☕ Apple projects tariff costs will hit $1.1B, Your public ChatGPT queries getting indexed by Google & Microsoft reach $4 trillion valuation & More.
Enterprises prefer Anthropic’s AI models over anyone else’s & More.
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📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks: AI wrappers & Gemini’s rise, can AI be a VC?, half-life of AI agents, European VC list, genAI risks, Jobs on iPhone, AI’s impact on education, valuation & legal guides, investor templates.
Apple projects tariff costs will hit $1.1B next quarter.
Enterprises prefer Anthropic’s AI models over anyone else’s, including OpenAI’s.
Google's new AI acts as a virtual satellite.
Your public ChatGPT queries are getting indexed by Google.
Reddit revenue soars as it bets on AI and advertising.
Amazon CEO wants to put ads in your Alexa+ conversations.
Microsoft becomes the second company to reach $4 trillion.
Apple has now sold 3 billion iPhones.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
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🗞️ What else is brewing
Rise of the AI Wrappers Plus: Google’s Gemini models get their due.
6000+ European VC Firms Contact Database (LinkedIn Links).
Startup legal document pack – essential legal docs for founders.
The Impact of AI on Education & What It Means for Work by Tomasz Tunguz.
The only startup valuation guide you need as a founder.
350+ Indian Angel Investors & Venture Capital Firms Contact Database (Email + LinkedIn Link).
Investor data room guide & templates for founders.
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
Cline, a San Francisco, CA-based open-source AI coding agent, raised $32M in total funding. The most recent Series A round was led by Emergence Capital with participation from Pace Capital, 1984 Ventures, Essence VC, Cox Exponential and angel investors, including Jared Friedman (Partner, Y Combinator), Eric Simons (CEO, Bolt.new), Logan Kilpatrick, Addy Osmani, and tech YouTuber Theo Browne.
Echo Software, a NYC-based startup building enterprise-grade software infrastructure, raised $15m in Seed funding. The round was led by Notable Capital and Hyperwise Ventures, with support from SVCI.
Metaforms, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an AI platform for market research agencies, raised $9M in Series A funding. The round was led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia India), with participation from Nexus Venture Partners and Together Fund.
Anaconda, an Austin, TX-based company committed to advancing AI with open source at scale, raised over $150M in Series C funding. The round was led by Insight Partners, with participation from Mubadala Capital.
fal, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an infrastructure platform empowering real-time, generative media, raised $125M in Series C funding. The round was led by Salesforce Ventures and Shopify Ventures.
Augmodo, a Seattle, WA-based real-time inventory and task tracker using spatial AI, raised $37.5M in funding. The round was led by TQ Ventures, with participation from existing investors Lerer Hippeau, NewFare, WIN and Interlace, who joined new investors Arena Holdings – an investment firm founded by Feroz Dewan, former Managing Director at Tiger Global, as well as Jefferson River Capital – the family office of Tony James, former President and COO of Blackstone Group.
Knit, an Austin, TX-based AI-powered platform to conduct consumer research, raised $16.1M in Series A funding. The round was led by GFT Ventures and Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures with participation from Silicon Road Ventures, Osage Ventures, Rise of the Rest, and angel investors such as David Kirk, and Gokul Rajaram.
Noma Security, a NYC-based provider of a platform for AI and agent security, raised $100M in funding. The round was led by Evolution Equity Partners, with continued participation from Ballistic Ventures and Glilot Capital.
Daloopa, a NYC-based AI-powered fundamental data platform provider, raised $13M in funding. Backers included Pavilion Capital.
Carbyne, a NYC-based provider of cloud-native emergency communications and response solutions, raised $100M in funding. Backers included AT&T Ventures, Axon Enterprise, Cox Enterprises, Global Medical Response, Hanaco Growth, Hercules Capital, RCM Private Markets Fund managed by Rokos Capital Management (US) LP, and Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a division of First Citizens Bank.
Stable, a NYC-based provider of a layer 1 blockchain network for USDT, raised $28M in funding. The round was led by Bitfinex and Hack VC, with participation from Franklin Templeton, Castle Island Ventures, eGirl Capital, Bybit-Mirana, Susquehanna International Group, Nascent, Blue Pool Capital, BTSE and KuCoin Ventures.
MyPrize, a Miami, FL-based company offering a free-to-play social casino service, raised $21M in funding, at $250M valuation. Backers included Dragonfly and Boxcars Ventures.
Command Zero, an Austin, TX-based autonomous and AI-assisted cyber investigation platform, raised $10m in funding. Backers included Okta Ventures, SE Ventures, and Crosspoint Capital.
SAFE, a Palo Alto, CA-based company that specializes in cyber risk quantification (CRQ) and provider of fully autonomous third-party risk management (TPRM) solutions, raised $70M in Series C funding. The round was led by Avataar Ventures, with participation from SIG Venture Capital, NextEquity Partners, Prosperity7 Ventures, and existing investors.
Wallarm, a San Francisco, CA-based which specializes in API and AI security, raised $55M in funding. The round was led by Toba Capital.
Sava Technologies, a London, UK-based company which specializes in real-time molecular health monitoring, raised $19M in Series A funding. The round was led by Balderton Capital and Pentland Ventures, with participation from new Norrsken VC, JamJar Investments, True, Italian Founders Fund, Athletico Ventures, SOLO Investments and Exceptional Ventures.
Ultromics, an Oxford, UK-based company which specializes in AI-driven cardiology solutions, raised $55M in Series C funding. The round was led by L&G, Allegis Capital and Lightrock, with continued support from Oxford Science Enterprises, GV, Blue Venture Fund and Oxford University.
PlayerZero, an Atlanta, GA-based predictive software quality company, raised $20M in Seed and Series A funding. The rounds consisted of $15M in Series A led by Foundation Capital and $5M in Seed led by Green Bay Ventures. Individual investors included Matei Zaharia (Databricks), Drew Houston (Dropbox), Dylan Field (Figma) and Guillermo Rauch (Vercel).
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
BlackWood Ventures, a Copenhagen-based early-stage VC firm, has closed its first fund at $25 million to back Europe’s next tech leaders. The fund has already invested in 19 startups across 9 countries, focusing on fintech, cleantech, and Web3 sectors.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
Apple projects tariff costs will hit $1.1B next quarter:
Apple expects $1.1 billion in tariff-related costs next quarter, up from $800 million in the June quarter.
Most tariffs stem from IEEPA and ongoing trade tensions with China, though Apple is diversifying production to India and Vietnam.
Despite the tariff impact, iPhone sales rose 13% YoY, generating $44.5 billion, with CEO Tim Cook citing strong product demand over tariff-driven buying.
Enterprises prefer Anthropic’s AI models over anyone else’s, including OpenAI’s:
Anthropic leads the enterprise LLM market with 32% usage share, surpassing OpenAI’s 25%, according to a Menlo Ventures report.
In enterprise coding use, Anthropic dominates with 42% share, double OpenAI’s 21%, driven by the success of Claude 3.5 and 3.7 Sonnet models.
Most enterprises prefer closed-source models, with open-source usage declining from 19% to 13% so far in 2025.
Google's new AI acts as a virtual satellite:
Google's new AI model, AlphaEarth Foundations, functions like a virtual satellite by integrating huge amounts of Earth observation data from multiple sources into one unified digital representation of the planet.
Its 'Space Time Precision' architecture is the first to support continuous time, which allows the model to generate maps for any specific date and fill observation gaps caused by cloud cover.
The system produces 'embedding fields' that transform each 10-meter square of Earth's surface into a compressed digital summary, now available to researchers as the Satellite Embedding dataset.
Your public ChatGPT queries are getting indexed by Google:
A short-lived OpenAI experiment made shared ChatGPT chats discoverable by search engines, raising privacy concerns as users unintentionally exposed personal info.
The feature required users to actively click “share” and “create link,” but many didn’t realize those links could be indexed by Google or Bing.
OpenAI has now disabled the feature, citing too much potential for accidental oversharing and privacy risks.
Reddit revenue soars as it bets on AI and advertising:
Reddit generated $465 million from ads in Q2 2025, accounting for 93% of total revenue, boosted by new AI-powered tools like Reddit Insights and Conversation Summary Add-ons.
Revenue from data licensing deals with AI firms like Google and OpenAI grew 24% year-over-year to $35 million.
Reddit’s AI feature, Reddit Answers, grew to 6 million weekly users and is being more deeply integrated into the platform’s core search experience.
Amazon CEO wants to put ads in your Alexa+ conversations:
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy plans to introduce ads into Alexa+ conversations as a new revenue stream and product discovery tool.
Alexa+ is now available to millions of users, with free access for Prime members and a $20/month standalone tier — future ad-free tiers are being considered.
As Amazon invests heavily in AI infrastructure, it sees conversational advertising as a potential model, though issues like hallucinations and privacy concerns remain unresolved.
Microsoft becomes the second company to reach $4 trillion:
Microsoft's market value crossed the $4 trillion line after reporting $76.7 billion in revenue for the quarter, making it the second public company after Nvidia to reach this mark.
For the first time, the company disclosed a real revenue number for its Azure cloud business, which now brings in $75 billion annually, satisfying long-standing investor requests for transparency.
Its growth is backed by a plan to spend $30 billion in capex next quarter on AI infrastructure, funding a major expansion of data centers and GPUs for its cloud capacity.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕Other news
Apple has now sold 3 billion iPhones:
Apple hit 3 billion iPhones sold since 2007, with 2 billion sold in just the last nine years.
iPhone sales rose 13% year-over-year this quarter, generating $44.6 billion—nearly half of Apple’s $94 billion total revenue.
The recent sales boost may be tied to consumer fears of rising prices due to potential new tariffs under President Trump.
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)
Associate - OMERSE Venture | USA - Apply Here
Chief of Staff to Founding Partner - One Way Venture | USA - Apply Here
Operations Associate - Techstars | USA - Apply Here
Associate - Episode 1 Venture | UK - Apply Here
Fund Operations Manager - Teja Venture | Singapore - Apply Here
Associate - Entrepreneur First | USA - Apply Here
Associate (Software Infrastructure) - Omerse Venture | USA - Apply Here
Partner 36 - a16z | USA - Apply Here
VC Associate - Toyota Venture | UK - Apply Here
Investor - Entrepreneur First | USA - Apply Here
Investment Analyst - Lumikai | India - Apply Here
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