Figma IPO Delivers Much-Needed Liquidity, Boulder Angels Back Gut Health Play, and Why Quality of Earnings Starts on Day One

Happy Thursday.

In today’s issue:

• Angel Deals of the Week

• Bookmarks I think you’ll enjoy

• The best nugget from my conversation with John Samore III, Certified Fraud Investigator and Certified Public Accountant

• Exclusive opportunity for angel network leaders

🔥 Angel Deals of the Week

🤝 Recent funding rounds from angel networks. I have not personally vetted these deals and am sharing for informational purposes only. Have one to announce? Reply to this email.

🤖 Deal summaries generated using dealmemo.ai.

🧾 Check out every deal we’ve tracked here.

Kioga | Bacterial supplements for metabolic health

Participating Group: Boulder Angels

Kioga develops dietary supplements using soil-derived postbiotics to address neuroinflammation and metabolic disorders that affect one in three seemingly healthy adults. The company's heat-killed bacterial technology targets the gut-immune-brain axis to reduce anxiety, stress, and metabolic strain. Founded by CU Boulder PhD graduate and Meati co-founder Justin Whiteley, Kioga emerged from CU Boulder's Embark program. The company completed a pre-seed funding round led by Talkot Capital with participation from Boulder Angels.

Justin Whiteley | Pre-seed Round | Boulder, CO | August 2025 | Source

Shift Thermal | Cold thermal storage tech licensing

Participating Group: Queen City Angels

Shift Thermal is developing cold thermal storage technology for sustainable energy applications, primarily via technology transfer agreements rather than direct manufacturing. The Oak Ridge-based company recently secured approximately $1 million in bridge funding led by Queen City Angels, with participation from Market Square Ventures, Three Roots Capital, InvestTN, and Clean Energy Venture Group. Funds will support technology commercialization through industry partnerships as they install a demonstration unit at Oak Ridge Civic Center.

Levon Atoyan | $1M Bridge Round | Oak Ridge, TN | July 2025 | Source

POSfinance | Revenue-based SME financing

Participating Group: Latvian Business Angels Network (LatBAN)

POS Finance is developing revenue-based financing solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, offering flexible repayment models where businesses repay loans as a percentage of weekly turnover rather than fixed monthly payments. The fintech startup, founded in 2024, is already live in Latvia with active clients and utilizes open banking technology for data-driven lending decisions and real-time risk management. The company secured roughly $160,000 from LatBAN to scale operations, build an automated scoring engine, and expand to four additional European markets by 2027, targeting the underfinanced SME lending sector.

Inga Pinka | Pre-seed | Riga, Latvia | August 2025 | Source

🔖 Bookmarks

1. 🤖 Update: Not Everyone Wants to Bill the Bots: In contrast to last week's pay-for-quality theme - Wharton’s Ethan Mollick gets more newsletter traffic from ChatGPT than Facebook, and calls default AI-blocking a mistake.

2. 🚕 The “Taxi Cab” Theory of VC: Thought piece from Rex Woodbury on why 64% of VC funding went to AI and timing has become more important than true conviction.

3. 💸 ICYMI - Figma IPO was Bonkers: Figma IPO’d this week and after a first-day surge hit $60 billion, creating desperately needed liquidity with some VCs scoring up to 1,900x returns.

🥇 The Nugget: My Top Takeaway from This Week’s Conversation with John Samore III

Quality of earnings starts on day 1 📊

Investors often think "quality of earnings" only applies to profitable companies, but John is deeply convicted this is actually about the quality of ALL financial information.

Even pre-revenue startups have critical financial elements to evaluate: spending patterns, equity structure, customer concentration risk, management's financial philosophy, and more. Looking at revenue alone - or assuming “no revenue means no financial analysis needed” - is a mistake.

Takeaway: Consider these three financial areas regardless of revenue stage:

1. Equity structure - Who else has claims on this business?

2. Spending philosophy - How specifically have they used and do they plan to use their money?

3. Hidden liabilities - What financial obligations aren't immediately obvious?

Want more? Check out my full conversation with John👇

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and more.

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Until Next Week 👋

Thanks for reading - have a great week.

-Andrew

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