☕ Apple close to $1B deal with Google to power new Siri, SoftBank and OpenAI form joint venture in Japan - SB OAI & Big Short investor makes $1.1 billion bet against AI.
Approve Musk’s $878B pay or risk losing him & Google’s $32B Wiz acquisition clears U.S. antitrust review.
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📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks: 2700+ US investor database, data-driven prototyping, Bezos’ decision framework, how to get cited in AI, Q3 IPO & VC liquidity surge, top fundraising mistake, hypergrowth math.
Apple close to $1B deal with Google to power new Siri.
Microsoft’s ‘Magentic Marketplace’ exposes AI agent weaknesses.
Google’s $32B Wiz acquisition clears U.S. antitrust review.
SoftBank and OpenAI form joint venture in Japan.
Big Short investor makes $1.1 billion bet against AI.
Tesla board warns shareholders - Approve Musk’s $878B pay or risk losing him.
OpenAI CFO says IPO not in near-term plans.
Google settles with Epic to change the Play Store.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
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🗞️ What else is brewing
2700+ US Angel Investors & VC Firms Contact Database (Email + LinkedIn Link). (Link)
Data-driven prototyping for elite results.
Jeff Bezos’ decision-making framework every founder should know (from 2015 shareholder letter).
How to gett cited in AI answers.
IPOs and (some) VC liquidity finally arrived in Q3
The number one fundraising mistake founders make.
The math of hypergrowth: two paths to the same goal.
Amanda Zhu on how she got to $2M in founder-led sales.
B2B marketing in 2026: Distribution is the Monopoly.
Sam Altman on Sora, Energy and Building an AI Empire.
Goldilocks and the 3 Secondaries.
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
DualBird, a Boston, MA-based data infrastructure startup, raised $25m in combined Seed and Series A funding. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Angular Ventures and Uncork Capital.
Freeda, a Paris, France-based startup that finds hidden errors in construction plans using artificial intelligence, raised €3.4m in funding. The round was led by Frst with participation from Brick & Mortar Ventures.
Braveheart Bio, a San Francisco, CA-based clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel therapeutics for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and related conditions, raised $185M in Series A financing. Backers included Andreessen Horowitz (a16z Bio + Health), Forbion, OrbiMed, Enavate Sciences (a platform of Patient Square Capital), and Frazier Life Sciences.
Procurement Sciences, a Washington, DC-based AI software company that focuses on how businesses find, win and deliver on government contracts, closed $30M in Series B funding. The round was led by Catalyst Investors. Battery Ventures, Tower Research Ventures, K-Street Capital and Blu Ventures also participated alongside Bosch Ventures, Citi and industry angels.
Armis, a San Francisco, CA-based cyber exposure management and security company, raised $435m in a pre-IPO funding round, which brought its valuation to $6.1 billion. The round was led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives with participation from CapitalG, and joined by new investor Evolution Equity Partners, alongside several existing investors.
CommanderAI, a Los Angeles, CA-based provider of a prospecting-first sales platform built for waste haulers, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by 11 Tribes Ventures and Watchfire Ventures, with participation from additional strategic investors.
GitLaw, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of AI legal services for businesses, raised $3M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Jackson Square Ventures, with participation from Flex Capital, Background Capital, and several angel investors.
Mindsmith, a Provo, Utah-based AI-native e-learning platform that combines artificial intelligence with modern learning science, raised $4.1m in seed funding. The round was led by Next Frontier Capital, with participation from WndrCo, Grix, Pluralsight co-founder Aaron Skonnard and Lucid co-founder Karl Sun.
Cactus, a San Francisco, CA-based AI copilot built to power home service businesses, raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Wellington Management, Y Combinator, Pelion Venture Partners, Rebel Fund and additional strategic investors.
MoEngage, a Bengaluru, India- and San Francisco, CA-based provider of an insights-led customer engagement platform for consumer brands, raised $100M in funding. The round was led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives and new investor A91 Partners.
Neok Bio, a Palo Alto, CA-based biotechnology company focused on the development of novel antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) for improving outcomes for cancer patients, raised $75M in Series A funding. The round was led by ABL Bio.
Boostie, a Lafayette, CO-based automated talent marketing platform built for staffing agencies and corporate talent acquisition teams, raised $500k in seed funding. Backers included Bullhorn Ventures, Tim Glennie, Travis Arnold and other strategic investors.
LambdaVision, a Woodbridge, CT-baserd biotech company leveraging microgravity to manufacture investigational protein-based artificial retina, raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Seven Seven Six and Aurelia Foundry Fund, with additional support from Seraphim Space.
Flux XII, a Madison, WI-based energy storage company developing advanced materials for aqueous flow batteries, raised $3.95M in Seed funding. The round was led by The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment with participation from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Desai Ventures, and gener8tor.
Cove Soda, a Halifax, Canada-based functional carbonated soft drink (CSD) brand, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by Vanterra Ventures with participation from RiverPark Ventures, The Palm Tree Crew, Simple Food Ventures, Diplo, Miles Teller, The Chainsmokers, Michael Rubin, Dan Lourenco, Jack Eichel, Aaron Ekblad, Matt Chapman, and JD Martinez.
CeresAI, a San Francisco, CA-based data and artificial intelligence company, raised $13M in funding. The round was led by Remus Capital.
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
BoxGroup, a NYC and San Francisco, CA-based venture capital firm, closed two funds raising $550m in total. According to Fortune, the seventh core fund and the fourth follow-on fund raised approx. $275m each. Led by David Tisch, Founder and MP, BoxGroup is a pre-seed and seed-stage venture capital firm which backs founders at the earliest stage of their businesses, investing collaborative checks alongside other funds and angels.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
Apple close to $1B deal with Google to power new Siri
Apple is reportedly finalizing a deal to pay Google about $1 billion annually for a custom version of its Gemini AI model to power the next-generation Siri, per Bloomberg.
The partnership would give Apple access to a 1.2 trillion-parameter model — nearly eight times larger than Apple’s current cloud AI — as a temporary solution while it develops its own advanced systems.
Apple had tested models from OpenAI and Anthropic but ultimately chose Google, with the revamped Siri expected to debut next spring, though plans may still evolve.
Microsoft’s ‘Magentic Marketplace’ exposes AI agent weaknesses
Microsoft and ASU built an open-source simulation where customer agents shop while business agents compete, revealing how easily models can be manipulated by adversarial tactics.
Leading models (GPT-4o, GPT-5, Gemini 2.5 Flash) showed sharp drops in performance when flooded with too many options and struggled to coordinate roles during multi-agent collaboration.
Explicit step-by-step instructions boosted results, but researchers say current agents lack default robustness and collaboration skills needed for unsupervised, real-world use.
Google’s $32B Wiz acquisition clears U.S. antitrust review
Google has received approval from the U.S. Department of Justice to proceed with its $32 billion acquisition of cloud security firm Wiz, moving the deal closer to completion.
Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport confirmed the milestone at a Wall Street Journal event, noting that while the review is cleared, final closure is still pending.
Google first offered $23 billion for Wiz in 2024 before reviving talks and agreeing on a higher $32 billion price earlier this year, with the deal expected to close in early 2026.
SoftBank and OpenAI form joint venture in Japan
SoftBank and OpenAI have launched a 50-50 joint venture called SB OAI Japan, which will localize and sell OpenAI’s enterprise tools under a new offering called “Crystal intelligence.”
The first customer of the venture will be SoftBank itself, which has already created 2.5 million custom ChatGPT instances for internal use to boost productivity and efficiency.
The move underscores SoftBank’s deepening bet on AI infrastructure and enterprise adoption amid growing investor concern that the ongoing AI boom resembles the early 2000s.
Big Short investor makes $1.1 billion bet against AI
Michael Burry’s hedge fund Scion Asset Management has placed significant bets against the AI sector by purchasing put options on industry darlings Nvidia and the data analytics firm Palantir.
Through social media posts, Burry draws parallels to the dot-com bubble, pointing to similar U.S. tech capex growth and the subsequent telecommunications crash as a historical warning for investors.
The investor also shared a diagram of the AI industry’s circular dealmaking, suggesting the market is a tangled web of multibillion-dollar investments between a handful of overlapping tech giants.
Tesla board warns shareholders - Approve Musk’s $878B pay or risk losing him
Tesla’s board urged investors to back CEO Elon Musk’s record-breaking $878 billion stock compensation plan, warning he may quit if it’s rejected in a crucial shareholder vote this week.
Supporters argue only Musk can deliver on Tesla’s ambitions for robotaxis and humanoid robots, while critics say the package flouts governance norms and dangerously concentrates power in one leader.
Major investors like CalPERS and Norway’s sovereign wealth fund oppose the plan, citing “key person risk,” as Tesla’s valuation remains tied more to Musk’s promises than its EV fundamentals.
OpenAI CFO says IPO not in near-term plans
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said the company is not currently pursuing an initial public offering, telling the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live event that “IPO is not on the cards right now.”
The comments follow reports that OpenAI was preparing for a possible 2026–2027 listing that could value it at up to $1 trillion, after restructuring into a public benefit corporation valued at $500 billion.
Friar said the company is instead focused on scaling operations and securing financing for AI infrastructure, including U.S. government-backed guarantees to lower data center and chip financing costs.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other news
Google settles with Epic to change the Play Store
Google’s settlement with Epic lets Android app developers direct users to alternative payment mechanisms inside their apps and through external web links, a significant change for the Play Store.
The deal also caps the fees the search giant can charge for these payments at either nine percent or twenty percent, with the actual rate based on the transaction type.
After a jury found Google had stifled competition, Epic Games’ CEO praised the proposal and announced the Epic Games Store for Android would be coming to the Google Play Store..
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
💼 Today’s VC & startup job opportunities
All-In-One VC Interview Preparation Guide: With a leading investors group, we have created an all-in-one VC interview preparation guide for aspiring VCs. Don’t miss this. (Access Here)
Investor Relations - Samved VC | India - Apply Here
Interim Senior Analyst, Investments - Pivotal Ventures | USA - Apply Here
Trade Operations Lead - Manhattan Venture Partner | USA - Apply Here
AI Builder In Residence - True Venture | USA - Apply Here
VP of Fundraising - Scale Asia Venture | Japan - Apply Here
Associate - OMERSE Venture | USA - Apply Here
Senior Associate - M12 | USA - Apply Here
Investment Analyst - Cornell University | USA - Apply Here
Associate - Venture Capital - Artha Venture Fund | India - Apply Here
Investment Team - WEH Venture | India - Apply Here
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