Breaking News

OpenAI is being investigated by a coalition of U.S. state attorneys general over issues including user retention, advertising practices, data handling, AI behavior, and protections for minors. The probe arrives just after OpenAI confidentially filed for an IPO, creating a potentially significant regulatory challenge as the company prepares for public markets.

Meta is reportedly unwinding its $2 billion acquisition of Manus after Chinese authorities ordered a divestiture on national security grounds. Manus’ founders are now exploring a new fundraising round to regain control of the company and potentially pursue a future Hong Kong listing.

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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

Sunbay, a Warsaw-based AI-powered invoice collection and accounts receivable automation platform, raised €550K in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Kogito Ventures and s20, with participation from strategic angel investors including Jostein Håvaldsrud (CTO of Kahoot).

Concentrate AI, a NYC-based developer of multi-model routing and token cost management software, raised $5M in Pre-Seed funding. The investment round was backed by True Ventures and RRE Ventures.

Courtroom, a NYC-based company leveraging AI simulation technology for litigation and trial teams, raised an undisclosed Pre-Seed round. The round was led by Neo and Precursor Ventures, with participation from Rel Labs, Craig Glidden, Scott Mozarsky, Doak Bishop, Baretz+Brunelle, LexFusion, and others.

Relai, a Bethesda-based continual learning infrastructure company for AI agents, raised $5.4M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by .406 Ventures, with participation from AITFund and other strategic investors.

SEED

Definic, a Prague-based enterprise B2B vendor intelligence and IT procurement software platform, raised $2.9M in Seed funding. The round was led by J&T Ventures, with participation from Seed Starter ČS and Slovak Investment Holding.

Artis, an Austin-based AI-powered technology and brand services company for residential design and construction professionals, raised $7.3M in Seed funding. The round was led by LiveOak Ventures, with participation from mark vc and Capital Factory.

GROWTH

Endurance Energy, a Seattle-based developer of deep-ocean geothermal energy harvesting infrastructure, raised $54M in Series A funding. The round was led by Founders Fund, with participation from Ascend, Construct Capital, Felicis Ventures, First Round Capital, Point72 Ventures, Riot Ventures, and Voyager Ventures.

OurMind, an Amsterdam-based generative AI healthcare clinical documentation and administrative platform, raised €2.1M in funding. The round was led by 4impact Capital, with participation from a strategic group of general practitioners and medical specialists.

Mendo, a Paris-based generative and agentic AI adoption platform, raised €12M in Series A funding. The round was led by Ventech and Educapital, with participation from Tomcat and OVNI.

Theker, a Barcelona-based developer of industrial robots for microelectronics and semiconductor manufacturing, raised $85M in Series A funding. The round was led by CRV, with participation from Samsung, LVMH, Cathay Innovation, 20VC, Henkel Ventures, Korelya Capital, Bright Pixel Capital, Kfund, Kibo Ventures, Mission, and existing investor Inditex.

Remedy Science, a Los Angeles-based dermatologist-developed skincare brand, raised $19M in Series A funding. The round was led by L Catterton, with participation from existing investor Norwest and new investor Sonoma Brands Capital.

Chptr, a NYC-based company building a new distribution layer for community stories, raised $5.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by CityRock, with participation from Tribute Technology, alongside strategic partnerships with iHeartMedia, Sinclair, and Hearst.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Animal Capital, a NYC-based early-stage venture capital firm, closed Animal Capital Fund III, at $33m. The closing represents an increase from the firm’s $13m Fund I and $16m Fund II. LPs include Paris Hilton, Kevin Mayer, Justin Kan, Gary Cohn, Rich Miner, Jason Karp, Pete Davidson, Mark Wahlberg, Christina Aguilera, James Corden, Taylor Fritz and Mr. Beast.

Base10 Partners, a San Francisco, CA-based venture capital firm, closed $850m in new capital throughout 2025, with funds now actively deploying. The above fundraise included commitments from Base10’s limited partner base, including endowments, pensions, sovereign wealth funds, and other institutional investors.

KEY STORIES IN TECH

📜 Latest In Tech

Zuckerberg admits Meta made mistakes during its AI workforce overhaul

• Mark Zuckerberg told employees that Meta has made mistakes during its AI-driven restructuring, acknowledging the challenges of rapidly transforming the company around artificial intelligence.

• Meta laid off 10% of its workforce and reassigned around 7,000 employees to AI-focused initiatives, but Zuckerberg said the company does not expect additional company-wide layoffs this year.

• Despite organizational disruptions, Meta continues to double down on AI, with annual capital spending projected between $125 billion and $145 billion and new investments planned for internal collaboration and AI development.

Amazon CEO’s warning may have triggered Anthropic’s model shutdown

• Reports suggest Amazon CEO Andy Jassy raised concerns to U.S. officials after researchers reportedly used Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 to obtain information that could assist cyberattacks.

• Shortly afterward, the U.S. government imposed export-control restrictions on Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, forcing the company to suspend access for foreign nationals worldwide.

• Anthropic disputes the justification, arguing the capabilities cited by regulators already exist in other publicly available AI models, while Amazon has declined to discuss its conversations with government officials.

Europe’s AI champion Mistral is reportedly raising at nearly double its valuation

• French AI startup Mistral is reportedly in talks to raise €3 billion ($3.5 billion) at a €20 billion valuation, almost doubling its €11.7 billion valuation from September 2025.

• Mistral has positioned itself as Europe’s sovereign AI alternative, offering both open-weight and commercial AI models while expanding partnerships with governments, military organizations, and major enterprises across Europe.

• Despite its rapid growth, Mistral has raised only about $4 billion so far, far behind OpenAI and Anthropic, highlighting the funding gap between Europe’s leading AI lab and its U.S. competitors.

ByteDance may buy 50,000+ Chinese AI chips as Nvidia alternatives gain ground

• ByteDance is reportedly in talks to purchase at least 50,000 AI chips from Chinese GPU maker Iluvatar CoreX and is also evaluating Baidu’s Kunlunxin chips for future AI workloads.

• If completed, Iluvatar CoreX would become ByteDance’s third major domestic AI chip supplier alongside Huawei and Cambricon, reflecting China’s push to reduce reliance on foreign hardware.

• The potential deal highlights the rapid rise of China’s AI chip ecosystem, with domestic vendors now capturing over 40% of the country’s AI accelerator market as U.S. export restrictions continue to reshape the industry.

Nvidia’s new AI CPU gains traction as China looks beyond GPUs

• Nvidia has started pitching its new Vera CPU to Chinese customers, with availability expected as early as August, marking the company’s push into AI infrastructure beyond GPUs.

• Some Chinese cloud providers are already evaluating Vera-powered servers, as demand grows for inference computing and autonomous AI agents that require large-scale processing power.

• The move intensifies competition with Intel and AMD while helping Nvidia maintain a presence in China, where U.S. export controls have severely restricted sales of its advanced AI GPUs.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕ Other News

Andrew Yang says the next startup boom is lowering living costs

• Former U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang believes founders should focus on reducing the cost of essentials like housing, food, transportation, education, and wireless services rather than creating new forms of consumption.

• Inspired by Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs, Yang launched Noble Mobile, a wireless provider that shares profits with customers and rewards lower data usage, attracting thousands of users and generating millions in revenue.

• Yang argues that as AI concentrates wealth and threatens jobs, startups that help people save money and meet basic needs more affordably could become one of the biggest business opportunities of the next decade.

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Breaking News

Jeff Bezos-backed Prometheus has raised $12 billion at a $41 billion valuation to build what it calls an “artificial general engineer” capable of handling complex engineering work, from designing jet engines to discovering new drugs. The massive funding round shows investors are increasingly betting that AI’s next frontier isn’t chatbots, but systems that can perform high-value technical and scientific work.

Amazon disclosed that its global data centers consumed 2.5 billion gallons of water last year, offering one of the clearest looks yet at the environmental cost of the AI boom. As companies race to build more AI infrastructure, water usage is emerging alongside chips and electricity as a major constraint that could shape where future data centers get built.

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• Why nobody wants to build this boring AI category (Even though it’s worth billions.) (Link)

STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

Granarium Technologies, an Espoo-based deep-tech energy startup originating from VTT, raised €1M in funding. The round included a Pre-Seed led by BSV Ventures and Beamline, with participation from FiBAN, EstBAN, and LatBAN.

Enera, a London- and Barcelona-based AI-driven EV driver experience and charging recovery platform, raised $2M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Lakehouse Ventures, with participation from Divergent Capital, Masia, and strategic angel investors.

Helionis Labs, a Bengaluru-based thermal management materials and substrate technologies company, raised a Pre-Seed round. The investment was made by Transition VC.

SEED

TurnUp, a Ghent-based AI-powered automation platform for dental and medical practices, raised €2M in Seed funding. The round was led by Newion, with participation from RDY Ventures.

Lium, a Dallas-based platform helping organizations make sense of complex data, raised $5.5M in Seed funding. Backers included SJF Ventures, Wavemaker 360, Reach Capital, and GC&H Investments.

Dapple, a NYC-based operating system for AI infrastructure, raised $30M in Seed funding. Backers included The Raptor Group and Ion Pacific.

Niteshift, a NYC-based cloud platform for AI coding agents, raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Greylock, with participation from Amplify Partners, Lux Capital, BoxGroup, and SV Angel.

The Wedding Company, a Bengaluru-based tech-enabled wedding planning platform, raised $2.75M in Seed funding. The round was led by Wellingdon Advisors, with participation from LVX, Tremis Capital, and angel investors Vivek Mathur, Rahul Garg, and Apurva Patel.

Rivvun AI, a Seattle-based autonomous financial execution and transaction recovery platform, raised $7.55M in Seed funding. Backers included Sitara Capital and 3one4 Capital.

Hypha, a NYC-based AI-native asset intelligence platform, raised $50M in Seed funding. The round was led by TriEdge Investments, with participation from Bankwell, Cammeby’s International, CFG Bank, Crescent Heights, Dwight Capital, MONTICELLOAM, and Yakar Partners.

GROWTH

Coram AI, a Sunnyvale-based AI-native physical security platform, raised $35M in Series B funding. The round was led by Ansa Capital and Battery Ventures, with participation from UP.Partners, 8VC, and Mosaic Ventures.

Leaf, a San Francisco-based agricultural data analytics platform, raised £13M in Series B funding. The round was co-led by Leaps by Bayer and a group of industry strategic investors.

NEURA Robotics, a Metzingen-based cognitive robotics company, raised up to $1.4B in Series C funding. Backers included Tether, Qualcomm Technologies, Amazon, NVIDIA, imec.xpand, Bosch, Schaeffler, European Investment Bank, Lingotto Horizon, and InterAlpen Partners.

Poetic, a San Francisco-based company building software that learns like AI but runs like code, raised $50M in Series A funding at a $500M valuation. The round was led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Founders Fund, First Harmonic, and OpenAI.

GPS Renewables, a Bengaluru-based renewable oil and gas company, raised $66.27M in Series C funding. The round was led by PixelSky Capital, with participation from the Spectrum Impact Family Office.

PhoenixAI, a Menlo Park-based agentic AI database company, raised $80M in Series B funding. The round was led by Sky9 Capital, with participation from Atypical Ventures, Olive Technology Ventures, and existing investors.

Current, a NYC-based consumer fintech platform, raised $80M in Series E funding at a $1.5B valuation. The round was led by Springcoast Partners, building on support from Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, Avenir, Foundation Capital, Wellington Management, Sapphire Ventures, and QED Investors.

Turnout, a San Diego-based AI-powered consumer advocacy platform, raised $35M in Series A funding at a $400M valuation. The round was led by HighPost Capital, with participation from Shine Capital, LGVP, Mangusta Capital, Honeystone Ventures, and Omri Casspi.

Digital Asset (DA), the NYC-based blockchain infrastructure company behind Canton, raised $355M in funding. The round was led by a16z crypto, with participation from 7RIDGE and ABN Amro.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Animal Capital, a NYC-based early-stage venture capital firm, closed Animal Capital Fund III, at $33m. The closing represents an increase from the firm’s $13m Fund I and $16m Fund II. LPs include Paris Hilton, Kevin Mayer, Justin Kan, Gary Cohn, Rich Miner, Jason Karp, Pete Davidson, Mark Wahlberg, Christina Aguilera, James Corden, Taylor Fritz and Mr. Beast.

Dimension Capital, a New York City-based venture capital firm, is raising up to $750m for its third fund. According to a form filed with the SEC, Dimension Capital III, L.P., has not raised any sum, yet. The document lists Adam Goulburn as the person related to the fund raise. Led by Goulburn and Zavain Dar, Dimension is a multistage, research oriented, investment firm partnering with companies across the frontiers of science and compute.

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📜 Latest In Tech

Anthropic backtracks on policy that 'sabotaged' researchers' work

• Anthropic is reversing a hidden policy that quietly limited researchers who used its new Claude Fable 5 model to build competing AI systems, telling Wired the company “made the wrong tradeoff” and apologizing for the secrecy.

• Researchers found that Fable 5, built on Anthropic’s Mythos system, would quietly reroute requests to a weaker model or degrade responses for tasks like training competing LLMs, debugging AI code, and optimizing neural architecture.

• Anthropic isn’t dropping the safeguards but making them visible, so if it suspects a user is building a highly capable AI, it will alert them that it’s refusing the request or rerouting to a less capable model.

Judge denies Meta and Google new trial

• A California state court judge has rejected requests by Meta and Google’s YouTube for a new trial, after a jury found both companies liable for designing social media platforms that harm young people.

• The jury decided Meta and YouTube were negligent in operating their platforms, harming a 20-year-old plaintiff named Kaley, and assigned Meta 70 percent of the responsibility compared to 30 percent for YouTube.

• Judge Carolyn Kuhl dismissed the argument that Section 230 shields the companies, writing the law does not cover their design choices, and both Meta and Google said they plan to appeal.

Visa plugs its payment network into ChatGPT

• Visa is working with OpenAI to plug its payments tools into OpenAI’s agent system, letting AI agents spend money for users and complete transactions without people manually checking out every time.

• Users can set spending caps, merchant restrictions and approval requirements, while Visa handles fraud detection, chargebacks and refunds, and the companies say the setup could support shopping, business invoice payments and AI coding agents buying APIs.

• Visa’s Rubail Birwadker said more than one in five transactions are influenced by what users learn through LLMs, and the experience could end up feeling similar to shopping with Apple Pay or Shop Pay.

SpaceX prices record-breaking $75B IPO at $135 per share

• SpaceX raised a record $75 billion in its IPO at $135 per share, valuing the company at $1.77 trillion and making it one of the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world.

• Elon Musk will retain 82% voting control after the IPO, while SpaceX unusually reserved 30% of the offering for retail investors and bypassed several traditional Wall Street IPO practices.

• Starlink remains the company’s largest revenue driver, but investors are also betting on SpaceX’s AI, satellite, and space infrastructure ambitions, with the company claiming a $28.5 trillion market opportunity.

Anthropic moves toward owning AI infrastructure

• Anthropic has reportedly signed more than a dozen preliminary agreements to lease U.S. data centers with over 1 gigawatt of combined capacity as demand for its Claude AI models continues to grow.

• The company is also discussing a structure where Google could provide financial guarantees for some lease payments, helping Anthropic secure the infrastructure needed for future expansion.

• The move signals Anthropic’s shift toward greater control over its computing resources ahead of its planned IPO, following a recent $65 billion funding round that valued the company at $965 billion.

Google in talks with Samsung to make part of next-gen chip

• Google is reportedly in talks with Samsung to manufacture part of its next-generation AI chip, “Icefish,” while TSMC would continue producing the main computing component.

• The move could give Samsung a major win in advanced chip manufacturing, with the company potentially supplying memory-connectivity components using its 2-nanometer process technology.

• The discussions suggest Google is diversifying its chip supply chain as AI demand surges, following separate reports that it is also exploring manufacturing partnerships with Intel for future TPU production.

Microsoft has restricted employee use of Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5

• Microsoft has reportedly restricted employee use of Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 while its legal teams review the model’s new data retention policies.

• The concern stems from Anthropic retaining prompts and outputs for at least 30 days, with some flagged interactions stored for up to two years for trust and safety purposes.

• The move highlights how data governance is becoming a major battleground in enterprise AI adoption, even as Anthropic prepares for its IPO and pushes its most powerful model into wider use.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕ Other News

Xbox warns of a ‘reset’ as it prepares for layoffs

• Xbox bosses Asha Sharma and Matt Booty have warned staff in a memo of an “Xbox reset” over the next 100 days, coming ahead of major layoffs expected in July.

• The memo said that, excluding Activision Blizzard King, Xbox has spent over $20 billion on content, platform, and hardware subsidy in five years, while annual revenue dropped nearly half a billion.

• Sharma and Booty also pointed to a hardware component crisis, saying costs for the 2027 holiday season are expected to top five times the prices paid two years earlier, prompting calls for a new business model and hardware partnerships.

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Breaking News

OpenAI is reportedly planning its largest infrastructure project ever — a 10-gigawatt data center in Ohio that could cost over $500 billion, with Nvidia acting as guarantor for the project. The scale highlights how the AI race is increasingly becoming an infrastructure race, where access to power, chips, and capital may matter as much as the models themselves.

SpaceX’s IPO has attracted more than $250 billion in orders against a $75 billion offering, making it one of the most in-demand public offerings in history. The overwhelming demand signals that investors are eager to back companies positioned at the intersection of AI, compute infrastructure, space technology, and Elon Musk’s long-term vision.

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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

Rotomate, a Helsinki-based industrial AI software company, raised €2.1M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Kvanted, with participation from Robin Capital, Angel Invest, Accel (through its scout program), and Business Finland.

SEED

Enlaye, a Boston-based AI-native risk lifecycle management platform for construction and infrastructure projects, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Glasswing Ventures and co-led by Link Ventures, with participation from Imad Ventures, AiSprouts, Hannah Grey Ventures, and Apprentis Ventures.

WealthReach, a NYC-based AI-powered organic growth platform for RIAs and wealth management firms, raised $1M in Seed funding. The round was led by Cecure Corporation with participation from other strategic investors.

F2, a NYC-based compounding intelligence platform for private markets, raised $14M in Seed funding. The round was led by HighlandX, with participation from Left Lane Capital, NFX, Y Combinator, and Torch Capital.

Uncovr, a Paris- and NYC-based surgical AI company building a system of intelligence for surgery, raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from Seedcamp, Frst, No Label Ventures, Entrepreneurs First, and Jean Nehme.

GROWTH

Trustap, a Dublin-based payments and transaction platform for online marketplaces and ecommerce brands, raised $10M in funding. The round was led by Aperture Capital with participation from TX Ventures and existing investors.

Flux, a Boston-based code-first engineering intelligence platform, raised $5M in funding. The round was led by Calibrate Ventures, with participation from True Ventures and Glasswing Ventures.

Pi Security, a San Francisco-based agentic AI security startup, raised $35M in funding. The round was led by Brightmind Partners and Third Point Ventures, with participation from security leaders including George Kurtz, Yevgeny Dibrov, and Nadir Izrael.

SWARM Engineering, an Irvine-based decision intelligence company for agrifood and manufacturing, raised $10M in Series A funding. The round was led by S2G Investments and AgRogue Growth Partners, with participation from Radicle Growth, Grit Road Partners, Middleland Capital, Open Prairie, Serra Ventures, and Trailhead Capital.

Billables AI, a San Francisco-based AI-native operational intelligence platform for law firms, raised $10.2M in Series A funding. The round was led by Avenue Growth Partners, with participation from Wing VC, SignalFire, and Alumni Ventures.

Jedify, a NYC-based autonomous context graph platform for agentic applications and workflows, raised $24M in Series A funding. The round was led by Norwest, with participation from Snowflake Ventures, S Capital VC, Cerca Partners, and Oceans Ventures.

SonoThera, a South San Francisco-based biotechnology company developing genetic medicines, raised $125M in Series B funding. The round was led by Vida Ventures, with participation from ARK Invest, CureDuchenne Ventures, Leaps by Bayer, Otsuka Pharmaceutical, SymBiosis, UCB Ventures, Vivo Capital, ARCH Venture Partners, Alexandria Venture Investments, Duquesne Family Office, Illumina Ventures, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Medical Excellence Capital, RA Capital, and Vertex Ventures HC.

TensorWave, a Las Vegas-based AMD-focused AI cloud provider, raised $350M in Series B funding at a $1.55B valuation. The round was co-led by Magnetar and AMD Ventures, with participation from Maverick Silicon, Nexus Venture Partners, and Western Frontier.

Cyera, a NYC- and Tel Aviv-based AI-powered data security company, raised $600M in funding at a $12B valuation. The round was led by Evolution Equity Partners, with participation from Cyberstarts, Temasek, Accel, AT&T Ventures, Blackstone, Coatue, and Spark Capital.

Corca Research, a New York-based collaborative workspace for mathematics, raised $7.8M in funding. The round was led by NEA, with participation from Bloomberg Beta, Daft Capital, and NVentures.

Maneva, a Palo Alto-based physical AI company specializing in manufacturing intelligence, raised $27M in Series A funding. The round was led by U.S. Venture Partners, with participation from Bling Capital, Freestyle Capital, and angel investor Gokul Rajaram.

Capsa AI, a London- and NYC-based AI operating system for private capital, raised $18M in Series A funding. The round was co-led by TX Ventures and Pivot Investment Partners, with participation from Bek Ventures, Antler, Outward VC, Cornerstone VC, and angel investor Paul Forster.

Aryon Security, a Tel Aviv-based cloud security enforcement platform, raised $29M in Series A funding. The round was led by Brightmind Partners, with participation from Datadog Ventures, Skinos Ventures, Blumberg Capital, and Viola Ventures.

Evotrex, a Los Angeles-based company developing power-generating RVs, raised $30M in Series A funding. Investors include GSR United Capital, Forebright Concerto Capital, Unique Capital, Pegasus Capital, TTGG Ventures, ChunJia Capital, and Thundersoft.

Alta Ares, a Paris-based developer of AI-powered air defense systems, raised €50M in funding. The round was led by Air Street Capital, with participation from Cherry Ventures, OTB Ventures, and Harpoon Ventures.

Innovafeed, a Paris-based developer of insect-based ingredients for agriculture and animal nutrition, raised €51M in funding from Creadev, Qatar Investment Authority, Temasek, Future Fund Cardano, ABC Impact, and ADM.

The Portal, an Austin-based wellness and private members’ club, raised $5M in funding. Investors include Tim Ferriss, Emmet Peppers, Melissa Taunton, Scott Faber, Jacqui Bishop, Mimi Aye, Ankush Gera, Matt Mullenweg, Kwiri Yang, and Shaunda Brown.

Minerva, a NYC-based AI platform for consumer marketing organizations, raised $20M in funding. Backers include The General Partnership, 8VC, Lingotto Innovation, Topology Ventures, NBA Investments, and others, alongside a collaboration with OpenAI.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Dimension Capital, a New York City-based venture capital firm, is raising up to $750m for its third fund. According to a form filed with the SEC, Dimension Capital III, L.P., has not raised any sum, yet. The document lists Adam Goulburn as the person related to the fund raise. Led by Goulburn and Zavain Dar, Dimension is a multistage, research oriented, investment firm partnering with companies across the frontiers of science and compute.

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📜 Latest In Tech

Is workflow debt silently killing your AI returns?

• Research from Bain, McKinsey, BCG, and MIT all points to the same finding: only about 5% of companies are generating meaningful AI value at scale, and the biggest predictor is redesigning workflows before automating them.

• Workflow debt is the collection of inefficient approvals, manual workarounds, and undocumented processes that humans naturally compensate for. AI doesn’t fix these problems — it amplifies them.

• The highest-performing companies simplify processes first and automate second. The key question before any AI project: “If we were designing this workflow from scratch today, would it look like this?”

OpenAI considers price cuts as AI competition intensifies

• OpenAI is reportedly considering significant token price reductions as it prepares for a potential pricing battle with Anthropic to attract and retain customers.

• Growing enterprise adoption has also brought concerns about AI costs, with businesses increasingly questioning whether AI spending is delivering sufficient returns.

• CEO Sam Altman recently acknowledged that AI costs remain a major issue, signaling that cheaper pricing could become a key competitive lever as the AI market matures.

Amazon borrows $17.5B as AI infrastructure spending accelerates

• Amazon has secured a $17.5 billion bank loan from lenders including Citigroup, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, HSBC, and BofA, giving it flexible access to capital for future spending.

• The financing comes just days after Amazon raised another $14 billion through a Canadian bond sale, bringing total new funding to roughly $31.5 billion within 48 hours.

• The move highlights the scale of the AI arms race, with Amazon joining Alphabet and Meta in raising tens of billions of dollars to fund data centers, chips, and other AI infrastructure investments.

Anthropic’s CEO has only one direct report

• Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei revealed that he has just one direct report - his chief of staff. The rest of the executive team reports to President and co-founder Daniela Amodei, his sister.

• The structure allows Dario to spend most of his time on research, strategy, culture, and long-term AI direction instead of managing a large leadership team.

• Amodei also noted that all seven Anthropic co-founders are still at the company, making it one of the few major AI labs where the entire founding team remains intact.

Former xAI engineer sues company over AI safety concerns

• Former xAI engineer Devin Kim has sued xAI and SpaceX, claiming he was fired after repeatedly raising concerns about Grok’s safety, including risks around discrimination and dangerous information.

• The lawsuit alleges xAI prioritized speed over safeguards, with Kim warning about harmful behavior that later surfaced in Grok, including offensive outputs and misuse involving nonconsensual imagery.

• Kim’s complaint targets former xAI co-founder Jimmy Ba, alleging retaliation against safety concerns, while claiming Elon Musk had directed the company to follow legal and safety requirements.

Top AI-heavy companies now spend $7,500 per employee each month on AI

• New data from Ramp shows the top 1% of AI-heavy (”AI-pilled”) companies spend about $7,500 per employee per month on AI tools, models, and compute.

• While AI costs are rising rapidly, they’re still below the average software engineer salary of roughly $16,000 per month, meaning humans remain the bigger expense for most firms.

• AI adoption continues to accelerate: spending among the most AI-intensive companies grew 14.1% month-over-month, while the median company spends just $11.38 per employee monthly on AI.

Meta signs first AI data center deal in India with Reliance

• Meta has partnered with Reliance Industries on a 168-megawatt AI-enabled data center in Jamnagar, Gujarat, marking its first major AI infrastructure investment in India.

• The facility will support Meta’s global AI computing needs and be powered by renewable energy, with cooling provided through desalinated seawater.

• The deal highlights India’s growing role in the AI infrastructure race, as global tech firms and local conglomerates invest billions into new data centers and cloud capacity.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕ Other News

Opendoor shuts down India operations amid AI-driven restructuring

• Opendoor is closing its India offices with layoff over 200 people, with CEO Kaz Nejatian citing a shift toward smaller AI-native teams and bringing operations closer to U.S. customers.

• The move has sparked debate about AI’s impact on outsourcing, with investors arguing that automation could reduce demand for labor-intensive back-office work traditionally handled in India.

• Analysts caution this is also tied to Opendoor’s broader cost-cutting efforts, but see it as an early signal of companies redesigning operations around AI, automation, and leaner teams.

HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES

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• Investment Team - Antler | Germany - Apply Here

• Chief of Staff - AlpenGlow Venture | USA - Apply Here

• Associate, Venture Capital - Artha Venture Partner | USA - Apply Here

• Investor (Senior Associate/Principal) - Square Peg | USA - Apply Here

• Head of Entegris Ventures - Entegris Venture | USA - Apply Here

• Founding Investor - Discipulus Ventures | USA - Apply Here

• Investor - Starfire Venture | USA - Apply Here

• Senior Analyst - ICONIQUE Capital | USA - Apply Here

• Venture AI & Operations Specialist - Blum Venture | Austria - Apply Here

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Breaking News

China is reportedly preparing a massive $295 billion plan to build a nationwide AI computing network, with Huawei and domestic suppliers expected to provide most of the infrastructure. The project highlights how AI has become a national priority, with China investing at a scale designed to reduce dependence on U.S. technology and secure long-term AI leadership.

Google slashed the price of its AI Plus subscription by nearly 40% while adding more storage and premium AI features, signaling that the AI race is shifting from model performance to customer acquisition. The move puts pressure on OpenAI and Anthropic and suggests AI subscriptions could increasingly resemble streaming wars, where pricing becomes a key competitive weapon.

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DAILY PICKS

🗞️ What else is brewing

• Where is Consumer AI actually headed and who gets to win? (Link)

• Why 95% of AI budgets are growing while returns aren’t and what separates the winners from everyone else. (Link)

• Anthropic reveals how close AI is to building itself? (Link)

• What did hundreds of founders reveal about VCs? - A must-read thread. (Link)

• Why are billion-dollar VC funds racing into seed deals? (Link)

• The truth behind OpenAI’s $852 billion price tag (What you need to know before the IPO). (Link)

STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

Orbital, a Los Angeles-based space infrastructure company building AI data centers in Low Earth Orbit, raised $5M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by a16z speedrun with participation from Basis Set, Human Element, Wayfinder, Antler, Anti Fund, Ascent, Rubik, Zero Knowledge Ventures, LYVC, Feld Ventures, New Legacy, FNDR, UpHonest, and Asterisk.

Mesoware, a Palo Alto-based company developing automation solutions for manufacturers, raised $1.5M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Pillar VC.

Soffi, a San Francisco-based provider of a collaborative development environment for enterprise product teams, raised $4.6M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Innovation Endeavors with participation from Motive Force Ventures and Darkmode Ventures.

SEED

Upriver, a San Francisco-based AI-native data engineering platform provider, raised $14M in Seed funding. The round was led by Valley Capital Partners and Hetz Ventures.

Golden Analytics, a Bellevue-based AI-native analytics platform provider, raised $14M in Seed extension funding. The round was led by Insight Partners.

fonio.ai, a Vienna-based AI platform for customer communication, raised €14.6M in Seed funding. The round was led by 20VC with participation from founders and executives of Synthesia, HubSpot, and Revolut.

GROWTH

Pogo, a NYC-based AI research platform powered by purchase-verified consumer data, raised $32M in funding to date. Backers include Josh Buckley (Buckley Ventures), Mantis, 20VC, Village Global, Lenny Rachitsky, and the founders of Honey.

Cellares, a South San Francisco-based Integrated Development and Manufacturing Organization (IDMO), received a $20M investment from ARK Invest. The company’s Series D investors now include BlackRock, Eclipse, T. Rowe Price Investment Management, Baillie Gifford, Duquesne Family Office, Intuitive Ventures, EDBI, Gates Frontier, DC Global Ventures, DFJ Growth, and Willett Advisors.

Vinyl Equity, a Chicago-based financial infrastructure company for capital markets and corporate transactions, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by Jump Capital with participation from MUFG Innovation Partners, Index Ventures, Spark Capital, Infinity Ventures, and Cambrian Fintech.

Morpho, a Paris-based decentralized finance lending and borrowing network, raised $175M in funding. The round was co-led by Paradigm, a16z crypto, and Ribbit, with participation from Apollo Funds, Circle Ventures, VanEck, Ledger Cathay, Variant, Wintermute Ventures, Prelude, IOSG, Hashkey, Mirana, NJJ Capital, SBI Group, and Bpifrance.

Titan, a NYC-based banking-native AI platform for financial services, raised $3M in funding. The round was led by Entropy Ventures.

Campground, an Oakland-based operations platform for social impact programs, raised over $2.2M in funding. Backers include Precursor Ventures, Acumen Americas, Underdog Labs, Access Georgia Foundation, and Jay Love.

Rylo, a Tel Aviv- and NYC-based AI-powered communication platform for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community, raised $85M in funding. The round was led by General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund (CVF) alongside new investment led by Canaan, with participation from Vertex Ventures and Contour.

GT Medical Technologies, a medical device company focused on brain tumor treatment, raised $100M in Series E funding. The round was led by Viking Global Investors with participation from MVM Partners, Gilde Healthcare, Evidity Health Capital, Medtech Venture Partners, and FemHealth Ventures.

Earlytrade, a Sydney-based fintech platform for construction industry working capital management, raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding. The round was led by S3 Ventures and Brick & Mortar Ventures.

Beacon, a Toronto-based AI-native technology holding company, raised $225M in Series C funding. The round was led by General Catalyst and HarbourVest, with participation from Lightspeed, Intrepid Growth Partners, Valiant Peregrine, BDT & MSD Partners, Journey LP, and Sator Grove.

NinjaOne, an Austin-based IT operations platform provider, raised $400M in Series C extension funding at a $12.3B valuation. Investors include Wellington Management, Teachers’ Venture Growth, BDT and MSD Partners, Sequoia Capital, ICONIQ, Hedosophia, NEA, Washington Harbour Partners, CapitalG, and Pinegrove Opportunity Partners.

ICEYE, a Helsinki-based sovereign intelligence company, raised €450M in Series F funding at a valuation exceeding €10B. The round was led by General Atlantic with participation from Solidium, Tesi, Varma, Ilmarinen, Lifeline Ventures, Nokia, Qatar Investment Authority, and TCV.

Merchantee, a Prague-based agentic marketplace intelligence startup, raised €1.8M in funding. The round was led by Reflex Capital, with participation from Czech Founders VC and Lighthouse Ventures.

Stepful, a NYC-based healthcare career training platform, raised $55M in Series C funding. The round was led by Oak HC/FT with participation from Foresite Capital, Hearst Ventures, Citi Impact Fund, SemperVirens, Y Combinator, Intermountain Health, and ECMC Education Impact Fund.

City Therapeutics, a Cambridge-based biotech company developing RNAi medicines, raised $99.5M in Series B funding. The round was led by Viking Global Investors and Sofinnova Investments, with participation from Casdin Capital, NYBC Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners, Fidelity Management and Research Company, Invus, Slate Path Capital, Rock Springs Capital, Regeneron Ventures, and AN Ventures.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Dimension Capital, a New York City-based venture capital firm, is raising up to $750m for its third fund. According to a form filed with the SEC, Dimension Capital III, L.P., has not raised any sum, yet. The document lists Adam Goulburn as the person related to the fund raise. Led by Goulburn and Zavain Dar, Dimension is a multistage, research oriented, investment firm partnering with companies across the frontiers of science and compute.

Benchmark Capital, the Silicon Valley venture firm behind early bets in eBay, Uber, Snap, and Twitter, has raised $2 billion across two new funds, including its first-ever $1.25 billion growth fund for later-stage investments. The firm is expanding beyond its traditional early-stage strategy to back larger AI and growth-stage companies, while its new $750 million early-stage fund gives it more firepower to compete in today’s increasingly expensive startup market.

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📜 Latest In Tech

Musk explains SpaceX AI satellite design

• SpaceX founder Elon Musk shared fresh details on the AI-1 satellite, the first version of a planned 1-million-satellite orbital network built to run artificial intelligence computing, ahead of the company’s expected record IPO.

• Musk said an AI satellite is mostly solar cells, a radiator, and some laser links, making it simpler to design than a Starlink satellite because it skips the complex communications antennas Starlink requires.

• SpaceX also plans Gigasat, an 11-million-square-foot expansion in Bastrop, Texas, that will make large solar panels, and a future Terafab covering 100 million square feet, about ten times the size of Tesla’s Austin gigafactory.

Anthropic’s Fable 5 can create full video games from a single prompt

• Anthropic released Fable 5, the first public version of its Mythos model, with early testers saying it outperforms most publicly available AI models.

• Researcher Ethan Mollick used Fable 5 to generate multiple playable video games, including Snake-style arcade games and exploration titles, using just one prompt.

• Beyond games, the model also created complex tools like detailed travel-time maps, highlighting how AI is rapidly lowering the effort needed to build sophisticated software projects.

Lovable surpasses $500M ARR as usage continues to surge

• Lovable says it has crossed $500M in annualized revenue, up from $400M in February, making it one of the fastest-growing AI startups globally.

• The platform has now been used to create more than 50 million projects, with users generating around 1 million new projects every week.

• Most users are non-technical founders and operators building websites, CRMs, inventory tools, and business software, highlighting AI’s growing challenge to traditional SaaS products.

Apple announces iOS 27

• Apple has unveiled iOS 27, the next major iPhone update, which leans heavily on performance fixes and design refinements rather than a single headline feature.

• Liquid Glass now includes a slider to adjust transparency, icons get extra layers of refraction for a sharper look, and a new CPU scheduler is meant to make older iPhones feel more responsive.

• Every iPhone that runs iOS 26 can run iOS 27, going back to the iPhone 11 and second-gen iPhone SE, and Spotlight, search, and Mail have been rebuilt around a new index and ranking system.

Pentagon accuses Alibaba and BYD of supporting Chinese military

• The Pentagon has added Alibaba, Baidu, and EV maker BYD to its 1260H roster of firms it says support the Chinese military, restoring designations from a February list that was pulled minutes after posting.

• The update also reinstates memory chipmakers ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies, and now labels three of China’s top AI players — Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent — as aiding the People’s Liberation Army.

• While the list carries few immediate legal consequences, the Pentagon increasingly uses it to block companies from US military contracts and research funding, and it often serves as a red flag preceding tougher trade restrictions.

EU orders Meta to give rival AI chatbots free access to WhatsApp

• EU regulators ordered Meta to restore free WhatsApp Business API access to rival AI chatbots while an antitrust investigation into the company continues.

• The probe was triggered by complaints from AI startups that Meta blocked competitors from WhatsApp while allowing its own Meta AI assistant privileged access.

• Meta plans to appeal the decision, while the EU warns the company could face fines of up to 10% of global revenue if antitrust violations are confirmed.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕ Other News

Apple says it may remove some apps from the App Store if they don’t attract users

• Apple updated its App Store guidelines, warning that apps in crowded categories may be removed if they are not regularly updated or attracting users.

• Categories under scrutiny include wallpaper apps, simple timers, sound-effect apps, dating apps, flashlight apps, and fortune-telling apps.

• The move is part of Apple’s effort to reduce low-quality apps and improve discovery for developers building actively maintained and differentiated products.

HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES

💼 Today’s VC & Startup Job Opportunities

Most aspiring VCs struggle with interviews, unclear expectations, no structured prep, and generic advice that doesn’t actually help. So we partnered with a leading investor group to build an all-in-one VC Interview Preparation Guide that gives you real clarity and frameworks. (Access Here)

• Investment Team - Antler | Germany - Apply Here

• Chief of Staff - AlpenGlow Venture | USA - Apply Here

• Associate, Venture Capital - Artha Venture Partner | USA - Apply Here

• Investor (Senior Associate/Principal) - Square Peg | USA - Apply Here

• Head of Entegris Ventures - Entegris Venture | USA - Apply Here

• Founding Investor - Discipulus Ventures | USA - Apply Here

• Investor - Starfire Venture | USA - Apply Here

• Senior Analyst - ICONIQUE Capital | USA - Apply Here

• Venture AI & Operations Specialist - Blum Venture | Austria - Apply Here

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Breaking News

OpenAI has confidentially filed for an IPO just days after Anthropic, setting up one of the biggest public market battles in tech history. Despite nearly 900 million weekly users, OpenAI still faces massive infrastructure costs, making access to public capital increasingly important as the AI race shifts from model building to funding compute at unprecedented scale.

Apple has finally launched a rebuilt Siri powered by Google Gemini, alongside major AI upgrades across iPhone, Messages, Photos, Safari, and Search. The release marks Apple’s most significant AI move yet and signals its transition from an AI observer to a serious platform player competing with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.

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DAILY PICKS

🗞️ What else is brewing

• Is workflow debt silently killing your AI returns? What the 5% who actually win do differently. (Link)

• What the best AI-native founders know that everyone else is still figuring out. (Link)

• What did 7,200 developers reveal about AI coding?: The State of Web Dev AI 2026 report. (Link)

• How fast should founders ship features in the AI era? A framework from a former Facebook executive. (Link)

• Why nobody wants to build this boring AI category (Even though it’s worth billions.) (Link)

STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

InfoHawk, an Austin-based startup building AI systems to detect deception at internet scale, raised $2.25M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Moonshots Capital.

BeatpulseLabs, a London-based provider of data infrastructure for enterprise AI, raised $1.8M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Araya Ventures and Lighthouse Ventures.

SEED

Lexful, a Salt Lake City-based AI-native IT documentation platform built for managed service providers (MSPs), raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Top Down Ventures and York IE.

Reset, a Menlo Park-based embedded earned wage access platform for credit unions and community banks, raised $6M in Seed funding from Georgia’s Own Credit Union, InTouch Credit Union, Chartway Credit Union, VyStar Credit Union, One Washington Financial, Curql, Navari, and the Bankers Helping Bankers Fund.

Breaking Change, a Wales-based technology company developing tools for the global games industry, raised over £1M in funding. The equity portion was led by the Development Bank of Wales and Haatch, alongside support from Innovate UK Growth Catalyst.

GROWTH

Edge Markets, a NYC-based financial services company creating products for gaming, crypto, and prediction markets, raised $29.2M in Series A funding. The round was led by CoinFund with participation from Indicator Ventures, Mantis VC, StepStone Group, and Bullpen Capital.

PhysicsX, a London-based physics AI company developing engineering software for hardware industries, raised $300M in Series C funding at an approximately $2.4B valuation. The round was led by Temasek, with participation from M&G Investments, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied Materials, Atomico, General Catalyst, July Fund, NGP, NVIDIA, Radius, and Siemens.

A Security, a NYC-based cybersecurity platform protecting organizations from weaponized AI attacks, raised $37M in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Cyberstarts, and angel investors including Assaf Rappaport (Wiz), Yotam Segev (Cyera), and Cerca Partners.

PointFive, a NYC-based AI and cloud efficiency company, raised $60M in Series B funding. The round was led by Accel, with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Entrée Capital, Perpetual Growth, Vesey Ventures, Sheva Ventures, and Index Ventures.

Rejuvenate Bio, a San Diego-based biotechnology company developing gene therapies for age-related diseases, raised $6M in funding. The round was led by VCapital, with participation from Merck Animal Health, Kendall Capital Partners, Connecticut Innovations, and Digitalis.

GR3N, a Switzerland-based developer of chemical recycling systems for PET plastics, raised €15.5M in Series B funding. The round was led by 360 Capital, with participation from VP Textile.

Clear Robotics, a Hong Kong-based maritime technology company, raised $1.75M in Pre-Series A funding. The round was led by Shipsfocus Ventures, with follow-on investments from Katapult Ocean, SGInnovate, M7 Holdings, MGS Ventures, and other strategic partners.

Rapidus, a Tokyo-based semiconductor manufacturer, secured approximately $943M in additional funding. Investors included Canon, Development Bank of Japan, Fujitsu, NTT, SoftBank, and Sony Group, alongside support from IPA.

Blnk, an Egypt-based AI-enabled digital consumer finance platform, raised $36.9M in equity and debt financing. The Series A equity round was led by Algebra Ventures, with participation from SANAD Fund for MSME, Endeavor Catalyst, and Emirates International Investment Company (EIIC).

NewOrbit, a UK-based satellite manufacturer, raised $18.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Voyager Ventures, with participation from David Kirk, Laurence Leuschner, Custos, Atlantic.vc, Lifeline Ventures, LGF, and Illusian.

Volteum, a London-based fleet management platform for electric vehicles, raised €2.5M in funding. The round was led by Movens Capital, with participation from WakeUp Capital, Aidiom, Day One Capital, Techstars, and Nesprit.

Grapheal, a France-based biosensor startup, received a €2.5M grant from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator.

Accelevate Solutions, an Arizona-based company developing AI-powered fleet decision intelligence software, raised $1M in funding. The round was led by Brand Engagement Network.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Dimension Capital, a New York City-based venture capital firm, is raising up to $750m for its third fund. According to a form filed with the SEC, Dimension Capital III, L.P., has not raised any sum, yet. The document lists Adam Goulburn as the person related to the fund raise. Led by Goulburn and Zavain Dar, Dimension is a multistage, research oriented, investment firm partnering with companies across the frontiers of science and compute.

Benchmark Capital, the Silicon Valley venture firm behind early bets in eBay, Uber, Snap, and Twitter, has raised $2 billion across two new funds, including its first-ever $1.25 billion growth fund for later-stage investments. The firm is expanding beyond its traditional early-stage strategy to back larger AI and growth-stage companies, while its new $750 million early-stage fund gives it more firepower to compete in today’s increasingly expensive startup market.

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KEY STORIES IN TECH

📜 Latest In Tech

Mercor CEO accuses VCs of valuation ‘dual-pricing’ tactics

• Mercor CEO Brendan Foody claimed some VCs invest through multiple tranches at different valuations, creating inflated headline valuations that may not reflect the true deal price.

• He specifically called out Sequoia, though partner Shaun Maguire defended the practice, saying it occurs when investors disagree on pricing and is not intended to mislead founders or markets.

• The debate highlights growing concerns around startup valuation optics, especially in AI, where headline valuations and ARR figures can sometimes paint a more optimistic picture than underlying fundamentals.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s World project faces layoffs amid IPO buzz

• Just as OpenAI confidentially filed for an IPO, reports say Altman-backed Tools for Humanity is conducting layoffs as it struggles to generate meaningful revenue.

• The company’s flagship product, World, uses biometric iris scans to verify human identity and support transactions using its cryptocurrency, Worldcoin.

• Despite raising money at a $2.5B valuation, the project has faced privacy and regulatory challenges in countries including Kenya, India, Hong Kong, and South Korea, where concerns have centered on collecting biometric data in exchange for crypto rewards.

Instagram AI chatbot breach hits 20,000 accounts

• Meta has confirmed that hackers compromised at least 20,225 Instagram accounts by exploiting a flaw in its AI-powered support chatbot, marking the first time the company has put a number on the scope of the breach.

• The “High Touch Support” account recovery tool sent password reset links to any email address without checking whether it actually belonged to the Instagram account, a bug that attackers exploited from April 17 to May 31, 2026.

• Potentially exposed data includes contact info, birth dates, posts, direct messages, and profile information; Meta disabled the chatbot, invalidated reset links, and placed affected users into a mandatory security checkpoint to reset passwords.

Perplexity targets 2028 IPO despite OpenAI and Anthropic race

• Perplexity AI plans to go public in 2028 regardless of how upcoming IPOs from OpenAI, Anthropic, or SpaceX perform, according to CEO Aravind Srinivas.

• Srinivas said successful IPOs from AI leaders would benefit the broader industry, though SpaceX’s debut is expected to be an important signal for investor appetite toward AI listings.

• Perplexity says sticking to its 2028 IPO timeline has allowed the company to focus on building a healthy, high-growth business rather than rushing to public markets.

Founders name VCs who burned them on X

• Startup founders flooded X over the weekend with stories calling out venture capitalists they say mistreated them, with Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince leading the charge by naming Vinod Khosla in a disputed account from 2012.

• Prince said Khosla offered him his co-founders’ stock if he fired them during a Series C dinner, while Khosla denied the story on X and was simultaneously ranked No. 1 on Forbes’s 2026 Midas List.

• The thread, kicked off by Greg Isenberg’s story about a partner sleeping through his $15 million Series A pitch, drew mostly billionaires and past-exit founders like Mark Pincus, Travis Kalanick, and Liz Wessel.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕ Other News

Companies rehire workers laid off for AI

• Companies that cut staff in favor of AI are now rehiring people for those same jobs, a pattern Robert Half consultants are calling the “AI boomerang” effect after surveying 2,000 U.S. hiring managers across industries.

• Nearly a third of hiring managers, 32%, said their organizations eliminated a role or let someone go because of productivity gains from AI or automation, only to later rehire for that exact same position.

• Finance led the rehiring trend at 44%, followed by HR at 35% and tech at 32%, with managers citing gaps in quality, oversight, and decision-making once business demands picked up after the initial cuts.

HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES

💼 Today’s VC & Startup Job Opportunities

Most aspiring VCs struggle with interviews, unclear expectations, no structured prep, and generic advice that doesn’t actually help. So we partnered with a leading investor group to build an all-in-one VC Interview Preparation Guide that gives you real clarity and frameworks. (Access Here)

• Investor (Senior Associate/Principal) - Square Peg | USA - Apply Here

• Founding Investor - Discipulus Ventures | USA - Apply Here

• Senior Analyst - ICONIQUE Capital | USA - Apply Here

• Venture AI & Operations Specialist - Blum Venture | Austria - Apply Here

• Senior Associate - New York Life Venture | USA - Apply Here

• Program Manager - a16z | USA - Apply Here

• Associate - Manhattan Venture | USA - Apply Here

• VP — Finance & Compliance - Transition VC | India - Apply Here

• Senior Associate - ICONIQUE CAPITAL | USA - Apply Here

• Venture Capital Analyst - MicroVentures | USA - Apply Here

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Breaking News

OpenAI is reportedly turning ChatGPT into a unified “super app” that combines chat, coding, AI agents, and productivity tools into one experience. The move signals a major strategy shift as OpenAI looks to make ChatGPT the central operating system for work and daily life, while competing more directly with Anthropic and other AI platforms.

Anthropic warned that AI could soon reach a stage where systems begin improving themselves, and argued that leading AI labs may need a coordinated pause to avoid losing control of the technology. The statement is one of the strongest public warnings yet from a frontier AI company and highlights growing concerns about how quickly advanced AI capabilities are accelerating.

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🗞️ What else is brewing

• The AI-Native Startup Playbook: How to Build, Launch and Scale Faster With AI. (Link)

• An experienced VC’s framework for discussing valuation, reading investor signals, and negotiating without naming a price too early. (Link)

• The end of cheap AI: Why AI startups may face their AWS moment sooner than expected. (Link)

• 40+ investor contact databases and 50+ fundraising resources every founder needs. (Link)

STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

AethexAI, a Cambridge-based startup building localized voice AI models, raised $3M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by 4DX Ventures with participation from Enza Capital, Dorm Room Fund, and AI researchers from Anthropic.

New Dawn Bio, a Netherlands-based company developing cultured wood tissue from tree stem cells, raised €2.1M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by CapitalT with participation from Norrsken Evolve.

SEED

Willow, an Israel-based startup building an agentic access platform, raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Hetz Ventures.

Red Metals, a Charleston-based copper manufacturing startup, raised $10M in Seed funding. The round was led by Gigascale Capital with participation from Future Ventures, MCJ, and JB Straubel.

GROWTH

Collate, a San Francisco-based AI document automation platform for life sciences, raised $95M in funding at a valuation approaching $1B. The round was led by Redpoint Ventures.

Highland Electric Fleets, a provider of Electrification-as-a-Service for fleet operators, raised $75M in funding. The round was led by Galvanize.

Generalist AI, a San Francisco-based company developing embodied robotics intelligence and foundation models, raised $400M in funding at a $2B valuation. The round was led by Radical Ventures.

Flourish, a NYC-based company building brain-inspired continuous learning AI systems, raised $500M in funding at a $2.5B valuation. Investors include Jeff Bezos, GV, Lux Capital, and Catalio Capital.

Tilt, a London-based live-video commerce platform, raised $26M in funding. The round was led by Vinted Ventures.

Supabase, the open-source Postgres development platform, raised $500M in Series F funding at a $10.5B valuation. The round was led by GIC with participation from Accel, Y Combinator, Craft Ventures, Felicis, Peak XV, and Coatue.

inCharge Energy, a provider of EV charging and energy solutions, raised $46M in funding. The round was led by S2G Investments with participation from QIC.

Opal Security, an AI-native access governance platform, raised $23M in new funding. The round was led by Greylock and Battery Ventures.

Innovorder, a Paris-based restaurant management and POS software company, raised €20M in funding. The round was led by UL Invest.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Gigascale Capital, a Palo Alto, CA-based venture capital firm focused on the physical economy, closed its first institutional fund, at $250m. Founded in 2023 by former Meta CTO Mike Schroepfer, Victoria Beasley, and Evaline Tsai, Gigascale is focused on such areas as clean energy and grid infrastructure, the supply chains that support them, and AI applied to the design, manufacturing, and deployment of physical systems.

Benchmark Capital, the Silicon Valley venture firm behind early bets in eBay, Uber, Snap, and Twitter, has raised $2 billion across two new funds, including its first-ever $1.25 billion growth fund for later-stage investments. The firm is expanding beyond its traditional early-stage strategy to back larger AI and growth-stage companies, while its new $750 million early-stage fund gives it more firepower to compete in today’s increasingly expensive startup market.

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📜 Latest In Tech

Trump administration explores AI equity ownership model

• The Trump administration is discussing potential equity stakes in major AI companies, with OpenAI reportedly among the firms involved in conversations.

• One proposal would direct part of those shares into a public wealth fund, allowing Americans to benefit financially from AI-driven growth and future IPO gains.

• The idea has support and criticism across political lines, with supporters citing shared prosperity while critics warn of growing ties between government and big AI companies.

Google will pay SpaceX $920M per month for compute deal

• Google will pay SpaceX $920 million per month through June 2029 for access to roughly 110,000 Nvidia GPUs and related AI infrastructure.

• The agreement highlights soaring demand for AI services, with Google saying customer demand for Gemini Enterprise and agent products exceeded expectations.

• The deal adds to SpaceX’s growing AI infrastructure business ahead of its IPO, following Anthropic’s earlier $1.25 billion-per-month compute agreement.

OpenAI rolls out Lockdown Mode against prompt injections

• OpenAI is rolling out Lockdown Mode, an optional security setting in ChatGPT that gives users stricter protection against prompt injection attacks, where bad actors hide malicious instructions on webpages to trick AI systems into leaking data.

• Turning it on disables Deep Research and Agent Mode entirely, blocks ChatGPT from pulling or displaying images from the internet, and stops the chatbot from downloading files, though manual uploads and image generation still work.

• The feature is available to all personal accounts, including the free tier, and works by limiting network requests an attacker could exploit to exfiltrate sensitive data, rather than stopping injections from appearing in processed content.

Anthropic is helping the NSA

• Anthropic has embedded around six engineers at the National Security Agency to deploy Mythos, its most capable AI model, for offensive cyber operations, according to a Financial Times report published Thursday.

• Mythos is the same model Anthropic has refused to release publicly over misuse risk, restricting it to vetted partners through Project Glasswing, a coalition that includes Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon.

• The NSA kept using Mythos even as Anthropic sues the Pentagon over a supply-chain risk label from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which followed a collapsed $200 million contract over autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance limits.

Reid Hoffman leaves Microsoft board to focus on Manus

• Reid Hoffman is stepping down from Microsoft’s board after nearly a decade, saying he wants to spend more time helping build AI startup Manus.

• Hoffman played key roles in Microsoft’s OpenAI partnership and the Inflection AI deal that brought Mustafa Suleyman and his team to Microsoft.

• Manus focuses on AI-driven drug discovery, particularly cancer research, and Hoffman says the company is making significant progress in applying AI to chemistry.

Sriram Krishnan exits White House AI role

• Former a16z partner Sriram Krishnan will leave his position as White House AI advisor at the end of June after helping shape U.S. AI policy.

• During his tenure, he worked on the AI Action Plan, data center expansion efforts, and executive orders aimed at strengthening America’s AI competitiveness.

• Krishnan says he will next focus on building institutions around AI, energy, and infrastructure, while remaining involved in policy discussions outside government.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕ Other News

What to expect from Apple’s WWDC 2026

• Apple is expected to unveil a major Siri overhaul, making it more conversational, context-aware, and capable of handling complex multi-step tasks using AI.

• New Apple Intelligence features may include AI-powered photo editing, upgraded Image Playground tools, AI agents, and deeper integrations across Apple’s apps and devices.

• Other expected updates include bill-splitting and pass creation in Wallet, Visual Intelligence upgrades in Camera, and AI enhancements across iOS, macOS, iPadOS, visionOS, watchOS, and tvOS.

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• Investor (Senior Associate/Principal) - Square Peg | USA - Apply Here

• Founding Investor - Discipulus Ventures | USA - Apply Here

• Senior Analyst - ICONIQUE Capital | USA - Apply Here

• Venture AI & Operations Specialist - Blum Venture | Austria - Apply Here

• Senior Associate - New York Life Venture | USA - Apply Here

• Program Manager - a16z | USA - Apply Here

• Associate - Manhattan Venture | USA - Apply Here

• VP — Finance & Compliance - Transition VC | India - Apply Here

• Senior Associate - ICONIQUE CAPITAL | USA - Apply Here

• Venture Capital Analyst - MicroVentures | USA - Apply Here

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Breaking News

Apple has reportedly abandoned most of its Vision Pro roadmap, shrinking plans from seven headset-related products to just two smart glasses projects. The move marks a major strategic retreat from Apple’s biggest post-iPhone hardware bet and signals that the company now sees AI-powered glasses — not mixed-reality headsets, as the future of wearable computing.

U.S. officials have reportedly discussed taking equity stakes in major AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, with potential profits funding public programs or even payments to citizens. If pursued, it would represent one of the most unusual government-industry partnerships in modern tech history and could reshape how the public shares in the economic gains from AI.

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🗞️ What else is brewing

• What should founders say when investors ask about valuation? (Link)

• All-in-one fundraising & investor database system for founders - curated by leading VCs. (Link)

• What 500 unicorns reveal about where great founders come from? (Link)

• Why are Investors betting billions on Brain-computer interfaces despite an adoption problem? (Link)

• Why the next billion-dollar sales companies won’t own the database. (Link)

STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

ZeroDrift, a NYC-based AI compliance firewall platform, raised $10M in Seed funding. Backers included a16z Speedrun, Reign Ventures, PitchDrive Ventures, and others.

SEED

Willow, an Israel-based startup building an agentic access platform, raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Hetz Ventures.

Offroad, a NYC- and Tel Aviv-based agentic identity security company, raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Ibex Investors and Skywell Capital.

Cense, a Switzerland-based crypto compliance platform for financial institutions, raised €6.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by G+D Ventures and Rabo Investments.

Shifters, a Washington DC-based company building autonomous robotic teams, raised $10.2M in Seed funding. The round was led by Ace Capital Partners.

Kodesage, a Budapest-based enterprise AI platform for understanding and modernizing legacy software, raised $6.6M in Seed funding. The round was led by VentureFriends.

GROWTH

Innovorder, a Paris-based restaurant technology platform, raised €20M in funding. The round was led by UL Invest.

Tripo AI, a Chinese AI company building 3D foundation models and world models, raised nearly $200M across Series A+ and Series A++ rounds.

Suno, the AI music generation company, raised $400M+ in Series D funding at a $5.4B valuation. The round was led by Bond Capital.

Lila Sciences, a scientific superintelligence and automated lab platform, raised $350M in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Braidwell and Collective Global.

Helion, the fusion energy company, raised $465M in Series G funding at a $15.5B valuation. The round was led by Thrive Capital.

Honeycomb Insurance, a digital insurer focused on apartment buildings and condo associations, raised $40M in funding. The round was led by Zeev Ventures.

Ramp, the financial operations platform, raised $750M in Series F funding at a $44B valuation. The round was led by ICONIQ, GIC, and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

Kalogon, a smart seating technology company, raised $5.75M in funding. The round was led by Enable Ventures.

WasabiCard, a Singapore-based stablecoin payment infrastructure company, raised ~$10M in Pre-A funding.

Scotch, a POS platform for liquor retailers, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by VMG Partners.

CereVasc, a clinical-stage neurovascular medical device company, raised $85M in Series C funding. The round was led by Piper Sandler Merchant Banking.

Scispot, an AI-native operating layer for modern laboratories, raised $8M in Series A funding. The round was led by Avenue Growth Partners.

Airspeed, a London and NYC-based agent-native GTM execution platform, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by DN Capital.

Town, a personalized AI assistant platform, raised $55M in Series A funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz.

AlphaSense, a market intelligence and financial research platform, raised $350M at a $7.5B valuation. The round was led by Vitruvian Partners, Accenture Ventures, and J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

Lassie, a startup building autonomous systems for small businesses, raised $35M in Series A funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

Semble, a healthcare technology platform, raised £30M in Series C funding. The round was led by Revaia.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Gigascale Capital, a Palo Alto, CA-based venture capital firm focused on the physical economy, closed its first institutional fund, at $250m. Founded in 2023 by former Meta CTO Mike Schroepfer, Victoria Beasley, and Evaline Tsai, Gigascale is focused on such areas as clean energy and grid infrastructure, the supply chains that support them, and AI applied to the design, manufacturing, and deployment of physical systems.

Benchmark Capital, the Silicon Valley venture firm behind early bets in eBay, Uber, Snap, and Twitter, has raised $2 billion across two new funds, including its first-ever $1.25 billion growth fund for later-stage investments. The firm is expanding beyond its traditional early-stage strategy to back larger AI and growth-stage companies, while its new $750 million early-stage fund gives it more firepower to compete in today’s increasingly expensive startup market.

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📜 Latest In Tech

Apple approves Poke as first AI agent on Messages for Business

• Poke became the first AI agent approved to run on Apple’s Messages for Business platform, allowing users to interact with the AI directly through iMessage instead of SMS, Telegram, or WhatsApp.

• The startup helps users with tasks like scheduling, calendar management, fitness tracking, smart home control, and photo editing. Since launching in March, it has processed over 100 million messages.

• Poke will pay Apple a per-user fee to operate on the platform, creating a potential new revenue stream for Apple while introducing a new distribution cost for AI agent startups. The company recently raised an additional $10 million and is now valued at $300 million.

Anthropic’s Daniela Amodei defends AI spending ahead of IPO

• Anthropic says frontier AI companies will increasingly need public-market capital as training and serving advanced models becomes more expensive.

• The company’s annualized revenue reached $47 billion in May, up from about $9 billion at the end of 2025, ahead of its planned IPO.

• Amodei dismissed concerns about AI ROI, arguing businesses are still early in adoption and will unlock more value as AI becomes part of daily workflows.

Airbnb’s Brian Chesky plans to launch a new AI lab

• Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky is backing a new AI lab, signaling his interest in building AI products despite previously saying existing models were not yet ready.

• Chesky has been a close advisor to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and played a key role in helping Altman return after his brief removal in 2023.

• The lab’s focus remains unclear, though it may center on AI interfaces and user experience. Chesky will remain CEO of Airbnb and won’t run the lab directly.

Meta builds AI data centers in tents to speed expansion

• Meta has built six large tent-like structures in Ohio to house AI infrastructure, aiming to cut data center construction times roughly in half.

• The approach resembles Tesla’s temporary factory tents and xAI’s use of modular power systems, helping Meta deploy AI capacity faster.

• The move comes as Meta plans to spend up to $145 billion on AI infrastructure while facing delays in releasing its latest AI model APIs to developers.

OpenAI and Anthropic urge DNA sales tracking

• The CEOs of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and Microsoft AI signed a public letter pushing Congress to pass laws that would require companies selling synthetic DNA and RNA to screen their customers and orders.

• Organized by the Institute for Progress and the Foundation for American Innovation, the letter warns that AI could erode the knowledge barriers that have stopped bad actors from building biological weapons using mail-order genetic material.

• A bipartisan Senate bill introduced this year would require all US gene synthesis providers to screen orders, though Microsoft researchers showed last year that AI protein design tools can generate dangerous sequences that slip past existing screening software.

71% of Americans oppose nearby data centers

• A new Heatmap Pro survey shows 71% of Americans would oppose a data center being built near their home, with 55% “strongly” against such projects going up in their neighborhoods.

• Opposition has climbed fast, jumping from 42% in August 2025 to 51% three months ago and now 71%, while 53% blame data centers for rising electricity costs, up from 28% nine months back.

• A separate Gallup poll in May found 70% opposed local data center construction, up from 47% in late 2025, with respondents citing water and energy use and saying they’d rather live next to a nuclear plant.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕ Other News

Apple says App Store ecosystem generated $1.4T in sales and billings

• Apple reported that the App Store facilitated $1.4 trillion in developer billings and sales in 2025, up from $1.3 trillion a year earlier, with 90% of transactions generating no commission for Apple.

• The total included $1.1 trillion from physical goods and services, $149 billion from digital goods, and $151 billion in in-app advertising revenue, highlighting the scale of the broader app economy.

• Apple also noted that AI-powered apps are gaining momentum, with 40 of the top 100 apps featuring consumer AI capabilities and showing faster revenue growth than their peers ahead of WWDC 2026.

HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES

💼 Today’s VC & Startup Job Opportunities

Most aspiring VCs struggle with interviews, unclear expectations, no structured prep, and generic advice that doesn’t actually help. So we partnered with a leading investor group to build an all-in-one VC Interview Preparation Guide that gives you real clarity and frameworks. (Access Here)

• Investor (Senior Associate/Principal) - Square Peg | USA - Apply Here

• Founding Investor - Discipulus Ventures | USA - Apply Here

• Senior Analyst - ICONIQUE Capital | USA - Apply Here

• Venture AI & Operations Specialist - Blum Venture | Austria - Apply Here

• Senior Associate - New York Life Venture | USA - Apply Here

• Program Manager - a16z | USA - Apply Here

• Associate - Manhattan Venture | USA - Apply Here

• VP — Finance & Compliance - Transition VC | India - Apply Here

• Senior Associate - ICONIQUE CAPITAL | USA - Apply Here

• Venture Capital Analyst - MicroVentures | USA - Apply Here

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Breaking News

Microsoft launched seven new AI models as it works to reduce its dependence on OpenAI, signaling a major shift in one of tech’s most important partnerships. After investing billions into OpenAI, Microsoft now wants greater control over its AI stack, costs, and future products, setting up a future where the two companies could increasingly compete rather than simply collaborate.

Google is reportedly paying Android developers for access to app source code to train its AI coding models, highlighting how valuable high-quality training data has become. The move suggests that public web data is no longer enough for frontier AI development, pushing tech giants toward exclusive data deals as the next battleground in the AI race.

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DAILY PICKS

🗞️ What else is brewing

• What should founders say when investors ask about valuation? (Link)

• The AI industry is quietly moving from growth-at-all-costs to cost-accounting mode. (Link)

• He turned cakes into a $120K/month lead generation business. (Link)

• Could AI handle a month-long project without human help by 2027? (Link)

• Why is $3 trillion of Venture Capital still waiting to be returned? (Link)

• What did 7,200 developers reveal about AI coding?: The State of Web Dev AI 2026 report. (Link)

STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

ZeroDrift, a NYC-based AI compliance firewall platform, raised $10M in Seed funding. Backers included a16z Speedrun, Reign Ventures, PitchDrive Ventures, and others.

SEED

Radley Health (RadleyCare), a Cincinnati-based peer-supported behavioral healthcare platform, raised $3M in Seed funding. Backers included Aurora Forge, Jackson Healthcare, and CareSource.

Haga Bioscience, a Stockholm-based spatial biology startup, raised approximately $2.3M in Seed funding. Investors included Almi Invest, Life Science Invest, and SU Ventures.

Paypercut, a Sofia-based payments infrastructure platform for Central and Eastern Europe, raised €5M in Seed funding. The round was co-led by Concentric, Passion Capital, and Araya Ventures.

Ingenix, a Warsaw-based AI and biology company, raised $13M in Seed extension funding. The round was led by Sofinnova Partners.

Phosio, a Corvallis-based advanced materials company developing high refractive index metal oxides, raised $4M in Seed funding. The round was led by MESH.

Westmag, a San Francisco-based manufacturer of drone motors and robotic actuators, raised $11M in Seed funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Founders Fund and Lux Capital.

GROWTH

Perk (TravelPerk), a Boston-based AI-native travel and spend management platform, secured a $300M credit facility led by Neuberger Specialty Finance, alongside Blue Owl, Hercules Capital, and Liquidity.

Terra AI, a Palo Alto-based AI platform helping solve subsurface uncertainty for mineral and energy development, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by Khosla Ventures with strategic participation from BHP Ventures.

Quobly, a France-based quantum computing startup building silicon-based quantum computers, raised €115M in Series A funding. The round was led by Bpifrance, SEALSQ, and STMicroelectronics.

Uncover, a São Paulo-based marketing measurement platform, raised $16M in Series A funding. The round was led by Cloud9 Capital.

Coralogix, a Boston-based observability and AI platform, raised $200M in Series F funding. The round was co-led by Advent, CPPIB, and Greenfield.

Wordsmith, an Edinburgh-based legal AI startup, raised $70M in Series B funding. Backers included Highland Europe and Index Ventures.

Arpio, a Durham-based AI-native cloud recovery and resilience platform, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was co-led by S3 Ventures and Paladin Capital Group.

Forage, a San Francisco-based financial infrastructure platform, raised $40M in Series B funding. The round was led by Mouro Capital.

Molfar Defence Technologies, a Warsaw-based defense technology company building anti-drone radar systems, closed the first €1.5M tranche of its funding round. Front Ventures led the investment.

Oak Hill Bio, a Cambridge-based rare disease therapeutics company, raised $32.5M in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Balyasny Asset Management, venBio, and Janus Henderson Investors.

ZutaCore, a Foster City-based liquid cooling company for AI and HPC infrastructure, raised $100M in Series C funding. Investors included Mitsubishi Electric, Carrier Ventures, and Samsung Ventures.

NewLimit, a San Francisco-based longevity biotech focused on cell reprogramming, raised $435M in Series C funding. The round was led by Founders Fund.

Impulse Space, a Redondo Beach-based space infrastructure company, raised $500M in Series D funding. The round was co-led by 137 Ventures and BANNER VC.

Factorial, a Barcelona-based AI workforce operations platform, raised $150M in Series D funding at a $2.5B valuation. The round was led by General Catalyst.

BibliU, a provider of academic content and campus store solutions, raised $55M in new funding. Investors included BlackRock.

Contraline, a clinical-stage biotech developing male contraceptives, raised $92.5M in Series B funding. The round was led by BVF Partners and RA Capital Management.

Gigaton, a London-based AI control software company for energy-intensive industries, raised $26M in Series A funding. The round was led by Plural.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Gigascale Capital, a Palo Alto, CA-based venture capital firm focused on the physical economy, closed its first institutional fund, at $250m. Founded in 2023 by former Meta CTO Mike Schroepfer, Victoria Beasley, and Evaline Tsai, Gigascale is focused on such areas as clean energy and grid infrastructure, the supply chains that support them, and AI applied to the design, manufacturing, and deployment of physical systems.

Benchmark Capital, the Silicon Valley venture firm behind early bets in eBay, Uber, Snap, and Twitter, has raised $2 billion across two new funds, including its first-ever $1.25 billion growth fund for later-stage investments. The firm is expanding beyond its traditional early-stage strategy to back larger AI and growth-stage companies, while its new $750 million early-stage fund gives it more firepower to compete in today’s increasingly expensive startup market.

PARTNERSHIP WITH US

🤝 Get your startup in front of 120,000+ audience.

Our newsletter is read by 120,000+ of tech professionals, founders, investors (VCs / Angel Investors) and managers around the world. Get in touch today.

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📜 Latest In Tech

Alphabet’s $85B AI fundraising signals strong investor demand for AI

• Alphabet’s AI-focused stock offering attracted overwhelming demand, allowing Google’s parent company to increase its first fundraising tranche from $40B to $45B, with Berkshire Hathaway investing $10B.

• The company plans to raise a total of $85B to help fund its massive AI infrastructure expansion, alongside expected AI-related capital expenditures of $180B–$190B this year.

• The successful raise is seen as a positive signal for upcoming AI IPOs from companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX, suggesting public investors remain eager to back large-scale AI opportunities.

Uber caps AI spending after burning through annual budget in 4 months

• Uber has introduced a $1,500 monthly spending cap per employee for AI coding tools like Claude Code and Cursor after exhausting its annual AI budget within the first four months of the year.

• The company had previously encouraged employees to maximize AI usage and even tracked adoption through internal leaderboards, driving AI costs higher than expected.

• The move highlights growing concerns around AI ROI, as companies spend heavily on AI tools but still struggle to clearly measure their impact on productivity and business outcomes.

Microsoft launches 7 AI models to cut OpenAI reliance

• At its Build conference, Microsoft launched seven of its own AI models to lean less on OpenAI, letting it run the technology on its Azure cloud infrastructure and avoid paying third parties for the models behind its products.

• The lineup is headlined by MAI-Code-1, a coding model that turns text prompts into source code inside GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code, and MAI-Thinking-1, a medium-sized reasoning model in private preview through Microsoft Foundry.

• Cutting reliance on OpenAI matters as Microsoft has put $13 billion into the company and $5 billion into Anthropic, both of which are now moving toward IPOs while charging more for their leading proprietary models.

Android adds fake AI call detection

• Android is rolling out fake call detection this month to fight AI deepfake impersonation scams, arriving globally in Phone by Google on Android 12+ devices and starting with Pixel phones, switched on by default.

• The feature works as a “digital handshake between devices,” where a contact calling you through Phone by Google sends a silent confirmation signal that verifies the call is actually coming from their phone.

• If a scammer spoofs a contact, the missing signal prompts your device to ping the real phone, and if it replies that no call is happening, you get an on-screen warning to hang up.

Meta launches AI business agent to compete in enterprise AI

• Meta introduced a new AI Business Agent that can handle customer support, qualify leads, book appointments, process orders, and complete sales across WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram.

• More than 1 million businesses already use Meta’s chatbot tools, and the company plans to offer paid subscription tiers while expanding support for platforms like Shopify, Zendesk, and Shopee.

• The launch marks Meta’s push into enterprise AI, positioning it against OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google by helping businesses automate operations directly within Meta’s ecosystem.

Lovable expands Google Cloud partnership in major AI infrastructure deal

• Stockholm-based vibe-coding startup Lovable signed a multiyear agreement with Google Cloud that reportedly increases its cloud and AI usage by 5x.

• The deal gives Lovable expanded access to Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini models, supporting its rapid growth after reaching $400M annualized revenue with just 146 employees.

• Lovable will also integrate with Google-owned Wiz for real-time security checks and distribute its AI agents through Google Cloud’s enterprise marketplace to accelerate enterprise adoption.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕ Other News

Microsoft unveils AI-first devices and tools at Build 2026

• Microsoft introduced Project Solara, a new category of AI-native devices that rely on cloud-connected agents instead of traditional operating systems and apps, signaling a shift toward AI-driven computing.

• The company also showcased the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, powered by Nvidia’s new RTX Spark chip, designed to run large AI models locally and compete with high-end Apple devices.

• Microsoft launched Scout, an AI agent inside Copilot, added enterprise-safe support for OpenClaw, and revealed new in-house AI models, including MAI Thinking-1, while expanding healthcare AI efforts through a partnership with Mayo Clinic.

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Breaking News

SpaceX is targeting a record-breaking $75B IPO at a $1.75T valuation despite posting a $4.9B loss last year. The offering would become one of the largest IPOs ever and represents a massive bet on Starlink, AI infrastructure, and Elon Musk’s vision of space-based computing and Mars expansion.

Meta is reportedly capturing employee emails, chats, browsing activity, code changes, and computer usage patterns to train AI systems across the company. The initiative highlights how valuable real-world human workflow data has become in the AI race, while also raising major privacy and workplace surveillance concerns.

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🗞️ What else is brewing

• Could AI handle a month-long project without human help by 2027? (Link)

• Why is $3 trillion of Venture Capital still waiting to be returned? (Link)

• What did 7,200 developers reveal about AI coding?: The State of Web Dev AI 2026 report. (Link)

• How fast should founders ship features in the AI era? A framework from a former Facebook executive. (Link)

• Why nobody wants to build this boring AI category (Even though it’s worth billions.) (Link)

STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

ZeroDrift, a NYC-based AI compliance firewall platform, raised $10M in Seed funding. Backers included a16z Speedrun, Reign Ventures, PitchDrive Ventures, and others.

SEED

Kosmos, a Chicago-based AI-native operational intelligence platform, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Norwest.

StratusGrid, a Chattanooga-based AI-driven cloud infrastructure optimization platform, raised $3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Dogwood Ventures.

Plot, a NYC-based agentic social video intelligence and marketing platform, raised $10M in Seed funding. The round was co-led by XYZ Venture Capital and Mischief Ventures.

GROWTH

Board, a NYC-based tabletop gaming console and creator platform, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by Union Square Ventures.

Findigs, a NYC-based AI-native residential leasing and underwriting platform, raised $32M in Series C funding. The round was led by RPM Ventures.

Adaptive Innovations, a NYC- and Dallas-based AI-native home healthcare operating system, raised $50M in Series A funding. The round was led by Felicis and Bain Capital Ventures.

Advanced NanoTherapies, a Santa Clara-based vascular treatment company, raised $31M+ in Series B funding. The round was co-led by S3 Ventures.

Tavo Biotherapeutics, a Laguna Beach-based ophthalmology biotech startup, raised $17M in Series A funding. The round was led by Pureos Bioventures.

Subtle Medical, a Menlo Park-based AI-powered medical imaging company, raised $33M in growth capital anchored by a Series C round. The financing was led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital.

Ilant Health, a NYC-based AI-supported obesity and cardiometabolic care platform, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by Cornucopian Capital.

Novellia, a NYC-based patient-powered health records and real-world data platform, raised $18M in Series A funding. The round was led by Spark Capital.

Alitheon, a Bellevue-based optical AI and serialization technology company, raised $8M in Series A1 funding. The round was led by Emerald Technology Ventures.

Mach Industries, a defense technology company building unmanned systems and manufacturing infrastructure, raised $300M in Series C funding at a $1.8B valuation. The round was led by Infinite Capital and Ribbit Capital.

Unastella, a Seoul-based space company building satellite launch vehicles and rocket engines, raised $24M in Series B funding. The round was led by Altos Ventures.

Zazume, a Barcelona-based rental lifecycle digitization platform, raised €2.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Nordstar and GTV Capital.

Spiro, a Nairobi-based electric mobility and clean energy company, raised $215M in equity funding. Investors included Impact Fund Denmark and Equitane.

Mecka AI, a NYC-based robotics data and infrastructure company for physical AI, raised $60M comprising a $25M Series A and $35M follow-on investment. The round was led by Framework Ventures.

Endra, a Stockholm-based AI platform automating engineering design work, raised $50M in Series A funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz.

Waypoint Bio, a NYC-based biotech company developing next-generation CAR-T therapies, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by Amplify Partners.

DriveNets, an Israel-based networking infrastructure company for telecom and AI workloads, raised $410M in Series D funding. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Atreides Management.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Gigascale Capital, a Palo Alto, CA-based venture capital firm focused on the physical economy, closed its first institutional fund, at $250m. Founded in 2023 by former Meta CTO Mike Schroepfer, Victoria Beasley, and Evaline Tsai, Gigascale is focused on such areas as clean energy and grid infrastructure, the supply chains that support them, and AI applied to the design, manufacturing, and deployment of physical systems.

Atomus, a Menlo Park, CA-based newly formed venture capital firm, is reportedly raising a $500m fund. The vehicle will presumably be focused on growth stage investing as its Founder Ethan Choi was at Khosla Ventures and Accel.

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📜 Latest In Tech

Apple’s budget MacBook Neo is becoming a surprise hit

• Apple shipped 1.1M MacBook Neo units in its debut quarter, outperforming the launch quarters of the MacBook Air (M5) and MacBook Pro (M5) despite being on sale for only a few weeks.

• Starting at $599, the Neo is attracting first-time Mac buyers and gaining traction in price-sensitive markets like India, where demand has exceeded retailer inventory.

• Analysts believe the Neo could significantly expand Apple’s presence in the affordable laptop segment, while competitors like Dell are already launching lower-cost premium laptops in response.

Uber caps AI spending after burning through annual budget in 4 months

• Uber has introduced a $1,500 monthly spending cap per employee for AI coding tools like Claude Code and Cursor after exhausting its annual AI budget within the first four months of the year.

• The company had previously encouraged employees to maximize AI usage and even tracked adoption through internal leaderboards, driving AI costs higher than expected.

• The move highlights growing concerns around AI ROI, as companies spend heavily on AI tools but still struggle to clearly measure their impact on productivity and business outcomes.

Microsoft unveils AI-designed quantum chip, targets useful quantum computers by 2029

• Microsoft introduced its new Majorana 2 quantum chip, designed with AI-assisted materials discovery, and says it now expects commercially useful quantum computers by 2029.

• The chip uses lead-based materials instead of aluminum, delivering up to a 1,000-fold improvement in some performance metrics and helping Microsoft compete with IBM, Google, Amazon, and Chinese quantum efforts.

• Some physicists remain skeptical, arguing Microsoft has not released enough public data to verify its claims, while the company says its results have been extensively reviewed by U.S. government researchers.

OpenAI expands Codex beyond coding with new workplace tools

• OpenAI launched six new Codex plug-ins for data analytics, sales, product design, creative work, equity investing, and investment banking, aiming to make Codex useful for a broader range of knowledge workers.

• Codex now has over 5 million weekly active users, with knowledge workers representing about 20% of users and growing more than three times faster than its developer user base.

• OpenAI also introduced Sites for publishing AI-generated work as interactive websites and Annotations for more precise document editing, strengthening its push into enterprise workflows.

Microsoft launches Scout, an OpenClaw-inspired AI assistant

• Microsoft introduced Scout, an always-on AI assistant built on the OpenClaw framework that learns user preferences over time and helps automate tasks across email, calendars, and Microsoft 365 apps.

• Users can create personalized agents with persistent memory, custom skills, and workflows, allowing Scout to adapt to individual work habits and become more useful over time.

• To address concerns around autonomous AI agents, Scout includes security controls, policy compliance monitoring, and audit trails to track how decisions and actions are made.

China's military obtained Nvidia chips despite US curbs

• A new report reveals that China’s People’s Liberation Army has spent years acquiring Nvidia AI chips, including models blocked by US export controls, undermining Washington’s effort to keep American hardware out of Beijing’s military programs.

• Wirescreen reviewed roughly 3,800 procurement records and found about 500 cases between 2019 and 2025 where Chinese military units sought A100, A800, H100, and H800 chips for nuclear simulations, war games, cyber operations, and weapons research.

• A separate Bloomberg review found at least seven Chinese universities tied to the armed forces, including blacklisted Beihang and Northwestern Polytechnical, sought access to Nvidia’s H200, the most powerful AI chip Washington still permits for sale in China.

DeepSeek set to raise $7.4B at up to $59B valuation

• DeepSeek is reportedly raising 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) in its first funding round, valuing the Chinese AI startup between $52 billion and $59 billion.

• Founder Liang Wenfeng is expected to invest 20 billion yuan himself, while Tencent and CATL may become the largest external investors alongside NetEase, JD.com, and China’s national AI fund.

• The funding highlights China’s push for AI self-sufficiency, strengthening DeepSeek’s position as a leading domestic AI player competing with Alibaba’s Qwen and Tencent’s Hunyuan models.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕ Other News

Trump signs scaled-back AI oversight executive order

• President Trump signed an executive order asking AI companies to voluntarily submit advanced AI models for government review 30 days before public release, a shorter timeline than the previously proposed 90-day window.

• The order explicitly states that it does not create any mandatory licensing, approval, or permitting requirements for developing or releasing AI models, following industry concerns about regulation slowing innovation.

• It also directs the Justice Department to prioritize enforcement against AI-related crimes such as AI-assisted hacking and unauthorized system access, while continuing efforts to establish a national AI policy framework.

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Breaking News

Anthropic has confidentially filed for an IPO just days after raising $65B at a $965B valuation, setting up one of the most anticipated public listings in tech history. With revenue reportedly surging past a $47B run rate, the move intensifies the coming public-market showdown between Anthropic and OpenAI.

Alphabet plans to raise $80B to fund its AI infrastructure expansion as demand for Gemini and cloud AI services outpaces available compute capacity. The raise highlights the staggering scale of the AI arms race, with Big Tech expected to spend roughly $700B this year on data centers, chips, and AI infrastructure.

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🗞️ What else is brewing

• What should founders say when investors ask about valuation? (Link)

• All-in-one fundraising & investor database system for founders - curated by leading VCs. (Link)

• What 500 unicorns reveal about where great founders come from? (Link)

• Why are Investors betting billions on Brain-computer interfaces despite an adoption problem? (Link)

• Why the next billion-dollar sales companies won’t own the database. (Link)

STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

Voxmind, a London-based startup building voice biometrics and deepfake detection software, raised £546K in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Ascension Ventures.

Quantum Tiger, a Kolkata-based startup building an AI-native strategic intelligence operating system, raised a Pre-Seed round at a $2M valuation. The round was backed by a Middle East-based family office.

SEED

SpeedLabs, a NYC-based real-time market engine for sports, raised $6.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Parlay Capital.

Veritas Aortic Solutions, a Costa Mesa-based medical device company and inQB8 spinout, raised $12M in Seed funding.

Flexprice, a Bengaluru-based open-source billing and metering platform for AI and API-first companies, raised $1.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Shastra VC.

Human Archive, a San Francisco-based startup building a data platform that models human embodied intelligence, raised $8.2M in Seed funding. Backers included Wing Venture Capital and Y Combinator.

Perceptic, a London-based AI platform for drug development, raised $12M in Seed funding. The round was led by Accel.

Inherent, a London-based AI company focused on scientific research and discovery, raised $50M in Seed funding. The round was led by Index Ventures.

Invisix, an Eindhoven-based semiconductor metrology company, raised €20M in Seed funding. The round was led by Hitachi Ventures, Transition Ventures, and imec.xpand.

GROWTH

Converge Bio, a Boston-based company developing generative AI foundation models for life sciences, received a $2.5M non-dilutive grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Sekai, a San Francisco-based consumer platform for AI-generated software creation, raised $26M across Seed and Series A funding. The round was co-led by Khosla Ventures and Connect Ventures.

Return Helper, a Taipei-based ecommerce returns platform, raised $4M in Series A funding.

Picogrid, an El Segundo-based defense technology company building integration infrastructure for military systems, raised $45M in Series A funding. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners.

Omniscient, a Sydney-based AI-driven brain analysis company, raised $27.2M in Series D funding. The round was co-led by OIF Ventures and Australia’s National Reconstruction Fund Corporation.

Anthropic, a San Francisco-based AI company behind Claude, raised $65B in Series H funding, one of the largest AI financings ever. The round was led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia Capital, with participation from Amazon and major institutional investors.

Gray Swan, a Pittsburgh-based AI security platform provider, raised $40M in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Wing Venture Capital and Madrona.

Edify, a London-based AI operations platform for restaurants and hospitality chains, received a £2.5M investment from Calculus.

XCENA, a Santa Clara-based memory-centric computing company for AI infrastructure, raised $135M in Series B funding at a $570M valuation. The round was co-led by Atinum Investment and IMM Investment.

Handshake, a London-based AI-powered retail agreement platform, raised $3.2M in funding. The round was led by Triple Point Ventures.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Transition Ventures, a London, UK and NYC-based early stage investment firm, closed its second fund, at $150m. Fund II took the firm’s assets under management to over $300m. Transition Ventures invests from inception to Series A in companies advancing energy systems powering AI, robotics for industrial efficiency, and next-generation solutions for critical minerals refining across Europe and the US.

Atomus, a Menlo Park, CA-based newly formed venture capital firm, is reportedly raising a $500m fund. The vehicle will presumably be focused on growth stage investing as its Founder Ethan Choi was at Khosla Ventures and Accel.

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📜 Latest In Tech

Nvidia unveils AI PCs to target $200B CPU opportunity

• Nvidia introduced its new RTX Spark AI PC chip at Computex, with AI-powered laptops from Microsoft, Dell, HP, Lenovo, ASUS, MSI, and others expected to launch this fall.

• The chip is designed to run AI agents and local AI models directly on devices, featuring secure agent sandboxes developed with Microsoft and support from over 100 software companies.

• CEO Jensen Huang sees AI PCs as a major growth driver beyond GPUs, arguing that billions of future AI agents will need their own computing platforms, creating a potential $200 billion CPU market.

Apple targets eyewear market with 2027 smart glasses

• Apple is preparing to enter the eyewear market in 2027 with smart glasses that will compete not only against Meta and Samsung but also traditional brands like Oakley, Ray-Ban, and Warby Parker in the $200-$500 range.

• According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is skipping the luxury end of eyewear, a market worth an estimated $180 to $200 billion annually, after its $10,000 gold Apple Watch failed to gain traction with high-end buyers.

• Apple is betting that its brand, industrial design, iPhone integration, ecosystem of over 2 billion active devices, global retail footprint, and artificial intelligence features will convince regular glasses shoppers to pick an Apple pair instead.

China approves first invasive brain-computer chip

• China has cleared NEO, the world’s first invasive brain-computer interface approved for use outside clinical trials, giving patients aged 18 to 60 with limb paralysis from spinal cord injuries access to the implant.

• Built by Shanghai startup Neuracle Technology with Tsinghua University, the coin-size NEO places eight sensors on the dura mater rather than piercing the cortex like Neuralink’s N1, lowering the risk of hemorrhage and scarring.

• The device reads brain signals and sends them to a computer that drives a soft robotic glove during daily 2.5-hour training, and China is already adding NEO to its health insurance system through a unique code.

Strava declares war on scrapers

• Strava is cracking down on AI scrapers by locking public profiles and fitness club listings behind logins, and charging developers a flat $11.99 monthly fee for API access that used to be free under a tiered program.

• The company will retire some API endpoints that let outside apps pull data like club details, give developers a 90-day grace period, and add support for Model Context Protocol so AI assistants get structured, controlled access.

• CEO Michael Martin said Strava refused data licensing deals from leading AI labs and called out Perplexity for routing scraping through aggregator services to hide its origin after being turned away by the company.

Nvidia launches RTX Spark chip to bring AI agents directly to PCs

• Nvidia unveiled RTX Spark, a new AI-focused PC chip built with MediaTek and Microsoft, designed to run AI agents locally on laptops and desktops.

• The chip will launch this fall in devices from Dell, HP, Lenovo, ASUS, Microsoft Surface, and MSI, enabling users to run AI models and autonomous agents without relying heavily on the cloud.

• CEO Jensen Huang said AI agents will drive demand for CPUs, calling Nvidia’s Vera CPU a major growth driver and part of a $200 billion market opportunity.

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☕ Other News

Florida sues OpenAI and Sam Altman over alleged ChatGPT-linked harms

• Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, claiming the company ignored safety concerns while aggressively expanding ChatGPT.

• The lawsuit alleges ChatGPT contributed to incidents including mass shootings, suicides, addiction, and harmful user behavior, citing last year’s Florida State University shooting among its examples.

• OpenAI denies responsibility for such crimes, but the case marks the first state-led lawsuit targeting an AI company over alleged real-world harms linked to chatbot interactions.

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Breaking News

United States is moving to block Chinese firms from accessing advanced Nvidia AI chips through overseas subsidiaries, closing a major loophole in export controls. The move shows that the AI race is increasingly becoming a geopolitical battle, with governments now targeting not just chips themselves but the global networks used to access them.

SpaceX secured a $4.16B Pentagon contract for the Golden Dome missile-defense project, adding to several other defense deals tied to the initiative. The win further strengthens SpaceX’s position as one of the most important military and space infrastructure providers in the U.S., extending its influence far beyond rockets and Starlink.

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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

Invertix, a Munich-based startup building an autonomous AI workforce platform for the renewable energy sector, raised €1.7M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Vireo Ventures.

EarSmartAI, an Indianapolis-based consumer diagnostic platform, raised $250K in Pre-Seed funding from Boomerang Ventures.

Stellar Alpina, a Zurich-based aerospace startup developing compact rotating detonation rocket engines, raised CHF 3.5M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Founderful.

SEED

Lokam.ai, a NYC-based voice-first AI platform for automotive dealerships, raised $350K in funding. The round was led by customer World Auto Group.

Kopa.ai, a Lithuania-based startup building an agentic AI operating system for ecommerce teams, raised €2M in Seed funding. The round was co-led by XTX Ventures and Practica Capital.

Crimson, a London-based AI-native litigation and arbitration intelligence platform, raised $2.5M in Seed funding. Investors included Y Combinator.

Pax, a São Paulo-based AI-native public safety intelligence company, raised $40M in Seed funding. The round was co-led by Greenoaks and Benchmark.

GROWTH

LightTable, a Denver-based AI-native pre-construction platform, raised $22M in Series A funding. The round was led by Innovation Endeavors.

MokN, a London-based cybersecurity company focused on credential theft protection, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by GV (Google Ventures).

Reactor, a San Francisco-based developer platform for real-time generative video, raised $59M in funding. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Fonoa, a Dublin-based AI tax operating system for global businesses, raised $110M in Series C funding. The round was led by Headline.

Ôrəbella, a Los Angeles-based fragrance brand founded by Bella Hadid, raised an undisclosed funding round led by Silas Capital.

Corgi, a San Francisco-based insurance platform, raised $161M in Series B1 funding at a $2.6B valuation. The round was led by TCV.

Canals, a Miami-based AI workflow and operating software platform for wholesale distribution and industrial supply chains, raised $35M in funding. The round was led by Base10 Partners.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Ghost Angels, a venture fund launched by a group of 20 former Snap employees and led by ex-Snap partnerships executive Max Rivera, is backing the next generation of AI-powered social and consumer startups. The fund has already invested in five companies and plans to back at least 15 more, focusing on founders building new social experiences, creator tools, gaming, fashion, and media platforms as social networking evolves beyond traditional ad-driven models.

Atomus, a Menlo Park, CA-based newly formed venture capital firm, is reportedly raising a $500m fund. The vehicle will presumably be focused on growth stage investing as its Founder Ethan Choi was at Khosla Ventures and Accel.

Transition Ventures, a London, UK and NYC-based early stage investment firm, closed its second fund, at $150m. Fund II took the firm’s assets under management to over $300m. Transition Ventures invests from inception to Series A in companies advancing energy systems powering AI, robotics for industrial efficiency, and next-generation solutions for critical minerals refining across Europe and the US.

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📜 Latest In Tech

Cognition CEO says AI coding agents should augment, not replace programmers

• Cognition CEO Scott Wu says Devin, the company’s AI coding agent, was never designed to replace software engineers. Instead, he views it as a “buddy” that helps developers build more and move faster.

• While Cognition promotes a future of “self-driving software development,” Wu argues AI agents are best suited for repetitive maintenance work such as updating legacy code, migrations, and routine engineering tasks, freeing humans to focus on creativity and product building.

• Devin now contributes heavily inside Cognition itself, with the company claiming 89% of committed code is generated by Devin. Still, Wu believes humans should remain in control, and expects AI agents across industries to augment workers rather than fully replace them.

SoftBank plans up to €75B investment in French AI data centers

• SoftBank says it will invest up to €75 billion ($87 billion) to expand AI data center infrastructure in France, marking its largest AI infrastructure commitment in Europe.

• The company aims to develop and operate up to 5 gigawatts of data center capacity. The first phase includes projects in Dunkirk, Bosquel, and Bouchain, targeting 3.1 gigawatts of capacity in northern France by 2031.

• The announcement strengthens France’s ambitions to become a leading AI hub. SoftBank, a major OpenAI investor and customer, continues its global AI infrastructure push despite growing environmental and energy-related concerns surrounding large-scale data center expansion.

Meta develops AI pendant as wearable ambitions expand

• Meta is reportedly developing an AI-powered pendant that could enter testing next year, building on technology from Limitless, the AI wearable startup it acquired in 2025.

• The device is expected to offer always-on AI assistance through a necklace-style form factor, similar to Limitless’ conversation-recording wearable.

• Meta is also planning more AI glasses and a new “Wearables for Work” subscription as it looks to revive Reality Labs, which lost $4 billion in Q1.

Microsoft and Nvidia tease "a new era of PC"

• Microsoft and Nvidia have posted a teaser on X promising “a new era of PC,” paired with coordinates pointing to Taipei, Taiwan, the host city of Computex, sparking heavy speculation about what’s coming.

• The teaser carefully avoided saying gaming PC, workstation, or even AI PC — just “PC” — hinting Nvidia may push into ARM-based desktops or laptops built around local AI workloads, possibly via Windows on ARM.

• Earlier signs point this direction, including the DGX Spark project and partnerships focused on AI inference running directly on consumer hardware, which could put Nvidia in direct competition with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chips.

OpenAI gives away life sciences AI model

• OpenAI has opened its Rosalind Biodefense program, giving picked developers and government partners free access to GPT-Rosalind, a life sciences model from April that reasons about molecules, proteins, genes, and disease biology.

• OpenAI pays the access costs for vetted developers working on early warning systems, diagnostics, and vaccine development, with Lawrence Livermore, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, CEPI, Fourth Eon, and SecureDNA among the first partners.

• Academic, nonprofit, government-affiliated, and small-to-midsized teams with clear public benefit goals can apply, with OpenAI seeking work on literature synthesis, protocol design, model-building, data harmonization, simulation, or decision support.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕ Other News

Microsoft threatens researcher with criminal probe

• Microsoft is threatening legal action and a possible criminal referral against a security researcher known as “Nightmare Eclipse,” who published unpatched bugs in Windows Defender, BitLocker, and other products along with working exploit code.

• In a blog post, Microsoft said the researcher skipped reporting the flaws — named BlueHammer, RedSun UnDefend, and YellowKey — and said its Digital Crimes Unit would pursue cases, while CISA confirmed some bugs were used in real attacks.

• Nightmare Eclipse claims Microsoft revoked their Microsoft Security Response Center account before the public release, and their GitHub and GitLab accounts have since been banned, drawing sharp criticism from researchers including bug bounty pioneer Katie Moussouris.

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Breaking News

Anthropic raised $65B at a staggering $965B valuation, pushing it to the brink of a trillion-dollar private valuation ahead of a potential IPO. The funding reflects explosive demand for Claude and AI coding tools, cementing Anthropic alongside OpenAI as one of the two dominant players in the global AI race.

Apple is reportedly preparing a standalone Siri app that will compete directly with ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, marking its biggest AI push yet. The new Siri will support chat history, file uploads, and AI-powered search across iPhone, signaling Apple’s shift from a traditional assistant to a full-fledged AI platform.

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🗞️ What else is brewing

• Could AI observability become the next billion-dollar category? (Link)

• 40+ investor contact databases and 50+ fundraising resources every founder needs (Link)

• The AI industry is quietly moving from growth-at-all-costs to cost-accounting mode. (Link)

• 5 predictions that reveal where AI agents will actually make money. (Link)

• Wispr Flow’s framework to reach 100,000+ daily users - The CEO’s exact consumer playbook. (Link)

• Mark Cuban’s AI Thesis: The $495B AI opportunity that most founder missing. (Link)

STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

Modiqo, a San Francisco-based AI infrastructure startup building reliable AI agent workflows, raised $3M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was co-led by Heavybit and Seligman Ventures.

SEED

Psilera, a Tampa-based biopharmaceutical company developing neuroplastogens and psychedelic therapies, raised $8.8M in Seed funding.

Kubera Health, a NYC-based healthcare infrastructure startup building a contract-to-payment system of record, raised $6.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Upfront Ventures.

Volt Harbor, an Ann Arbor-based software-defined energy storage company, raised $2M in Seed funding. The round was led by MFV Partners.

Trajectory, a San Francisco-based AI research lab building continual learning systems, raised $15M in Seed funding. The round was led by Conviction, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and notable AI leaders including Jeff Dean and Fei-Fei Li.

Paralign Health, a Kansas City-based healthcare technology company helping health plans reach underserved patients, raised $3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Flyover Capital.

GROWTH

Canals, a Miami-based AI workflow and operating software company for wholesale distribution and industrial supply chains, raised $35M in funding. The round was led by Base10 Partners.

Utilidata, an Ann Arbor-based embedded AI company for power infrastructure, raised an additional $40M in Series C extension funding, bringing the round total to $100M.

NALA, a global stablecoin payments infrastructure company, secured up to $50M in debt financing from Mars Growth Capital.

Saris, a San Francisco-based agentic workflow platform for banks and credit unions, raised $28.8M in Series A funding. The round was led by 8VC.

Garner Health, a NYC-based healthcare navigation platform, raised $100M in Series E funding at a $2.74B valuation. The round was led by Index Ventures.

Rep AI, a NYC-based AI platform for ecommerce brands, raised $6.2M in funding. The round was led by Silicon Road Ventures.

Daloopa, a NYC-based financial data infrastructure company powering AI workflows, raised $47M in Series C funding. The round was led by Brighton Park Capital.

Countable Labs, a Palo Alto-based life sciences company developing single-molecule PCR technology, raised $26M in funding. The round was led by ARCH Venture Partners.

Triomics, a NYC-based oncology AI company, raised $22M in Series B funding. The round was led by Battery Ventures.

Solstice, a NYC-based AI-native marketing agency for pharma commercialization, raised $21M in Series A funding. The round was led by Transformation Capital.

DeepTree, a Milan-based AI market intelligence platform for private capital, raised €2M in funding led by CDP Venture Capital.

Geordie AI, a London-based security and governance platform for AI agents, raised $30M in Series A funding. The round was led by Balderton Capital.

AllO, a Munich-based restaurant management software company, raised $14M in Series A funding. The round was led by Zigg Capital.

Airis Labs, a Tel Aviv-based defense technology company, raised $31M in Series B funding. The round was led by PSG Equity.

Blulabs, a Miami-based supply chain and logistics company, raised $7M in funding at a $160M valuation. The round was led by Lodestone Capital.

Secretome Therapeutics, a Texas-based clinical-stage biotech company, raised $30M in Series A funding. The round was led by RA Capital.

Pace, a NYC-based AI operations platform for insurers, raised $46M in Series B funding. The round was co-led by Thrive Capital and Sequoia Capital.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Atomus, a Menlo Park, CA-based newly formed venture capital firm, is reportedly raising a $500m fund. The vehicle will presumably be focused on growth stage investing as its Founder Ethan Choi was at Khosla Ventures and Accel.

Transition Ventures, a London, UK and NYC-based early stage investment firm, closed its second fund, at $150m. Fund II took the firm’s assets under management to over $300m. Transition Ventures invests from inception to Series A in companies advancing energy systems powering AI, robotics for industrial efficiency, and next-generation solutions for critical minerals refining across Europe and the US.

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📜 Latest In Tech

AI tokens could become a tradable commodity market

• Exchanges in China and the U.S. are exploring futures markets tied to AI infrastructure, including AI tokens and GPU rental capacity, similar to oil or gold markets.

• The idea is to let AI companies, cloud providers, and data center operators hedge against rising compute costs as demand for AI services continues to surge.

• If adopted, token futures could create a new financial market around AI usage, with pricing linked directly to how companies like OpenAI and cloud providers charge for AI inference.

Anthropic launches Claude Opus 4.8 and new Dynamic Workflows tool

• Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.8, its latest flagship AI model, with stronger coding performance and improved ability to identify uncertainties instead of making unsupported claims.

• The company also introduced Dynamic Workflows, a new system that helps Opus coordinate hundreds of parallel AI subagents for large-scale coding and complex tasks.

• Anthropic said its more powerful Mythos model is still being held back for safety reasons, but expects a broader release in the coming weeks once safeguards are finalized.

Meta might launch a cloud business

• Meta is considering getting into the cloud computing business, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg telling Wall Street the company could lease out some of its computing resources if it finds itself with more capacity than needed.

• Zuckerberg said many companies reach out to Meta every week asking for API services or offering to pay a premium for compute, though Meta hasn’t sold any yet because it still has its own uses for the resources.

• The remarks follow Meta’s April decision to raise its 2026 AI capital expenditure forecast to between $125 billion and $145 billion, up from the earlier range of $115 billion to $135 billion.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn explodes during launchpad test

• Blue Origin suffered a major setback after its New Glenn rocket exploded during a hot-fire test on the launchpad, just ahead of a planned satellite launch mission.

• The company confirmed an “anomaly” occurred during testing, but said all personnel were safe and an investigation is underway to determine the root cause.

• The incident is a blow to Blue Origin’s efforts to compete with SpaceX in heavy-lift rockets, though both Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk noted that rocket development is inherently difficult and failures are part of the process.

Tesla starts Optimus factory build at Giga Texas

• Tesla has started building its dedicated Optimus factory at Gigafactory Texas, with the first steel structure now standing on the North Campus and the second phase of land reclamation moving forward, according to drone footage from May 27.

• The new building will stretch nearly the full length of the main Giga Texas factory, potentially over 4,000 feet, and sits within a North Campus expansion adding more than 5.2 million square feet of industrial space.

• Tesla plans to build about 10 million Optimus robots a year at the site, roughly 27,000 units each day, with a second-gen production line targeting high-volume output starting in Summer 2027.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕ Other News

Questions emerge over Anthropic’s $1.25B/month compute deal with xAI

• Elon Musk said Anthropic’s access to xAI’s Colossus cluster is effectively a 180-day arrangement with a mutual 90-day cancellation clause, not a long-term commitment.

• However, SpaceX’s IPO filing states Anthropic agreed to pay $1.25 billion per month through May 2029, implying a three-year agreement worth more than $40 billion.

• The conflicting descriptions have raised questions about the true duration of the deal, especially as xAI seeks to monetize excess AI compute capacity ahead of its public offering.

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Breaking News

Meta has launched paid subscriptions across Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Meta AI, pushing deeper into recurring revenue beyond ads. The company is also testing premium AI plans with advanced reasoning, image generation, and future smart-glasses features — signaling Meta’s ambition to turn AI into a consumer subscription business at massive scale.

Robinhood now allows AI agents to place stock trades for users, letting people automate actions like portfolio rebalancing or buying stocks at specific conditions through natural language commands. The launch marks an early but important shift toward AI-driven finance, where autonomous agents may eventually handle increasingly complex personal investing workflows.

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🗞️ What else is brewing

• 40+ investor contact databases and 50+ fundraising resources every founder needs (Link)

• The AI industry is quietly moving from growth-at-all-costs to cost-accounting mode. (Link)

• Why are LPs fighting for access to the most valuable AI deals? (Link)

• Did OpenAI win attention while Anthropic built a better company? (Link)

• What every founder needs to understand about AI economics? (Link)

• Where AI seed investors are most likely to find outliers. (Link)

STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

Fields Good, an Austin-based cookie brand, raised $1.8M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Female Founders Fund.

Canyon Code, a Sunnyvale-based infrastructure company building control layers for multi-agent AI apps, raised $5M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Cota Capital.

SEED

Certo, a Paris-based AI compliance platform for beauty and consumer packaged goods companies, raised $4M in Seed funding. The round was led by Daphni.

Cypher AI, a Cambridge-based AI-native digital infrastructure startup for life sciences R&D, raised $2M in Seed funding. The round was led by MaC Venture Capital.

Sychedelic, a NYC-based neurotechnology startup building brain wearables, raised $3.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Cultadvisors LLP, TurboStart, and IdeaBaaz.

Protuoso Biosciences, a San Carlos-based biotech company developing multifunctional biologics, raised $9.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Taya Venture and Darwin Ventures.

Itera, a San Francisco-based real-time electronics prototyping company, raised $12M in Seed funding. The round was led by Upfront Ventures, Costanoa Ventures, and Colle Capital.

GROWTH

Cognition, the U.S.-based AI coding startup behind autonomous software engineer Devin, has raised $1 billion in a new funding round at a $25 billion pre-money valuation, led by Lux Capital, General Catalyst, and 8VC.

Thea Energy, a New Jersey-based fusion energy company building stellarator power plants, raised $100M in Series B funding. The round was led by Thomas Tull’s US Innovative Technology Fund (USIT).

RevEng.AI, a London-based cybersecurity company building binary-native verification infrastructure for software supply chains, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by the NATO Innovation Fund.

C2i Semiconductors, a Bengaluru-based semiconductor company focused on software-defined voltage regulator platforms, raised $16.7M in Series A funding. Backers included TDK Ventures and Peak XV Partners.

Capchase, a NYC-based vendor financing platform for enterprise tech, raised over $200M through a mix of debt facilities and equity financing.

Captive Radiology, an Ohio-based diagnostic imaging solutions company, received a strategic growth investment from RC Capital.

Ember LifeSciences, a Los Angeles-based healthcare cold-chain logistics company, raised an undisclosed Series A extension round led by Amgen Ventures and TDF Ventures.

Tensormesh, a San Francisco-based enterprise AI inference optimization company, raised $20M in funding. Backers included AMD Ventures, CoreWeave, and NVentures.

Slamcore, a London-based spatial intelligence software company, raised $14M in funding backed by ROKStar Ventures.

ClearNote Health, a San Diego-based cancer early detection company, raised $52M in Series D funding.

Mykor, a Bristol-based biotech company developing low-carbon construction materials, raised $4M in funding. The round was led by Clean Growth Fund.

Olyzon, a Paris-based agentic decisioning platform for CTV advertising, raised $10M in Series A funding. The round was led by S4S Ventures.

WeRoad, a Milan-based travel-tech company, raised $58M in Series C funding. The round was led by Airbnb.

NavigateAI, a San Francisco-based AI copilot platform for field workers, raised $25M in funding. The round was led by Elad Gil with participation from Khosla Ventures.

Caudal Energy, an Oxford-based renewable energy company, raised £4.3M in funding. The round was led by Oxford Science Enterprises and Empirical Ventures.

Go Swag, a Glasgow-based corporate gifting platform, raised $5M in funding. The round was led by Mercia Ventures.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Transition Ventures, a London, UK and NYC-based early stage investment firm, closed its second fund, at $150m. Fund II took the firm’s assets under management to over $300m. Transition Ventures invests from inception to Series A in companies advancing energy systems powering AI, robotics for industrial efficiency, and next-generation solutions for critical minerals refining across Europe and the US.

Bridgewest Ventures, an Auckland, New Zealand- and Miami, FL-based venture capital arm of Bridgewest Group, held the first close of Bridgewest Venture Fund I LP, at approximately NZ$60.2m. Backers included a group of institutional investors, family offices, high-net-worth individuals, and international migrant investors from Australia and New Zealand.

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📜 Latest In Tech

Apple builds iPhone anti-snatch auto-lock

• Apple is developing an iPhone feature that automatically locks the device when it detects the phone has been snatched out of the user’s hand, similar to Android’s Theft Detection Lock system already on rival phones.

• The system will rely on signals like the iPhone’s accelerometer to confirm a snatch, and it will also check the distance from a paired Apple Watch to judge whether the device has left its owner.

• Once fully built, the feature will follow Stolen Device Protection rules, checking for familiar WiFi networks and familiar locations like home or work, and restricting access to the same protected areas when conditions look suspicious.

YouTube will now automatically label AI videos

• YouTube will now automatically apply labels to videos when its internal systems detect “significant photorealistic AI” content, taking the job out of the hands of creators who previously had to disclose this themselves through Creator Studio.

• Starting in May, the labels will sit directly below the video player above the description on long-form videos and overlay on Shorts, and creators can’t remove them if the content was made with YouTube’s own tools like Veo or Dream Screen.

• Labels will be permanently attached when content carries C2PA metadata showing it was fully AI-generated, and YouTube says the tags won’t affect how a video is recommended or its ability to monetize.

Tech CEOs may be overestimating what AI can actually automate

• Aaron Levie warned that many tech CEOs are suffering from “AI psychosis,” overestimating how much work AI agents can reliably replace.

• The article points to rising AI-driven layoffs, including at ClickUp, where 22% of staff were cut after deploying thousands of AI agents internally.

• Researchers cited in the report said AI productivity gains remain limited, with agents still far from consistently performing human-quality work across most tasks.

Pentagon signs $9.7B Microsoft software consolidation deal

• The U.S. Pentagon awarded Microsoft a $9.69 billion, five-year agreement to consolidate software licenses across military and intelligence agencies.

• The deal aims to reduce duplicated spending by combining scattered Microsoft 365, cloud, and enterprise software contracts into one centralized system.

• Officials said the agreement doesn’t add new spending, but uses existing budgets more efficiently while strengthening Microsoft’s footprint across U.S. defense operations.

Google engineer charged over $1.2M Polymarket insider trading scheme

• U.S. prosecutors charged a Google engineer for allegedly using confidential search trend data to place insider bets on Polymarket and make $1.2 million in profits.

• The engineer, Michele Spagnuolo, reportedly used the alias “AlphaRaccoon” to bet on Google’s “most-searched people” rankings before the data became public.

• Google placed the employee on leave and said it’s cooperating with law enforcement, while Polymarket said its cooperation helped lead to the insider trading charges.

OpenAI Foundation commits $250M to address AI-driven job disruption

• The OpenAI Foundation announced a $250 million commitment to fund research, grants, and programs helping workers and economies adapt to AI disruption.

• The initiative will support communities facing job displacement, study AI’s labor market impact, and explore ways to distribute AI-driven economic gains more broadly.

• OpenAI said the foundation will directly run some programs itself, with first initiatives expected later this year as AI-related workforce concerns continue to grow.

Zuckerberg-backed Biohub launches AI model for protein and drug discovery

• Biohub, the philanthropic venture led by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, launched an open-source AI “world model” focused on protein biology and drug discovery.

• The AI system is designed to better understand protein behavior and help researchers create new protein binders for cancer and immune disease treatments.

• Biohub said the models will be available through its own platform and partners like AWS Bio Discovery, with compute credits offered to researchers for wider adoption.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕ Other News

NASA picks Blue Origin for first lunar mission

• NASA has chosen Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin over Elon Musk’s SpaceX to run the first mission for its planned $20bn moon base, with the uncrewed flight scheduled as early as fall 2026.

• Blue Origin received $230.4m to support each of its first two moon base missions, sending its cryogenically propelled Endurance cargo lander to the Shackleton de Gerlache Ridge near the moon’s south pole.

• Administrator Jared Isaacman called it the first privately funded lunar lander mission in history, with Blue Origin largely paying for the operation itself and carrying scientific payloads from NASA and private partners.

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• Investment Associate - Struck Capital | USA - Apply Here

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Breaking News

SpaceX is reportedly clashing with the Pentagon after demanding 5× higher prices for Starlink usage on U.S. military drones and proposing a separate $500M+ plan to provide satellite internet inside Iran during blackouts. The dispute reveals how critical private satellite infrastructure has become in modern warfare and how much leverage companies like SpaceX now hold over governments.

NVIDIA says it plans to spend up to $150B annually in Taiwan as AI demand explodes, doubling down on TSMC and the region’s chip ecosystem despite growing geopolitical risks. Jensen Huang called Taiwan the “epicentre” of the AI revolution, highlighting how the future of global AI infrastructure is becoming increasingly dependent on a single supply chain hub.

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Despite major advances in cancer genomics, treatment selection often remains a trial-and-error process. Physicians receive large genomic reports filled with complex DNA and RNA data, but those reports do not always clearly indicate which therapy is most likely to benefit the patient first.

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DAILY PICKS

🗞️ What else is brewing

• The end of cheap AI: Why AI startups may face their AWS moment sooner than expected. (Link)

• 5 predictions that reveal where AI agents will actually make money. (Link)

• Wispr Flow’s framework to reach 100,000+ daily users - The CEO’s exact consumer playbook. (Link)

• Mark Cuban’s AI Thesis: The $495B AI opportunity that most founder missing. (Link)

• How founders can build AI agents with OpenClaw: a step-by-step guide. (Link)

• What founders actually pay themselves in 2026? (Link)

STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

Avrea, a Helsinki-based CI platform for software development, raised $4.7M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Earlybird.

Synakis Corp., a Toronto-based biotech company developing ocular therapies for retinal disease and glaucoma, raised CAD $2.6M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Toronto Innovation Acceleration Partners (TIAP) and Chiefswood Private Capital.

SEED

Didit, a Barcelona-based reusable internet identity and automated identity verification platform, raised ~$2M in Seed funding. Backers included Y Combinator, Hypersphere, Roar VC, and others.

CasaPerks Technologies, an Austin-based AI-powered rewards platform for renters, raised $15.8M in Seed funding. Backers included Longevity Equity.

NanoCo, an Israel-based AI-powered software agents startup, raised $12M in Seed funding. The round was led by Valley Capital Partners with participation from Docker, Vercel, Monday.com, and others.

Qurie, a Germany-based electrocaloric refrigeration systems company, raised €2.2M in Seed funding. The round was led by HTGF, TT49, and Aepikur GmbH.

GROWTH

Otomato, a Singapore-based DeFi intelligence and market analytics platform, raised $2M in funding from Improbable.

P2 Science, a Connecticut-based green chemistry company, raised $23M in funding. The round was led by Sofinnova Partners.

OpenRouter, a NYC-based AI model exchange platform, raised $113M in Series B funding. The round was led by CapitalG with participation from NVentures, ServiceNow Ventures, Databricks Ventures, and others.

Phytolon, an Israel-based biotech and food-tech company producing natural food colors via precision fermentation, raised $23.6M in Series B funding.

Stride, a Vietnam-based clean energy fintech startup, raised $15M in Series B funding. The round was co-led by Lightrock and TRIREC.

GEEIQ, a London-based analytics platform for games and virtual worlds, raised $6.8M in funding. The round was led by YFM Equity Partners.

Stord, an Atlanta-based consumer experience and logistics company, raised $250M in Series F funding at a $3B valuation.

Catena Labs, a Boston-based AI-native banking infrastructure startup, raised $30M in Series A funding. The round was led by Acrew Capital and a16z crypto.

Exa Labs, a San Francisco-based AI-native search engine and web retrieval platform, raised $250M in Series C funding at a $2.2B valuation. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz.

Tequipy, a Poland-based IT operations and hardware lifecycle automation platform, raised over €3M in funding. The round was led by Smedvig Ventures.

Lucis, a Paris-based AI-driven preventive healthcare platform, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by Singular.

Belo, a Buenos Aires-based stablecoin wallet and cross-border payments platform, raised $14M in Series A funding. The round was led by Tether.

Quanscient, a Finland-based cloud-based multiphysics simulation and quantum algorithms company, raised €10M in funding. The round was led by 55 North and B&C Group.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Bridgewest Ventures, an Auckland, New Zealand- and Miami, FL-based venture capital arm of Bridgewest Group, held the first close of Bridgewest Venture Fund I LP, at approximately NZ$60.2m. Backers included a group of institutional investors, family offices, high-net-worth individuals, and international migrant investors from Australia and New Zealand.

Convective Capital, a California-based venture firm founded by WePay cofounder Bill Clerico, has raised an $85 million second fund to invest in startups building disaster resilience and physical-world risk management solutions. The firm backs companies across wildfire prevention, infrastructure monitoring, insurance, drones, and climate resilience.

Veriten, a Houston, TX-based research, strategy and investment firm, held the initial close of its second flagship energy venture fund, at over $105m. LPs include Halliburton Company, Phillips 66 Company, and CIBC, among others.

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📜 Latest In Tech

DuckDuckGo installs surge as users push back against Google’s AI Search

• DuckDuckGo said app installs jumped 30% after Google expanded AI Search, as many users looked for a way to avoid AI-generated answers.

• Users criticized Google for “force-feeding” AI into Search, with concerns around inaccurate answers, cluttered results, and losing control over the browsing experience.

• DuckDuckGo said traffic to its AI-free search page also surged, while positioning itself as a privacy-focused alternative where users can choose how much AI they want.

Ferrari reveals its first EV, with help from Jony Ive

• Ferrari has pulled the covers off the Luce, its first electric vehicle, designed inside and out in collaboration with Jony Ive and Marc Newson’s LoveFrom studio, who shaped the project’s direction from the start.

• The Luce is also Ferrari’s second four-door car and first five-seater, packing four motors and 1,035 horsepower, with a sound system that picks up and amplifies vibrations from the rear motors instead of being synthesized.

• Engadget’s Tim Stevens, who saw the car in person, said it feels more like an SUV than a sports car, and noted that while there’s no US price yet, it starts at €550,000 in Italy, making it the priciest Ferrari ever.

Dropbox CEO Drew Houston steps down after 19 years

• Drew Houston is stepping away from the CEO job at Dropbox after 19 years, moving into an executive chairman role while sharing the co-CEO title with product chief Ashraf Alkarmi, who will eventually run the company alone.

• Houston, who started Dropbox at 24 after losing USB sticks at MIT, built the file-sharing service to over 18 million paying users and past $2 billion in yearly revenue, though sales dipped slightly in 2025.

• The 43-year-old, worth over $2 billion and a Meta board member since 2020, plans to start something new in AI, saying he won’t be “racing sailboats” and sees no better time for building things.

China restricts travel for top AI researchers

• China is now requiring top AI researchers at private firms like Alibaba and DeepSeek to get official permission before traveling abroad, with the rule applying to people working on strategically important AI projects, Bloomberg reports.

• The policy builds on a March 2025 move when Beijing told AI executives to avoid trips to the U.S., citing worries about data leaks, technology theft, and rival companies poaching talent from Chinese firms.

• The travel rule fits a wider push to shield China’s AI sector and cut reliance on foreign tech, with domestic chip makers now holding 41 percent of the local AI accelerator market, according to IDC.

Sam Altman says AI may not trigger the ‘jobs apocalypse’ he once feared

• Sam Altman said AI has not replaced as many white-collar jobs as expected, admitting OpenAI was “pretty wrong” about the short-term social impact.

• Altman said human interaction still matters in many jobs, noting even he stopped using AI for some email and Slack replies because people value human communication.

• Despite layoffs tied to AI at firms like HSBC and Amazon, Altman said he no longer expects a large-scale “jobs apocalypse.”

Perplexity ranked most reliable AI chatbot for work tasks in new report

• Perplexity AI topped a new reliability report with the lowest hallucination rate at 13% and a perfect uptime score during testing.

• OpenAI’s ChatGPT ranked sixth despite strong user ratings, while Google Gemini and Anthropic Claude ranked lower due to reliability and outage concerns.

• The study said smaller AI platforms like Perplexity and xAI Grok performed better for consistent workplace use, even as ChatGPT remains the most popular chatbot globally.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕ Other News

EU to fine Google hundreds of millions

• The European Union plans to hit Google with a fine in the high triple-digit millions of euros as part of an antitrust case under the Digital Markets Act, according to a Handelsblatt report citing commission sources.

• The decision, expected before the summer break, stems from a March 2025 investigation into concerns that Google favours its own services in search results, and would be the largest penalty yet handed down under the DMA.

• A Google spokesperson said changes already made to Search under the DMA are the “biggest downgrade in the product’s history,” while the Commission said it is more focused on securing compliance than imposing penalties.

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Breaking News

Huawei says it is targeting chip densities comparable to 1.4nm technology by 2031 using a new “LogicFolding” architecture developed without access to ASML’s advanced EUV machines. The breakthrough highlights China’s accelerating push toward semiconductor independence, showing how companies are finding alternative paths around U.S. export restrictions instead of waiting for access to Western technology.

China has started assigning every humanoid robot a unique national digital ID, effectively creating a tracking and identity system for robots similar to citizen identification numbers. The move signals how seriously China views robotics as critical national infrastructure, laying the groundwork for large-scale regulation, monitoring, and deployment of humanoid robots across society and industry.

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• What founders actually pay themselves in 2026? (Link)

• What 80,000 AI users revealed about the next billion-dollar opportunity for founders. (Link)

STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

Hardline AI, a Santa Monica-based voice-first construction technology company, raised $2M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Mucker Capital.

Synakis Corp., a Toronto-based biotech company developing ocular therapies for retinal disease and glaucoma, raised CAD $2.6M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Toronto Innovation Acceleration Partners (TIAP) and Chiefswood Private Capital.

SEED

Clouted, a Los Angeles-based virality engine for consumer and entertainment brands, raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Slow Ventures, with participation from Gold House Ventures, Weekend Fund, and a16z Speedrun.

Tist Media, a Mumbai-based creator economy startup, raised an undisclosed Seed round at a ~$5.9M post-money valuation. The round was led by Sthira Partners.

GROWTH

ClearOps, a Munich-based AI-powered after-sales platform for industrial OEMs, raised €8.6M in Series A funding. The round was led by Hitachi Ventures.

Reps, an Austria-based road energy production system company, raised $23.6M in equity financing.

Squid, a Zug-based cross-chain digital assets platform, raised $6M in funding. The round was led by North Island Ventures, with participation from Ripple and others.

K25.ai, a Singapore-based AI-native live streaming and prediction platform, received a $2M investment from NIVF at a $100M valuation.

Stilta, a Stockholm-based agentic AI company for patent litigation, raised $10.5M. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Y Combinator.

Foundation, a Boston-based company developing human authority hardware, raised $6.4M in funding. The round was led by Fulgur Ventures.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Convective Capital, a California-based venture firm founded by WePay cofounder Bill Clerico, has raised an $85 million second fund to invest in startups building disaster resilience and physical-world risk management solutions. The firm backs companies across wildfire prevention, infrastructure monitoring, insurance, drones, and climate resilience.

Shamrock Capital, a Los Angeles, CA-based investment firm specializing in media, entertainment, communications, and related sectors, closed Shamrock Capital Content Fund IV, L.P., at $813m. Content IV received support from both existing and new limited partners including pension funds, endowments, foundations, family offices, insurance companies, and other institutional investors across the United States, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

Veriten, a Houston, TX-based research, strategy and investment firm, held the initial close of its second flagship energy venture fund, at over $105m. LPs include Halliburton Company, Phillips 66 Company, and CIBC, among others.

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📜 Latest In Tech

Google CEO Sundar Pichai responds to graduates booing AI

• Google CEO Sundar Pichai has responded to the wave of graduates booing AI at recent commencement ceremonies, saying on the Hard Fork podcast that even skeptical students will help shape the technology’s future direction.

• Pichai’s remarks, made ahead of his own Stanford commencement speech, followed former Google CEO Eric Schmidt being loudly booed at the University of Arizona after he praised AI’s potential and compared it to major industrial revolutions.

• Pichai said anxiety about AI is “rightfully” growing, pointing to a workforce reshaped by automation, with Business Insider reporting unemployment among recent graduates has hit a four-year high as companies adopt more AI tools.

Tether launches official stablecoin in Georgia

• Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer, said it will roll out GELT, a crypto token tied to the Georgian lari, with backing from Georgia’s government as the country leans into digital assets.

• Tether described GELT as a “digital representation of the Georgian lari” meant to support cross-border commerce, fintech, and digital payments, though details on its structure, rollout, and implementation are still to come.

• The company credited the National Bank of Georgia’s stablecoin rules for drawing it in, and noted Georgia, home to 3.7 million people, ranks among the world’s top miners of cryptocurrency.

Anthropic co-founder says AI development needs oversight beyond Big Tech

• Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah warned at the Vatican that AI could displace jobs at massive scale and should not be controlled solely by tech companies.

• Speaking alongside Pope Leo XIV, Olah said governments, religious groups, and civil society must help guide AI development because commercial incentives can conflict with the public good.

• Olah also highlighted concerns around AI safety, global inequality, and opaque model behavior, calling the current pace of AI advancement “a scary moment” that requires urgent oversight.

Nvidia says its $200B CPU opportunity includes China

• NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said the company’s projected $200B CPU market includes China, despite ongoing U.S.-China chip restrictions.

• Huang said demand for CPUs is rising because of agentic AI systems, and Nvidia is ramping up production of its Vera Rubin platform ahead of a busy second half for Taiwan suppliers.

• Nvidia still hopes to sell H200 AI chips in China, with Huang calling the market “very important,” though no deliveries have happened yet despite U.S. export approvals.

Pope Leo releases manifesto on AI

• Pope Leo XIV has issued his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, a 42,300-word document on artificial intelligence that calls for regulation of the technology and a moral framework to protect humanity for generations to come.

• The Pope urges readers to “disarm AI,” which he defines as freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to debate, while also cautioning against deploying AI in warfare and the workplace.

• He warns that AI’s speed can weaken personal creativity and judgment, and that its imitation of human communication risks making users lose the desire to form genuine human connections with real people.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕ Other News

ClickUp’s layoffs show how AI is reshaping white-collar work

• ClickUp laid off 22% of its workforce after deploying around 3,000 internal AI agents, with CEO Zeb Evans claiming AI will create a “100x organization.”

• The company says remaining employees who effectively use AI could earn significantly more, including million-dollar salary bands tied to AI-driven productivity and impact.

• The move reflects a broader trend where companies are replacing parts of human workflows with AI agents, raising questions about whether AI is truly boosting value or simply accelerating layoffs.

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• Investment Associate - Struck Capital | USA - Apply Here

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Breaking News

Google showcased AI-powered Android XR glasses that can translate conversations in real time, overlay navigation onto the real world, recognize objects, and interact through Gemini voice assistance. The demo suggests smart glasses may finally be moving from futuristic prototypes to genuinely useful everyday devices, with hands-free AI becoming one of the strongest candidates for the next major computing platform after smartphones.

DeepSeek permanently slashed prices for its flagship V4-Pro model by 75%, dramatically increasing pressure on rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic in the global AI pricing war. The move also signals how China’s growing domestic AI chip ecosystem — powered increasingly by Huawei hardware instead of Nvidia — could reshape the economics of AI infrastructure worldwide.

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🗞️ What else is brewing

• 35+ Investor Databases for Easier VC Outreach (Free Access) (Link)

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• Why are LPs turning bullish on China’s AI market again? (Link)

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• What 80,000 AI users revealed about the next billion-dollar opportunity for founders. (Link)

STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS

💰 Startup Funding Updates

PRE-SEED

Kordata Dynamics, a Bakersfield-based clinical trial innovation company, raised an undisclosed Pre-Seed round. Backers included MAVRK Celestia Fund, Kern Venture Group, and Digital Neural Infrastructure Holdings.

SEED

CVRD Health, a Miami-based platform helping federal contractors manage health and welfare benefits, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Upfront Ventures.

The Path, a San Francisco-based AI therapy platform focused on long-term mental wellness, raised $14.3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Prime Movers Lab.

GROWTH

August Robotics, a Hong Kong-based robotics automation company for construction and industrial applications, raised $30M in Series B funding. The round was led by Big Pi Ventures with participation from Blackbird, Skip Capital, and others.

Quartermaster, an Arlington-based maritime analytics and edge sensing company, raised $43M in Series A funding. The round was co-led by First Round Capital and Quiet Capital.

Modal, a NYC-based AI-native cloud compute and serverless platform, raised $355M in Series C funding at a $4.65B valuation. The round was led by General Catalyst and Redpoint.

Moment, a NYC-based AI operating system for investment management, raised $78M in Series C funding. The round was led by Index Ventures.

Muybridge, an Oslo-based software-defined imaging company, raised $16M in Series A funding. The round was led by Investinor, Fairpoint, Idekapital, and RunwayFBU.

BIG Fiber, a Sunnyvale-based dark fiber infrastructure provider, secured a $250M debt facility led by Stonepeak Credit and La Caisse.

Kalshi, a NYC-based prediction market company, reportedly raised $200M in Series F extension funding. Backers included Baillie Gifford and Layer Global.

Starlab Space, a Houston-based aerospace company, received an investment from 1789 Capital. Financial details were not disclosed.

Aboard, an Orange-based mobile living products company, raised an undisclosed Pre-Series A round led by Ondine Capital and Llama Ventures.

Hark, a San Jose-based AI lab building personalized intelligence systems, raised over $700M in Series A funding at a $6B valuation. The round was led by Parkway Venture Capital, with participation from NVIDIA, AMD Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and others.

Quantum Bridge Technologies, a Toronto-based cybersecurity company focused on future-proof internet communications, raised $8M in Series A funding. The round was led by Primo Capital.

NEW VCs IN THE MARKET

🏦 Venture Capital Updates.

Convective Capital, a California-based venture firm founded by WePay cofounder Bill Clerico, has raised an $85 million second fund to invest in startups building disaster resilience and physical-world risk management solutions. The firm backs companies across wildfire prevention, infrastructure monitoring, insurance, drones, and climate resilience.

Shamrock Capital, a Los Angeles, CA-based investment firm specializing in media, entertainment, communications, and related sectors, closed Shamrock Capital Content Fund IV, L.P., at $813m. Content IV received support from both existing and new limited partners including pension funds, endowments, foundations, family offices, insurance companies, and other institutional investors across the United States, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

Veriten, a Houston, TX-based research, strategy and investment firm, held the initial close of its second flagship energy venture fund, at over $105m. LPs include Halliburton Company, Phillips 66 Company, and CIBC, among others.

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KEY STORIES IN TECH

📜 Latest In Tech

Ferrari is using IBM’s AI to deepen F1 fan engagement

• IBM partnered with Scuderia Ferrari to rebuild Ferrari’s fan app using AI-powered storytelling, games, predictions, and a fan chatbot.

• Ferrari says the app now focuses on year-round engagement by turning race data into personalized content, behind-the-scenes stories, and interactive fan experiences for Tifosi.

• The updated app has already driven a 62% increase in race weekend engagement, as Ferrari and IBM use AI to analyze fan behavior and improve personalization.

Elon Musk appears to be moving away from Tesla’s solar-first vision

• Elon Musk’s xAI is doubling down on natural gas turbines for AI data centers, despite Tesla’s long-standing vision of a solar-powered future.

• SpaceX’s IPO filing shows growing focus on space-based solar and orbital AI data centers, while terrestrial solar plays a much smaller role in xAI’s current infrastructure plans.

• Critics argue Musk may be overestimating future AI energy demand, especially as xAI plans massive compute expansion while still relying heavily on fossil fuel-powered operations.

Meta quietly launches a Reddit-style app called Forum

• Meta has launched a new standalone app called Forum, focused on Facebook Groups-style discussions and community conversations similar to Reddit.

• Forum includes AI-powered features like question-answering across groups and an admin assistant for moderation, while syncing activity directly with Facebook Groups.

• The launch is part of Meta’s broader push to release more standalone apps, following recent launches like Instants and Edits as the company experiments with AI-driven app development.

Google Search breaks on the word 'disregard’

• Google Search now returns a nearly empty page when users type the word “disregard,” with a single unhelpful AI reply hiding the Merriam-Webster link far below a large block of blank space.

• The bug surfaced after Google rolled out a new Search experience earlier this week that puts AI summaries at the top and pushes the traditional ten blue links much further down the page.

• By comparison, the same search on Bing, which has taken a less aggressive approach to AI summaries, still surfaces some useful information about the word for people looking it up.

SpaceX Starship V3's first test flight was largely successful

• SpaceX flew its upgraded Starship V3 for the first time on Friday night, and the test flight hit most of its goals despite a couple of engine failures on both the booster and the upper-stage Ship.

• The Super Heavy booster ignited all 33 Raptor 3 engines and lifted off from Starbase, Texas at 6:30PM Eastern, but lost one engine during ascent and could only do a partial boostback burn before crashing into the Gulf.

• Ship reached its planned trajectory after losing one of six Raptor 3 engines, deployed 20 Starlink simulators and two modified satellites that photographed it in space, then splashed down and exploded in the Indian Ocean.

Google appeals search monopoly ruling, says it won business ‘fair and square’

• Google has filed its appeal against the federal ruling that labeled it an illegal search monopolist, telling the court the decision “crashed” through legal guardrails and that it “prevailed in the marketplace fair and square.”

• The appeal targets both Judge Amit Mehta’s August 2024 monopolization decision and the September 2025 remedies order, which forces Google to share search data with rivals, including generative AI companies it says didn’t exist during the relevant period.

• The US and a coalition of states are also appealing, arguing Mehta didn’t go far enough by declining their biggest ask, a forced sale of Chrome, and the DC federal appeals court will now decide next steps.

Spotify is launching AI-generated remixes

• Spotify has teamed up with Universal Music Group to roll out a feature that lets listeners make AI-generated covers and remixes of songs, which co-CEO Alex Norström says is “grounded in consent, credit, and compensation for the artist.”

• The remix tool arrives alongside other AI projects announced Thursday, as Spotify tries to balance its push into generative tools with its earlier moves against AI slop and unauthorized voice cloning on the platform.

• UMG’s involvement fits a wider pattern of major labels striking deals with AI firms, with Warner Music Group and UMG itself already partnering with audio AI companies such as Suno and Udio despite pushback from artists.

LAST COFFEE SIP

☕ Other News

Memory prices tipped to fall as China floods the market

• Memory and storage prices could soon drop because Chinese chipmakers are pumping out lots of their own RAM and storage chips, and some major PC parts brands have already started putting these cheaper Chinese chips into upcoming products.

• Corsair, which usually gets its memory from US company Micron, is reportedly using chips from Chinese maker CXMT in a new 16GB Vengeance stick that still works with the standard Intel and AMD speed-boost settings gamers use.

• CXMT now supplies about 7.7% of the world’s RAM, sells to Chinese giants Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance, and saw its first-quarter sales jump 719% to $7.4 billion ahead of a planned stock market listing in Shanghai.

HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES

💼 Today’s VC & Startup Job Opportunities

Most aspiring VCs struggle with interviews, unclear expectations, no structured prep, and generic advice that doesn’t actually help. So we partnered with a leading investor group to build an all-in-one VC Interview Preparation Guide that gives you real clarity and frameworks. (Access Here)

• Investment Associate - Struck Capital | USA - Apply Here

• Director - General Atlantic | USA - Apply Here

• Investment Associate - Transition | UK - Apply Here

• Visiting Engineer - AI Fund | USA - Apply Here

• Associate Investor - Sky9capital | USA - Apply Here

• Finance & Operations Manager - Antler | Singapore - Apply Here

• Venture Fellow - Entrepreneur First | France - Apply Here

• Investment Team - Antler | Germany - Apply Here

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