Top News | Notion prepping an IPO: Forbes reports that Notion — the productivity platform that we at TWiST use DAILY to compose and organize our dockets — is prepping a potential IPO at a planned $1 billion valuation. The “startup” (and we use the term loosely for a nearly decade-old brand of this size) told employees earlier this week that they’re allowed to move some of their shares (valued at up to $300 million) to Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, and the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC. Notion’s suite of AI tools have fast-tracked its growth and revenue; they recently passed $600 million in ARR. So this is a downright ideal time to fundraise. Leona Health raises $14M: The startup — from Uber Eats and Rappi vet Caroline Merin — produces an AI copilot that lives inside the WhatsApp accounts of medical professionals, helping them stay organized and get back to patients more quickly. (While patients use the general WhatsApp interface, doctors receive and manage their communications through the more robust Leona interface, which allows them to sort, share information with colleagues, reply directly, and even suggests its own AI-composed responses.) The company raised $14 million in seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Accel, Merin’s former Rappi CEO, Simón Borrero, and others. Mozilla finally succumbs to AI mania: The Firefox browser maker has thus far elided the bells and whistles which have found their way into rivals like Chrome, not to mention AI-first newcomers like Perplexity’s Comet and OpenAI’s Atlas. But according to new CEO Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, Firefox will add “AI Mode” in 2026, offering users the opportunity to work side-by-side with their choice from a selection of popular LLMs. (The Verge suggests Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT are the likeliest players here, along with some open-source options.) Is Firefox already hopelessly behind in the AI race, or is the opportunity to customize your LLM+Browser experience going to give them a much-needed edge? We’ll soon find out.
| TWiST 500 | The holidays are nearly upon us, but TWiST 500 companies are not ready to slow down, slurp some eggnog and chill by the fire just yet. It’s a HUGE week of news for some of our favorite startups. | CNBC reports that Sweden’s vibe-coding mainstays Lovable raised a new round at a hefty $6.6 billion valuation, more than tripling the $1.8 billion figure from back in July. This is the startups’ third fundraise in 2025 alone, and it ranks them among Europe’s most valuable private companies. Lovable is now reporting annual recurring revenue of around $200 million, and they claim that over 100,000 new projects are built using the platform every single day. If you want to make a case for an AI bubble, you do have to explain exponential growth like this… Just saying. | AND SPEAKING OF AI COMPANIES THAT ARE GROWING EXTREMELY RAPIDLY… there’s Databricks to consider. The AI-powered data analytics concern raised a Series L topping $4 billion, in a deal valuing the company at an incredible $134 billion. That’s a 34% jump over its last valuation, from just this past summer. As of October, Databricks had passed $4.8 billion in ARR. Why is a company that’s been around since 2016 and has found this level of product market fit raising a Series L, of all things, instead of going public? Great question! Co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi told WSJ that he’s concerned about market volatility, especially following the “massive correction” between 2021 and 2022, so he’s proceeding with an excess of caution. | Perhaps Ghodsi was looking at the numbers being reported by CoreWeave, an AI giant (and former TWiST 500 company) that went public in March of this year, but has seen its share price drop precipitously over the past few weeks. The stock is facing a range of headwinds, from those persistent AI bubble fears to public criticism from infamous short seller Jim Chanos to a proposed merger with Core Scientific that was rejected by that company’s shareholders. WSJ also points out that bad weather throughout North Texas slowed down construction at the company’s latest data center outside Dallas this summer, pushing back its launch for several months. | Even the best and most tactical CEOs can’t predict an unseasonable string of rainstorms! Perhaps Databricks’ caution in going public is not unwarranted! – Lon | A message from Squarespace | Turn your idea into a beautiful website! Go to http://www.squarespace.com/twist for a free trial. When you’re ready to launch, use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. | This Week in Startups | E2224: Roomba… we hardly knew ya! The company behind the iconic disc-shaped autonomous vacuum, iRobot, had a chance to get acquired by Amazon back in 2022, but European and US regulators stalled the deal. NOW iRobot is entering bankruptcy. Per Jason, allowing this deal to go through would have benefitted everybody, but because of over-cautious antitrust action, the world lost out on a once-great company. | E2223: Disney signed a landmark new deal with OpenAI, investing $1 billion in the ChatGPT maker and licensing over 200 of their most famous characters for use in the Sora app. Jason naturally saw all this coming, and predicted as much on the “All-In Podcast” over the summer. Hear him unpack why this was so important for the future of BOTH companies, plus lots more of the week’s biggest stories for founders. | E2222: It’s a VC Roundtable, featuring special guests Bryan Kim of a16z and David Clark of Ven Cap. On the docket: Boom Supersonic’s innovative new turbine-based revenue stream, Bill Gurley’s iconic “Miss By a Mile” post about calculating TAM, why it’s so important for founders for remain relentless, the discourse surrounding the “AI Bubble,” and much more. | TWiST Partner Offers | NetSuite: The business landscape is very chaotic right now. That’s why you need NetSuite, by Oracle. Get the free business guide Demystifying AI at Netsuite.com/TWiST Vanta: Compliance and security shouldn't be a deal-breaker for startups to win new business. Vanta makes it easy for companies to get a SOC 2 report fast. Get $1,000 off for a limited time at http://www.vanta.com/twist. Lemon.io: Hire pre-vetted remote developers and get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist
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