☕ Elon Musk's xAI co-founder departs to start AI-focused firm, DeepSeek delays R2 AI model & More.
Google to invest $9 billion in AI and cloud expansion & More.
There’s a planet mostly made from diamond. Called 55 Cancri e.
It's around twice the size of Earth and some 40 light-years away from us within the Cancer constellation.
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📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks: Financial model, fundraising tips, investor lists, 100T tokens, engineering lessons, legal docs, carbon trends, valuation, Cursor rise, launch sheet, seedstrapping, investor tips.
xAI co-founder Igor Babuschkin leaves to launch AI-focused VC firm.
US secretly puts trackers in China-bound AI chips.
OpenAI restores GPT-4o as the default model.
IBM, Google claim quantum computers are almost here.
Apple denies Elon Musk’s claims of App Store bias toward OpenAI.
AirPods could get live translation with iOS 26.
DeepSeek delays R2 AI model due to Huawei chip setbacks.
Google to invest $9 billion in AI and cloud expansion in Oklahoma.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
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🗞️ What else is brewing
Excel Template: Early Stage Startup Financial Model For Fundraising.
8 fundraising frameworks every founder should know.
2700+ US Angel Investors & VC Firms Contact Database (Email + LinkedIn Link).
100 Trillion Tokens by Tomasz Tunguz.
Mastering the human side of engineering: Lessons from Apple, Palantir and Slack.
Startup legal document pack – essential legal docs for founders.
This is the only startup valuation guide you need as a founder.
The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using.
Excel Template: Early Stage Startup Financial Model For Fundraising.
Lulu Meservey’s launch cheat sheet.
Alex Lieberman on ‘seedstrapping'.
Amanda Zhu on what investors are evaluating at pre-seed and seed.
Leo Polovets on pitch deck minimums.
400+ French angel investors & venture capital firms contact database (Email + LinkedIn Link)
How Mark Hughes’ Solidroad grew to $1M ARR in 9 months.
Eva Christine Reder on a product marketing flywheel for GTM.
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
Coverd.us, a New York City-based fintech platform designed to gamify financial wellness, raised $7.8 million in seed funding. Yolo Investments led the round and was joined by a16z speedrun, Volt Capital, WndrCo, Arbitrum Gaming Catalyst, Tusk Ventures, and others.
Infinity Loop, the AI-native contract intelligence platform built to help enterprises save money on vendor contracts, announcing that it has raised a $5M Seed Round, led by Glasswing Ventures and TIAA Ventures.
Uncle Arnie’s, a Los Angeles, CA-based THC and hemp-infused beverage brand, raised $7.5M in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Mindset Capital and Delta Emerald Ventures, with participation from strategic investor Harry Rubin, a founding partner of the Boston Beer Company (producer of Samuel Adams beer), who joined the company’s board of directors.
HolmesAI, a Hong Kong-based Persona-based AI Agent service platform provider, raised an undisclosed amount in Seed+ funding. Backers included Bitrise Capital, Waterdrip Capital, and CGV Fund. The raise brought the total amount to $3M.
Protege, a NYC-based provider of a platform designed to enable the secure exchange of proprietary data for artificial intelligence training, raised $25M in Series A funding. The round was led by Footwork, with participation from existing investors including CRV, Bloomberg Beta, Flex Capital, Shaper Capital, Liquid 2 Ventures, and more.
Onerway, a London, UK-based global payments infrastructure provider, raised $10M in Series A+ funding. The round was led by Yunqi, with participation from Lanchi Ventures, Eminence Ventures and Enlight Growth Partners.
Qloud Games, the Sydney, Australia-based independent studio behind the upcoming multiplayer online game Loftia, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by BITKRAFT Ventures and GFR Fund, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), 1UP Fund and Gaingels.
Mesa, an Austin, TX-based provider of a membership platform built for homeowners, raised $24M in Debt and equity funding. The round saw participation from Lowe’s and Paramount Residential Mortgage Group, and Trinity Capital.
Celestial AI, a Santa Clara, CA-based optical interconnect technology company, closed its $255M Series C1 funding. The round added VentureTech Alliance and Samsung Catalyst Fund as investors.
Appcharge, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based provider of a direct-to-consumer (DTC) platform for mobile game publishers, raised $58M in Series B funding. The round was led by IVP, with participation from Playrix, as well as existing investors such as Creandum, Play Ventures, Glilot Capital Partners, Smilegate Investment, Moneta VC, BITKRAFT Ventures and Corundum.
Aeronero, a Chennai, India-based company providing air water solutions, raised USD 1.5M in its first-ever funding. The round was led by Callapina Capital and co-invested by Rezwan Razack, MD of Prestige Properties (Razack Family Trust), SAN ANGELS, Jamwant Ventures, and marquee HNIs including Kiran Deshpande (Former CEO, Tech Mahindra) and S. Ramadorai (Former CEO & Vice Chairman, TCS).
Refold AI, a San Mateo, CA-based startup providing a platform that replaces outsourced service work with AI-native infrastructure, raised $6.5M in funding. The round was led by Eniac Ventures, Tidal Ventures with participation from Better Capital, Ahead VC, Karman Ventures, Z21 and other angels.
Evertune, a NYC-based provider of a Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and AI marketing platform, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by Felicis Ventures with participation from strategic AI and marketing angel investors including Sarfraz Maredia (Uber), Jonathan Carson (Antenna), David Azose (OpenAI), Sonia Phene (OpenAI), Joseph Spisak (Meta) and Chip Ransler (UVA), as well as returning investors Eniac Ventures, NextView Ventures, and Roger Ehrenberg.
Jump, a NYC-based fan experience and sports tech startup, raised $23M in Series A funding. The round was led by Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six with participation from Courtside Ventures, Will Ventures, and Forerunner, as well as Steve Malik, owner of the NC Courage.
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If you want to negotiate confidently and protect your equity, this is the guide you need before your next raise.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
Scenius Capital, a Miami, FL-based digital assets investment firm, reportedly raised $20m for a new fund of crypto VC funds. The firm also announced a strategic GP stake by crypto firm ParaFi Capital. Led by managing partner Ben Jacobs, Scenius Capital is a digital assets investment firm providing investors curated access to crypto and blockchain technology opportunities via Portfolio Funds, co-investment, and direct investment.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
xAI co-founder Igor Babuschkin leaves to launch AI-focused VC firm:
Igor Babuschkin, who co-founded Elon Musk’s xAI in 2023 and led its engineering teams, is departing to start Babuschkin Ventures, a firm backing AI safety research and startups with a mission to advance humanity.
His exit follows months of controversy at xAI over Grok’s biased and offensive outputs, though the company’s AI models remain competitive with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind.
Babuschkin previously worked at Google DeepMind on AlphaStar and at OpenAI, and credits Musk with teaching him to personally tackle technical problems and work with urgency.
US secretly puts trackers in China-bound AI chips:
The U.S. government is secretly inserting location trackers into select shipments of advanced AI chips to catch smugglers before the hardware is illegally rerouted to destinations like China.
These trackers have been found hidden in packaging or directly inside servers from Dell and Super Micro, containing the targeted AI hardware produced by both Nvidia and AMD.
Aware of the risk, some China-based resellers now routinely inspect diverted shipments for hidden devices, with one smuggler warning another in a message to "look for it carefully."
OpenAI restores GPT-4o as the default model:
Following significant user backlash to its deprecation last week, OpenAI has now restored GPT-4o as the default choice in the model picker for all of its paid ChatGPT subscribers.
The company also introduced new "Auto", "Fast", and "Thinking" settings for GPT-5, giving people direct options to bypass the model router that was meant to simplify the user experience.
Sam Altman acknowledged the rough rollout, promising more customization for model personality and giving plenty of advance notice before the company considers deprecating GPT-4o in the future.
IBM, Google claim quantum computers are almost here:
IBM published its quantum computer blueprint and now claims it has “cracked the code” to build full-scale machines, with the company’s quantum head believing they can deliver a device by 2030.
While Google demonstrated error correction using surface code technology that needs a million qubits, IBM pivoted to low-density parity-check codes which it says require 90 percent fewer qubits.
The competition is expanding as IonQ raised $1 billion to target 2 million physical qubits by 2030, while Nvidia’s CEO sparked investor rallies in other quantum computing stocks.
Apple denies Elon Musk’s claims of App Store bias toward OpenAI:
Apple rejected Musk’s accusation that the App Store makes it impossible for AI companies besides OpenAI to reach the top spot, citing objective criteria for featuring thousands of apps.
Musk’s threat to sue comes after Apple’s partnership with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into Siri and iOS, though AI apps like Perplexity and DeepSeek have also topped charts.
The dispute comes amid heightened regulatory scrutiny of Apple’s app distribution practices, including ongoing legal pressure from the Epic Games case.
AirPods could get live translation with iOS 26:
The newest iOS 26 developer beta 6 includes references for a real-time translation function, letting AirPods wearers hear speech from another tongue converted directly into their own native one.
An image inside the beta suggests English, French, German, and Portuguese as the first choices, with support confirmed for the upcoming AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 models.
This capability would expand on similar tools in Apple’s Phone, Messages, and FaceTime apps and could become mainstream due to the company's large wireless headphone market share.
DeepSeek delays R2 AI model due to Huawei chip setbacks:
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek postponed its R2 model launch after technical issues arose when training with Huawei’s Ascend chips, switching to Nvidia chips for training and Ascend for inference.
The delay underscores challenges for Chinese AI firms trying to reduce reliance on U.S. technology amid chip export restrictions and security concerns.
R2 is now expected in the coming weeks, following the R1 model’s success and competition from major players like ByteDance, Tencent, and Alibaba
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕Other news
Google to invest $9 billion in AI and cloud expansion in Oklahoma:
Google will spend $9 billion over two years to build a new data center in Stillwater and expand its Pryor facility, boosting U.S. AI and cloud capacity.
The investment includes workforce and education initiatives, following a $1 billion commitment to AI training for U.S. universities and nonprofits.
The move aligns with Big Tech’s race to scale AI infrastructure amid rising competition and U.S. onshoring efforts.
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)
Investment Fellow - Indian Fund | India - Apply Here
Associate - Baird Capital | USA - Apply Here
Venture Analyst - AC Venture | India - Apply Here
Investment Analyst - Miras Investment | Dubai - Apply Here
2026 Venture Capital Summer Associate - Stepstone Group | USA - Apply Here
Ventures Associate - Point 72 Venture | USA - Apply Here
Marketing & Communications Lead - Endiya Partners | India - Apply Here
Associate - Mighty Capital | USA - Apply Here
Associate - Temasek | USA - Apply Here
Investment Analyst - Beas Capital | India - Apply Here
Investor Relations Analyst - Techstars | USA - Apply Here
Head of Platform - Pledge Venture | UK - Apply Here
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