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The Pulse by Augment

A weekly newsletter on private market news and events.

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Friday the 13th came for the IPO market

Feb 13, 2026

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10 min read

Friday the 13th came for the IPO market

The IPO market had a rough week — Clear Street fully suspended its offering after slashing it by 65% and still failing to generate enough investor demand. The software selloff is freezing deal activity, and PitchBook says more than a quarter of unicorns may no longer deserve the title. Meanwhile, Anthropic closed yet another mega-round ($30B at $380B), and asset management consolidation accelerated with Nuveen's surprise $13.5B acquisition of Schroders.

Paul Smalera
Paul Smalera
What a discount actually tells you

Feb 12, 2026

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11 min read

What a discount actually tells you

When secondary shares trade below a company's last fundraise, the instinct is "bargain." But discounts aren't coupons — they're signals. Today we break down a framework for reading what the secondary market is actually saying. Plus: humanoid robots raise almost $1B, a Twilio co-founder bets on fusion, and more. Here's our Thursday Deep Dive:

Paul Smalera
Paul Smalera
The AI business model war just went live on national television

Feb 10, 2026

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12 min read

The AI business model war just went live on national television

OpenAI officially launched ads inside ChatGPT — hours after Anthropic roasted the idea during the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, Databricks closed $7B in financing at $134B, Stripe is eyeing a $140B tender offer, and Harvey AI is reportedly raising at $11B just weeks after closing at $8B. Plus: Byrne Hobart on why Benchmark is quietly raising SPVs, and Tomasz Tunguz on what software stock declines actually tell us about the AI threat.

Paul Smalera
Paul Smalera
The $285B wakeup call—and the $100B+ bet on what comes next

Feb 6, 2026

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10 min read

The $285B wakeup call—and the $100B+ bet on what comes next

Anthropic's open-source legal plugins triggered the largest software selloff since the tariff shock—wiping out $285 billion in market cap from a batch of markdown files on GitHub. Meanwhile, NFX argues AI gaming's technology window just cracked open, Cerebras raised $1B at a $23B valuation and over $2B in fresh funding landed across inference chips, voice AI, autonomous SREs, and construction robotics. The message from capital markets this week: AI infrastructure is the trade, and incumbent software is the short.

Paul Smalera
Paul Smalera
From $68B to $11B: Figma's lesson for private investors

Feb 5, 2026

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11 min read

From $68B to $11B: Figma's lesson for private investors

Figma peaked at a $68 billion market cap days after its July IPO—a 250% first-day pop that marked the largest gain for a billion-dollar IPO in three decades. Seven months later, it trades at roughly $11 billion, down 84% from that high. The fundamentals? Still strong: 38% revenue growth, 131% net retention. For private market investors, this is a real-time lesson in how AI narrative risk can compress valuations faster than business performance changes. Here's our Thursday Deep Dive:

Paul Smalera
Paul Smalera
Musk just created a $1.25 trillion company

Feb 3, 2026

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8 min read

Musk just created a $1.25 trillion company

SpaceX acquired xAI yesterday in a deal that creates the world's most valuable private company at $1.25 trillion—and reshapes what investors will be buying in the coming IPO. Waymo closed its own mega-round at $16 billion and a $126 billion valuation. And Nvidia's Jensen Huang says his OpenAI investment will be "huge"—but not $100 billion.

Paul Smalera
Paul Smalera
SpaceX and xAI in merger talks ahead of IPO

Jan 30, 2026

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8 min read

SpaceX and xAI in merger talks ahead of IPO

SpaceX and xAI are reportedly in merger talks ahead of SpaceX's planned IPO—a potential combination that could create the most valuable private company in history. Meanwhile, Waabi raised $1B and partnered with Uber to deploy 25,000+ robotaxis, PaleBlueDot AI hit unicorn status, and Northwood Space landed both $100M in funding and a $50M Space Force contract.

Paul Smalera
Paul Smalera
What GameStop got wrong (and private markets got right)

Jan 29, 2026

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8 min read

What GameStop got wrong (and private markets got right)

Five years ago, Robinhood halted GameStop trades—and retail investors learned that market infrastructure could fail them at the worst possible moment. The lesson everyone took: retail wants access. The lesson they missed: retail will tolerate extraordinary friction if they believe in the trade. That same investor psychology is now driving record capital into private markets—with one critical difference. Here's our Thursday Deep Dive into the story:

Paul Smalera
Paul Smalera
Nvidia and Google back AI video unicorn Synthesia at $4B

Jan 27, 2026

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10 min read

Nvidia and Google back AI video unicorn Synthesia at $4B

Synthesia just doubled its valuation to $4B with Nvidia and Google's venture arms leading. Fei-Fei Li's World Labs is in talks at $5B—a 5x jump in a year. And a deeper look at Humans&’s mega-seed round. Applied AI is winning investor dollars.

Paul Smalera
Paul Smalera
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The Pulse by Augment

The Pulse by Augment

A weekly newsletter on private market news and events.

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