Venture Capital Investor at Mundi Ventures

Industrial Engineer turned tech early stage investor and builder of a media company.

I’ve worked as a VC backing early and late stage startups, and now invest globally at pre-seed as a business angel, helping founders with distribution and go-to-market.

I also write and run two of the leading tech newsletters for founders:

▪ The VC Corner (100k+ on Substack, 130k+ on LinkedIn):  Actionable VC insights, fundraising strategies, and curated resources
→ Ranked #4 tech newsletter globally on Substack
→ Fastest-growing tech newsletter on Substack
→ Largest Substack in any category created by a Spaniard

▪ The Founders Corner (40k+ on Substack, co-written with Chris Tottman): Real-world tips and tactics from top founders

Rubén D.

🚨BREAKING
Kalshi has raised 1 billion dollars at an 11 BILLION valuation.
And the speed of this company is getting hard to ignore.

They hit 2B valuation in June. 7 months later they are at 11B.
One of the fastest jumps in consumer fintech and market infrastructure in years.

Prediction markets went from niche to banned to mainstream.

Kalshi is now used weekly by millions and is shaping a new consumer behavior: people moving from passive observers to active participants in the future.

This round was led by Paradigm (Matt Huang), with participation from:
▫️ Sequoia (Alfred Lin)
▫️ a16z Growth (Alex Immerman)
▫️ a16z Crypto (Chris Dixon)
▫️ Bond Capital, Meritech, CapitalG, IVP, ARK Invest, Anthos Capital
▫️ Y Combinator (Michael Seibel)

Founders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara have spent 7 years fighting regulators, opening the category, and turning prediction markets into a real information layer for the world.

Kalshi now clears 1B dollars in weekly trading volume and is building toward the next 100 million users.

Where do you think this market goes next? Is prediction trading becoming a permanent part of consumer behavior—or still early?

Rubén Domínguez Ibar

Elon Musk was asked for his best advice to entrepreneurs. His answer was simple:

“Anyone who wants to make more than they take has my respect.”

He said the goal isn’t to chase money, but to build things people truly value.
Money follows usefulness the same way happiness follows meaningful work.

His core idea:

Create value greater than the effort you put in.
Expect the grind.
Accept the risk.
Aim to be a net contributor.

Everything else is a byproduct.

Where do you think most founders focus too much on the wrong thing?

👉 10 Lessons from this interview that Founders and Investors Should Take Seriously: https://lnkd.in/d5CVJsGy

Found something crazy useful today 😳
Someone put the entire AI Agents Roadmap on one single page.

Videos, repos, guides, books, papers, courses, newsletters. Everything you need to understand and build agents.

A few highlights:

📹 Videos
▫️ LLM Introduction
▫️ LLMs from Scratch
▫️ Agentic AI (Stanford)

🗂️ Repos
▫️ GenAI Agents
▫️ Microsoft’s AI Agents for Beginners
▫️ Prompt Engineering Guide

🗺️ Guides
▫️ Google’s Agent Whitepaper
▫️ Google’s Agent Companion
▫️ Anthropic’s Building Effective Agents

📚 Books
▫️ Understanding Deep Learning
▫️ Building an LLM from Scratch
▫️ The LLM Engineering Handbook

📜 Papers
▫️ ReAct
▫️ Generative Agents
▫️ Toolformer

🧑🏫 Courses
▫️ HuggingFace’s Agent Course
▫️ Anthropic MCP
▫️ Pinecone Vector DB Course...

Find all resources below 👇
https://lnkd.in/dPUwZqPe

Enjoy and share it with more people who can find it helpful. It's free! 🫣

Why build from scratch when you can copy what already works?
Here are 10 resources that save companies years of trial and error 👇

1️⃣ 100+ Pitch Decks That Raised $2B+ in 2024 and 2025
https://lnkd.in/dR6wVrCn

2️⃣ Investor List of Lists: 10k+ VCs, Family Offices, Angels, Accelerators
https://lnkd.in/dtQnbv4q

3️⃣ Cap Table Template 
https://lnkd.in/dcdW2y4G

4️⃣ Financial Modeling Examples for Founders: A Startup Guide Templates
https://lnkd.in/dQTKxZWt

5️⃣ OpenAI’s 4-Part Framework for AI Product Strategy
https://lnkd.in/d6_3FKQs

6️⃣ 2,500+ Angel Investors Backing AI & SaaS Startups
https://lnkd.in/djjN-TD2

7️⃣ 200+ Startup Pitch Decks That Raised Over $50 Billion
https://lnkd.in/denNjKSQ

8️⃣ The Venture Capital Method: How Investors Really Value Startups
https://lnkd.in/dPesU_G5

9️⃣ 350 Ways to Promote your Startup
https://lnkd.in/daRiU-RW

🔟 GEO Playbook
https://lnkd.in/eCvhk7Hn

Find more here: https://lnkd.in/d_NvAM_9 🔥

Which one do you find more useful? Any other resource you can recommend?

How do VCs decide what your startup is worth? 💰
Here’s the exact Excel model they use, and I’m giving it away: 

This template shows how investors apply the VC Method to value your company, from Seed to Series A and beyond.

▫️ Model every round up to exit
▫️ Adjust revenue, valuation, dilution, returns
▫️ See how ownership shifts across time
▫️ Simulate exit outcomes and IRR

It’s plug-and-play, just drop in your numbers and see how the math plays out.

If you're raising, prepping for it, or just want to think like a VC… you'll find it helpful

👉 https://lnkd.in/dPesU_G5

You can also check out the following resources, that include decks, financial templates, investor lists, etc:
https://lnkd.in/dxWsxKZU

So much for the “drop out and build” myth. Most unicorn founders actually met at school or work 🤯

Palle Broe pulled together how the co-founders of 40 top tech companies first met. The pattern is clear

More than 80% were either classmates or colleagues:
▪️ Stripe, Grammarly, Gusto, Figma, Ramp, Canva → met at university
▪️ Coinbase, Miro, Revolut, Discord, Klarna → met at work
▪️ Others like OpenAI and Notion → introduced through friends

Even the giants of AI and fintech were sparked by connections in lecture halls and offices, not random chance.

It’s a reminder that university and early jobs aren’t just about credentials. They are networks where future co-founders collide.

If you’re an aspiring founder, one of the most underrated strategies is to be intentional about where you spend those early years. The people around you matter more than the classes or job titles.

Do you think today’s new generation of founders will keep meeting in school and work — or will it shift to accelerators, online communities, and programs like YC and Speedrun?

more 👉  https://lnkd.in/dxWsxKZU

🔥 The most valuable VC-backed startups in the world — 2025 edition

The $10B+ club tells you more about the future of tech than any prediction:

AI dominates.
Private markets have become their own universe.
And companies are staying private longer than ever.

From SpaceX, ByteDance, and OpenAI to the breakout newcomers like Perplexity, Mistral, Rippling, Kalshi, Figure AI, and Cursor, this list shows where capital, talent, and geopolitical influence are shifting.

I broke down the full map of the world’s most valuable private startups, including:
▫️ Every company worth $10B+ (curated by Trace Cohen)
▫️ Patterns across AI, fintech, defense, robotics, and infra
▫️ What it means for founders and investors in 2026

👉 Full list + analysis:
https://lnkd.in/dGhG7byX

Which company on the list surprised you most? Which one will on it soon?

How much equity should you give up at seed? Most founders have no idea 🤔


Palle Broe pulled together real data from 15 iconic startups, and the results are eye-opening:

▪️ Figma gave up 40% in their first investor-led round
▪️ Revolut, Grammarly, Brex all diluted around 28%
▪️ Airbnb and Uber lost 24% each
▪️ Wiz and Chime only 14%
▪️ Facebook 10%
▪️ Deel just 7%

On average: $3.3M raised, $12.3M valuation, and 21% dilution

The lesson? There is no magic formula. Some of today’s biggest companies gave up huge chunks early. Others barely diluted at all

For founders, this is both liberating and terrifying. You can raise on almost any terms if the story, timing, and team resonate

Would you take 40% dilution at seed if it meant building a $10B+ company?

Most startup founders struggle for years to learn what Paul Graham explained in 10 essays:

Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox, Reddit... all shaped by his thinking.

His essays have defined startup trends for decades.

Still, I keep meeting founders who’ve never read them.

So here’s your shortcut:
The 10 Paul Graham essays every founder should read 👇

1. Do Things That Don’t Scale
Your first 10 users should feel like clients, not clicks.
https://lnkd.in/dcKYH9M5

2. Startup = Growth
If it’s not growing, it’s not a startup.
https://lnkd.in/duwMFSFz

3. Startup in 13 Sentences
The closest thing to a YC cheat sheet.
https://lnkd.in/dGqiq3Fm

4. Founder Mode
What it actually feels like to be a startup founder.
https://lnkd.in/dv4HsKdc

5. Be Good
No growth hack beats a product people love.
https://lnkd.in/dB3xThCG

6. Billionaires Build
Talk less, ship more.
https://lnkd.in/dUW4w3RZ

7. The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn
The distractions that quietly kill great companies.
https://lnkd.in/d26g2uAf

8. 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups
Avoid these and you're ahead of 90% of teams.
https://lnkd.in/d38XQE4M

9. How to Convince Investors
What to say before you ever send a deck.
https://lnkd.in/dQZkxjjW

10. Ideas for Startups
Curiosity is the seed of every great company.
https://lnkd.in/dSi6QhwV

If you’re building, fundraising, or scaling, this is gold.

Save it and share it with any founder who can find it helpful!

Which one changed your thinking the most?
Which one would you add to the list?

Want more? Check out the following resources 🔥

▪️ 10k 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 List: https://lnkd.in/dtQnbv4q

▪️ VCs 𝗗𝘂𝗲 𝗗𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 Excel Template: https://lnkd.in/dXzaqRiA

▪️ 100+ 𝗣𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗸𝘀 That Raised Over $2B: https://lnkd.in/dR6wVrCn

▪️ SaaS 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹: https://lnkd.in/dUgPHBFv

▪️ 𝗖𝗮𝗽 𝗧𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 at Series A & B: https://lnkd.in/dcdW2y4G

▪️50+ 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀: https://lnkd.in/dxWsxKZU

Elon Musk just gave his most important interview in years 💣 


It is his clearest view yet on AI, robotics, energy, work, money, global talent, deflation, and even the simulation theory.

I went through the full interview, transcript, reactions, and commentary.

These are the 10 ideas that matter most for founders, operators, and investors 👇

1. Work Will Become Optional https://lnkd.in/d-sr988U

2. Money Eventually Disappears https://lnkd.in/dx38Muts

3. “Make More Than You Take” https://lnkd.in/d9jSACh5

4. X Will Become a Global AI Video Platform https://lnkd.in/dguVqUnM

5. The Meaning of Life: “The Question Matters More Than the Answer” https://lnkd.in/dy3SjwGw

6. Immigration Is a Superpower https://lnkd.in/dJWDUDNX

7. Energy Becomes the Real Measure of Progress and the Currency https://lnkd.in/dqnzeKSY

8. Tesla, SpaceX, xAI Are Converging https://lnkd.in/dzGjS-UC

9. The Population Crisis Is Real
https://lnkd.in/dxYfnuq4

10. Yes, He Still Thinks We’re in a Simulation
https://lnkd.in/dBsnGbVh

I put the full breakdown, insights, and a playbook on where to build and invest next in the piece below:
https://lnkd.in/d5CVJsGy

JUST IN: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says he should not be in charge of AI’s future

He admits he is “deeply uncomfortable” with how a small group of tech leaders is making decisions that will affect billions of people.

The same people building the most powerful systems are also the ones defining the guardrails.

There is still no clear governance model and no agreement on who should make these calls.

What should a better structure for AI oversight look like?

⚠️JUST IN: Anthropic reports that a China-linked group carried out what may be the first major cyber espionage campaign driven mostly by AI agents

The attackers used Claude Code to probe systems, generate exploit code, harvest credentials, and extract sensitive data across nearly thirty global targets in tech, finance, chemicals, and government.

Anthropic estimates AI handled 80 to 90 percent of the operation, with humans intervening only at a few decision points. The scale and speed went far beyond what human teams could achieve.

The company has expanded its detection systems and shared the case to help industry and government prepare for this new class of threat.

How do you think incidents like this will reshape cybersecurity priorities in the coming year?

AI Resources you might find helpful:

• OpenAI’s New Playbook for Product-Market Fit in AI Startups
https://lnkd.in/dy-HgVtX

• 2,500+ Angel Investors Backing AI Startups - https://lnkd.in/djjN-TD2

• 50 AI Agent Startup Ideas for 2025 - https://lnkd.in/dy9E-MCn

• AI Co-Pilots for Startups & VCs - https://lnkd.in/dSX3ss2q

• The Agentic Revolution - https://lnkd.in/dadFm25a

• 118 AI Communication Agent Use Cases - https://lnkd.in/dr9cM5BT

Peter Thiel said his biggest mistake when he was young was using education as a substitute for thinking about the future

He didn’t ask “what do I want to build?” He just followed the standard path through college, grad school, and a safe job

He believes this mindset traps people into collecting degrees and titles to “keep options open,” without ever finding purpose

The lesson is simple. Real progress comes from intentional choices, not default ones. Ask yourself early what you want to build, and how your actions align with it

Control is shifting to the top of the AI stack

Google is now the only company fully integrated across the entire AI value chain

That level of vertical control sets the limits for everyone else.
Startups compete through focus, proprietary data, or niche expertise, not infrastructure.

The higher you build in the stack, the more the moat depends on creativity, not compute.

🧠 Full breakdown: https://lnkd.in/daH8Btz6

The Ultimate INVESTOR List of Lists
More than 10K investors in one place 🎁

I built a complete database for founders raising capital, with:
▫️ 25 curated lists
▫️ VCs, angels, family offices, accelerators
▫️ AI, SaaS, climate, crypto, foodtech and more
▫️ No warm intro lists and diversity focused investors

👉 https://lnkd.in/dW3gt3dM

If AI gives us all this time back… what will we do with it? 🫣
A Google-backed startup has an answer, and I’m sharing its original deck and secrets

Meet-Ting started with a simple idea that caught Google’s attention.
Every morning, the world collectively reshuffles its schedule.
Millions of people move meetings, lose time, and slow down momentum.

They realized the real problem is systemic, not personal.
Their AI coordination network connects calendars, reads context from email and text, and learns how people actually collaborate.

▫️ 600+ calendars connected in two months
▫️ Top launch on Product Hunt
▫️ Backed by Google’s AI Startup Program

Founders Daniel B. and Mariana Oliveira Prazeres bring unique experience to the problem.
Dan helped shape TikTok’s global strategy at ByteDance, while Mariana has been building deep learning systems since 2017.

This might be one of the most interesting early AI startups in Europe right now

👉 Comment “Time” below and I’ll send you the full story and their original Google-funded pitch deck :)

🎁 The ultimate FREE AI bundle for founders is LIVE 


HubSpot For Startups partnered with the leading AI tools in the ecosystem to create a full AI-native startup stack — plus exclusive offers you won’t find anywhere else.

What’s inside:
▫️ Clay — $50 credit
▫️ Lovable — 1 month free
▫️ Make — 1 year free
▫️ Gamma — 50% off
▫️ Captions — 75% off
▫️ MindStudio — 60-day trial
▫️ Claude — free plan
▫️ Notion — 3 months free
▫️ HubSpot — up to 90% off

Here’s the link to unlock it:
👉 https://lnkd.in/gyF8VqGT

📘 Also… there’s a free guide that pairs perfectly with this bundle.
It shows you how to use these AI tools together to build your startup in days, not months.
Real workflows, prompts, templates, and step-by-step use cases.

If you want the guide, comment AI and I’ll send it your way

And if you want more founders to get access to this, feel free to repost and share

Excited to share my first investment in the Fall 25 Y Combinator batch: Karumi (YC F25) 🚀 
Most companies still demo like it’s 1990...
Static onboarding flows, endless demo requests, and sales reps booked for next week.

But buyers have changed.
They want instant, personalized product demos, not waitlists.

That’s where Karumi comes in :)

Karumi is your AI demo agent, available 24/7, in any language.
It joins live video calls, speaks, clicks, navigates your product, opens tabs, and tailors each walkthrough to every customer’s use case.

Founded by Toni Lopez and Pablo Omenaca Muro (previously StackAI, YC W23), Karumi makes product demos scalable, personal, and human again.

Congrats on the launch!

💬 Comment “Demo” if you want to try it.
🔁 Repost to give the founders a boost.

Anthropic and Cursor leading


Years from inception to $1B in revenue 😳


The playbook is being rewritten

𝗝𝗲𝗳𝗳 𝗕𝗲𝘇𝗼𝘀: The universe is pulling you toward average. Your only chance of survival is to resist it 💡

Jeff Bezos wrote that distinctiveness is fragile. Left alone, everything trends toward normal. Normal feels easier, but it’s the first step to irrelevance.

The truth is uncomfortable. Staying different takes constant energy. There is no fairy tale where uniqueness protects itself. Choosing to be original guarantees struggle, not safety.

But the fight is worth it. Distinctiveness creates value. Customers and partners remember you for what makes you unique. Companies that stop fighting to stay different slide into ordinary, then irrelevant.

Bezos’ advice to founders is simple:
▪️ Expect the pull of conformity from markets, competitors, and even your own team
▪️ Protect what makes you unique and make it a permanent habit
▪️ Pay the price, because the alternative is worse

Thoughts?

Porsche Ventures

Backing founders who dare to build their dreams.

Investment Analyst

EVOGEAR srls

Startup working on Advanced Additive Manufacturing for Automotive and Motorsport applications.

Co-Founder & Head of Operations

KPMG Italy

Large-scale digital transformation for an Italian luxury fashion group.

Business Analyst Intern

Digitalics Innovation Inc.

Digital transformation for lead generation at a FTSE MIB-listed Energy & Utilities company.

Junior Sales & Consultant

Proclama

Developed and implemented communication strategies and social media enhancements for Atlantia Group (now Mundis).

Junior Social Media Officer

AnyPark LLC

VC-backed startup that helps people find and share parking spaces efficiently.

Junior Community Manager

MSc in Management Engineering | Co-founder of EVOGEAR srls | Passionate about innovation, mountains and motorsport

For inquiries: merelloalessio@gmail.com

Interested in the following fields:
- Mobility: automotive, motorsport, smart mobility, and intelligent transportation systems
- Deep Tech: robotics and artificial intelligence for production, logistics, and supply chain
- Industrial AI: AI applications for optimizing industrial processes, improving operational efficiency, and enabling innovation in manufacturing, logistics, and transportation sectors

taplio

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Rubén D.

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Alessio Merello

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Engagements

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Rubén D.'s LinkedIn Performance

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