☕ Anthropic and OpenAI are both launching joint ventures & Ask.com shuts down after 25 years.
Musk allegedly sent threatening texts to OpenAI leaders & OpenAI co-founder reveals $30b stake.
Breaking News
Anthropic and OpenAI are both launching joint ventures to embed AI directly into enterprise companies through investor networks. This signals a major shift — AI is moving from standalone tools to deeply integrated infrastructure inside businesses.
Greg Brockman revealed his OpenAI stake is worth nearly $30B, exposing how deeply leadership is financially tied to the company’s success. Court filings also showed financial links with Sam Altman, fueling arguments from Elon Musk that OpenAI has shifted from nonprofit ideals to profit-driven incentives.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
Mobility Signage, a Munich, Germany-based public transport infrastructure company, raised €1.8M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by HTGF and 2bX.
Zapdos Labs, an Austin, TX-based AI software company, raised $500K in Pre-Seed funding. Backers were not disclosed.
SEED
Barocal Ltd, a Cambridge, UK-based climate tech company, raised $10M in Seed funding. Backers included World Fund, Breakthrough Energy Discovery, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, and IP Group.
LakeFusion, an Austin, TX-based data platform startup, raised $7.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Silverton Partners, with participation from Carbide Ventures.
GROWTH
Enzo Health, a Lehi, UT-based AI platform for home healthcare, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by N47, with participation from Gradient, Tandem Ventures, and Rigby Watts.
EnteroBiotix, a Glasgow-based biopharma company, raised $25M in funding. The round was led by Thairm Bio and Scottish National Investment Bank, with participation from other investors.
Security Fire Systems, a Texas-based fire protection company, received a $26M preferred equity investment from Prospect Capital Corporation and Blackford Capital.
Reserv, a NYC-based insurance infrastructure platform, raised $125M in Series C funding. The round was led by KKR, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures and Flourish Ventures.
Anello Photonics, a Santa Clara-based navigation systems company, raised $25M in Series B-2 funding. The round was led by MESH, with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures and others.
mbiomics GmbH, a Germany-based microbiome therapeutics company, raised $12M in Series A funding. Backers included MIG Fonds and Bayern Kapital.
Featherless, a San Francisco-based AI infrastructure platform, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by AMD Ventures and Airbus Ventures, with participation from multiple investors.
Torus, a Utah-based energy platform company, received $35M in debt financing from Trinity Capital.
A-Cube, a Milan-based tax compliance platform, raised €4M in funding. The round was led by P101 SGR.
Qover, a Brussels-based embedded insurance platform, received €10M in growth financing from CIBC Innovation Banking.
HealthFab, a Bengaluru-based menstrual health startup, raised $2.1M in Series A funding. The round was led by Atomic Capital and Mistry Ventures.
Fun, a NYC-based payments infrastructure company, raised $72M in Series A funding. The round was led by Multicoin Capital and SignalFire.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Katie Haun, Former Andreessen Horowitz investor, has raised $1B across new funds to back early- and late-stage startups. The fund will invest globally across crypto, blockchain, alternative assets, and the agentic economy, continuing its thesis of building the future of financial services.
Ridgeline Capital Management, an early stage vc firm, closed Ridgeline Ventures Fund II LP and Ridgeline Ventures Fund II-S L.P., with over $180m in commitments. Fund II, closed in December 2025, received SBA commitments, and backing from Fortune 500 companies like FedEx and Cisco Investments.
BMW i Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of car manufacturer BMW, launched a $300m fund. Fund III is dedicated to backing the companies building at the intersection of artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, and the evolving automotive ecosystem.
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KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
Cerebras nears blockbuster IPO, backed by OpenAI ties and surging demand
Cerebras Systems plans to raise ~$3.5B at a ~$26.6B valuation, potentially making it the biggest tech IPO of 2026 so far — with demand already far exceeding supply.
The company builds AI-specific chips (Wafer-Scale Engine) competing with GPUs, positioning itself as a faster, more efficient alternative for inference workloads.
OpenAI is deeply tied to Cerebras — as a major customer, lender ($1B loan), and potential future shareholder — meaning the IPO could deliver significant upside to both OpenAI and its leadership.
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says AI is creating more jobs, not destroying them
Jensen Huang said AI is creating a new industrial wave, with rising demand for chips, factories, infrastructure, and workers to build and run these systems.
He argued that AI will automate tasks, not entire jobs, meaning many workers will shift into higher-value work instead of being fully replaced.
He warned that fear around AI could slow adoption, while people and companies that learn to use it early may benefit the most.
Image AI models now drive app growth, beating chatbot upgrades
Image model launches are now the biggest growth driver for AI apps, generating 6.5x more downloads than traditional chatbot or LLM upgrades.
Apps like ChatGPT and Gemini saw tens of millions of installs after image features launched, showing users care more about visual capabilities than text improvements.
However, downloads don’t equal revenue, as most apps saw weak monetization, with only ChatGPT successfully converting user interest into significant revenue.
Elon musk allegedly sent threatening texts to OpenAI leaders before trial
Elon Musk reportedly texted Greg Brockman suggesting a settlement, but the conversation escalated into a warning that Brockman and Sam Altman would become “the most hated men in America.”
The exchange, revealed in a legal filing by OpenAI, was ultimately ruled inadmissible in court, but highlights rising tensions just before the trial began.
The broader case centers on Musk trying to undo OpenAI’s for-profit structure and licensing deals, with critics suggesting the lawsuit may be more about power and money than AI safety.
GameStop makes bold $56B bid for eBay, ready to go hostile
GameStop has offered ~$56B to acquire eBay at $125/share (20% premium), with CEO Ryan Cohen ready to take the offer directly to shareholders if the board resists.
The move is highly unusual — GameStop is ~4x smaller than eBay — but Cohen argues the merger could create a serious competitor to Amazon, with $2B in cost cuts and retail-store-driven logistics advantages.
Financing includes ~$20B in debt plus cash and external backing, signaling one of the most aggressive and unconventional takeover attempts in recent tech history.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Ask.com shuts down after 25 years
Ask.com has officially closed its doors after 25 years online, with parent company IAC confirming on May 1, 2026 that it shut down its entire search business, ending one of the web’s earliest recognizable search brands.
Born in the late 1990s alongside Google Search, the platform started with a question-and-answer format and a butler mascot named Jeeves before rebranding to Ask.com, but it steadily lost ground to Google’s ranking systems.
In a farewell message, IAC said “a very great search must come to an end” and thanked its engineers, designers, and the millions of users, noting that Ask’s natural-language approach foreshadowed today’s conversational search and AI tools.
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