100 VC firms actively backing startups in 2026, so you can choose the 10 that align with you: GLOBAL (43) Well-known giants: Sequoia, a16z, Accel, Lightspeed, Kleiner Perkins, Thrive Capital, General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Benchmark, Greylock, Khosla Ventures, Index Ventures Multi-stage + growth: Bessemer, NEA, Menlo Ventures, Battery Ventures, Insight Partners, Sapphire Ventures, IVP, Felicis, Craft Ventures Seed specialists: First Round, Initialized, Uncork, NFX, Pear VC, Hustle Fund Deep tech + hard tech: Lux Capital, DCVC, Eclipse Accelerator-style funds: 500 Global, SOSV Europe: Balderton, Atomico, Northzone, Notion Capital, Point Nine, Seedcamp, LocalGlobe, Hoxton Ventures, Octopus Ventures Asia: JAFCO, East Ventures INDIA (57) The big ones: Peak XV, Elevation Capital, Nexus, Blume, Z47, Kalaari, Chiratae, Stellaris, 3one4 Capital, Info Edge Ventures Early-stage generalists: India Quotient, Prime Venture Partners, Together Fund, Arkam, Leo Capital, BEENEXT, 8i Ventures, All In Capital, First Cheque, Better Capital, Titan Capital, WaterBridge, Eximius, Arali, AJVC, Saama Capital, Pravega, Gruhas, Dholakia Ventures, Bharat Founders Fund Deep tech: pi Ventures, Speciale Invest, Endiya Partners, Ideaspring Capital, YourNest Consumer brands: Fireside Ventures, Sauce .vc, DSG Consumer Partners, Rukam Capital, Sixth Sense Ventures Growth stage: A91 Partners, Fundamentum, IvyCap, Zodius Capital Climate, agri + impact: Omnivore, Ankur Capital, Avaana, Aavishkaar, Unitus, Rainmatter Angel networks + programs: Mumbai Angels, Indian Angel Network, Inflection Point Ventures, Venture Catalysts, LVX Ventures, 100X .VC, Antler Pick the 10 that match your stage and sector. Read their last 5 deals before you send anything. Follow @arorabhavyam for more content around founder programs, investors and AI! 🫡

Most #founders think free money always comes with a cap table catch… Google gives AI startups up to $350k, Thiel gives $250k, and Tyler Cowen funds builders as young as 13. And all at 0% equity: - @GoogleStartups: up to $350k in cloud credits if you raised pre-seed/seed - @thielfellowship: $250k over 2 years, no degree needed - @awscloud Activate: up to $200k in credits, pre-Series B - @MSFTStartups: up to $150k in Azure credits - Solana Foundation grants via @SuperteamEarn: up to $10k - Ethereum Foundation ESP: paid in ETH, for open-source builders - Emergent Ventures: anyone 13+, from anywhere, India tranche included - @echoinggreen: $100k over 18 months. For-profits repay only above a $5M valuation - Cartier Women's Initiative: up to $100k for women-led impact businesses - @MITSolve: ~$40k average + 6 months of support The first 7 are open right now The last 3 open once a year, so follow @AroraBhavyam and enable notifications so you get to know when they open!

Big funds get the headlines, small funds take the first meeting and write checks faster... 7 debut and emerging funds that launched in October (part 2): 1. U&I Ventures - $32.2M debut fund out of SF. $250K-$800K pre-seed + seed cheques into AI-native security and infra software 2. Aliyah Ventures - debut fund in Tel Aviv. $250K-$500K pre-seed cheques, only for immigrant founders building in Israel 3. Masia (@ctrenchs) - €18M debut fund for AI and frontier tech founders with a Barcelona connection. Also opened a 1,000m² founder house Follow @arorabhavyam for more content around founder programs, investors and AI! 🫡 4. Turbine Capital - €54M debut fund for Nordic deep tech. Backed by Saab, Scania and Volvo Cars 5. Graduate Ventures - second seed fund, nearly €100M at first close, built for Dutch university spinouts 6. Eastend Ventures - A$30M debut fund for early-stage tech in South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland 7. Phoenix Venture Partners - ~$23M debut fund in Abu Dhabi for early-stage MENA fintech, health, edtech and logistics A first-time GP needs a breakout to raise Fund II... Be the founder who gives them one!

Day 1 at @IBWofficial was a banger for @Tangem... Distributed 300+ wallets, 250+ caps, 150+ socks, and lot more! Special thanks to @shivam_mishra, @alittlebitriya, @Shadow7Ash, @AniketRaikar06, @Wolfpath6, @SheCallsMeAddy, @anmolratanx. https://t.co/FVO1FMnMeL

$1.8M vs $2.5M. That's YC's valuation vs ERA's, and ERA applications close in 1 week. Here's everything you should know 👇 - Closes Nov 2, the same day as YC W27. One draft, two applications - Every company gets the same deal: $150K for 6%, no negotiating - US C corps only. LLCs and non-US companies convert before ERA invests - Apply from anywhere, but you'll work out of ERA's NYC space - 2 to 4 founders preferred, ideally with one technical cofounder - Free office space + credits from AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, OpenAI and Anthropic - Demo Day in front of hundreds of investors, and ERA may follow on in your seed - ERA alumni companies are worth $10B+ combined Turn on notifications for more founder programs coming this week.

4 days left to ask NVIDIA to fund $60k for your PhD… Applications close Oct 30! What you get: • Up to $60K for stipend, tuition and fees • Summer internship at an NVIDIA research office • Work directly with NVIDIA researchers • Present your research at GTC San Jose Who can apply: • CS, computer engineering, EE, system architecture or related fields • International students eligible • PhD students who've completed year 1 Research areas: generative AI, LLMs, robotics, computer vision, autonomous vehicles, graphics, security and quantum. The program is in its 26th year. One of its first fellows, Ian Buck, went on to create CUDA. {Apply link below}

Dubai's $150k is just the cherry on top honestly… The bigger money in the UAE sits with family offices, and most founders have never pitched one. DIFC alone now hosts 1,408 family-related entities (up 36% in a year) 6 that are actively writing cheques: - DAMAC Group (Hussain Sajwani): $50M into Anthropic, plus bets on xAI and Mistral - Royal Group (Sheikh Tahnoon): his private investment house. He also chairs G42 and IHC - 2PointZero: the $27B+ holding company IHC set up in 2024 - CE-Ventures (Crescent Group, Sharjah): $500M+ invested, led Kitopi's seed round - Abu Dhabi Capital Group: owns ALEF Education, the first edtech to list on ADX - Kanoo Ventures (YBA Kanoo): backed CorrosionRADAR alongside Aramco Ventures Follow @arorabhavyam for more content around founder programs, investors and AI! 🫡 How to actually get in the room: - One family member or a CIO usually makes the call. No partner-vote like a VC - Pitch into what the family already runs. Sector fit beats a pretty deck - A warm intro from a portfolio founder or co-investor beats any cold DM - Set up a UAE entity before you reach out. Dubai's grant asks its winners for one anyway Win the grant, open the entity, then go meet the families.

I went through all 973 funds in that sheet. 442 are first-time funds & median size is just $60M. More importantly, 23 raised fresh money in 2026 alone. So they're actively deploying rn: - Antler US: $160M - Deep33: $150M - Scout Ventures: $125M - Breakout Ventures: $114M - Adverb Ventures: $96M - Collide Capital: $95M - Convective Capital: $85M - Haystack Ventures: $85M - 2048 Ventures: $82M - Daybreak: $75M - Gutter Capital: $75M - Texas Oncology: $62M - Dorm Room Fund: $50M - Refactor Capital: $50M - Pax: $50M - Also Capital: $50M - SNAK Venture Partners: $50M - Humbition: $45M - Bridgewest Ventures: $37M - Captain Ventures: $33M - Discipulus Ventures: $30M - Worldbuild: $30M - TheFounderVC: $5M Follow @arorabhavyam for more content around founder programs, investors and AI! 🫡

Received 12 submissions so far and rejected 10. Everyone thinks they can write content because AI can. If you have this mindset, you are not made for this role! *Still looking for better responses

NVIDIA x Nebius is giving away $50,000 to AI builders, and it closes in 15 days. ⏳ Here's everything you need to know: - $20k grand prize, $10k for 2nd, $6k for 3rd + $3k for the best use of @tavilyai - Hosted by @nebiusai and @nvidia - Fully online and open globally ($40k of the cash is winnable from your laptop) - 4 tracks: coding agents, apps & agents, personal AI and physical AI (each track winner also gets an NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano) - Build on Nebius Token Factory or AI Cloud, using at least 1 NVIDIA open model (Nemotron preferred) - Submit a public repo + a demo video under 3 mins - Deadline: Oct 30, 10:30 PM IST 18,000+ builders have signed up already. Sign-ups aren't submissions. Follow @arorabhavyam for weekly content around founders, startups and AI! 🫡