Amir Sarhangi

I caught up with dLocal CEO Pedro Arnt and SVP Corp Dev Christopher Stromeyer to discuss the company’s Q2 2025 results and the factors driving its strong performance. dLocal posted a 50% rise in revenues to $256m – its fastest pace since 2023 – with cross-border volumes up 75%. All this helped push the share price 31% higher. Growth is broad-based, with Brazil and Mexico rebounding, while markets outside the company’s top three are expanding almost three times faster, strengthening diversification. Product innovation is also key, from SmartPix in Brazil to BNPL rollouts across multiple markets, alongside stablecoin settlement capabilities via partnerships with Circle and BVNK. With raised guidance across all key metrics, dLocal is positioning itself at the forefront of alternative payments and localised solutions for global merchants. Full article here: https://lnkd.in/eRMiuNms #Payments #Fintech #CrossBorder #EmergingMarkets #dLocal

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Inertia is the commercial fusion energy company, and today we're taking a big step forward with $450M in funding! With support from Bessemer Venture Partners GV (Google Ventures), Modern Capital, Threshold Ventures, Neo, Uncork Capital, Long Journey, and WndrCo we're taking proven physics from the lab to build the industrial foundation for gigawatt-scale fusion power plants. The road to get here involved $30 billion in government funding for inertial confinement fusion experiments, the groundbreaking demonstrations of fusion that works at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the incredible ingenuity of my co-founders Andrea (Annie) Kritcher and Mike Dunne, and the team of DO-ers we’re building at Inertia. Now, with our funding, we're going to: 🔆 Build and scale the production of the world's most powerful laser  🔆 Build the world's first fusion fuel factory to mass produce fusion targets 🔆 Design and build the first gigawatt, utility-scale fusion energy power plant We're bringing star power to Earth. Read the founders' letter: https://inertia.com/news/ Read the press release: https://lnkd.in/gVEEYEpv And come build with us: https://inertia.com/jobs

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💥 Metropolis Technologies Raises $𝟭.𝟲𝗕 💥 Funding comes in 2 rounds: $500M equity round led by LionTree and $1.1B from J.P. Morgan. Metropolis is now 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 $𝟱𝗕. With the fresh funding, the plan is to take their "recognition and payment-automation" tech beyond parking assets. This would include retail stores, drive-throughs, gas stations, hotels and partnerships with real estate/asset owner. Congrats to Alex Israel, Peter Fisher, Courtney Fukuda, Travis Kell, Ryan Hunt,Chris Sherman, Robert Bland, Paul Rooney, Lookman Olusanya and the rest of the Metropolis family. #fundraise #parkinginvestment #parking #parkingindustry #metropolois Parking Today Media Parking Network B.V. National Parking Association International Parking & Mobility Institute (IPMI) Tim Maloney Advisory Tim Maloney Reservations Lab

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Reading Metronome’s Monetization Operating Model, I kept coming back to one idea: pricing has become product. Software now delivers outcomes, not access. Yet most companies still charge as if they’re selling seats or licenses. That disconnect creates friction: for customers, unpredictability; for companies, stalled growth. The paper’s argument is simple but sharp—monetization isn’t a late-stage decision. It’s strategic infrastructure. Pricing needs the same ownership and iteration as any feature. Treat it like a surface that customers touch, not a spreadsheet buried in finance. If value is continuous and dynamic, pricing must be as well. That means product, GTM, finance, and engineering working from one system of truth. How many of us still treat pricing as an afterthought—when it should be a growth engine? https://lnkd.in/gnH7WzYf #Monetization #ProductStrategy #AI

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In this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Antti Jäderholm, the COO of Ray Browser, about the history and future of browser-based gaming.

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Two trends in fundraising that I’m seeing on a daily basis: 1/ The "we'll monetize later" era for infrastructure startups is dead "We'll figure out revenue once we have users" / "we're focused on adoption first"/ "monetization comes later" This worked in 2021. It doesn't work now. Today’s market won’t reward research organizations or companies that believe in perfection over getting it in users' hands. If you don't have a clear path to revenue… you won't get funded. period. VCs aren't writing checks hoping you'll figure it out later. 2/ "Vibe ARR" is everywhere Remember Jasper? hyper growth, but the model companies ate them alive. We're seeing this again. Companies growing really quickly on point-in-time technology that isn't defensible These companies look amazing on paper. Growth charts going up and to the right. But if you think models are getting better and becoming platform companies, many solutions become obsolete. 

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Startups: Stop selling to “everyone.” One of the most common exercises we engage in at Venture Guides is helping our portfolio companies continue to refine and target their ICPs. The fastest way to accelerate revenue is to laser in on the one person who feels the pain, owns the budget, and is compelled to act. Most early-stage teams flounder by chasing logos or vague personas. Your ICP isn’t a company, it’s the individual who gets fired if the problem isn’t solved. Check out our full post for a breakdown of where startups go wrong, and how to get it right: https://lnkd.in/evmUqUQM

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New startups today mostly don’t need VC money. Build costs collapsed...Distribution is accessible...AI turned small teams into highly leveraged operators. Reaching revenue no longer requires raising first. This creates a structural shift in venture itself. Mid-size VC funds ($100M–$1.5B funds) are the most exposed. Too large to write small experimental checks early. Too small to consistently lead or win competitive later rounds. They sit in the middle while the market moves around them. Meanwhile, two ends of the spectrum are strengthening. Large funds ($5B–$20B+ AUM) are the real winners. They provide scale, signaling, and the ability to deploy $50M–$300M checks once companies prove momentum. Micro VCs ($5M–$100M funds) will thrive for the opposite reason. Fast decisions. $50K–$1M first checks. Access before consensus forms. That said, venture math at the micro level gets tricky. In many cases, ownership, management fees, and outcome distributions make the economics challenging for GPs unless they consistently access outlier winners. The hardest place to be right now is the mid-tier. Too big for experimentation. Too small to dominate late-stage.

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