Every year, we offer up some predictions for the startup world in the coming year. Sometimes we're right ' as in last year, when we correctly predicted that IPOs would not come roaring back in 2024. Sometimes we're wrong ' also last year, when we expected the AI frenzy to cool (lol). M&A dealmaking involving VC-backed startups has slowed through the past few years ' per Crunchbase data ' and that has greatly affected VCs' ability to give returns to their LPs and therefore raise new funds. Many VCs hope a change in the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice will jump-start M&A activity after years of an overzealous regulatory environment quashed deals such as Amazon's proposed $1.4 billion acquisition of iRobot. While big deals that got tied up in reviews make the headlines, other smaller under-the-radar deals failed to materialize because they have become more expensive and deemed not worth the money and hassle. Increased tariffs ' which President-elect Donald Trump has promised ' could cause inflation rates to spike again, driving up interest rates. Also, while Trump has talked about less regulation he has also been critical of the power Big Tech holds. His nomination of Gail Slater ' a frequent critic of Big Tech ' to lead the Justice Department's antitrust efforts has likely caused some pause in Silicon Valley....

The US Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Wednesday after congressional leaders earlier this month stripped the bill of provisions designed to safeguard against excessive government surveillance. The 'must-pass' legislation now heads to President Joe Biden for his expected signature. The Senate's 85'14 vote cements a major expansion of a controversial US surveillance program, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Biden's signature will ensure that the Trump administration opens with the newfound power to force a vast range of companies to help US spies wiretap calls between Americans and foreigners abroad. Despite concerns about unprecedented spy powers falling into the hands of controversial figures such as Kash Patel, who has vowed to investigate Donald Trump's political enemies if confirmed to lead the FBI, Democrats in the end made little effort to rein in the program. The Senate Intelligence Committee first approved changes to the 702 program this summer with an amendment aimed at clarifying newly added language that experts had cast as dangerously vague. The vague text was introduced into the law by Congress in April, with Democrats in the Senate promising to correct the issue later this year. Ultimately, those efforts proved to be in vain....

Hegseth denies the allegations but also claims that because of Jesus he's a 'changed man.' The roots of Hegseth's version of Christianity are worth a look as he heads into confirmation hearings before the U.S. Senate in January 2025. In 2023, Hegseth moved from New Jersey to Tennessee to join a church and school community that arises from a 20th-century movement, called Christian Reconstruction. It holds deeply conservative views about the family, roles for women, and how religion and politics are related. Christian Reconstructionists want to dismantle public education and replace modern ideas about family with a patriarchal family model because they claim that biblical law requires both. They believe that Old Testament biblical law applies to today's society and to everyone, whether or not they are Christian. For them, all of life is religious; there is no separation between religion and politics. As a scholar of religion, I have studied Christian conservative movements, especially Christian Reconstructionism, for over 30 years, with six of those years explicitly devoted to the research on Christian Reconstruction. In my book 'Building God's Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction,' I trace the rise of this obscure theocratic version of Christianity....

The funding round was just another sign of how defense tech investment has exploded this year. The sector already has taken in more venture dollars than ever before and investment is showing few signs of letting up as defense systems become more dependent on tech, conflicts around the world heat up, and many expect a likely uptick in the Department of Defense's budget after the recent election. !function(e,n,i,s){var d="InfogramEmbeds";var o=e.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];if(window[d]&&window[d].initialized)window[d].process&&window[d].process();else if(!e.getElementById(i)){var r=e.createElement(n);r.async=1,r.id=i,r.src=s,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,"script","infogram-async","https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js"); In August, the Costa Mesa, California-based startup locked up a $1.5 billion Series F co-led by Founders Fund and Sands Capital Ventures that values the company at $14 billion ' a 69% jump from the $8.5 billion valuation it received after its massive $1.5 billion Series E in late 2022. The company will use some of the new proceeds for the development of Arsenal-1 ' a more than 5 million-square-foot production space designed to produce tens of thousands of autonomous military systems annually. Earlier this month, it was reported the company is considering building the facility in Arizona, Ohio or Texas....