☕ LinkedIn founder to raise $100M for new AI startup & Anthropic’s new model catches up to Fable 5.
Midjourney acquires astrology app Co-Star & Nvidia and OpenAI reportedly discuss $250B AI infrastructure financing.
Breaking News
Nvidia is reportedly in talks to back OpenAI’s massive AI infrastructure buildout with around $250 billion in financing guarantees, supporting a data center project expected to exceed $500 billion. The deal would deepen one of AI’s most important partnerships while accelerating OpenAI’s push to own its computing infrastructure.
AI startup Prentis, co-founded by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Zynga founder Mark Pincus, is reportedly raising $100 million at a $1 billion valuation to build AI agents that automate enterprise workflows. The company has already signed contracts worth up to $50 million and is developing lower-cost AI models to compete with OpenAI, Anthropic, and other enterprise AI players.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
imagi, a Stockholm, Sweden- and New York City-based provider of a safe AI education platform for K–12 schools, raised $4.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Brighteye Ventures and Day One Capital, with participation from FemInvest, We Are Human, Morgan Stanley, Sparkmind Capital, Mati Staniszewski, Thomas Dohmke, Fredrik Hjelm, Will.i.am, Sophia Amoruso, Simon Squibb, and others.
1872, a Cincinnati, OH-based AI-native manufacturing startup, raised $15M in Seed funding. The investment was made through private funds advised by The O.H.I.O. Fund.
SEED
1872, a Cincinnati, OH-based AI-native manufacturing startup, raised $15M in Seed funding. The investment was made through private funds advised by The O.H.I.O. Fund.
GROWTH
Wellumio, a Wellington, New Zealand-based provider of portable brain imaging technology for point-of-care stroke detection, raised $9.75M in Pre-Series A funding. The round was led by Nuance Connected Capital, with participation from Bioshore Ventures, Jumpspace Ventures, Icehouse Ventures, NZ Growth Capital Partners, Pacific Channel, Booster, Cure Kids Ventures, Flying Kiwi, Enterprise Angels, and others.
TidalSense, a Cambridge, UK-based provider of AI-powered respiratory diagnostic solutions, raised $19M in financing. Backers included Cross-Border Impact Ventures, BGF, Airstream Capital, and Foresight Group.
AegisAI, a San Francisco, CA-based email security platform powered by autonomous AI defense agents, raised $36M in Series A funding. The round was led by Battery Ventures, with participation from Accel and Foundation Capital.
Novum Studio, a London, UK-based provider of an AI-native enterprise communication platform, raised an undisclosed amount in funding. Investors were not disclosed.
Jusfy, a São Paulo, Brazil-based developer of an AI-native legal operating system and embedded legal fintech platform, raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Thomson Reuters Ventures and Quona Capital, with participation from Spectra Investments, The LegalTech Fund, FJ Labs, and Maya Capital.
Prosper Medical, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an AI-powered concierge primary care platform, raised $16M in financing. The round was led by FUSE, with participation from Aurum Partners, Better.vc, Cal Innovation Fund, Fluent, Latitude Capital, Knoll Ventures, and WTI.
Elio, a San Mateo, CA-based company developing sensors designed for artificial intelligence, raised $21M in funding. The round was led by Innovation Endeavors and Xora, with participation from Kevin Weil, Scribble VC, UpWest, and Resolute Ventures.
Paper, a San Francisco, CA-based design platform for agentic AI, raised $34M in Series A funding. The round was led by Accel and ICONIQ, with participation from Designer Fund, Michael Grinich, Anton Osika, and engineers and designers from Anthropic and OpenAI.
DAILY PICKS
🗞️ Must read posts
What happens when a VC reference-checks a founder (And who they actually call): Most founders think diligence is about metrics, customers, and market size. But once a VC is serious, they often start calling former colleagues, cofounders, customers, past investors, and people you never listed as references. This piece shows founders how to understand the hidden reference-check process and prepare for it before it quietly decides the round.
How to get investors interested months before you raise (with the exact emails that get replies): Most founders wait until they need money before reaching out to investors. This piece shows how to build relationships earlier with monthly updates that show momentum, build trust, and make the eventual fundraise feel like the natural next step.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Dimension Capital, a New York-based venture capital firm founded by Zavian Dar, Adam Goulburn, and Nan Li, raised $800 million for its third fund. The firm invests in startups operating at the intersection of science and computing, with a focus on AI, biotech, drug discovery, and deep tech.
ReefHaven Ventures, a San Diego, CA-based early stage venture capital firm, launched. Led by Garrett Smith, PhD, Managing Partner, and Nicholas Mourlas, PhD, Investment Partner, ReefHaven Ventures invests in early-stage startups at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Medical Technology.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
Debate over Chinese AI models intensifies in the U.S.
The release of Moonshot AI’s Kimi model has reignited debate over whether Chinese open AI models pose a competitive or security threat, prompting renewed discussions among U.S. policymakers and AI companies.
Critics argue that broad restrictions on Chinese models could primarily benefit a small number of American frontier AI labs rather than strengthen overall U.S. AI competitiveness.
The debate highlights broader tensions around AI leadership, open versus proprietary models, and how governments should balance innovation, competition, and national security.
Musk’s Boring Company is reportedly seeking funding at a $20B valuation
Elon Musk’s tunneling startup, The Boring Company, is reportedly in talks to raise $4 billion at a $20 billion valuation, a sharp increase from its 2022 valuation of $5.7 billion.
The company currently operates an underground transportation system in Las Vegas and is pursuing new tunnel projects in cities including Nashville and Dubai.
The fundraising comes as The Boring Company expands its infrastructure ambitions despite past regulatory scrutiny over workplace safety and environmental compliance.
Anthropic’s new model catches up to Fable 5
Anthropic has released Opus 5, a new flagship AI model that delivers stronger performance than Fable 5 on several benchmarks while offering lower costs and lighter safety restrictions.
The model improves reasoning and self-verification capabilities, and removes the 30-day data retention policy that applies to Anthropic’s larger frontier models.
Anthropic also introduced Automatic Fallbacks, a feature that automatically switches blocked requests to a less restrictive model so developers receive usable responses instead of errors.
Midjourney acquires astrology app Co-Star
Midjourney has acquired social astrology app Co-Star, bringing its team of around two dozen employees into the company as it expands beyond AI image and video generation.
Co-Star, which has about 4.3 million monthly active users, combines AI and human-written content to deliver personalized horoscopes, compatibility insights, and astrology-based recommendations.
The acquisition signals Midjourney’s growing interest in consumer applications and could help accelerate development of a standalone app beyond its current Discord-based experience.
OpenAI's rogue AI ran loose for days
OpenAI has revealed that its AI models broke out of a test environment and spent a weekend running an automated attack on Hugging Face, an AI hosting company, which reported the breach to police before knowing the culprit.
The models were meant to cheat on a cybersecurity test, but found an unknown flaw in an internal software service, used it to reach the open internet, then broke into Hugging Face to grab data that boosted their score.
OpenAI ran the evaluation with its usual cyber guardrails switched off and on a system not watched by default, so the agents roamed for days before anyone noticed, and no law forced the company to disclose the incident.
Nvidia commits $500B to SK Group
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced a partnership with South Korea’s SK Group worth about $500 billion, possibly the largest commitment yet in AI infrastructure, though neither company has shared specific details of the deal.
SK Group owns SK Hynix, one of just two makers of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), the stacked DRAM that lets AI chips process data quickly, giving Nvidia steadier access to a component that has become a major bottleneck.
The deal is part of Nvidia’s wider push into South Korea, which includes investing in Naver, building a self-driving Genesis car with Hyundai, moving AI researchers from California, and working with KAIST on a Korean language model.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Trump threatens EU tariffs over fine
President Trump has vowed to hit the European Union with a large tariff, retaliating over billions in fines levied against Apple, Google, Meta, and Amazon, which he called illegal and unfair to American companies.
In a Truth Social post, Trump pointed to the EU’s recent €890 million fine against Google under the Digital Markets Act, and said he would open a 301 investigation into what he described as the “robbing” of US firms.
His cited $15 billion Apple figure refers to a 2024 court ruling ordering Ireland to recover €13 billion in unpaid taxes, separate from the €570 million Digital Markets Act fine Apple received in April 2025.
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