☕ Meta launches first model from its superintelligence team & Anthropic's new AI model is too dangerous to release publicly.
FBI reports record $21 billion lost to cybercrime last year & Disney plans layoffs...
Breaking News
Meta just launched Muse Spark, the first model from its superintelligence team — signaling a reset after falling behind in the AI race. It’s designed to be fast, consumer-focused, and deeply integrated across WhatsApp, Instagram, and smart glasses, with built-in shopping features hinting at how Meta plans to monetize AI at scale.
Anthropic revealed a new AI model so powerful it refused to release it publicly, after it discovered thousands of zero-day vulnerabilities — including bugs hidden for decades. The model can autonomously exploit systems, raising serious concerns about how dangerous next-gen AI is becoming.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
Ridge AI, a Seattle, WA-based AI dashboard and data agents platform, raised $2.6M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Madrona, with participation from TheFounderVC and angels.
Felix, a Prague, Czech Republic-based AI workflow platform, raised $1.7M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by XYZ Venture Capital, with participation from angel investors.
SEED
Satellites on Fire, a Buenos Aires, Argentina-based fire protection startup, raised $2.7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Dalus Capital, with participation from Draper Associates, Draper Cygnus, VitaminC, Savia Ventures, Avesta Fund, Reciprocal, Zenani Capital, Innventure, Air Capital, Gain VC, Antom VC, and Embarca Tech.
Q-Factor, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based quantum computing company, raised $24M in Seed funding. The round was led by NFX and TPY Capital, with participation from Intel Capital, Korea Investment Partners, Deep33, and others.
Pomo, a Palo Alto, CA-based agentic marketing intelligence platform, raised $4.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Kindred Ventures, with participation from Databricks Ventures, SV Angel, 645 Ventures, and others.
cadootz!, a NYC-based snack brand, raised $3M+ in Seed funding. The round was led by Selva Ventures, with participation from other investors.
GROWTH
Natter, a NYC-based AI-native conversation intelligence platform, raised $23M in funding. The round was led by Renegade Partners, with participation from Kindred Capital, Costanoa Ventures, Rackhouse Ventures, Village Global, and Asymmetric Capital Partners.
Starfish Space, a Tukwila, WA-based satellite servicing company, raised $100M in Series B funding. The round was led by Point72 Ventures, Activate Capital, and Shield Capital, with participation from NFX, Toyota Ventures, Munich Re Ventures, and others.
Aria Networks, a Palo Alto, CA-based networking company, raised $125M in funding. Backers included Sutter Hill Ventures, Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, and Eclipse Ventures.
nFuse, a Sofia, Bulgaria-based AI-powered B2B ordering platform, raised $2M in funding. Backers included Eleven Ventures and LAUNCHub.
Livid, a Dover, DE-based ad-free video hosting platform, raised $10M in funding. The round was led by Geige Vandentop and Dan Briggs.
True Footage, an Austin, TX-based appraisal services platform, raised $40M in Series C funding. The round was led by Cox Enterprises, with participation from Nava Ventures, Story Ventures, The Kraft Group, and others.
Sora Fuel, a Boston, MA-based climate tech company, raised $14.6M in funding. The round was led by Spero Ventures and Inspired Capital, with participation from Engine Ventures and Wireframe Ventures.
Patlytics, a NYC-based patent lifecycle AI platform, raised $40M in Series B funding. The round was led by SignalFire, with participation from N47, Relativity, Alumni Ventures, and others.
Treon, a Tampere, Finland-based smart industry solutions provider, raised €6.8M in Series A extension funding. The investment was made by ACME Capital.
Petwealth, a Miami, FL-based pet health diagnostics company, raised $1.7M in funding. Backers were not disclosed.
Narwhal Labs, a Bristol, UK-based autonomous communications platform, raised £20M in funding. Backers included Jonathan Swann.
Latent, a San Francisco, CA-based AI platform for medication access, raised $80M in Series A funding. The round was led by Spark Capital and Transformation Capital, with participation from General Catalyst, Y Combinator, Conviction, and others.
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
futurepresent, a NYC, Berlin, and Munich, Germany-based venture capital firm backing AI startups in the US and Europe, launched with its first $300M vehicle. The firm partners at inception and take a concentrated approach at early growth. Led by Thomas Lueke, Jan Rettel, David Meiborg, and Johnson Yang, the firm has already invested in 14 portfolio companies with an investment strategy that includes Pre-Seed/Seed and concentrated-growth investments.
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 launches child safety blueprint to combat AI-enabled abuse
OpenAI introduced a Child Safety Blueprint focused on detecting, reporting, and preventing AI-driven child exploitation.
The move comes as cases rise — with over 8,000 reports of AI-generated abuse content in early 2025, including deepfake images and AI-assisted grooming.
The initiative, developed with groups like National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, pushes for stronger laws, better reporting systems, and built-in safeguards across AI platforms.
FBI reports record $21 billion lost to cybercrime last year
The FBI says Americans lost a record $21 billion to cybercrime in 2025, a 26% increase from the previous year, driven by investment scams, business email compromise, tech support fraud, and data breaches.
For the first time, the FBI’s report includes AI-related scams — covering voice cloning, fake profiles, forged documents, and deepfake videos — which accounted for 22,300 complaints and $893 million in losses.
Americans over the age of 60 were hit the hardest, reporting $7.7 billion in losses, while cryptocurrency-related cybercrime caused the largest overall loss category, exceeding $11 billion across 181,565 cases.
NYT claims it has identified the inventor of bitcoin
The New York Times published an investigation by journalist John Carreyrou arguing that British cryptographer Adam Back, who invented Hashcash, is the most likely person behind Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
The report relied on stylometric analysis, noting that Back uniquely hyphenated “proof-of-work” and referenced the obscure Russian currency WebMoney, both appearing in Satoshi’s emails, though Carreyrou admitted this is not definitive proof.
Back has consistently denied being Satoshi, and the crypto community has been skeptical, with Casa co-founder Jameson Lopp saying Nakamoto “can’t be caught with stylometric analysis.”
Disney plans layoffs as part of cost-cutting push
Walt Disney is reportedly planning to cut around 1,000 jobs, primarily within its marketing division.
The layoffs would affect less than 1% of its workforce, as the company restructures under its new leadership and streamlines operations.
The move is tied to an internal initiative, “Project Imagine,” aimed at consolidating marketing functions and reducing costs.
AWS says backing both OpenAI and Anthropic isn’t a conflict — it’s strategy
Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman defended investing in both OpenAI and Anthropic, saying AWS is used to competing with its own partners.
Amazon has invested ~$50B in OpenAI while already backing Anthropic with ~$8B, aiming to offer customers access to multiple leading AI models.
The bigger strategy: cloud providers want to become the “AI router,” letting customers switch between models — while quietly pushing their own models into the mix.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Google AI Overviews delivers wrong answers 10% of the time
A new analysis from The New York Times found that Google AI Overviews delivers wrong answers about 10 percent of the time, which translates to tens of millions of incorrect answers per day across all searches.
The study was conducted with startup Oumi using OpenAI’s SimpleQA evaluation, a list of over 4,000 questions with verifiable answers, and showed accuracy improved from 85 to 91 percent after the Gemini 3 update.
While a 91 percent accuracy rate sounds decent, the sheer scale of Google searches means that even a small error rate produces hundreds of thousands of lies going out every minute of the day.
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