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The Pulse by Augment

A weekly newsletter on private market news and events.

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The Pulse by Augment

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The robot money is here

Physical Intelligence is raising $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation — doubling in four months — as robotics AI becomes the next major capital destination. Meanwhile, legal AI platform Harvey closed $200 million at $11 billion, with Sequoia leading for the third time. The pattern: AI capital is migrating from foundation models to domain-specific applications with clear enterprise moats.

Paul Smalera

SpaceX is finally going public. Here's what it actually means.

Mar 27, 2026

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10 min read

SpaceX is finally going public. Here's what it actually means.

SpaceX is preparing to file its IPO prospectus this week or next — targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation and a $75B raise that would be the largest public offering in history. Meanwhile, Anthropic is eyeing a Q4 IPO of its own. And defense AI is having its own capital moment: Shield AI closed $2B at a $12.7B valuation. The IPO window is open.

Paul Smalera

The world's largest software buyer says the market is wrong about AI

Mar 26, 2026

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9 min read

The world's largest software buyer says the market is wrong about AI

Thoma Bravo — the world's largest software buyout firm — says the market has the AI-disruption story wrong. Software fundamentals are intact. The real divide is between easily-replaced point solutions and mission-critical, compliance-heavy systems that AI won't touch. They're buying. Private markets investors should pay attention.

Paul Smalera

Musk just announced the biggest chip factory in history. Investors should pay attention.

Mar 24, 2026

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8 min read

Musk just announced the biggest chip factory in history. Investors should pay attention.

Elon Musk unveiled Terafab on Saturday — a $20-25B joint chip fab between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI that targets a scale no private company has attempted in semiconductors. Meanwhile, the White House released its national AI policy framework pushing to preempt state AI laws, and Kalshi doubled its valuation to $22B in three months. A busy weekend for private markets.

Paul Smalera

Mar 20, 2026

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10 min read

OpenAI is eating the developer stack

OpenAI announced it will acquire Astral, the team behind Python's most-used developer tools, as part of an accelerating push to own the full software development lifecycle. Meanwhile, Microsoft is weighing legal action against OpenAI and Amazon over a $50B cloud deal it says violates its Azure exclusivity rights — a dispute that could reshape how Big Tech structures AI partnerships. And a new PitchBook analyst note asks the question no one in venture wants to answer: if SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic all go public in 2026, is there enough capital left for anyone else?

Paul Smalera

When ”markets” and gambling mean the same thing

Mar 19, 2026

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9 min read

When ”markets” and gambling mean the same thing

Arizona filed the first-ever criminal charges against a prediction market company, accusing Kalshi of running an illegal gambling operation. Meanwhile, both Kalshi and rival Polymarket are in talks to raise at $20 billion valuations — roughly double where each sat just a few months ago. The collision of criminal exposure and record fundraising ambition tells you everything about where prediction markets are right now. Today's Deep Dive:

Paul Smalera

Jensen Huang just set the AI infrastructure agenda for the next two years

Mar 17, 2026

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7 min read

Jensen Huang just set the AI infrastructure agenda for the next two years

Nvidia kicked off GTC yesterday with Jensen Huang unveiling the Vera Rubin architecture and officially putting the Feynman GPU on the 2028 roadmap — the clearest view yet of how AI compute scales from here. Meanwhile, Meta is reportedly planning to cut 20% of its workforce as AI infrastructure costs balloon, and the Anthropic-Pentagon standoff continues to grind through the courts with no resolution in sight.

Paul Smalera

Vibe coding is the new AI infrastructure trade

Mar 13, 2026

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13 min read

Vibe coding is the new AI infrastructure trade

Cursor is reportedly in talks to raise billions at a valuation of up to $60 billion — more than doubling its $29.3B November 2025 mark. Lovable crossed $400M in ARR this week with just 146 employees. Replit raised $400M at $9B on a path to $1B ARR. In under 18 months, a category that barely existed has become one of the fastest-growing capital deployment patterns in private markets history. Meanwhile, Anthropic deepens its enterprise push via a potential Blackstone JV, and the Pentagon feud gets louder. Here's a bonus Friday Deep Dive about what this all means for private market investors.

Paul Smalera

The private market access trade is getting its first real stress test

Mar 12, 2026

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18 min read

The private market access trade is getting its first real stress test

Robinhood's new private markets fund raised $658 million and dropped 11% on day one. Fundrise had its own fund scheduled to list the same week — stronger portfolio, better fees — and quietly postponed. Two signals, one category. We dig into what the structure of these products gets right, what it gets wrong, and why the lockup these funds are trying to eliminate may actually be a feature. The Deep Dive:

Paul Smalera

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Archive

The robot money is here

SpaceX is finally going public. Here's what it actually means.

The world's largest software buyer says the market is wrong about AI

Musk just announced the biggest chip factory in history. Investors should pay attention.

OpenAI is eating the developer stack

When ”markets” and gambling mean the same thing

Jensen Huang just set the AI infrastructure agenda for the next two years

Vibe coding is the new AI infrastructure trade

The private market access trade is getting its first real stress test

The Pulse by Augment