☕ Anthropic to raise $10 billion, Larry Page leaves California to avoid $12.5 billion tax & OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Health.
Nvidia CEO proposes robots as 'AI immigrants' & China reviews Meta's $2 billion Manus acquisition.
Breaking News
OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Health, a dedicated health and wellness space inside ChatGPT, as the company says more than 230 million users ask health-related questions every week. The feature separates medical conversations from everyday chats, integrates with apps like Apple Health and MyFitnessPal, and will not use health conversations for model training, marking OpenAI’s most explicit push yet into consumer healthcare, even as it emphasizes the tool is not meant for diagnosis or treatment. More Here
Anthropic is reportedly preparing to raise $10 billion at a $350 billion valuation, according to The Wall Street Journal, nearly doubling its valuation in just three months. The round, expected to be led by Coatue and GIC, comes as Anthropic gains traction with Claude Code and positions itself for a potential IPO, underscoring how quickly capital is concentrating around a small group of frontier AI labs. More Here
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
Autonomous Technologies Group (ATG), a NYC- and San Francisco, CA-based AI research lab focused on solving complex financial problems, launched with $15m in pre-seed funding. Backers included Y Combinator’s Alumni Fund/Garry Tan, Collaborative Group, Fusion Fund, Box Group, and the founder of a quantitative hedge-fund.
i10X, a Singapore-based unified AI platform, closed a USD$1m pre-seed funding round. Backers included Iterative, Antler AI Disrupt, and PPR Ventures.
SEED
AgileRL, a London, UK-based startup accelerating the development of reinforcement learning for training AI models, raised a seed funding round. The round was led by Fusion Fund, with participation from Flying Fish, Octopus Ventures, Entrepreneur First, and Counterview Capital, bringing their total funding to $7.5m.
STRM.BIO, a Cambridge, MA-based biotechnology company advancing non-viral delivery technologies for in vivo cell and gene therapy, raised $8M in Series Seed 2 financing. The round was led by Recordati with participation form Boehringer Ingelheim Ventures and Delos Capital, as well as new funding from Blue Bay Capital Fund.
Oasys Health, a NYC-based provider of an AI-native operating system for behavioral health, raised $4.6M in funding. The round was led by Pathlight Ventures, with participation from Twine Ventures and Better Ventures, and $600K in pre-seed funding from 1984 Ventures.
Filtrabit, an Oulu and Espoo, Finland-based cleantech company, raised €2M in funding. The round was led by Ajanta Innovations 2 Ky.
GROWTH
Prudentia Sciences, a Cambridge, MA-based company which specializes in AI-native due diligence for life sciences dealmaking, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by McKesson Ventures with participation from SignalFire. Existing investors include Iaso Ventures, Virtue and GV.
Spiro Medical, an Irvine, CA-based medtech company developing a pulmonary neuromodulation system (PNM) for the treatment of asthma, raised $67M in Series A funding. The round included a syndicate of venture investors led by Andera Partners (Paris), Omega Funds (Geneva/Boston) and Sherpa Healthcare Partners (Cayman Islands) and joined by HSG (Hong Kong), Supernova Invest (Paris), Northern Light Venture Capital (Menlo Park, CA) and Hero Inc.
Luminate, a Galway, Ireland-based healthcare technology company, raised $21M in expanded Series A funding. The round was led by ARTIS Ventures and Lachy Groom, with participation from Western Alliance Life Sciences alongside existing investors 8VC, Y Combinator, Atlantic Bridge, Faber, SciFounders and others.
Corsera Health, Inc., a Boston, MA-based clinical-stage company leading the future of cardiovascular health through prediction and prevention, raised $80m in Series A financing. The round was led by Forbion and Population Health Partners with participation from other Corsera Co-Founder and Co-CEO John Maraganore, Ph.D.
LMArena, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a community-driven platform for AI benchmarking, raised $150M in Series A funding. The round was led by Felicis and UC Investments (University of California), with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, The House Fund, LDVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Laude Ventures.
Linker Vision, a Taipei, Taiwan-based AI software platform company, raised US$35M in Series A funding. The round was led by Abico Group, with participation from NVIDIA, Yun-Hsien Enterprise, CIDC Co., Hotung Venture Group, ITIC’s Noah GT Fund, ChangHwa Bank Venture, and Yuanta Venture.
Mediar Therapeutics, Inc., a Boston, MA-based clinical-stage biotechnology company advancing first-in-class therapies designed to halt fibrosis, raised $76m in Series B financing. The round was co-led by Amplitude Ventures and ICG, with participation from new investors Longwood Fund, Asahi Kasei Pharma Ventures, Alexandria Real Estate Trust (ARE), and existing Series A investors.
Rakuten Medical, a San Diego, CA-based biotechnology company developing and commercializing its proprietary Alluminox platform-based photoimmunotherapy, raised $100M in Series F funding. The round consisted of $70M in new capital and the conversion of $30M in convertible promissory notes with accrued interest and was led by TaiAx Life Science Fund L.P.
Swap, a NYC-based provider of a commerce operating system, raised $100m in Series C funding. The round was co-led by DST Global and ICONIQ.
DayOne Data Centers Limited, a Singapore-based data center platform provider, raised US$2.0 Billion in Series C funding. The round was led by existing investor Coatue, with participation from the Indonesia Investment Authority (INA), Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund.
Sibros, a San Jose, CA-based provider of Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) platforms, raised $9M in growth funding. Niterra Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Nagoya, Japan) participated in the round via Niterra Ventures Company.
Enable Injections, a Cincinnati, OH-based healthcare company developing and manufacturing the enFuse On-Body Delivery System (OBDS), received $30M investment from Sanofi. It closed a $215M Series C financing in January 2022 led by Magnetar Capital, including Sanofi and multiple additional new institutional investors.
TODAY’S RESOURCE PICK
🔥 Equity dilution decisions guide: ownership, control, and negotiation
Equity decisions are permanent and most founders get them wrong not because they’re careless, but because they’re rushed and negotiating without clarity.
This guide helps you understand how dilution actually works, how investors think about ownership and control, and how to make equity decisions without panic or regret.
Includes practical tools: Equity dilution simulator, ESOP planner, raise-now vs raise-later comparison, and cap table + term sheet guidance.
If you want to raise capital without waking up later wishing you’d handled equity differently, this guide is for you.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates
Niko Bonatsos has departed General Catalyst after years of leading its seed strategy, calling the exit a mutual decision and a strong learning experience. Known for early bets on Discord and Mercor, he now plans to launch a new early-stage VC firm with a small group of top-tier founders and investors. His future focus includes backing young founders early and doubling down on consumer startups, which he believes are undervalued amid the enterprise-AI boom.
Lux Capital, based in the U.S., focuses on frontier science, AI, and defense tech, and has raised a $1.5 billion ninth fund — its largest to date. The firm, known for early bets on Anduril, Hugging Face, and MosaicML, now manages $7 billion in assets. Despite a tough VC fundraising environment in 2025, LPs backed Lux for its track record of exits and early thematic investing.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
OpenAI gets ready to test ads in ChatGPT
OpenAI is getting ready to test ads in ChatGPT, though the company has been quiet about its plans while Google moves ahead with ads inside its own AI assistant, Gemini.
OpenAI has hired former executives from Slack, TikTok, and Google, and posted a job for a paid marketing platform engineer, but has not yet picked a leader to run its ads business.
ChatGPT now has 910 million monthly active users, but OpenAI expects to lose $115 billion through 2029, making ads a way to offset massive server costs before turning profitable in 2030.
Larry Page leaves California to avoid $12.5 billion tax
Larry Page, Google’s co-founder and the world’s second-richest person, has left California and moved his residency to avoid a proposed state wealth tax that could cost him $12.5 billion.
Page converted his family office and several funding vehicles to Delaware in late December 2025, ahead of the potential tax law’s effective date, while setting up new addresses in Florida, Nevada, and Texas.
The proposed California ballot measure would tax billionaires 5% of their wealth, but critics like Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla warn it will cause capital flight and drive away major taxpayers..
Nvidia CEO proposes robots as 'AI immigrants'
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called AI-controlled robots “AI immigrants” at CES 2026, suggesting they could fill jobs in manufacturing and other areas that people have decided not to do anymore.
Huang argued that a global labor shortage of tens of millions of workers means economies cannot be sustained, and robots working on factory floors will drive growth and create more jobs.
The CEO predicted robots with human-level skills will arrive this year, noting that developers are working on touch sensors and fine motor skills since robots currently rely only on eyes.
China reviews Meta's $2 billion Manus acquisition
China is reviewing Meta’s planned $2 billion purchase of Manus, the AI assistant platform, to determine whether the deal breaks technology export control rules, which could give Beijing unexpected influence over the outcome.
Officials are checking whether Manus needed an export license when it moved its core team from Beijing to Singapore, a relocation strategy now common enough among Chinese startups that it has been nicknamed “Singapore washing.”
Beijing worries the deal could push more Chinese startups to relocate abroad to avoid domestic oversight, and one professor warned that Manus founders could face criminal liability if they exported restricted technology without authorization.
Musk lawsuit over OpenAI for-profit conversion can head to trial
A US judge ruled that Elon Musk’s lawsuit alleging OpenAI violated its founding nonprofit mission can proceed to a jury trial, citing enough disputed facts to be decided by a jury.
Musk claims OpenAI’s leaders assured him the organization would remain nonprofit when he helped fund and guide it early on, and alleges the later for-profit shift led to improper enrichment.
OpenAI denies the allegations, calling the lawsuit baseless and arguing Musk is a rival seeking to slow down competition as his company xAI challenges OpenAI in the AI market.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Google and Character.AI negotiate first major settlements in teen chatbot death cases
Google and Character.AI have agreed in principle to settle lawsuits filed by families of teenagers who died by suicide or self-harmed after interacting with Character.AI’s chatbot companions, marking one of the first major legal settlements tied to alleged AI-related harm.
Character.AI, founded by former Google engineers and later brought back under Google in a $2.7 billion deal, faced scrutiny after cases including that of 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III, whose mother has urged lawmakers to hold AI companies accountable for harm to minors.
The settlements are expected to involve monetary compensation without any admission of liability, and Character.AI has since banned minors from its platform as the broader AI industry watches closely for legal precedent.
DAILY PICKS
🗞️ What Else Is Brewing
How to do user research without users: the synthetic user guide. (Link)
How to actually name your startup: A simple framework. (Link)
What 1,000 ChatGPT enterprise customers tell us about enterprise AI adoption in 2025. (Link)
How to write a fundraising email: First email, follow-ups approved by leading VCs? (Link)
How to get warm intros to VCs without a network. (Link)
US VC female founders dashboard. (Link)
Investor data room superpack: everything you need to build a VC-ready data room (guide/templates) (Link)
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
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