Inc.

@Inc launched our annual Founder-Friendly Investors list today. To kick off that package, I explored how weird the private funding ecosystem has gotten in the age of AI. TL;DR: very weird.

The AI health-tech company Suki wants doctors to spend more time working with patients and less time wrangling administrative work--and just locked down $90 million in funding to make that vision a reality. New scoop for @Inc on the medical automation player you should know...

The market for shares in private companies has gotten very weird, very fast. With massive tech ventures staying private for years on end, retail investors are turning to the wild west of second-hand equity sales in search of exposure to the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX.

The snack brand MadeGood's parent company is now a unicorn after a successful PE exit that followed a 2.5x boost in sales. That's despite a PE climate that's seen investors struggling to re-sell portfolio companies; experts say the backlog could take nearly a decade to clear.

Very excited to be getting this year's Inc. 5000 list live after months of work from everyone on the @Inc team! These are the fastest-growing private businesses in America: a network of small and mid-sized companies, most of which you've probably never heard of ... (1/6)

This summer, in between World Cup games, I had the chance to cover the earliest-stage startup I've ever written about for @Inc: an AI scheduling app called Sidekick, which I followed over the entirety of an eight-week accelerator program. (1/8)

For my latest in @Inc, I wanted to draw a circle around who constitutes the upper echelon of VC right now. After looking through fundraising data and talking with VCs & founders across the ecosystem, I arrived at a Big Six who we're dubbing the "G-FLATS" (think FAANG but for VC).

Summertime means pool time—so next time you settle into your deck-side chair with some sunscreen and a drink, check out my new @Inc feature on one of the biggest names in pools, Leslie's Poolmart—and how decades of private equity ownership left them struggling to stay afloat.