☕ China’s AI startup just slashed its model pricing by 75% & Meta launches a Reddit-style app called Forum.
SpaceX Starship V3's first test flight was largely successful & Spotify is launching AI-generated remixes.
Breaking News
Google showcased AI-powered Android XR glasses that can translate conversations in real time, overlay navigation onto the real world, recognize objects, and interact through Gemini voice assistance. The demo suggests smart glasses may finally be moving from futuristic prototypes to genuinely useful everyday devices, with hands-free AI becoming one of the strongest candidates for the next major computing platform after smartphones.
DeepSeek permanently slashed prices for its flagship V4-Pro model by 75%, dramatically increasing pressure on rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic in the global AI pricing war. The move also signals how China’s growing domestic AI chip ecosystem — powered increasingly by Huawei hardware instead of Nvidia — could reshape the economics of AI infrastructure worldwide.
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DAILY PICKS
🗞️ What else is brewing
35+ Investor Databases for Easier VC Outreach (Free Access) (Link)
OpenAI’s internal memo reveals its AI moat strategy. (Link)
Is the AI funding boom creating a venture return problem? (Link)
Why are LPs turning bullish on China’s AI market again? (Link)
The all-in-one startup operating system for founders & investors. (Link)
Could AI observability become the next billion-dollar category? (Link)
What 80,000 AI users revealed about the next billion-dollar opportunity for founders. (Link)
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
Kordata Dynamics, a Bakersfield-based clinical trial innovation company, raised an undisclosed Pre-Seed round. Backers included MAVRK Celestia Fund, Kern Venture Group, and Digital Neural Infrastructure Holdings.
SEED
CVRD Health, a Miami-based platform helping federal contractors manage health and welfare benefits, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Upfront Ventures.
The Path, a San Francisco-based AI therapy platform focused on long-term mental wellness, raised $14.3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Prime Movers Lab.
GROWTH
August Robotics, a Hong Kong-based robotics automation company for construction and industrial applications, raised $30M in Series B funding. The round was led by Big Pi Ventures with participation from Blackbird, Skip Capital, and others.
Quartermaster, an Arlington-based maritime analytics and edge sensing company, raised $43M in Series A funding. The round was co-led by First Round Capital and Quiet Capital.
Modal, a NYC-based AI-native cloud compute and serverless platform, raised $355M in Series C funding at a $4.65B valuation. The round was led by General Catalyst and Redpoint.
Moment, a NYC-based AI operating system for investment management, raised $78M in Series C funding. The round was led by Index Ventures.
Muybridge, an Oslo-based software-defined imaging company, raised $16M in Series A funding. The round was led by Investinor, Fairpoint, Idekapital, and RunwayFBU.
BIG Fiber, a Sunnyvale-based dark fiber infrastructure provider, secured a $250M debt facility led by Stonepeak Credit and La Caisse.
Kalshi, a NYC-based prediction market company, reportedly raised $200M in Series F extension funding. Backers included Baillie Gifford and Layer Global.
Starlab Space, a Houston-based aerospace company, received an investment from 1789 Capital. Financial details were not disclosed.
Aboard, an Orange-based mobile living products company, raised an undisclosed Pre-Series A round led by Ondine Capital and Llama Ventures.
Hark, a San Jose-based AI lab building personalized intelligence systems, raised over $700M in Series A funding at a $6B valuation. The round was led by Parkway Venture Capital, with participation from NVIDIA, AMD Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and others.
Quantum Bridge Technologies, a Toronto-based cybersecurity company focused on future-proof internet communications, raised $8M in Series A funding. The round was led by Primo Capital.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Convective Capital, a California-based venture firm founded by WePay cofounder Bill Clerico, has raised an $85 million second fund to invest in startups building disaster resilience and physical-world risk management solutions. The firm backs companies across wildfire prevention, infrastructure monitoring, insurance, drones, and climate resilience.
Shamrock Capital, a Los Angeles, CA-based investment firm specializing in media, entertainment, communications, and related sectors, closed Shamrock Capital Content Fund IV, L.P., at $813m. Content IV received support from both existing and new limited partners including pension funds, endowments, foundations, family offices, insurance companies, and other institutional investors across the United States, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
Veriten, a Houston, TX-based research, strategy and investment firm, held the initial close of its second flagship energy venture fund, at over $105m. LPs include Halliburton Company, Phillips 66 Company, and CIBC, among others.
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KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
Ferrari is using IBM’s AI to deepen F1 fan engagement
IBM partnered with Scuderia Ferrari to rebuild Ferrari’s fan app using AI-powered storytelling, games, predictions, and a fan chatbot.
Ferrari says the app now focuses on year-round engagement by turning race data into personalized content, behind-the-scenes stories, and interactive fan experiences for Tifosi.
The updated app has already driven a 62% increase in race weekend engagement, as Ferrari and IBM use AI to analyze fan behavior and improve personalization.
Elon Musk appears to be moving away from Tesla’s solar-first vision
Elon Musk’s xAI is doubling down on natural gas turbines for AI data centers, despite Tesla’s long-standing vision of a solar-powered future.
SpaceX’s IPO filing shows growing focus on space-based solar and orbital AI data centers, while terrestrial solar plays a much smaller role in xAI’s current infrastructure plans.
Critics argue Musk may be overestimating future AI energy demand, especially as xAI plans massive compute expansion while still relying heavily on fossil fuel-powered operations.
Meta quietly launches a Reddit-style app called Forum
Meta has launched a new standalone app called Forum, focused on Facebook Groups-style discussions and community conversations similar to Reddit.
Forum includes AI-powered features like question-answering across groups and an admin assistant for moderation, while syncing activity directly with Facebook Groups.
The launch is part of Meta’s broader push to release more standalone apps, following recent launches like Instants and Edits as the company experiments with AI-driven app development.
Google Search breaks on the word 'disregard’
Google Search now returns a nearly empty page when users type the word “disregard,” with a single unhelpful AI reply hiding the Merriam-Webster link far below a large block of blank space.
The bug surfaced after Google rolled out a new Search experience earlier this week that puts AI summaries at the top and pushes the traditional ten blue links much further down the page.
By comparison, the same search on Bing, which has taken a less aggressive approach to AI summaries, still surfaces some useful information about the word for people looking it up.
SpaceX Starship V3's first test flight was largely successful
SpaceX flew its upgraded Starship V3 for the first time on Friday night, and the test flight hit most of its goals despite a couple of engine failures on both the booster and the upper-stage Ship.
The Super Heavy booster ignited all 33 Raptor 3 engines and lifted off from Starbase, Texas at 6:30PM Eastern, but lost one engine during ascent and could only do a partial boostback burn before crashing into the Gulf.
Ship reached its planned trajectory after losing one of six Raptor 3 engines, deployed 20 Starlink simulators and two modified satellites that photographed it in space, then splashed down and exploded in the Indian Ocean.
Google appeals search monopoly ruling, says it won business ‘fair and square’
Google has filed its appeal against the federal ruling that labeled it an illegal search monopolist, telling the court the decision “crashed” through legal guardrails and that it “prevailed in the marketplace fair and square.”
The appeal targets both Judge Amit Mehta’s August 2024 monopolization decision and the September 2025 remedies order, which forces Google to share search data with rivals, including generative AI companies it says didn’t exist during the relevant period.
The US and a coalition of states are also appealing, arguing Mehta didn’t go far enough by declining their biggest ask, a forced sale of Chrome, and the DC federal appeals court will now decide next steps.
Spotify is launching AI-generated remixes
Spotify has teamed up with Universal Music Group to roll out a feature that lets listeners make AI-generated covers and remixes of songs, which co-CEO Alex Norström says is “grounded in consent, credit, and compensation for the artist.”
The remix tool arrives alongside other AI projects announced Thursday, as Spotify tries to balance its push into generative tools with its earlier moves against AI slop and unauthorized voice cloning on the platform.
UMG’s involvement fits a wider pattern of major labels striking deals with AI firms, with Warner Music Group and UMG itself already partnering with audio AI companies such as Suno and Udio despite pushback from artists.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Memory prices tipped to fall as China floods the market
Memory and storage prices could soon drop because Chinese chipmakers are pumping out lots of their own RAM and storage chips, and some major PC parts brands have already started putting these cheaper Chinese chips into upcoming products.
Corsair, which usually gets its memory from US company Micron, is reportedly using chips from Chinese maker CXMT in a new 16GB Vengeance stick that still works with the standard Intel and AMD speed-boost settings gamers use.
CXMT now supplies about 7.7% of the world’s RAM, sells to Chinese giants Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance, and saw its first-quarter sales jump 719% to $7.4 billion ahead of a planned stock market listing in Shanghai.
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