July 9 Tariffs
Week of July 7th, 2025
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STARTUPS
ROUNDS AND UNICORNS
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: AI On Top Again, Led By xAI’s Massive Raise (Crunchbase, 5 minute read)
xAI (Generative AI): Raised $10 billion (Debt + Strategic Equity) from undisclosed investors. Based in San Francisco, Elon Musk’s AI startup will use the funds to expand infrastructure and product development
Savvy Wealth (Wealth Management): Raised $72 million (Series B) led by Industry Ventures. The New York-based platform offers AI-powered tools for financial advisors
Levelpath (Procurement): Raised $55 million (Series B) led by Battery Ventures. Based in San Francisco, it uses AI agents to automate procurement workflows
Terrana Biosciences (Agtech): Raised $50 million (Seed) from Flagship Pioneering. Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, it develops RNA-based crop traits without genetic modification
Campfire (Enterprise Software): Raised $35 million (Series A) led by Accel. The San Francisco-based ERP startup reports 10x revenue growth over the past two years
California Share Of Startup Funding Is Still On The Rise (Crunchbase, 4 minute read)
California continues to cement its dominance in the U.S. startup ecosystem, attracting 68% of all domestic startup funding in the first half of 2025—amounting to approximately $94.5 billion, according to Crunchbase. This marks a historic high, driven largely by SoftBank’s unprecedented $40 billion investment in OpenAI, the largest startup round in history. While this deal alone accounts for over 40% of the state’s total, California’s funding surge is not a one-off
Other massive rounds include: $14.3 billion for Scale AI, $10 billion for Elon Musk’s xAI, $2.5 billion for Anduril Industries, and a $2 billion seed round for Thinking Machines Lab, led by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati
These deals underscore Northern California’s central role in the generative AI boom and suggest that the state remains the unrivaled engine of U.S. tech innovation
ECONOMIC SNAPSHOT
Markets' 90-day tariff pause rollercoaster nears an uncertain end (Reuters, 4 minute read)
With President Trump’s July 9 tariff deadline approaching, markets have remained resilient—but economic risks are surfacing. Since Trump’s April tariff pause, global equities have rallied: the MSCI World Index is up 11%, and the S&P 500 has gained 10%. Yet, gains are uneven. Export-driven sectors in Europe and Japan remain volatile, reflecting tariff uncertainty. The U.S. dollar has dropped 6.6% since April—its worst first half since 1973—driven by rising U.S. debt concerns and shifting global capital flows
Meanwhile, gold prices have surged 26% YTD, as investors hedge against inflation, dollar weakness, and political risk
Many investors now expect some delay or softening of Trump’s tariff plans, but a sudden imposition of steep duties—some as high as 70%—could disrupt trade, dent business confidence, and reignite market volatility
Trump says he is about to raise tariffs as high as 70% on some countries (CNN, 5 minute read)
With the three-month tariff moratorium nearing its expiration, President Trump announced that the White House will begin notifying 10 to 12 countries per day of their new tariff rates, set to take effect on August 1. Rates will range from 10% to as high as 70%, surpassing the 50% cap introduced in April’s “Liberation Day” tariff order. Trump has framed the move as a push for “reciprocal” trade deals, though few agreements have been finalized
Only the UK and China have signed negotiation frameworks; a potential deal with Vietnam remains unclear. EU and India talks are ongoing but strained
While Treasury officials hinted at flexibility, Trump now insists the deadline is firm
Trump claims that smaller countries will retain minimum tariffs if no deal is reached, but major trading partners could face sharp increases
The US economy added a stronger-than-expected 147,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1% (CNN, 6 minute read)
The U.S. added 147,000 jobs in June—beating expectations—while the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1%. Healthcare, leisure, and local government drove most of the gains. However, private-sector job growth was the weakest since October 2024, and wage growth slowed to 3.7% year-over-year. The data complicates the Fed’s path. While headline figures appear solid, sluggish labor force growth could mean that even moderate job gains risk stoking inflation
Key concerns emerged: Black unemployment jumped to 6.8%, labor force participation declined, and long-term unemployment rose to near three-year highs
Hiring remains muted, with low job churn and elevated continuing claims, even as layoffs stay relatively stable
The Fed is expected to remain cautious, watching how Trump’s tariffs and workforce trends evolve
IPO & EXITS
The IPO market in 2025 is being driven by a clear theme — bigger is better (Breaking Business News Reporter, 2 minute read)
In 2025, the public markets have made their preferences clear: the biggest companies are getting the best outcomes. Standouts like Circle and CoreWeave—benefiting from crypto and AI tailwinds—have seen their market caps soar above $45 billion and share prices climb over 500% and 310%, respectively, since their IPOs. They’re part of a broader IPO revival, with 100 U.S. companies priced so far this year—a 42.9% increase over 2024
Among those, six firms with $1 billion+ valuations have doubled in price post-IPO, and three have surged over 500%
The Renaissance IPO ETF rebounded 20% in Q2, after a sluggish Q1
This strong performance is now drawing other scaled private firms, like Figma, to prep their own IPOs
IPO market gets boost from Circle’s 500% surge, sparking optimism that drought may be ending (CNBC, 7 minute read)
After a three-year drought, the IPO window is slowly reopening for venture-backed startups. In June 2025 alone, five tech companies went public—more than double the monthly average this year—reviving long-awaited liquidity for VCs. Crypto firm Circle led the way, debuting at a $42 billion valuation after a successful NYSE listing boosted by the Senate’s passage of stablecoin legislation. Other notable IPOs include CoreWeave, Hinge Health, Chime, and Omada, though most have seen modest gains post-listing
While blockbuster names like SpaceX and Stripe remain private, firms like Figma are prepping to go public soon
VC leaders remain cautiously optimistic, with some early liquidity trickling in through secondary sales and strategic deals, like Meta’s $14 billion investment in Scale AI, which handed Accel a $2.5 billion partial exit
Some high-profile listings, including Klarna and StubHub, were delayed due to market conditions: interest rates, tariffs, and regulatory uncertainty
AI Spurs More Unicorn Acquisitions As Clio, Grammarly Make M&A Deals (Crunchbase, 2 minute read)
Unicorns have been active on the M&A front this week, with major moves from Clio and Grammarly. Canada-based Clio announced its $1 billion acquisition of Spanish legal research platform vLex, aiming to build the first cloud-based, AI-powered legaltech platform. The deal positions Clio to better compete with newer players like Harvey, which recently raised $300 million at a $5 billion valuation. Meanwhile, Grammarly continued its acquisition streak by purchasing Superhuman, an AI-native email app, as part of its ambition to become a full AI productivity suite
These moves follow Grammarly’s January acquisition of Coda and its recent $1 billion raise led by General Catalyst
So far in 2025, unicorns have announced 181 acquisitions, with the largest being xAI’s takeover of X (formerly Twitter) at a $33 billion valuation, followed by OpenAI’s acquisitions of Io ($6.5B) and Windsurf ($3B)
WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE
US VC female founders dashboard (Pitchbook, 5 minute read)
Venture capital funding for female founders has stabilized following a sharp decline from 2021 peaks. While the share of total deals involving women-founded or co-founded companies has decreased, these companies are securing a growing proportion of the capital raised. A comprehensive dashboard tracks 16 years of U.S. investment trends for women founders, offering insights into deal counts, capital raised by state, industry, and stage, as well as highlighting notable female-founded startups and firms
In Q2 2025, co-founded female companies reported $27.6 billion in capital invested and a total of 634 deals, compared to $9.4 billion in capital and 919 deals in Q2 2024
In terms of deal count, so far 2025, only female-led companies accounted for 5.9% of the total, while female and male-led companies together represented 17.7%
Regarding capital allocation, female-led companies received only 0.8%, whereas female and male-led companies collectively received 49.9%
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Happy reading,
8alpha.ai’s Research & Investment Team
