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Oliver Buchannon
Vasily Alekseenko

The founder @ Rare Founders, one of the fastest growing communities of founders and investors in London. Facilitating the craziest and biggest events in London for the startups and investors.


Most UK Investors Backing AI Don't Understand AI

Most UK Investors Backing AI Don't Understand AI

Most UK investors backing AI companies right now don't understand how AI actually works. I've been in the rooms, asked the questions, and watched the answers slide into vibes almost every time - while £6bn of British venture capital flows into the category. Here's what's actually happening under the hood of the deals being done in London this year, and why it should worry every founder and LP in the ecosystem.

Jul 29, 2026

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8 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Trends

The Dark Side of the Startup Ecosystem

The Dark Side of the Startup Ecosystem

1 in 5 female founders at Y Combinator have experienced harassment or coercion from an investor. 85% of UK female entrepreneurs have experienced sexism during their business journey. And every week I hear another version of the same story from women in our community. Here's what's happening, why silence has protected the wrong people for too long, and what actually needs to change.

Jul 22, 2026

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8 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Behind the scenes

+1

The Only Moat AI Can't Copy

The Only Moat AI Can't Copy

Product moats have a shelf life measured in quarters. Technology moats decay in weeks. Data moats aren't real if the data doesn't compound. What survives in an AI-native market is the one thing money and models can't parallelise - the distribution you spent years earning. Here's what US investors are actually underwriting now, and why the European founder gap on this is bigger than most people realise.

Jul 15, 2026

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7 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Scaling

+1

The Company Shape That's About to Disappear

The Company Shape That's About to Disappear

I've been in San Francisco for two weeks and I'm leaving with an uncomfortable question about the shape of the company I'm building. YC is reporting numbers from inside the ecosystem that suggest the whole 200-to-500 person startup - the one every European founder is still optimising to become - is about to become the worst place to be. Here's what I'm seeing on the ground, why the middle is breaking, and what it means for founders reading this from London.

Jul 9, 2026

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8 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Fundraising

SF Will Chew You Up

SF Will Chew You Up

I've spent the last week in San Francisco, and it's changed how I think about running a business in London. Most European founders don't know how to work hard, and the data backs it up - the funding gap, the hours gap, the cultural gap, all of it points the same way. Here's what SF showed me up close, and why I'm coming home with less guilt about the grind.

Jul 1, 2026

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8 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Founder stories

The AI Bill Is About to Land on Your Desk

The AI Bill Is About to Land on Your Desk

Most founders are running their entire businesses on AI subscriptions that look like the bargain of the century. They aren't. Between a class action against Anthropic, Tim Cook's "hundred-year flood" warning, and trillion-dollar AI IPOs landing this year, the real cost of AI is about to surface - and the founders tokenmaxxing on borrowed runway are the ones who'll feel it first.

Jun 24, 2026

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7 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Trends

Join Us in Leeds: We're Bringing the Open Mic Up North

Join Us in Leeds: We're Bringing the Open Mic Up North

On 1-2 July we're heading to Leeds for Climb26 - the UK's festival of business growth - and we'd love you there with us. We're hosting our London Meets Leeds Open Mic on the Wednesday evening, alongside 60+ sessions, 2,000 founders and investors, and partners including Meta, Google, NatWest and the British Business Bank. Grab £100 off your ticket through us before prices increase on 30 June.

Jun 21, 2026

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2 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko
Intelligence Just Got Borders (And Other AI News)

Intelligence Just Got Borders (And Other AI News)

You might have missed it last week, but on June 13th the US government ordered Anthropic to suspend access to its two most advanced AI models for every foreign national on earth - forcing the company to switch them off globally within hours. It's the moment intelligence officially got borders, and it changes a lot of assumptions founders and investors haven't questioned in a while. Plus three other stories from the same news cycle (SpaceX's $2 trillion IPO, Google losing a German hallucination case, and Meta's "gulag" engineer revolt) that together tell you exactly where this industry is heading.

Jun 17, 2026

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10 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Trends

Save Money, Lose Time: My Mid-Raise Mistake

Save Money, Lose Time: My Mid-Raise Mistake

Every founder I know is in cost-cutting mode right now, going through their subscriptions line by line. But there's a category of admin you can't really cut, only do badly - your cap table, your ASAs, your fundraising paperwork - and the cheap DIY way ends up costing more time than money. Here's the mid-raise mistake I made, and the free tool I wish I'd tested a week earlier.

Jun 10, 2026

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6 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Behind the scenes

+2

Is AI a Golden Shovel?

Is AI a Golden Shovel?

Last Friday a founder accused me of stealing his business. I didn't - but the accusation kicked off a week of conversations that left me genuinely scared about where AI is taking us. Here are the three things I think are about to get materially worse, and the one question every founder needs to start asking before they ship anything new.

Jun 3, 2026

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7 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Behind the scenes

+1

You Left That Event With 5 Contacts. There Were 200 People In The Room.

You Left That Event With 5 Contacts. There Were 200 People In The Room.

We built SoPhy because we watched thousands of founders, investors and operators leave our events having lost every contact, note and follow-up that mattered. It's a networking app that keeps everyone you meet in one place - searchable, with notes and reminders attached. Join the waitlist, refer your network, and win from a £350,000 prize pool drawn on 18 June.

May 28, 2026

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2 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko
The One Thing Everyone Stopped Caring About

The One Thing Everyone Stopped Caring About

Everything in tech is getting faster and smarter - except customer support, which has quietly fallen off a cliff. At the same time, our patience as customers has collapsed, which means people are now cancelling good products simply because the experience around them made them feel ignored. For founders, that's a huge opening: you can't out-feature a competitor with ten times your funding, but you can absolutely out-care them.

May 27, 2026

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6 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Behind the scenes

+1

The World of Average and How to Standout

The World of Average and How to Standout

A year ago, AI gave you an edge. Today, it's quietly merging every founder, candidate, and grant applicant into the same indistinguishable middle - and the people you're trying to reach can spot it instantly. Here's what's actually working for fundraising right now (and why it's hard, time-consuming, and won't last forever).

May 20, 2026

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6 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Fundraising

The Coffee Order That Closed a £50,000 Cheque

The Coffee Order That Closed a £50,000 Cheque

Research shows that people who subtly mirror their counterparts close deals 67% of the time versus just 12% for those who don't. That same psychological effect - affinity bias - is the reason 89p of every £1 of UK venture capital still goes to all-male founder teams. Here's how to understand it, work with it, and stop losing rooms you should be winning.

May 13, 2026

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7 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Chris Howard Series

Pitch to win 6 months at The Ministry + £100K in credits

Pitch to win 6 months at The Ministry + £100K in credits

5 days left to apply for our Women's Health Pitch Competition - pitch Albion VC, THENA, and 5 Seasons on 9 June. Open to any women's health startup, and the event itself is open to everyone in the ecosystem.

May 9, 2026

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1 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko
The Trillion-Dollar Question Hiding in Your AI Coding Bill

The Trillion-Dollar Question Hiding in Your AI Coding Bill

While we've all been busy figuring out which AI tools to use, the frontier labs have quietly decided to eat the entire application layer themselves. Anthropic is being valued at over $900 billion, the four biggest US tech companies are spending $650 billion on AI infrastructure this year, and Europe is still arguing about its own regulation. Here's what it actually means for the rest of us building businesses in this gravitational field.

May 6, 2026

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7 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Trends

The Lily That Took Two Years to Bloom (And What Founders Can Learn From It)

The Lily That Took Two Years to Bloom (And What Founders Can Learn From It)

AI is moving faster than any of us can keep up with, and the constant chase is quietly burning founders out. Neuroscience shows that chronic wanting actually lowers your motivation and blinds you to opportunities - and a lily that took two years to bloom reminded me that great things rarely happen on the timeline we demand.

Apr 29, 2026

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6 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Behind the scenes

+1

Why Founders Are Quietly Rethinking How They Hire In The UK

Why Founders Are Quietly Rethinking How They Hire In The UK

UK hiring costs jumped sharply in April 2026 thanks to four overlapping changes - higher Employer NI, day-one sick pay, a minimum wage rise, and frozen tax thresholds - adding roughly £8,000–£10,000 a year for a team of five. The smallest employers are mostly shielded by the Employment Allowance, but anyone growing past their first few hires now feels the squeeze in full. UK founders are already responding in measurable ways: hiring less, hiring abroad through Employer of Record services, or automating roles instead.

Apr 23, 2026

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6 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Trends

+1

The Investor Signal Every Founder Misses

The Investor Signal Every Founder Misses

There are three types of investors: the one who strings you along, the one who gives you a fast and honest no, and the one who recognises what you're building immediately then invests slowly in you as a person. Only two of those are worth your time. Here's how to spot all three before you've wasted months on the wrong one.

Apr 15, 2026

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7 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Chris Howard Series

Be in the rooms that matter.

Be in the rooms that matter.

This year, we’ve teamed up with some of the industry's most exciting events to unlock exclusive discounts just for you. Use the links below to take advantage of our community offers and be in the spaces where real conversations happen, capital connects, and momentum builds.

Apr 11, 2026

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4 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko
The Week Europe Can't Ignore: AI Wars, Defence Gaps & the Trust Deficit

The Week Europe Can't Ignore: AI Wars, Defence Gaps & the Trust Deficit

Europe's founders are navigating one of the most consequential weeks in recent memory - from Mistral's $830M infrastructure bet to NHS staff boycotting Palantir, defence talent fleeing to the US, and China formally launching a token-based AI economy. This week's newsletter breaks down six trends reshaping the European venture and startup landscape, and what each one means for founders building right now. If you don't have time to follow the news - this is your catch-up.

Apr 8, 2026

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12 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Trends

The Thing Nobody Posts About

The Thing Nobody Posts About

Burnout is the founder's best-kept secret - not because it's rare, but because the cost of admitting it feels too high. Behind every polished post is someone who woke up at 2am doing payroll math, wondering if this is all worth it. The antidote isn't a productivity hack - it's finding the people who already know exactly how that feels.

Apr 1, 2026

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11 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Behind the scenes

+1

Has “Pre-Seed” Finally Lost Its Meaning in the UK?

Has “Pre-Seed” Finally Lost Its Meaning in the UK?

Pre-seed in the UK has been inflating for years. But something has shifted recently - investors are using AI tools to build due diligence processes they were never equipped to design themselves. The result is a wider experience gap, better hidden, hitting founders at the worst possible moment.

Mar 25, 2026

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12 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Behind the scenes

+1

Startup World Is Shifting Again

Startup World Is Shifting Again

The startup market is entering a new cycle shaped by macro risk, geopolitical shifts and rapid AI acceleration. Capital is becoming more selective, but new opportunities are opening in areas like defence tech, energy, real-world AI and sovereign infrastructure. Founders who extend runway, build real defensibility and move fast in uncertain conditions will have the biggest advantage.

Mar 18, 2026

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8 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Trends

Join Rare Founders on Our Journey

Join Rare Founders on Our Journey

Rare Founders is raising a £250K SEIS round to launch a data-driven social graph that helps founders and investors build stronger, more intentional relationships. Early investors have a chance to join before the round closes.

Mar 12, 2026

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8 min read

Vasily Alekseenko
Vasily Alekseenko

Behind the scenes

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