Yuliya Chernova
@ychernova
Reporter @WSJ @WSJVC. Startups, VC, tech. Living it up in Brooklyn, the immigrant parts. [email protected]
Kris Fredrickson raised $175M for his fund Verified. We had the scoop on the fundraising in process last year wsj.com/articles/forme…
Some news - I raised $175M for Verified Capital with a plan to back transformative technology companies at any stage of their journey. Thanks to @_IainMartin for the writeup in Forbes. forbes.com/sites/iainmart…
Excited to see the Start Fund covered in the Wall Street Journal this morning. For half of the major cities in the world to have thriving venture capital ecosystems, there needs to be ~20,000 more VC firms worldwide, roughly three to four times the current number. There are…
Adeo Ressi @adeoressi says the world needs 25,000 more venture funds. Do you agree? He's trying to make that a reality via his firm Decile Group that helps funds get off the ground without upfront costs. A bit more in @WSJVC today venturecapital.createsend1.com/t/d-e-suthdz-l…
Meta is buying into the NFDG fund at net asset value, a sweet deal for LPs in a market where many are hurting for liquidity.
Sources: Meta offers to buy ~49% of Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross's VC fund NFDG; about half of NFDG's first fund of ~$1.1B, raised in 2023, has been invested (@ychernova / Wall Street Journal) wsj.com/articles/meta-… techmeme.com/250703/p32#a25…
SCOOP on the tender offer for LPs in Nat Friedman & Daniel Gross's NFDG funds. Meta is offering to buy up to 49% of the holdings at face value - quite unusual at a time when secondaries are done at steep discounts. Meta won't have info rights in portcos wsj.com/articles/meta-…
Wonderful, a Tel Aviv startup, has raised $34 million to build AI customer-support agents for businesses in non-English speaking countries. Find exclusive details on valuation, revenue & business plan at the link. wsj.com/articles/wonde… via @WSJ
I’ve joined @aixventureshq as a General Partner, working on investing in deep AI startups. Looking forward to working with founders on solving hard problems in AI and seeing products come out of that! Thank you @ychernova at @WSJ for covering the news: wsj.com/articles/ai-re…
Sources: Menlo Ventures targets ~$1.5B for new funds to invest in AI ventures, including $650M for early-stage startups, and $850M for later-stage companies (@ychernova / Wall Street Journal) wsj.com/articles/menlo… techmeme.com/250629/p21#a25…
Anthropic investor Menlo Ventures is raising $1.5 billion for its next set of funds, a source says wsj.com/articles/menlo…
.@OpenRouterAI , a startup that helps developers sort through the “Cambrian explosion of AI models” raises $40M led by @MenloVentures and @a16z. @ychernova captured the big idea here... "Openrouter's intelligence will help developers…use the right model, for the right query, at…
OpenRouter, which directs AI prompts to various LLMs based on cost, speed, and other factors, raised $40M at a valuation of about $500M (@ychernova / Wall Street Journal) wsj.com/articles/openr… techmeme.com/250625/p11#a25…
Stopped by @mattturck ‘s #DataDrivenNYC. Matt: Have you seen cases where companies aren’t hiring because of AI tools? @gsivulka: I think we are running out of time... (A few minutes ago he was talking about infinite “AI employees”)
Venture deal activity dropped 24% last week compared with the average for the prior 13 weeks, according to CB Insights, suggesting a fast reaction to macroeconomic changes wsj.com/articles/pro-t… via @WSJ
Scoop: Brian O’Malley, a former managing partner at venture firm Forerunner, is looking to raise a $100 million fund for consumer deals, a sector that has fallen out of favor with VCs wsj.com/articles/consu…
I wrote an essay about how Western radio broadcasts like @RFERL & @VOANews gave my family the information they needed to take me out of the Chernobyl radiation danger zone in 1986 wsj.com/world/europe/n…
Worthwhile read from WSJ's @ychernova: News Services Like Voice of America Helped Save My Family "Hearing the truth from Western news broadcasts helped spare my family from the worst consequences of the Chernobyl disaster." wsj.com/world/europe/n…
Scoop: Andreessen Horowitz is planning to raise $750 million for its next venture fund to back life-science and healthcare startups, according to people familiar with the situation. That’s half the size of its 2022 bio fund wsj.com/articles/andre…
In an ironic twist, I was greeted not by a robot, but by a human with a hand-drawn map of the conference floor when I arrived at #HumanX2025. And that paper map is exactly what I needed at the moment.

NEW w/ @coryweinberg: OpenAI is doubling down on its application business. Execs have spoken with investors about three classes of future agent launches, ranging from $2K to $20K/month to do tasks like automating coding and PhD-level research: theinformation.com/articles/opena…
Early OpenAI backer Khosla Ventures aims to raise about $3.5 billion for its next seed, venture and growth funds, per a person familiar with the plans. The firm, founded by Vinod Khosla, also has Keith Rabois back on the team wsj.com/articles/khosl… via @WSJ