Following a wave of VC funding from the 2021 bubble that did not deliver substantial returns for numerous venture firms, limited partners, including endowments, pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds, started directing a larger portion of their investments towards a select number of established firms with proven results.

The most recent significant capital influx has been received by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The 25-year-old venture firm disclosed on Monday that it secured a total of $9 billion in new funds, marking the largest fundraising in the firm’s history.

During a period when very few companies have succeeded in going public, Lightspeed was an early backer of Rubrik, Netskope, and Navan, all of which have recently made their market debuts.

The firm has also established itself as a largely AI-centered investor. Lightspeed asserts it has invested in 165 AI-native companies, such as Anthropic, xAI, Databricks, Mistral, Glean, Abridge, and Skild AI.

Equipped with its substantial new fund, the firm is well-positioned to continue making significant investments into capital-heavy AI enterprises. For example, Lightspeed allegedly provided a $1 billion investment to Anthropic when it co-led the LLM creator’s $13 billion financing round in September.

Lightspeed’s new funds are distributed across six different funds, including a $3.3 billion opportunity fund focused on follow-on investments in its fastest-growing portfolio companies.

Other major VC firms that have recently raised large capital reserves include Founders Fund, which gathered $4.6 billion for a growth fund earlier this year, as well as General Catalyst’s $8 billion and Andreessen Horowitz’s $7.2 billion, both secured in 2024.

Meanwhile, newer and smaller VC firms are finding it difficult to secure new funds. According to PitchBook data, 2025 is set to witness the least number of VC fund closings in the last decade.

The influence of AI on social media platforms has been acknowledged by one of America’s leading dictionaries. In light of the massive influx of online content over the last year, Merriam-Webster revealed on Sunday that its 2025 word of the year is “slop.”

The dictionary describes the word as “low-quality digital content that is typically produced in bulk using artificial intelligence.”

“Similar to slime, sludge, and muck, slop carries the damp sound of something undesirable. Slop seeps into everything,” the dictionary states, noting that, in a time marked by AI concerns, the term is meant to convey “a tone that’s less apprehensive and more derisive” towards the technology.

“It’s such an evocative term,” Greg Barlow, president of Merriam-Webster, told The Associated Press. “It’s a part of a transformative technology, AI, and it’s something that people find intriguing, frustrating, and somewhat absurd.”

The term “slop” has certainly gained traction this year, as reporters and commentators have attempted to articulate how platforms like OpenAI’s Sora and Google Gemini’s Veo are reshaping the internet. With this new type of media creator, AI-generated books, podcasts, pop songs, TV ads — even whole films — have emerged. One study from May suggested that nearly 75% of all new online content from the previous month involved some form of AI.

These innovative tools have even sparked what has been termed a “slop economy,” where surpluses of AI-generated material can be leveraged for advertising revenue. Detractors express concern that this phenomenon is exacerbating divisions within digital communities, splitting them into those who can afford premium, paywalled content and those relegated to a digital diet of slop, which — as one might expect — often lacks significant informational content. 

However, “slop” has also been employed to discuss AI’s effects across a variety of sectors not directly related to traditional media consumption, encompassing cybersecurity reports, legal documents, and college essays, among other areas. Its influence is extensive, to put it mildly.

In a related note, technology terminology has emerged as a significant contender in the WOTY (word of the year) category this year. Macquarie Dictionary has already surpassed Merriam-Webster by selecting “AI slop” as its annual term, while Oxford Dictionary opted for “ragebait.” Collins Dictionary went with “vibe coding.”