The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Brex Acquired for $5.15BN | a16z Companies are 2/3 AI Revenues | Anthropic Inference Costs Skyrocket | OpenEvidence Raises at $12BN Valuation | The IPO Market: EquipmentShare, Wealthfront and Ethos Insurance
29 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The bad feelings last for a day. The $5 billion lasts forever. I worry this is the next final act.
Chapter 2: What are the details of Brex's acquisition by Capital One for $5.15 billion?
At some point, NVIDIA puts will be a great buy because every semiconductor cycle for the last 40 years has ended up in a massive downswing. I ain't buying them today. Most of the time, we sit around here waiting, reading, and thinking. And I thought, hmm, that's a real investor. SAS is not dead and now SAS has an army.
I love it. This is 20VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and it's my favourite show of the week.
Chapter 3: Does Brex's acquisition help or hurt Ramp?
Wario Driscoll, Jason Lampkin, analysing the biggest news in tech. This week, Anthropix inference costs skyrocket. Brex's $5.15 billion deal with Capital One analysed and the $12 billion priced open evidence round. Who wins and who loses in this tech market? All to come in today's episode. But before we dive into the show today, are you a founder working non-stop to raise your next round?
Chapter 4: What insights can we gather from the completed TikTok deal?
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Chapter 5: Why are Anthropic's inference costs higher than expected?
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Chapter 6: What does OpenEvidence's $12 billion valuation mean for the market?
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Chapter 7: Why did Wealthfront's IPO fail to meet expectations?
You have now arrived at your destination. Boys, it has been a big week of news. Now, I was super, super happy when this news came out because I got tagged on so many being like, can you do an emergency pod? And I was like, well, that is a great sign of product market fit for what we do. And so we're going to start on Brex's acquisition by Capital One, 5.15 billion, 50% cash, 50% shares.
Diving right into it, how did we analyze the announcement of this, which did come as quite a surprise to many of us?
I thought it was a great outcome for the company. Obviously, everyone who's on this pod has probably heard all the thread. First of all, you have the great outcome people. Then you have the people sneering, saying, oh, that's a disappointment from where they were. Then you have the counterparts saying, grow up, kids. Anyone who builds something from nothing to $5 billion, it's a great outcome.
Shut the up. Which, by the way, I think is the right outcome.
Chapter 8: How does Salesforce's $5 billion Army contract affect the SaaS landscape?
So let's assume everyone's already caught up on that so we can kind of engage from there. Going back to the first thing, I think it was a great outcome. You built something from nothing to a $5 billion outcome before you're 30. Heroic result. Absolutely be praised. I think it's a smart acquisition for Cap 1 too, by the way. And we can come back to that later.
But that's kind of the first big picture comment here. And then on the second thing, and I really, I think there's three different sets of comments. There's the, is it a great outcome in the abstract? Of course it is. Second big picture question, is it a great outcome relative to the $12 billion raise in 2021? And there, actually, my co-podcaster, Jason, I thought, did an awesome piece on that.
And we should talk about that next, you know, hubristic financings. And then, by the way, the last thing we'll circle back to is, is it a great outcome relative to ramp and the competitive dynamics? So I'd like to throw it to Jason and say, I thought your post on hubristic financing and you know, the pros and cons of raising a 12 and selling at five was actually really good.
So over to you to get your thoughts.
Look, I don't know everybody like Harry does, but someone that was a smaller investor in the company, I asked what, what, what,
what she thought and the outcome was well given where we are in the world in 2026 it's a good outcome and that qualified answer kind of was interesting and so that was my thought it's like some folks are taking pot shots on the x that's that's the way it is but why do we have these these weird feelings why are we not sure if this is a good exit at 5.1 billion in eight years i mean i would have loved to have led the seed round right maybe it's not good enough for harry but rory and i would have been happy to have led the round right
So why do we do we have this feeling? And look, this is nothing new. I just this is the era I called it, you know, hubritic financing. You've got to keep doing these Harvey's and the Gore's and what open evidence from one to 12 to keep up. And if you don't, you put yourself at a competitive disadvantage, but then you set yourself up for disappointment.
Because these companies that are fundraising to the nth degree, the thinking machines today, the Brex's back then, they are promising, as Rory says, this 0.1% growth ad infinitum, not just a couple years of sustained growth. Brex was basically promising it would own all of business finance at some point. And that was the bet at 12.
And so it leaves us with a weird feeling when, put the late stage investors aside on paper, all other stakeholders have a great outcome. Even the liquidation preference, it's not like it ruined the deal, right? They raised like a billion something equity in debt. This wasn't one of the grouchy deals where 7 billion went into the company.
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