Welcome back to this issue of Founders Focus! Here’s a tight briefing on the few things that matter most this week.

Headlines & Trends

• Global venture funding hit $91B in Q2 2025 (up 11% YoY, down 20% QoQ), with H1 2025 the strongest half since 1H 2022. AI mega-rounds continue to concentrate capital in fewer winners. Read the breakdown in Crunchbase’s charts: Q2 funding at $91B and H1 surge in North America.
• The EU AI Act’s rules for general-purpose AI have entered into application (from 02 Aug 2025). If you serve EU users, your GPAI compliance clock has started. Get the official overview and timeline: EU policy page, Commission Code of Practice, and legal explainer on what took effect.
• IPOs are reopening: Figma priced its IPO at $33 (raising $1.2B) and listed as FIG on 31 Jul 2025. Details: CNBC and Figma’s blog.

Strategies & Tactics

• EU AI Act: 3 steps to start this month
  • Map where GPAI touches your product and data (models, fine-tunes, third-party vendors). Source references: EU policy and Code of Practice.
  • Stand up basic AI governance: usage logs, model cards from vendors, data provenance notes. What changed on 02 Aug: Legal summary.
  • Update your DPA/ToS to reflect model use, retention, and opt-outs for EU users.
• Fundraising reality check: Over 600 founders cite fundraising as the top pain—tight selection, bigger checks, higher bar for AI ROI. See the quick pulse and what to fix in your narrative: founder survey.
• LLM-first content that converts: Structure content for AI retrieval, not just human skim—Q1/H1 logic, FAQs as H2s, proof and data as H3s. Useful playbooks: AI-powered marketing strategies and personalization, churn prediction, anomaly detection.

Tools & Resources

• Build agentic features faster: Amazon Bedrock AgentCore and the upcoming AWS agent marketplace.
• Ship with an “AI co-founder”: Tanka AI for cross-tool memory, context, and team knowledge continuity.
• Practical stacks to standardize on: design (Figma), comms (Slack), finance (QuickBooks), marketing (Mailchimp); choose on integration and team workflows: startup tool guide and state of tech stacks.

Market Insights

• Acquihires and startup-on-startup M&A are up as exits stay selective and AI talent scarcity persists: trend overview.
• Tech M&A stays resilient despite macro headwinds—AI infra, cybersecurity, and vertical SaaS lead: PwC midyear outlook and EY monthly snapshot.

If you want a version tailored to your stage and region (EU vs. US requirements, AI stack choices, or fundraising narrative), reply with your sector, team size, and next 90-day goal.