Mike Venerable

Layer is tackling one of the most overlooked pain points for SMBs: accounting. They’re gaining real traction doing so. Emergence is leading their seed round to bring embedded, AI-powered accounting to the SMB software stack. Kevin Spain highlights what makes this team and product so compelling. 

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I’m excited to share that Angle Health, founded by former Palantir Technologies execs Tylon (Ty) W. and Anirban Gangopadhyay, has announced an oversubscribed Series B bringing total funding to nearly $200M. I’m proud to be an early investor and to have led this competitive round with the amazing team at Portage. Why we keep leaning in: - 26x revenue growth since the Series A - Serving 3,000+ employers across 44 states - 80%+ renewal rates Angle Health is rebuilding the healthcare benefits infrastructure for SMBs, who employ nearly half of America’s workforce but have historically been shut out of enterprise-grade coverage. Their AI-native platform helps predict risk and deliver better care at a sustainable cost. This is exactly the kind of product-driven, AI-native company we’re proud to support at Mighty Capital.

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At Venture Investors Health Fund we have experienced the impact that funds of funds (FoF) can have on capital availability. Our first experience was with the Venture Michigan Funds, two state sponsored funds of $95M and $120M. That’s big enough to make a large enough commitment to justify opening an office in the state (at least $15M). The idea was to attract experienced firms from out of state and their syndication networks. The commitment couldn’t be more than 25% of a fund and the funds had to invest at least that amount in Michigan. It worked. They stopped collecting data in 2018, but by that time, the funds had invested $264M in 56 Michigan companies. Through syndication, total invested was $1.71B (6.45x). VMF 1 returned 1x by 2018, and VMF 2 was 3x. Annual economic impact had grown to $303M. That data was before HistoSonics, Inc. got FDA approval triggering its meteoric rise. The company may have never gotten off the ground without VMF. Series A had 5 funds, 4 from Michigan, 3 of which opened a MI office because of VMF. Badger Fund is also State funded, but the first fund was only $25M, so they pursued a different strategy of helping launch first time funds, resulting in new funds across the state. We need that too, and it has impacted the number of funds and companies able to get VC backing. NVNG Investment Advisors, LLC is a private effort targeting corporate investors. We need more participants in the asset class, but small institutions and companies can’t always make the scale of investment to get diversification or hire the in house expertise for fund selection. A FoF like NVNG provides that. All different, all playing important roles. To be an Exempt Reporting Advisor, 80% of investments need to be directly into companies, precluding FoFs. The DEAL Act would lower the threshold to 50%, so a FoF that did 50% direct co-invest could qualify, lowering the barrier to formation. Ask Congress to make that happen.

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More big news from Cleo! Today, at the #TrimbleInsight2025 event in #NewOrleans, Cleo is announcing another major leap forward in supply chain orchestration — Intelligent Error Resolution, an AI-powered capability that redefines how businesses handle integration issues across their supply chains. As today’s business leaders know, even minor technical errors can disrupt operations and jeopardize customer commitments. Cleo’s new solution empowers teams—regardless of technical skill—to resolve issues in minutes, not days, with AI-generated root-cause analysis and guided resolution paths. Intelligent Error Resolution from Cleo is about more than just enabling agility, resilience, and operational continuity at scale. We’re turning exception management into a strategic advantage, unlocking entirely new levels of supply chain intelligence and performance. Plus, when you consider Cleo's Intelligent Error Resolution and our broader Ecosystem Relationship Management capabilities, we are delivering even more meaningful, industry-leading efficiencies across supply chain and customer success operations—helping organizations optimize staffing, consistently meet contractual SLAs, and ultimately do more with less while strengthening every ecosystem relationship they depend on. Without questions, Cleo is setting the pace for what supply chain orchestration can do. See today’s news announcement to learn how Intelligent Error Resolution fits into your digital transformation strategy. https://lnkd.in/ghzqP95K #AI #SupplyChainOrchestration #Innovation

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🔦 Alumni Spotlight: Qwyn AI 🔦 Founders: Adam Martin & John Coffman Program: IU Health Incubator at IU LAB Pre-Accelerator powered by gener8tor Pharma manufactures deploy Qwyn AI to identify, investigate, and resolve deviations through intelligent automation. This team identified a huge need in a market they were intimately familiar with and could quickly become the leader in the AI for Pharma space. Qwyn AI is already converting leads to paid pilot programs. Excited to see how much progress this company can make in 2026. If anyone in my network is interested in learning more about this work please reach out and I'll be happy to connect you to Adam Martin. (O, they are also launching their next fundraising round soon 🙃 ) IU Launch Accelerator for Biosciences (IU LAB)

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AI isn't just powering software. BrightAI just raised $51 million to automate inspection and other hardware-based AI capabilities. As Alexa von Tobel, co-founder of Inspired Capital put it: “So many people are so focused on the future of digital AI, but we’re excited about this new layer of AI: the physical world AI.” We are in the early innings of a series of AI-fueled innovations! https://lnkd.in/enhmafvH

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Transforming healthcare with AI requires industry. Industry requires capital investment. Capital investment requires return. Return requires revenue. Revenue requires reimbursement. Medicare (and transitively private insurance) reimbursement policy for clinical AI will define the incentives for the technologies we build and deploy over the next decade. Our existing fee for service codes are what the military would call cost-plus contracting. We pay for every nail, screw, and hour of labor and don't care if that was a good and efficient way to build the tank or not. Our CMS Innovation Center director, Abe Sutton, believes cost-plus is the wrong path for the future of American healthcare. ACCESS and VBC models pay for outcomes. When we have AI that can manage heart failure can we link payment to making people healthier? Doing so would unleash the might of American techno-capitalism on exactly the thing we care about in society, but there are devils in the details.

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🚀 Verif-y is redefining digital record management. With 9 State DOE contracts, 200+ institutions onboarded, and 90%+ margins, this AI-powered SaaS platform is solving a $20B+ global problem: fragmented, insecure, and outdated education and credential systems. Now raising $5M Seed funding to accelerate U.S. and international growth. 👉 For VCs and institutional investors: this is defensible, AI-driven SaaS with regulatory moats — the right product, right time. See www.verif-y.com Then DM me for more info. Join us on this funding round? Follow me on LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/e8bZ8srt

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