☕ Chamath Palihapitiya’s AI coding startup raised $135M & US blocks more Chinese tech products.
AI-heavy companies are hiring more, not less & Chinese chips to seize 80% of home market
Breaking News
Chamath Palihapitiya has returned as CEO of his AI coding startup, 8090 Labs, after raising $135 million to build enterprise software development tools. He says AI represents an opportunity even bigger than the early Facebook era, as companies increasingly adopt AI-powered software engineering.
South Korea announced a massive $1 trillion investment program to expand semiconductor manufacturing, AI infrastructure, and robotics, calling it essential for the country’s long-term competitiveness. The plan aims to strengthen Samsung and SK Hynix while competing with China, Taiwan, and the U.S. in the global AI race.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
Ground, a San Francisco, CA-based developer of an on-chain wealth management and DeFi API platform, raised $3.6M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was co-led by Bain Capital Crypto and ParaFi, with participation from Nascent, Robot Ventures, Chapter One, and Consonant Ventures.
SEED
Nebex, a New York City-based space fintech and transactional marketplace platform, raised $30M in Seed funding. The round was led by Google Ventures.
Altillion, a Houston, TX-based developer of brine mineral extraction technologies, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by EIC Rose Rock and Flathead Forge.
Revora (formerly MyAlice), a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based AI-native e-commerce operating platform, raised $2M in Seed funding. The round was co-led by i2i Ventures and Oraseya Capital, with participation from Anchorless Bangladesh, Conjunction Capital, F6 Ventures, Hi2 Global, Orbit Startups, and strategic angel investors.
Jarvie AI, a San Francisco, CA-based AI assistant for group chats, raised $8.3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, Base10 Partners, and Lightspeed.
Compri, a Milan, Italy-based AI-native procurement and supply chain platform, raised approximately $3.6M in Seed funding. The round was led by Picus Capital, with participation from Shapers, Italian Founders Fund, and DFF Ventures.
Aseon Labs, a Redwood City, CA-based developer of automated robotaxi fleet maintenance infrastructure, raised $10M in Seed funding. The round was led by Crane Venture Partners, with participation from Y Combinator, Expa, Robin Hood Ventures, and Founders Capital.
GROWTH
Alan, a Paris, France-based AI-native health insurance and digital healthcare platform, raised €480M in funding at a €5.5B valuation. The round was led by Prosus, with participation from Teachers’ Venture Growth, Index Ventures, and Dara Holdings.
8090 Labs, a Menlo Park, CA-based AI-enabled software manufacturing company, raised $135M in Series A funding. The round was led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from WndrCo, Craft Ventures, The Production Board, LAUNCH, and angel investors.
Axon, a Dubai, UAE-based institutional financial orchestration platform, raised approximately $1M in funding. Backers included Maarej Real Estate.
GenerativeX, a San Francisco, CA-based agentic AI startup, raised $4M in Series A funding. The round was led by Nissay Capital, with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Angel Bridge, DeepCore, and SMBC Venture Capital.
Open Vision Engineering, a San Francisco, CA-based developer of the Pocket AI-native conversational device, raised $11M in funding. Backers included Accel, Y Combinator, and technology executives including Guillermo Rauch, Mati Staniszewski, and Kaz Nejatian.
Stark, a Berlin, Germany-based autonomous defense systems company, raised €500M ($570M) in funding. Backers included Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, NATO Innovation Fund, Project A Ventures, Air Street Capital, 201 Ventures, Advent International, and Döpfner Capital.
Seqana, a Berlin, Germany-based soil health and carbon quantification platform, raised €3.2M in venture and debt funding. The round was led by Pymwymic, with participation from High-Tech Gründerfonds, Counteract, and Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank.
Jupus, a Cologne, Germany-based AI legal automation platform, raised €13M in Series A funding. The round was led by Semapa Next, with participation from NRW.BANK, Acton Capital, and High-Tech Gründerfonds.
Straiker, a Mountain View, CA-based AI security platform, raised $64M in Series A funding. The round was led by Marathon Management Partners, Citi Ventures, Illuminate Financial, and Workday Ventures, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures and Lightspeed.
Vanna Health, a San Francisco, CA-based mental healthcare platform, raised $17M in funding. The round was co-led by a national healthcare insurance company and AlleyCorp, with participation from Health Velocity Capital.
Gaussion, a London, UK-based battery intelligence company, raised $28M in funding. The round was co-led by BGF and AlbionVC, with participation from Autotech Ventures, UCL Technology Fund, DN Capital, and Future Ventures.
GrailPay, a NYC-based B2B payments risk network, raised $10.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by MissionOG, with participation from EJF Ventures, Counterpart Ventures, Construct Capital, Commerce Ventures, and SSC Venture Partners.
Almetra (fka Deltia AI), a Berlin, Germany-based AI-powered manufacturing intelligence platform, raised $18.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by blisce/, with participation from NAP, Merantix Capital, Robin Capital, Underline Ventures, and Critical Ventures.
Quantifind, a Palo Alto, CA-based AI-native financial crime detection platform, raised $200M in growth funding. The round was led by Summit Partners, with participation from Citi Ventures, S&P Global, Deloitte, and Stephens Group.
Lycia Therapeutics, a South San Francisco, CA-based biotechnology company, raised $75M in Series D funding. The round was co-led by Janus Henderson Investors and Balyasny Asset Management, with participation from Adage Capital Management, HBM Healthcare Investments, OrbiMed, Eli Lilly and Company, Franklin Templeton, Invus, RTW Investments, and Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners.
Reed Semiconductor, a Warwick, RI-based semiconductor company, raised $100M in funding. Backers included global semiconductor companies and strategic industry investors.
Groq, a San Francisco, CA-based AI inference hardware company, raised $650M in growth funding. The round was led by Disruptive and Infinitum, with participation from existing investors.
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
General Atlantic, a global private equity firm, appointed tennis legend Novak Djokovic as a global strategic advisor, where he will work with the firm’s leadership, portfolio companies, and investors. The firm is expanding its investments in health, wellness, and sports, and plans to leverage Djokovic’s network and industry expertise.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
Google makes Gemini’s personalized AI image generator free
Google has made Gemini’s personalized AI image generation feature free for eligible users in the US, expanding access beyond its paid Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers.
Powered by Nano Banana, the feature can create personalized images using information from connected Google services like Gmail, Photos, YouTube, and Search, with users controlling access through an opt-in setting.
The rollout comes as Google continues expanding Gemini’s AI ecosystem with new features, while the chatbot has already surpassed 750 million monthly active users.
South Korea unveils $1tn chip and AI investment plan
South Korea has announced roughly $1tn in investments to expand the country’s chip manufacturing and artificial intelligence work, part of what President Lee Jae-myung calls the Three Mega Projects covering chip hubs, data centres, and robotics.
Samsung and SK Hynix, the country’s two biggest chipmakers, are expected to build a semiconductor manufacturing hub in the south west, with other AI infrastructure hubs planned outside Seoul, where advanced factories now sit.
Lee framed the plan as a matter of “survival” to revive rural economies hurt by industries clustering in Seoul, as rivals like Taiwan, China, and Japan pour money into chip factories amid the AI boom.
Musk says new Grok 4.5 rivals Claude Opus
Elon Musk says xAI’s new Grok 4.5, now in private beta, performs on par with or possibly beyond Anthropic’s flagship Opus model, according to early evaluations he shared.
Grok 4.5 is trained on xAI’s 1.5T V9 foundation model and is being tested internally at SpaceX and Tesla to fix bugs and issues before any public release.
xAI used reinforcement learning, its Grok Build coding agent, and supplemental training data from Cursor, the coding platform Musk bought for $60 billion, to improve the model during development.
Chinese AI chips to seize 80% of home market
AI chips made in China are expected to take nearly 80 percent of the country’s domestic market this year, according to TrendForce, as import troubles and a national push toward tech self-reliance reshape buying.
Domestic firms like Huawei and Cambricon should grab 56 percent of the Chinese market in 2026, up from 46 percent, while company-built ASICs add another 23 percent, pushing foreign suppliers like Nvidia and AMD down to 21 percent.
Beyond China, TrendForce predicts Chinese AI GPU makers led by Huawei and Cambricon could take up to 20 percent of the global market next year, with Nvidia still holding about 64 percent worldwide.
AI-heavy companies are hiring more, not less
A new study by Ramp and Revelio Labs found that companies making sustained investments in AI grew their workforce by 10.2%, with entry-level hiring increasing 12% despite widespread fears of AI replacing junior roles.
The findings suggest AI is helping many tech-forward companies expand faster rather than simply replacing workers, particularly across engineering, sales, marketing, customer support, and other knowledge-work roles.
However, the benefits are concentrated among companies with the capital and technical resources to deploy AI effectively, potentially widening the gap between AI leaders and firms that are only experimenting with the technology.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
US blocks more Chinese tech products
The FCC has widened its ban on Chinese technology to block imports of older telecom and video surveillance gear from Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision, and Dahua, with the rules taking effect in early July.
The new policy extends a 2022 order that barred approvals for new equipment models, now prohibiting products that had received authorization before that order from entering the U.S. market.
The order does not require consumers or businesses to remove equipment they already own, and only stops additional imports of covered products once the new rules begin.
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