The one-person unicorn: Myth, miracle, or the future of startups?

Does the one person unicorn exist? Or is it the startup version of a ‘cryptid,’ a mythical creature that is oft-discussed but may or may not actually exist?

I wondered that when chatting recently with Ben Broca, CEO and founder of Polsia, whose company offers an AI “co-founder” that claims to build and run an entire company autonomously. (You may recognize Broca’s name, as he was a very early employee at Travis Kalanick’s CloudKitchens.)

“You give [Polsia] an idea, and it will go ahead and build a product,” said Broca. “It will fix bugs. It will handle support. It will run marketing campaigns, including ads. It will do all of this autonomously. Every night, it wakes up, does work, and reports back via email to the user with what it has done, what it plans to do the next day, and how the general state of the business is.”

Broca is practicing what he preaches: He posted last week on LinkedIn that Polsia (whose investors include True Ventures) had hit a revenue run rate of $4.5 million—with him as the sole employee.

“Polsia is preaching solopreneurship,” said Broca. “I’m preaching letting go of the ‘99%’ that are not technical, not in Silicon Valley, not in New York, don’t have access to code. I want to give them a chance to survive in this new economy that’s going to be completely disrupted by AI.”

I’m famously skeptical of any and all revenue-related startup claims in the AI era. I told this to Broca, who says he believes Polsia’s revenue has some stability based on the level of user engagement he’s seeing. He also, despite being a “solopreneur,” does work with people. His central idea is one of an outsourced “virtual team.”

“That’s my crazy solution to the solopreneur problem,” said Broca. “I can leverage people, but in a different way. They don’t have to be full‑time employees… I can still have a GC with a law firm. I can have an infrastructure team with an infrastructure‑for‑agents company… and they’re incentivized for me to be as big as possible.”

But direct employees? For now, nope.

“Initially I was ‘for now I’m alone,’” said Broca. “And then, since online the response has been so overwhelmingly positive and people [are] amazed how much you can do, it’s becoming almost like an odd performance where I’m like, ‘Well, okay, how far can I go?’”

See you tomorrow,

Allie GarfinkleX: @agarfinksEmail: [email protected]

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VENTURE CAPITAL

– Halter, an Auckland, New Zealand-based agriculture tech company, raised $220 million in Series E funding. Founders Fund led the round and was joined by Blackbird, DCVC, Bond, Bessemer, NewView, Ubiquity, Promus, and Icehouse Ventures.

– Granola, a London, U.K.-based AI-powered notepad platform designed for taking meeting notes, raised $125 million in Series C funding. Index Ventures led the round and was joined by Kleiner Perkins and existing investors Lightspeed, Spark, and NFDG.

– Mirage, a New York City-based AI-powered video generation platform, raised $75 million in funding from General Catalyst.

– Rocketlane, a Wilmington, Del.-based professional services automation platform, raised $60 million in Series C funding. Insight Partners led the round.

– Doss, a San Francisco-based developer of operations software for inventory-based businesses, raised $55 million in Series B funding. Madrona and Premji Invest led the round and were joined by Intuit Ventures and existing investors.

– Terrestrial Bio, a Woburn, Mass.-based developer of a skin patch and applicator for administering therapies, raised $50 million in Series C funding. RA Capital led the round and was joined by Engine Ventures, GHIC, and Siteground.

– Glimpse, a New York City-based developer of AI agents for retail consumer brands, raised $35 million in Series A funding. Andreessen Horowitz led the round and was joined by existing investors 8VC and Y Combinator.

– Origin, a London, U.K.-based AI-powered employee benefits platform, raised $30 million in Series A+ funding. Notion Capital led the round.

– Renasens, a Stockholm, Sweden-based textile recycling company, raised €10 million ($11.6 million) in seed funding. Extantia led the round and was joined by Course Corrected VC and existing investors.

– Trayd, a New York City-based construction payroll and workforce solution platform, raised $10 million in Series A funding. White Star Capital led the round and was joined by Suffolk Technologies, Y Combinator, and RXR.

– Krane, a San Francisco-based AI-powered construction supply chain management platform, raised $9 million in seed funding. Link Ventures and Glasswing Ventures led the round.

– Eunice, a London, U.K.-based AI platform for due diligence, raised $8 million across seed and pre-seed rounds from Moonfire, Speedinvest, and Openspace.

– Conntour, a Miami, Fla. and Tel Aviv, Israel-based AI video intelligence platform, raised $7 million in seed funding from General Catalyst, Y Combinator, SV Angel, and Liquid 2 Ventures.

– Triangle Health, a Los Angeles, Calif.-based AI platform designed to help users research treatment options, raised $4 million in pre-seed funding. SNR.vc led the round and was joined by Hannah Grey VC, Antler Criticality Fund, and angel investors.

PRIVATE EQUITY

– Chimney Rock Equity Partners acquired United Electronics Company, a Charleston, S.C.-based electronics design and manufacturing company. Financial terms were not disclosed.

– TowerBrook Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in ID UNLIMITED, a Lyon, France-based sports textiles company. Financial terms were not disclosed.

EXITS

– Clearlake Capital Group agreed to acquire Qualus Corporation, a Lake Mary, Fla.-based power services firm, from New Mountain Capital. Financial terms were not disclosed.

– GIC agreed to acquire a minority stake in Envu, a Cary, N.C.-based environmental solutions company, from Cinven. Financial terms were not disclosed.

FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS

– Lead Edge Capital, a New York City-based growth equity firm, raised $3.5 billion for its seventh fund focused on software, internet, and tech-enabled companies.

– Overmatch Ventures, an Austin, Texas-based venture capital firm, raised $250 million for its second fund focused on deep tech, defense, and space companies.