☕ ElevenLabs staff to sell shares at $6.6B valuation, Cognition AI raised $400 million & ASML becomes Mistral AI's top shareholder.
OpenAI backs a $30 million AI-made animated film & More.
Sloths can hold their breath longer than dolphins. 40 minutes vs. 10.
They may move like dial-up, but when it comes to lung flex, they’re elite.
Love or hate this intro? Hit reply and tell us why!
📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks: Financial model template, 40 pitch decks, VC scorecard, legal docs pack, lazy content marketing, SaaS SEO 80/20, personal finance guide.
Cognition AI, startup behind the coding agent Devin, has raised $400 million.
ElevenLabs staff to sell shares at $6.6B valuation.
Sam Altman says bots are making social media feel ‘fake’.
Anthropic backs California’s AI safety bill, SB 53.
ASML becomes Mistral AI's top shareholder.
SpaceX buys EchoStar spectrum for $17 billion.
OpenAI backs a $30 million AI-made animated film.
US weighs annual chip permits for Korean firms.
Intel’s chief executive of products departs among other leadership changes.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
FROM OUR PARTNER - AFINO AI
🤝 Your AI-Powered, Slack-Connected Finance Team
You raised the money. You’re building the thing. But now the spending’s piling up, and your “finance dept” is basically a spreadsheet and a prayer.
Afino is your AI-powered, Slack-connected finance team—offering bookkeeping, tax prep, R&D credits, and fractional CFO support, all tailored for startup speed.
If you’re a founder trying to actually get your finances in order, this one’s for you.
We've partnered with Afino to give one year of corporate taxes for FREE to the first 5 companies that claim this offer.
PARTNERSHIP WITH US
💪 Get your startup in front of over 95,000+ audience.
Our newsletter is read by thousands of tech professionals, founders, investors (VCs / Angel Investors) and managers around the world. Get in touch today.
DAILY PICKS
🗞️ What else is brewing
Financial modelling template to build your startup financial model that every investor wants to see.
40 real startup pitch decks that raised $350M+ (Including leading startups decks).
The VC Scorecard Early-Stage Investors Use.
Startup legal document pack – essential legal docs for founders.
Natia Kurdadze on lazy content marketing for startup founders.
The 80/20 of successful SaaS SEO.
A 20k-word guide on personal finance for startup founders.
10 things this failed founder wishes they would’ve done differently.
The playbook to grow consumer mobile apps.
Blake Scholl on everything we’ve been taught about burnout is wrong.
A literary history of fake texts in Apple's marketing materials.
All-In-One guide to pitch deck storytelling - free template & curated resources.
6000+ European VC Firms Contact Database (LinkedIn Links).
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
Cognition AI, a San Francisco–based AI startup behind the coding agent Devin, has raised $400 million at a $10.2 billion valuation, up from $4 billion earlier this year. The Series B round was led by Founders Fund, with participation from Lux Capital, 8VC, Elad Gil, Definition Capital, and Swish Ventures.
DataCrunch, a Helsinki, Finland-based provider of high-performance AI infrastructure, raised a total of €55m in Series A funding. This round was led by byFounders, Skaala, Varma pension fund, and Tesi, with additional participation from J12 Ventures and select angel investors.
Databricks, a San Francisco, CA-based Data and AI company, raised $1 Billion in Series K funding. This investment, which valued the company at over $100 Billion, was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, Insight Partners, MGX, Thrive Capital, and WCM Investment Management.
Dazl, a NYC-based provider of an AI creation platform for building fidelity and production-ready applications, raised $10M in Seed funding. The round was led by 40RTY Fund, with participation from Wix and Wix co-founder Nadav Abrahami.
Otovo, USA, a Houston, TX-based company which specializes in home power services, raised $4M+ in funding. The round was led by EIC Rose Roc.
Rainforest, an Atlanta, GA-based embedded payment provider purpose-built for software platforms, raised $29M in Series B funding. The round was led by Matrix Partners and Infinity Ventures with participation from Accel and Tech Square Ventures. All investors participated in Rainforest’s Series A last year.
Ume, a São Paulo, Brazil-based fintech company improving credit in Brazil, raised USD $21M in Series B funding. The round was led by Valor Capital Group and Bewater, with participation from PayPal Ventures, NFX, Globo Ventures, Canary and BigBets.
Unrivaled, a Miami, FL-based women’s basketball league developing a model centered on investing in its athletes, at at $340M valuation. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from Serena Ventures, with Warner Bros. Discovery, Alex Morgan’s Trybe Ventures, Trae Young, Darryll J. Pines, Sylvia Pines, Sam Rapoport, Franz Wagner, Moritz Wagner, and Next Legacy Partners.
Kin, a Chicago, IL-based direct-to-consumer, digital home insurance provider, raised $50m in Series E financing, at a pre-money valuation of $2 billion. The Series E round, which brought the total primary equity raised to $286M, was led by QED Investors and Activate Capital, with participation from other new and returning investors.
Understory, an Aarhus, Denmark-based startup that develops software improving how experiences are created, promoted, and sold, raised €12M in funding. The round was led by Smedvig Ventures with participation from People Ventures and Sequel. Existing investors Seed Capital and Firstminute Capital.
Integra Therapeutics, a Barcelona, Spain-based gene writing tools provider, raised €10.7M in funding. Backers included IC Fund (European Commission) and CDTI Innvierte (Government of Spain) and current investors (AdBio, Columbus, Invivo and Takeda).
Maeving, a Coventry, UK-based electric motorcycle company, raised £11M in Series A funding. Backers included Venrex, Future Planet Capital and Elbow Beach alongside angel investors such as John Ayton MBE and Simon Hill-Norton.
Puro.earth, a Helsinki, Finland-based provider of a carbon-crediting platform for engineered carbon dioxide removal (CDR), raised €11M in Series B funding. The round was led by Nasdaq with participation from Fortum Innovation and Venturing.
Supersonik, a San Francisco, CA-based company developing an autonomous, multilingual AI agent that instantly joins live video calls, showcases real software in action, and adapts every demo to the buyer in real time, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and joined by angels from Google, DeepMind and Salesforce among others.
Epigenic Therapeutics, a Shanghai, China-based clinical-stage drug development company, raised $60M in Series B funding. The round was led by Lapam Capital, with participation from existing investors Qiming Venture Partners and OrbiMed, and new investors including IFSC and others.
SCOREalytics, a Park City, UT-based provider of an AI-powered legal intelligence platform, raised $3M+ in Seed funding. The round was led by Moneta Ventures with participation from Ollin Ventures.
Baseten, San Francisco, CA-based company empowering inference for AI products, raised $150M in Series D funding, at $2.15 Billion valuation. The round was led by BOND, with participation from new investors CapitalG, Premji, and Kevin and Elizabeth Weil of Scribble. Existing investors Conviction, 01a, IVP, Spark, and Greylock also participated.
ProRata, a Los Angeles, CA-based a technology company building AI solutions grounded in respect for content creators, raised in $40M Series B funding. The round was led by Touring Capital.
BoobyBiome, a London, UK-based biotechnology company advancing the science of breast milk and the microbiome, raised £2.5m in seed funding. The round was led by Empirical Ventures, alongside The Helm, XFactor Ventures, Lavender Ventures, Kayan Ventures, and Evenlode Investment, Dominic Hollamby, Lord Ara Darzi, Yael Cohen, Vanessa Colomar, and others.
TOOL FOR FOUNDERS
📑 Early-Stage Startup Financial Model Template
Investors expect clean, simple numbers, not overbuilt spreadsheets.
This Excel template is built for early-stage founders:
Just fill in your numbers, and it handles projections
Covers revenue, expenses, and growth assumptions investors care about
Saves hours and makes you look professional in the room
Skip the messy graphs. Tell the story behind the numbers with clarity.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
Accion, a Washington, DC-based global nonprofit organization focused on financial inclusion, closed its second action Venture Lab fund, at $61.6M. The fund closed with commitments from both existing and new investors, including commercial and impact asset managers, development finance institutions, foundations, family offices, and strategic financial service companies. Limited Partners in the fund included the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank FMO, Proparco, ImpactAssets, Ford Foundation, MetLife, and Mastercard.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
ElevenLabs staff to sell shares at $6.6B valuation:
ElevenLabs is offering employees a $100M tender sale at a $6.6B valuation, doubling its January valuation of $3.3B when it raised $180M.
Sequoia Capital and Iconiq Growth are leading the deal, with Andreessen Horowitz and others also participating, giving investors a chance to increase stakes.
CEO Mati Staniszewski said revenue grew from $100M ARR in Oct 2024 to $200M within 10 months, with a goal of $300M ARR by year-end; headcount also jumped from 77 to 331 in a year.
Sam Altman says bots are making social media feel ‘fake’:
Sam Altman posted that it’s become impossible to tell if Reddit and X posts are from humans or bots, after noticing waves of pro-Codex posts on r/Claudecode.
He argued humans now mimic “LLM-speak,” engagement incentives drive fake-seeming behavior, and some posts may be competitor-funded astroturfing.
Altman concluded that AI Twitter and Reddit “feel very fake” compared to a year ago, highlighting how LLMs and bots are reshaping online conversations.
Anthropic backs California’s AI safety bill, SB 53:
Anthropic endorsed SB 53, a California bill requiring major AI labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI to publish safety frameworks and risk reports before deploying powerful models.
The bill targets catastrophic risks, like AI being misused for cyberattacks or bioweapons, and includes whistleblower protections, but drops third-party audit requirements after industry pushback.
While OpenAI and investors warn state-level rules could stifle innovation, Anthropic argues AI governance can’t wait for federal action and calls SB 53 a “solid blueprint” for near-term regulation.
ASML becomes Mistral AI's top shareholder:
Dutch chipmaker ASML is investing 1.3 billion euros into French AI startup Mistral AI, leading a larger funding round and becoming the company's biggest shareholder with a new board seat.
The partnership aims to lessen the European Union's dependence on AI models from the United States and China, aiming to secure the region's overall digital sovereignty for the future.
This deal joins ASML, the exclusive supplier of EUV lithography systems for chip manufacturing, with Mistral AI, a startup often seen as Europe's primary competitor to US tech giants.
SpaceX buys EchoStar spectrum for $17 billion:
SpaceX is acquiring EchoStar's AWS-4 and H-block spectrum licenses for $17 billion, a deal split evenly between cash and an equivalent amount of company stock for its satellite network.
The newly acquired spectrum enables SpaceX to develop its "Direct to Cell" service, designed to provide broadband-speed internet and optimized 5G protocols directly to mobile phones worldwide.
This sale follows an FCC inquiry into EchoStar’s spectrum holdings, reportedly after a personal push from President Trump and public encouragement from SpaceX for the company to sell its licenses.
OpenAI backs a $30 million AI-made animated film:
OpenAI is backing "Critterz," a $30 million animated film created with Vertigo Films, aiming to finish the entire project in just nine months to demonstrate its generative AI tools.
The production uses a hybrid model combining DALL-E for concept art, the Sora model for video generation, and GPT-5 for other tasks, all guided by human writers and artists.
This project serves as a strategic case study to win over a skeptical Hollywood industry that is currently engaged in major copyright infringement lawsuits against AI developers over training data.
US weighs annual chip permits for Korean firms:
The US government may replace the indefinite validated end-user (VEU) status for Samsung and SK hynix with a new annual 'site license' model for importing equipment to their Chinese fabs.
Under this proposal, Korean firms would apply yearly for a fixed quantity of equipment, a move designed to keep fabs running without allowing for technology upgrades or facility expansions in China.
South Korean officials worry the annual system is too inflexible, potentially delaying urgent equipment repairs if the necessary parts were not included in the pre-approved application at the start of the year.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕Other news
Intel’s chief executive of products departs among other leadership changes:
Michelle Johnston Holthaus, Intel’s chief executive of products, is leaving after more than 30 years, though she will stay on as a strategic adviser.
Intel created a new central engineering group, led by Srini Iyengar from Cadence, to build custom silicon for external customers, while also adding ex-ARM exec Kevok Kechichian to head its data center unit.
CEO Lip-Bu Tan continues to overhaul Intel’s leadership since taking charge in March, as the company reorganizes around foundry growth and custom chipmaking amid tighter U.S. government oversight.
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 Telescope Partner | USA - Apply Here
Operations & Finance Analyst - Faraday Venture Partner | Spain - Apply Here
Healthcare Analyst - General Investment Management | UK - Apply Here
Investor (AI) - Samsung next | USA - Apply Here
Partner 20 - a16z | USA - Apply Here
VP - Marketing & Communications - Transition VC | India - Apply Here
Investment Analyst - Miras Investment | Dubai - Apply Here
Program Manager - Tenity | UK - Apply Here
Investor Relations Analyst - Griffin Gaming Partner | USA - Apply Here
Associate - OMERSE Venture | USA - Apply Here
WHEN YOU’RE READY, HERE’S HOW I CAN HELP:
💁 You might need our help!
Reach 95,000+ Founders & Investors: Partner with our newsletter to reach a highly engaged audience.
Build Your Pitch Deck: We write, design and model your pitch deck into a storyteller book within 4-5 days.
Do you have any news to share about your Startup or VC fund? Please email us.
We’ll be back in your inbox on Tomorrow.