☕ Meta is building an AI clone of Mark Zuckerberg & Anthropic plans to build a Lovable competitor.
Microsoft is building an OpenClaw-like agent for Copilot & More.
Breaking News
Meta is reportedly building an AI clone of Mark Zuckerberg, a photorealistic 3D version that can talk to employees and give feedback like the real CEO. The system is trained on his tone, behavior, and thinking — essentially turning the founder into a scalable AI interface inside the company.
Microsoft is developing an OpenClaw-like autonomous agent inside Copilot, designed to run continuously and execute multi-step tasks for enterprise users. This marks a major push toward “always-on” AI workers — not just chatbots, but systems that actually do work on your behalf.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
Qoro Quantum, a London, UK-based quantum computing startup, raised £750K in Pre-Seed funding. Backers included Ada Ventures, Superangels Venture Fund, and Polsky Center.
Replenit, a Warsaw, Poland-based AI retail decision engine, raised $2.5M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Movens Capital and Vastpoint, with participation from Logo Ventures, DigitalOcean Ventures, and others.
Blocks, a Berlin, Germany-based AI cloud cost optimization startup, raised $6M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Speedinvest, with participation from Caesar Ventures and others.
SEED
DeepCyte, a Wilmington, DE & Copenhagen-based techbio company, raised $1.5M in Seed funding. The round was supported by Carl J. G. Evertsz.
Flashpass, a Columbus, OH-based digital skills platform, raised $4.25M in Seed funding. The round was led by J2 Ventures.
Airmo, a Munich & Luxembourg-based climate-tech startup, raised €5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Ananda Impact Ventures, with participation from Unconventional Ventures, kopa ventures, Desai Ventures, and others.
Pixel Photonics, a Münster, Germany-based photonics company, raised €5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Futury Capital, with participation from SPRIND, Kensho Ventures, and HTGF.
Round, a London, UK-based AI finance automation platform, raised $6M in Seed funding. The round was led by Alstin Capital, with participation from BACKED VC, Love Ventures, Passion Capital, and others.
Flora Fertility, a Calgary & Chicago-based fertility insurance platform, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by ManchesterStory, with participation from BDC Capital, TruStage Ventures, Adara Venture Capital, and others.
GROWTH
Critical Loop, a Los Angeles, CA-based industrial power solutions company, raised $26M in Series A funding. The round was led by Conifer Infrastructure Partners and Hanover, with participation from Better Ventures, Climate Capital, Adapt Nation Capital, and others.
pH7 Technologies, a Vancouver-based critical-mineral extraction company, raised $32M in Series B funding. Backers included Asahi Kasei, Circular Innovation Fund, Fine Structure Ventures, and BHP Ventures.
Citra Space, a Colorado Springs, CO-based space tech company, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by Washington Harbour Partners, with participation from Industrious Ventures, Scout VC, Alumni Ventures, and others.
Slate Auto, a Troy, MS-based EV company, raised $650M in Series C funding. The round was led by TWG Global.
Remission Medical, a Richmond, VA-based virtual rheumatology company, raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding. The round was led by Blue Heron Capital.
Decision Science Advisors, a NYC-based AI advisory firm, raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding. The investment was made by Jefferies Financial Group.
Sparian Biosciences, a NYC-based biotech company, received a $15M grant from NIH/NIDA.
Vivatides Therapeutics, a Suzhou & Boston-based biotech company, raised $54M in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Qiming Venture Partners, with participation from Highlight Capital, TF Capital, Apricot Capital.
ShengShu, a Beijing-based multimodal AI startup, raised $293M in funding. The round was led by Alibaba, with participation from Baidu Ventures and TAL Education.
Packz, a NYC-based collectibles platform, raised $10.7M in funding. Backers included Makers Fund, The Raine Group, Courtside Ventures, and others.
INXY, a Warsaw-based payment infrastructure company, raised $7M in funding. The round was led by Flashpoint.
QUICK HITS
🔋 Founder Fuel
Useful Data: 40 real startup pitch decks that raised $350M+ (Including leading startups decks) (Link)
Trends with Benefits: Is AI quietly eliminating customer support jobs? (Link)
Founder Resource: Startup legal document pack – essential legal docs for founders. (Link)
From Social: Venture Capital fund metrics cheat sheet - use these tools to evaluate VC fund performance. (Link)
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Eclipse, a Palo Alto, CA-based venture capital firm, raised $1.311 billion for two funds. In details, according two regulatory forms filed with the SEC, Eclipse Fund VI, L.P., raised $720m from 127 investors, and Eclipse Early Growth Fund III, L.P., raised $591m from 120 investors.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
OpenAI acquires AI personal finance startup Hiro
OpenAI has acquired Hiro Finance, a consumer app that used AI to model financial decisions like spending, savings, and debt scenarios
The deal appears to be an acquihire, with Hiro shutting down operations soon while its small team joins OpenAI to strengthen its fintech and business tools capabilities
The move signals OpenAI’s growing interest in financial use cases, potentially expanding ChatGPT into more advanced personal finance or enterprise finance workflows
Vercel signals IPO readiness as AI agents drive rapid growth
Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch said the company is operating like a public firm and is increasingly ready for an IPO, though no timeline was given
Vercel’s revenue surged from $100M in 2024 to a $340M run rate in early 2026, driven by the rise of AI-generated apps and agents building and deploying software
The company is betting that as AI agents create more software, Vercel will become the default infrastructure layer to host and run these applications
Stanford report shows widening gap between AI insiders and public sentiment
A new Stanford report highlights a growing disconnect, with AI experts largely optimistic about the technology while the general public remains increasingly anxious.
Most Americans are concerned about AI’s impact on jobs, the economy, and daily life, while experts focus more on long-term risks like AGI and expect positive outcomes.
The gap is especially visible in areas like jobs and healthcare, where expert optimism is much higher than public confidence, signaling rising mistrust toward AI.
OpenAI valuation faces investor scrutiny amid strategy shift
OpenAI is facing questions from investors over its $852 billion valuation as it pivots more toward enterprise products to compete with Anthropic and Google.
Some backers are concerned frequent strategy changes and reduced focus on ChatGPT’s consumer growth could weaken its competitive position.
OpenAI maintains strong investor confidence, pointing to its oversubscribed $122 billion fundraise and continued rapid growth ahead of a potential IPO.
Anthropic plots Lovable challenger, leak suggests
Leaked images suggest Anthropic is building a vibe-coding app builder inside its Claude chatbot, which would compete directly with Swedish startup Lovable in the fast-growing no-code development space.
The screenshots posted to X show an in-chat tool that lets users generate applications like AI chatbots, photo albums, and landing pages from simple prompts typed into Claude.
Lovable raised $330m last December at a $6.6bn valuation, and its head of growth Elena Verna recently said she views Big Tech companies as more threatening than rival startups.
OpenAI blames Microsoft for limiting cloud partnerships
OpenAI’s new revenue chief, Denise Dresser, said in an internal memo that the company’s Microsoft partnership has limited its ability to reach enterprise customers on rival cloud platforms like Amazon’s Bedrock.
Dresser highlighted “staggering” inbound demand since OpenAI announced its Amazon deal in February, as the company fights to catch Anthropic’s Claude model, which multiple industry figures described as dominating enterprise AI.
The memo also attacked Anthropic’s strategy as built on “fear” and “restriction,” claiming the rival made a “strategic misstep” by not acquiring enough compute, while OpenAI’s own infrastructure ramp is “materially ahead.”
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Internet Archive faces existential legal threat
The Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine face a growing legal and access crisis as major news organizations, including USA Today Co. and The New York Times, block its web crawler from archiving their stories.
Over 100 working journalists, including Rachel Maddow and Taylor Lorenz, signed a letter of support organized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future, defending the Wayback Machine’s role in preserving reporting.
News organizations say they are blocking crawlers broadly to fight scraping bots, with The Guardian citing concerns over potential misuse by AI companies of content sets crawled for preservation purposes.
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
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