineering teams to focus on product innovation.

💼: Sales Development Representative - Remote (US); Solutions Architect - San Francisco, CA; Software Engineer, Full Stack - San Francisco, CA

🇺🇸 Hgen

Seed - $5M; Investors - Seven Seven Six, Founders Fund, Fontinalis Partners

What it does: Hgen is focused on improving electrolyzers—the key to driving clean hydrogen adoption. Electrolyzers convert clean electricity and water into hydrogen. Hgen is making them cheaper and more efficient, which means more affordable clean hydrogen.

Hydrogen, abundant and versatile, has long been seen as a key to decarbonizing entire sectors. It shows particular promise in heavy industry, where intense heat and dense power are hard to achieve with electric sources.

💼: Electrochemical Engineer - Los Angeles, CA; Electrochemical R&D Intern - Los Angeles, CA

🇺🇸 Air Company

Series B - $69M; Investors - Avfuel, Lowercarbon Capital, IQT, Alaska Airlines

What it does: Air Company, originally known for making vodka from carbon dioxide, is a carbon utilization startup. They convert excess CO2 into carbon-negative products, primarily focusing on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) using their AIRMADE™ technology.

Jet fuel accounts for 2% of global CO2 emissions. Switching to SAF could cut flight emissions by up to 80%.

💼: Pilot Plant Design & Maintenance Engineer - New York, NY; Process Operator III - New York, NY

🇺🇸 TeamBridge

Series B - $28M; Investors - Mayfield, General Catalyst, Abstract Ventures

What it does: The hourly workforce makes up ~60% of the U.S. and ~70% globally, with 78 million hourly workers in the U.S. alone. For businesses like staffing agencies and long-term care providers, their people are their product, yet workforce management tools have seen little innovation—many still use pen and paper.

TeamBridge is changing that with its composable workforce management platform. It enables customers to create self-service apps with customizable building blocks. AI-powered automation streamlines tasks like sourcing, onboarding, and talent management, driving better decisions and boosting efficiency.

💼: Sales Development Representative - US; Growth Lead, Product Manager - US

🇺🇸 11x.ai

Series A - $24M; Investors - Benchmark, Quiet Capital, Abstract Ventures, Lux Capital, HubSpot Ventures, Project A, 20VC

What it does: 11x.ai creates AI-powered "digital workers" that automate workflows for GTM teams in sales, marketing, and revenue operations. Instead of adding more software, 11x.ai sells work—AI agents that handle tasks autonomously, cutting costs and boosting efficiency. Key Products:

• Alice: AI Sales Development Rep, automating prospecting and engagement.

• Jordan: AI phone rep, handling inbound/outbound calls in 30+ languages, speeding up lead qualification.

💼: Founding Designer - San Francisco, CA; Full-stack Engineer - San Francisco, CA; Founding Account Executive - San Francisco, London

On The Side

• OpenAI is currently in the process of finalizing a $6.5 billion funding round, which has attracted significant interest from investors, resulting in oversubscription. Thrive Capital is leading this funding round with a commitment of approximately $1.25 billion. They are an existing investor in OpenAI. The funding round is expected to elevate OpenAI's valuation to around $150 billion, a substantial increase from its previous valuation of $86 billion. Major players such as Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Apple are likely to secure access to this funding round. Microsoft is OpenAI's largest backer and is expected to play a significant role in this investment. Notably, Sequoia Capital, another early investor in OpenAI, will not be participating in this round.

• Tupperware Brands Corp., the once-iconic food storage container company, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to declining sales and financial struggles. The company reported assets of $500 million to $1 billion and liabilities of $1 billion to $10 billion.

• Nike CEO John Donahoe is out, replaced by company veteran Elliott Hill

• Alibaba launches Qwen2.5 family of open weights AI models ranging between 0.5-72B parameters

• Researchers at China’s Soochow University have developed a nuclear battery with unprecedented efficiency—8,000 times more efficient. This innovative battery uses americium, a radioactive element, to generate energy through the emission of alpha particles.

• Half of all active satellites are now from SpaceX—3,660 out of nearly 7,300 active satellites in orbit.

Open Positions

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That's all folks.

See you next Wednesday — Chief

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