The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch 20VC: Anthropic Raises $13BN | Why Canva Will Not Direct List | OpenAI Buys Statsig for $1.1BN All Stock | Lovable Raising at $4BN + Vercel at $9BN: Justified or Not | Quarterly Results from SNOW, Mongo, ZOOM and more
394 snips
Sep 4, 2025 
Cliff Obrecht, Co-founder of Canva, discusses the latest in tech funding and valuations in the dynamic startup landscape. He analyzes Anthropic's groundbreaking $13 billion raise and Canva's strategic decision against a direct listing. The conversation dives into the recent acquisition of Statsig by OpenAI and the implications it has on talent retention in the tech sector. They also tackle the rising valuations of Lovable and Vercel and the potential impacts of AI on SaaS margins, emphasizing the importance of strategic adaptability in an evolving market.
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Huge Raise Can Be Rational With Fast Growth
- If Anthropic sustains extreme growth, its high headline valuation can be reasonable on forward revenue multiples.
- Rory shows that rapid reacceleration can make a large raise look rational versus next-year ARR.
Oversubscription And FOMO Around LLM Rounds
- Cliff notes the Anthropic round was heavily oversubscribed and hard to access for many investors.
- He says large growth funds had corporate pressure to own exposure to leading LLMs so demand ran very high.
Follow-On Rolls Into Bigger AI Platform
- OpenAI's acquisition of Statsig at the prior round price effectively rolled many investors forward into OpenAI exposure.
- Rory and Jason note this can be attractive for investors wanting to stay in the AI leader's cap table.