In each issue, we spotlight startups currently raising that are actually worth your attention, break down what featured angels and investors are really looking for, and share events that are worth leaving your laptop.

Oh, and because no good dealflow comes without a side of drama, expect a sprinkle of spicy tech tea to warm up.

One Line Pitch: Sclanet AI is transforming brick-and-mortar retailers to operate autonomously 24/7 (with or without staff) with our multi-tasking robots.

Raising: $4M in angel/VC checks to deploy the first 10 robots across retail and healthcare pilots, ship Robot V2, harden computer-vision models, expand the engineering team, and build out REMAPP as a cross-sector AI operations platform.

Team: Murali Kandlagunta (Founder & CEO) – Ex-NASA, Ex-SLAC engineer; Pranav Kora (Co-Founding Engineer & Head of India Operations) – Ex-Amazon robotics engineer with deep expertise in autonomous systems, motion planning, and deployment; co-leads development of our retail robots. Francesca Baldini (CTO) – Caltech PhD-trained roboticist providing system architecture leadership and AI/robotics strategy. Evan Naylor (CSGO/Advisor) – VP at Sprouts; former Target executive; former executive at a major convenience store chain. Srinivas Totapally (COO & Co-Founder) – Google;

Why yes: Fortune 500 paid pilot kicking off Feb 2026 (~$2.2k MRR) plus LOIs giving access to a 1,800-store network and distribution agreements in healthcare. RaaS model with an estimated ~$46k ARR and up to ~$170k profit uplift per store from automation and 12+ high-margin software/ops revenue streams.

Why pause: Execution is heavy: robotics hardware + city-by-city deployments with retailers, logistics partners, and drivers.

Link / Contact:¹ Pitch Deck or reach out to the Founder

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Firefly AI Founder, Sam Udotong, shared they were manually taking notes for early customers of their AI-note-taker-startup. “When customers scheduled a meeting, we'd manually dial in as "Fred from Fireflies.ai" We'd sit there silently, take detailed notes, and send them 10 minutes later. After taking notes for 100+ meetings (and falling asleep in many), we were finally able to make enough money to pay rent in SF.”

On the same note, Alexis Ohanian shared him and Steve Huffman were writing 99% of early Reddit posts and faked users to engage early users. Remember, founders, it’s only bad if you fake and fail, not if you fake and unicorn.

EngineAI teases new human size (6’1” or 185cm) fighter robot in anticipation of robot fight. The T800 is scheduled to be a core competing model in the "Robot Boxer" free combat competition hosted by ENGINEAI on December 24th in Shenzhen. This event is designed to be the ultimate test of the robot's dynamic stability and AI capabilities.

ChatGPT writing has officially entered legacy media and newspapers. The “Would you like me to write a more catchy headline” was published, denied and later admitted & apologized for. See the hilarious receipts here.

Angel Investor Roy Korner roasted the LinkedIn farming posts calling them VC Olympics. If you’re also tired of “Pitch me your startup in 2 letters” — don’t hesitate and apply to be spotlighted in this newsletter to appear in front of 2000+ investors, founders and operators.

Michael Burry (Cassandra Unchained) is back on his quest of poking AI bubble. He’s now calling Nvidia this cycle’s Cisco, saying today’s AI buildout rhymes more with the late-’90s telecom boom than with the dot-com bust everyone likes to reference. Nvidia strikes back with a 7-page memo to Wall Street analysts disputing his math.

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How he helps:
Brings an operator + capital-raiser lens: before angel investing he led fundraising and strategic partnerships at industrial-tech companies, so he thinks a lot about how to package B2B platforms for enterprises and investors. He helps founders tighten their go-to-market, sharpen pricing and packaging for SaaS/AI products, and translate technical roadmaps into clear value propositions for buyers. He also brings pattern recognition from 16+ portfolio companies (including Ahura AI, Propy, Zelos Gaming, Acquired.io, and Recraft) and can open doors to co-investors and later-stage capital in the Bay Area and beyond.

Red flags: Teams building hardware-heavy or biotech products, pure consumer/D2C plays, or crypto experiments without a real B2B software core. Vague “AI” or “big data” stories with no defensible data advantage. Low-margin, services-heavy businesses that can’t scale beyond headcount. Decks that don’t show how his $50K–$100K moves you to a clear milestone (ship, revenue, or strong usage).

Fast-pass: If you’re building boring-but-critical B2B software in his lanes (SaaS, AI, infra, data, cyber, prop/fashion tech, or e-commerce tools) and can show how you get to product-market fit on a lean budget, you’re right in Anton’s strike zone.

Notes: He’s not “just” a solo angel; he’s Managing Director at Industrial Investors Group, a long-running FO that’s done everything from nanotech/biotech to SaaS and infra.

^{Interested in getting featured? Fill out this form.}

Someone rapped at SF Tech event so bad it went viral. Despite claims on X that “that guy doesn’t represent SF”, Vitalik Buterin only reinforced the vibe. For some tho, it’s a bullish signal for ETH.

(un)solicited deck peek