☕ ChatGPT app store struggles six months post-launch & OpenAI's Sora burned $1 million daily before shutdown.
Apple is planning a Siri AI app store & More.
Breaking News
OpenAI’s Sora video tool was reportedly burning $1 million per day before being shut down, with usage dropping sharply despite early hype. The shutdown — which even surprised partners like Disney — shows how brutally expensive AI products can fail fast if they don’t sustain demand.
Apple is planning a Siri AI app store, allowing users to install third-party AI agents directly into Siri via “Extensions.” The move could turn Siri into a platform — not just an assistant — and reshape how users interact with multiple AI systems on their devices.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
deeplify, a Bochum, Germany-based industrial AI startup, raised €2.0M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by D11Z Ventures, with participation from Vanagon Ventures, EWOR, and angel investors.
TerraSpark, a Luxembourg-based space solar energy company, raised €5M in Pre-Seed funding. Backers included Daphni, Sake Bosch, better ventures, Hans(wo)men Group, Luxembourg Business Angel Network, and others.
Kailo Pharma, a Nazareth, Israel-based biotech startup, raised $2.1M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by NGT HealthCare II, with participation from Israel Innovation Authority.
SEED
Huskeys, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based edge security management company, raised $8M in Seed funding. Backers included 10D, SV Angel, toDay Ventures, CCL, Alumni Ventures, and multiple angel investors.
Stratum Biosciences, a NYC-based biotechnology company, raised $2M in Seed funding. Backers included Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York and Skin Angels.
GROWTH
ScaleOps, a NYC-based cloud and AI infrastructure company, raised $130M in Series C funding at an $800M+ valuation. The round was led by Insight Partners, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, NFX, Glilot Capital Partners, and Picture Capital.
Qodo, a NYC-based AI code review platform, raised $70M in Series B funding. The round was led by Qumra Capital, with participation from Maor Ventures, Phoenix Capital Partners, Square Peg, Susa Ventures, TLV Partners, Vine Ventures, and others.
IQM Finland Oy, an Espoo, Finland-based quantum computing company, raised $50M in funding. The round was led by BlackRock.
Midas, a Berlin, Germany-based onchain investment platform, raised $50M in Series A funding. The round was led by RRE and Creandum, with participation from Framework Ventures, HV Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Franklin Templeton, and others.
Rebellions, a Seoul, South Korea-based AI infrastructure company, raised $400M in pre-IPO funding. The round was led by Mirae Asset Financial Group and Korea National Growth Fund.
Mars Men, an Austin, TX-based men’s wellness brand, raised $27.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by L Catterton.
Oncomatrix, a Derio, Spain-based biopharmaceutical company, raised $67M in funding. Backers included CDTI, Kutxa Fundazioa, Basque Government, Ekarpen VC, BBK, and other investors.
Starcloud, a Redmond, WA-based space data center company, raised $170M in Series A funding at a $1.1B valuation. The round was led by Benchmark and EQT Ventures, with participation from Macquarie Capital, NFX, Y Combinator, 776 Ventures, and others.
Centivax, a South San Francisco, CA-based biotech company, raised $37M in funding. The round was led by Structure Fund, with participation from Meiji Seika Pharma, Kendall Capital Partners, and others.
Stedi, a Denver, CO-based healthcare infrastructure company, raised $50M in Series C funding. The round was led by Addition, with participation from Stripe, Ribbit Capital, USV, First Round, BoxGroup, and Bloomberg Beta.
ARO Network, a Singapore-based AI infrastructure company, raised $5M in strategic funding. The round was led by NoLimit Holdings.
Oran Development Company, a NYC-based AI-RAN platform provider, raised $45M in Series A funding. Backers included Booz Allen, Cisco Investments, Nokia, and NVIDIA.
Deccan AI, a Mountain View, CA-based GenAI data company, raised $25M in funding. The round was led by A91 Partners, with participation from Susquehanna and Prosus Ventures.
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Sonder Capital, a San Carlos, CA-based healthcare venture capital firm investing in companies enhancing the standard of care, closed its second fund, Futures II. The fund, backed by Mayo Clinic and Sutter Health, is anchored by an investment thesis focused on AI-enabled medical robotics and minimally invasive therapies, fueling companies creating entirely new care pathways and business models.
Overmatch Ventures, an Austin, TX-based early-stage venture capital firm investing in deeptech, defensetech, and spacetech, closed its second fund, at $250m. Fund II is backed by a broad base of investors including institutional allocators, family offices, and strategic partners, whom Overmatch works with as co-investors.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
Mistral raises $830M debt to build AI data center in France
Mistral AI has secured $830M in debt to build a new Nvidia-powered data center near Paris, expected to go live by Q2 2026.
The move is part of a broader European infrastructure push, including a $1.4B investment in Sweden and a target of 200 MW compute capacity by 2027.
The strategy reflects rising demand from governments and enterprises for sovereign AI infrastructure instead of relying on global cloud providers.
ChatGPT app store struggles six months post-launch
OpenAI’s push to turn ChatGPT into an app platform with over 300 integrations from companies like Booking and StubHub is off to a sluggish start six months after launch.
Partner companies are hesitant to hand off customer relationships and payments to OpenAI, so most apps force users to leave ChatGPT to complete purchases or even view basic details.
Developers have complained about a tedious app-approval process, buggy development tools, and a lack of usage data, leaving them “running quite blind” on whether their apps are working properly.
Yahoo launches AI answer engine Scout
Yahoo has launched Scout, an AI-powered answer engine now available to its 250 million U.S. users, aiming to simplify online search and deliver more personal results tied to each person’s interests.
CEO Jim Lanzone, who took over after Apollo Global Management bought Yahoo for $5 billion in 2021, has been cutting dysfunctional parts and overhauling services like email and fantasy sports.
Scout runs on AI technology licensed from Anthropic and will compete against Google’s Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and the answer engine Perplexity in a crowded market.
15% of Americans open to having an AI boss, survey finds
A Quinnipiac poll found that 15% of Americans would be willing to work under an AI manager, signaling early acceptance of AI-led workplaces.
Companies are already experimenting with AI replacing management tasks, from approvals and scheduling to screening ideas, contributing to a “flattening” of organizational structures.
Despite this shift, concerns remain high — 70% believe AI will reduce job opportunities, and many workers fear their roles could become obsolete.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Microsoft Copilot now shows ads in pull requests
Microsoft’s Copilot AI tool has started inserting promotional messages into pull requests on GitHub, advertising a Raycast extension for the Copilot coding agent on macOS and Windows machines.
A search on GitHub shows the exact same promotional text appearing in over 11,000 different pull requests across thousands of repos, and even merge requests on GitLab contain the injection.
Hidden HTML comments labeled “START COPILOT CODING AGENT TIPS” in the raw markdown suggest Microsoft is inserting these ads, likely to promote its own developer ecosystem or partner integrations.
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