☕ BYD overtakes Tesla as top EV seller & Microsoft’s Nadella wants us to stop thinking of AI as slop
Taiwan averaged 2.6 million daily Chinese cyberattacks in 2025 & Nvidia launches Alpamayo, open AI models for autonomous driving.
Breaking News
Chinese EV giant BYD has overtaken Tesla as the world’s top electric vehicle seller after delivering 2.26 million battery electric vehicles in 2025, compared to Tesla’s 1.64 million, according to CNBC. Tesla’s decline comes amid intensifying competition, the phase-out of U.S. tax credits, and growing brand risk tied to Elon Musk, even as Musk claims mass production of the Semi, Cybercab, and Optimus robot will begin in 2026. More Here
Nvidia is accelerating its push into physical AI, unveiling Alpamayo, an open-source family of AI models and simulation tools for autonomous driving at CES 2026, TechCrunch reports. The launch includes a 10B-parameter vision-language-action model, open driving datasets, and a new simulation framework designed to help vehicles reason through rare and complex scenarios, reinforcing Nvidia’s ambition to become the default platform powering autonomy beyond just GPUs. More Here
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
Soverli, a Zurich, Switzerland-based cybersecurity company, raised USD 2.6m in pre-seed funding. The pre-seed round was led by Founderful, with participation from the ETH Zurich Foundation, Venture Kick, and other figures in cybersecurity.
SEED
Dazzle AI, a Palo Alto, CA-based new company on a mission to close the gap between what people want and what they can do with AI, raised $8m in seed funding at a $35m post-money valuation. The round was led by Kirsten Green of Forerunner with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Greycroft, Offline Ventures, Slow Ventures, and Bling Capital.
Lemon Slice, a San Francisco, CA-based builder of foundational technology that transforms a single photo into interactive, conversational video, raised $10.5m in seed funding. Backers included Matrix Partners, Y Combinator, Arash Ferdowsi (CTO Dropbox), Emmett Shear (CEO Twitch), and EDM-pop duo, The Chainsmokers.
Lucidean, a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based AI interconnect company advancing coherent optical links for data centers, raised $18m in Seed financing. The round was co-led by Entrada Ventures and Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), with participation from Foothill Ventures, M Ventures, Cerberus Ventures, and Raptor Group.
Azimuth AI, a Sacramento, Calif.- and Hyderabad, India-based semiconductor company, closed a new funding round of undisclosed amount. The round was led by Jetha Global, with participation from existing venture capital partners Moneta Ventures, AUM Ventures, and additional new investors.
GROWTH
Kraken, a London, UK- and NYC-based utility software startup, raised $1 Billion in funding to split by Octopus Energy. The round was led by D1 Capital Partners, with participation from Fidelity International, Durable Capital Partners.
Cambium Biomaterials, an El Segundo, CA-based developer of advanced materials for defense, aerospace, and other high-performance sectors, raised $100m in Series B financing. The round was led by 8VC, with participation from MVP Ventures, Lockheed Martin Ventures, GSBackers, Veteran Ventures Capital, J17 Ventures, Vanderbilt University, Alumni Ventures, Gaingels, Inevitable Ventures, JACS Capital, Jackson Moses, and other individuals and family offices.
I-care, a Mons, Belgium-based predictive maintenance company, raised €20m in fundraising and refinancing operation. The round, reserved to existing shareholders and employees, enabled the company to increase its valuation to €1 billion.
Erebor Bank, a Columbus, Ohio-based stablecoin bank, raised $350m in funding at a $4.35b post-money valuation. According to Axios, the round was led by Lux Capital with participation from Founders Fund, Haun Ventures, and 8VC.
BriefCatch, a Washington, DC-based legal-writing platform used by law firms and courts, raised $6m in Series A financing. The round was led by Full In.
Truemed, an Austin, Texas-based provider of a health savings account (HSA) and flexible spending account (FSA) payment marketplace, raised $34M in Series A funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Long Journey Ventures, BoxGroup, and Trust Ventures.
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates
Insight Partners sued by former vice president Kate Lowry
Kate Lowry, a former vice president at Insight Partners, has filed a lawsuit alleging disability discrimination, gender discrimination, and wrongful termination, according to a complaint filed in California and reviewed by TechCrunch.
Lowry, who previously worked at Meta and McKinsey & Company, alleges she faced extreme working conditions, verbal abuse, hazing, and unequal treatment compared to male colleagues, including being pushed into administrative work and paid roughly 30% below market.
The suit claims that after raising concerns through legal counsel about her treatment, Lowry was terminated shortly afterward, drawing comparisons to the high-profile discrimination case brought by Ellen Pao against Kleiner Perkins that shook the venture industry in the past.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
Microsoft’s Nadella wants us to stop thinking of AI as slop
Satya Nadella argues AI should be seen as a “bicycle for the mind,” meaning a tool that amplifies human potential rather than replacing people, and urges the industry to move away from framing AI output as low quality slop.
Nadella’s view contrasts with warnings from other AI leaders about mass job displacement, though current research like MIT’s Project Iceberg suggests AI mostly offloads parts of jobs rather than fully replacing workers.
Data cited in the piece shows roles most exposed to AI are often seeing higher job growth and wages, reinforcing Nadella’s point that people who use AI well are becoming more valuable, not obsolete.
BYD overtakes Tesla as top EV seller
Chinese rival BYD has officially passed Tesla as the world’s top seller of electric vehicles after reporting 2.26 million BEVs sold in 2025, whereas Tesla’s annual deliveries dropped to just 1.64 million.
The company saw its sales figures slide nine per cent due to increasing competition, the phasing out of a tax credit, and buyer concerns over the conservative politics of Elon Musk.
Musk claims Tesla will begin mass production of its electric Semi truck, self-driving Cybercab, and Optimus robot in 2026, following shareholder approval of a pay package that could make him a trillionaire.
Boston Dynamics unveils production version of Atlas humanoid robot
Boston Dynamics showcased the production-ready version of its humanoid robot Atlas at CES 2026, following a live on-stage demo of the prototype walking and moving.
The production Atlas features 56 degrees of freedom, human-scale hands with tactile sensing in fingers and palms, 360-degree vision, and the ability to lift up to 110 pounds, designed for real-world industrial environments.
Atlas is already in production, with the entire 2026 supply allocated to Hyundai Motor Group and a newly announced AI partner, signaling near-term commercial deployment.
Nvidia wants to be the Android of generalist robotics
Nvidia unveiled a full-stack robotics platform at CES 2026, including open foundation models, simulation tools, and edge hardware, positioning itself as the default platform for generalist robotics.
The stack includes Cosmos world and reasoning models, Isaac GR00T for humanoid robots, and Isaac Lab-Arena for large-scale simulation, aiming to let robots reason, plan, and adapt across many tasks rather than perform narrow, single-purpose jobs.
Backed by new Jetson Blackwell hardware and deeper integration with Hugging Face, Nvidia is betting that open ecosystems plus standardized tooling will make it the underlying operating layer for physical AI, similar to Android’s role in smartphones.
AMD’s bet on AI-powered personal computers
AMD announced the Ryzen AI 400 Series at CES 2026, positioning AI powered PCs as the next phase of everyday computing with faster multitasking and content creation performance versus competitors.
The new Ryzen AI 400 chips feature 12 CPU cores and 24 threads and build on the Ryzen AI 300 Series launched in 2024, with AMD now supporting over 250 AI PC platforms, roughly doubling year over year.
AMD also introduced the Ryzen 7 9850X3D gaming processor and an updated Redstone ray tracing technology, with devices powered by these chips expected to ship in the first quarter of 2026.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Taiwan averaged 2.6 million daily Chinese cyberattacks in 2025
The National Security Bureau says Chinese cyberattacks on Taiwan averaged more than 2.6 million every day in 2025, targeting key infrastructure like hospitals and banks to disrupt daily social functions.
Beijing coordinated its operations with physical intimidation, ramping up hacking activities during 23 of the 40 joint combat readiness patrols that sent military planes and ships close to the democratically governed island.
Attackers used man-in-the-middle attacks against science parks that anchor the semiconductor industry, aiming to steal advanced technologies so China can maintain self-reliance during its technology competition with the U.S.
DAILY PICKS
🗞️ What Else Is Brewing
Fundraising mistake every founder should avoid. (Link)
Startup funding funnel you should know. (Link)
How to write a fundraising email: First email, follow-ups approved by leading VCs? (Link)
Investor data room superpack: everything you need to build a VC-ready data room (guide/templates) (Link)
Transparent leadership beats servant leadership. (Link)
How to engineer warm intros from scratch for fundraising. (Link)
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
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