Patent systems are first-to-file. It's produced a quiet two-tier system: well-funded companies file in 48 hours. Everyone else waits weeks. Today we're announcing @fearn_ai's $5.5M seed to end that gap. 🧵

congrats to Han, Angela, and team Fearn on closing their $5.5m seed round led by our friends at Kindred, Designer Fund, & Essence VC! @fearn_ai is the AI-native patent platform built for a fast-moving IP world where being first-to-file is the difference between making money off your idea or not. Fearn has developed purpose-built models with custom workflows to take inventions from disclosure to filing-ready draft in minutes, all at a flat $2k per patent. Fearn is already used by leading startups and public companies, including Unity, Dandelion Energy, Serova Bio, Capsule, Syncere, Sans Strings, Taya etc we’re proud to have been investors since the preseed thru a16z @speedrun where we saw the team in action up close. This team has amazing founder-market-fit: Han was a former patent prosecutor at Morrison Foerster and Angela is a Caltech PhD and AI researcher at Google @ndrewlee @samshank and I have been so impressed by their vision and sheer velocity, and we couldn’t be more excited to support Fearn on the next phase of their journey! Let’s build!

Introducing Argus, our unmanned ground vehicle designed to execute a wide range of critical missions – from logistics resupply and casualty evacuation to terrain mapping. Learn more: blog.exialabs.com/p/introduc…

Today we're announcing the $5M pre-seed round for Orbital (@orbitaldotinc), led by a16z speedrun (@speedrun), with participation from Basis Set (@BasisSet), Human Element, Antler (@AntlerGlobal), Anti Fund (@antifund), Ascent, Rubik (@rubikvc), Zero Knowledge Ventures (@nickymontanaa), and many other incredible investors. The mission: to turn solar energy into abundant intelligence. orbital.inc/press/orbital-ra…

⚡️ Breaking: Today is the biggest tech week day in the history of tech week, with a record-breaking 459 events happening across New York City.

My first company went to Apple. My second, the largest short-video platform in Latin America, went to TikTok. My third is still running as Vietnam's biggest music streaming platform. I built all three because I could see what was coming before anyone else did. The vibe coding generation is not watching anymore. They are building. Games. Arts. Memes. Interactive worlds. No code. Just an idea and a phone. 15 million things built on Sekai. 200,000 more today. We just raised $26M led by @rabois at @KhoslaVentures and @Nik_Quinn at @ConnectVentures (CAA) with Mayfield, A16Z speedrun, A*. axios.com/2026/06/01/sekai-m…

Congrats @lucky_z2 and Sekai team on closing a $26m Series A from our friends at Khosla, Connect, Mayfield, and A*! Sekai has become the home for a new generation of AI-native personalized apps. In a short period of time, users have built >15m mini apps across personal utility, productivity, entertainment, & more We’ve had the pleasure of working with Lucky, a 3x repeat founder, since the preseed thru a16z @speedrun, and have been impressed by their vision, velocity, and pragmatic leadership. We couldn’t be more excited to invest further to support the team on the next phase of growth! 🚀

No better way to start #nytechweek than doing @Barrys with @speedrun alum and the Barry’s king himself @tkexpress11 @Techweek_

Nobody believes in you, so make them. Announcing our $7M seed round led by @Slow.

If you are an exec or operator based in NYC, and you're curious what the a16z @speedrun team is investing in at the earliest stages of AI, you don't want to miss the NY @Techweek_ AI Faire on Frid, June 5. I hope to see you there! partiful.com/e/JXbUkObwnkyVv…

70,000 members. 162 countries. 4 months. Introducing Lekondo THE THIRD SPACE FOR FASHION 🌎 Now available on iOS and Android

@SnappStats is excited to announce a total raise of $4.4 million to deliver AI-driven fan personalization to sports fans and teams! We are grateful for our investors, particularly our leads @speedrun , @GoldHouseCo Ventures and @DormRoomFund.  Also thanks to @ValiaVentures , Symphony Ventures, Bridge Ventures, Operator Stack Fund, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Bling Capital and The House Fund as well as notable angels from Nextdoor, Boston Celtics ownership and other talented technology, sports and finance individuals. The Company is founded by a co-founder of Caviar (exited to Square in 2019) as well as other seasoned technology and finance entrepreneurs. Check out our current consumer product at trysnapp.ai/ and follow us for the enterprise product!  If you love sports, our product will be a fit for you in a Snapp! Excited to be building this with co-founders @ShawnTsao, @andrewtamura and Alex Marshall!

who’s in boston/nyc later over the next few weeks? The team is hosting a bunch of stuff alongside portcos, partners, etc — May 26-June 7 Boston Tech Week, followed by NY Tech Week right after. This is going to our biggest Tech Week ever:

- We have over  2000 events - 15 tracks - infra, founders, engineers, hackathons etc - 50 portcos participating: OpenAI, Elevenlabs, Deel, Gamma, xAI, Stripe and speedrun companies too

clair health's entire company fit within a single suitcase. since speedrun, they've grown to 10 employees and just got the keys to their very first office space. this is Jenny's (@jennysduan) story. Applications to SR007 close tonight @ 11:59pm PST

Last call for SR007. Don't hedge your bets.

For everyone about to submit your @speedrun application literally 30 seconds before the deadline... This is what happens after you apply:

Speedrun application deadline is approaching - we talked advice for applicants, trends we are seeing in our founder data, and what we are excited about on the team

Went on our podcast to share some advice for founders applying to Speedrun!