Who knew you could get a $500 million valuation without launching a product?

AI agent startup /dev/agents announced a massive $56M seed round, putting the company’s valuation at a whopping $500 million. The amount is impressive given the company won’t have a first version of its product available until at least early next year. The reason behind investors’ trust, however, becomes a bit clearer when you consider the founders’ pedigree:  /dev/agents’ co-founders were both on Google’s Android team during the early days of the smartphone era.

The round, as well as whether or not to include “slash” when pronouncing the company’s name, was the first of many deals discussed on today’s episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast. 

Listen to the full episode to hear hosts Margaux MacColl, Devin Coldewey and Anthony Ha dig into:

• How Yurts plans to become the DoD’s go-to AI integration platform and compete with AI chatbot the Pentagon is developing itself.
• Why ServiceTitan’s IPO keeps getting weirder and if it’s a sign of IPOs to come. 
• The latest wave of VC turnover, including Brian Singerman’s choice to step back from Founders Fund and Sriram Krishnan’s departure from a16z, and where they’re going next. The crew was left wondering if we’ll see other investors following in Krishnan’s footsteps. 
• Strange AI. Who is David Mayer? And why does ChatGPT hate him so much?

Equity will be back next week, so stay tuned!

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. 

Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Check out our full archive of episodes here.

Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.