Reynold Wu

Trying something new this week - a studio industry roundup with my take on what matters. The studio model is no longer an experiment being run in a handful of places. It is infrastructure being built across geographies, sectors, and institutional types. 5️⃣ stories from the past seven days:  1️⃣ OSS Ventures hit a EUR 40M first close on a EUR 75M follow-on fund -- capital raised specifically to back the 30 companies their studio created since 2019. The "build then fund" lifecycle is maturing. B'More Venture Studio with a similar thesis: studio operations first, then dedicated capital to scale what's working.  2️⃣ Delta40 raised $20M from 54 investors across 13 countries to launch Africa's first integrated venture studio and fund. The LP base is almost entirely DFIs and foundations. Impact capital is discovering the studio model as a deployment vehicle, something I seeing across geographies (conversations with Michael Bob Starr and Damias McDonald this week alone) 3️⃣ Start Holdings launched Start.vc out of NYC and Barcelona after a $200M EV infrastructure exit. Another operator-turned-studio-founder. This is the pattern we see quite often in our work at 9point8 -- experienced operators like Jason Goldsmith who've built and exited deciding the studio model is how they want to build next.  4️⃣ UBC HATCH admitted 10 new deep-tech spinouts for Winter 2026 -- mostly climate tech. University venture builders are quietly becoming one of the fastest-growing segments. Follow Evan Allen and Jaimie Testai to keep track of its rapid evolution.  5️⃣ The INVEST Act is advancing through the Senate. If passed, it expands qualifying VC fund size from $10M to $50M and loosens general solicitation rules for accelerator and university events. For studio-funds -- and for folks in the The Venture Studio Forum community tracking policy -- this could be the most significant capital formation legislation since the JOBS Act. If this roundup format is useful, I'll keep it going. What other noteworthy news hit your desk this week, and what stood out to you?

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The next frontier of AI isn't just about choosing the right model. It's about building moats through implementation. Across the Emergence Capital portfolio, companies like Bland and Federato are scaling faster by embedding Forward-Deployed Engineers. These engineers bridge the gap between AI and reality, ensuring real results in production. Read more from my colleagues Gordon and Kyle on why FDEs are the key to unlocking AI's full value. https://lnkd.in/gcsRRGX2

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"It's going to be high-level, more strategic roles—someone setting the architecture and story." Boris Sofman, Co-Founder and CEO of Bedrock Robotics, talks about what kinds of jobs get created in an AI future on Tech Scenes Unplugged. #venturebacked #vcbacked #venturecapital #leadership #ceo #founder #operatingsystem #peakOS #foundermode

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Voice is a super interesting modality right now - maybe the first modality we're seeing move to open source models across a number of scale ups / enterprises. Reliability concerns, high costs, and open source model performance are pushing engineers to do their own fine tuning vs. relying on third-party vendors of proprietary models. Many of these orgs have already been collecting their own first-party data and now with third-party vendors like Extrian, David AI, etc they can train really high quality models. RL has been insanely hyped, but it's been unclear how long it will take scale ups and enterprises to actually lean in. Voice AI might be hitting that inflection point faster than expected.

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What do creative technologists build? At Baukunst, we’ve spent the last few years answering that question in real time. We are a collective of builders — operators, designers, engineers, and investors — committed to advancing the art of building at the frontiers of technology and design. We lead pre-seed rounds with conviction, often as the first institutional capital a founder takes, and we invest deeply in the messy, magical early days of company creation. This deck is the portfolio behind that philosophy, or rather that portfolio that has grown up out of it. We have chosen to champion these companies, and they chosen to co-create with us. These are companies built by creative technologists, founders who think in systems, design for real people, and push beyond the familiar. 

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