☕ Meta planning to launch a cloud business & OpenAI proposes giving the US government a 5% stake.
SpaceX is reportedly building its own AI device & SoftBank revives $10B loan talks backed by its OpenAI stake.
Breaking News
OpenAI has reportedly proposed giving the U.S. government a 5% equity stake through a public wealth fund, aiming to let Americans directly benefit from the AI boom. The proposal reflects growing efforts to balance private AI innovation with public ownership as leading AI companies move toward IPOs.
Cloudflare will begin blocking AI crawlers from ad-supported websites by default unless publishers explicitly allow access. It also introduced a “Pay Per Use” system, creating a new model where AI companies must compensate publishers for using their content.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
Dawnguard, an Amsterdam, Netherlands-based developer of an AI-native cloud security architecture platform, raised an additional $3.3M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was backed by BNVT Capital, with participation from Curiosity VC and eCAPITAL.
Appnigma AI, a San Francisco, CA-based developer of an AI-powered enterprise software integration platform, closed its Pre-Seed funding round. The round was led by BetaBoom, with participation from strategic angel investors from Google and YouTube.
Zelara, a Berlin, Germany-based developer of an AI-native lifecycle marketing platform, raised €3M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by NAP, with participation from Heartfelt and Angel Invest.
SEED
Devplan, a Seattle, WA-based intelligence platform for AI-native product development, raised $2.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by AI2 Incubator, with participation from Acequia Capital, Mighty Capital, Grand Ventures, and eLab Ventures.
Proception.AI, a Mountain View, CA-based developer of dexterous robotic hands for humanoid robots, raised $11M in Seed funding. The round was led by First Round Capital, with participation from Y Combinator and BoxGroup.
Lucida AI, an Istanbul, Turkey-based speech-to-speech AI platform, raised an additional $1.6M in Seed funding, bringing its total Seed round to $7M. The round was led by Velocity Capital, with participation from Next Tier Ventures, Look AI Ventures, Bogazici Ventures, Yapı Kredi Frwrd Ventures, and Ünlü & Co..
Queue, a Palo Alto, CA-based autonomous robotic pharmacy company, raised $12.6M in Seed funding. The round was led by AlleyCorp, with participation from House Capital, Ubiquity Ventures, Grep Ventures, and Banter Capital.
GROWTH
CarbonSix, a San Francisco, CA-based Physical AI company for manufacturing, raised $40M in Series A funding. The round was co-led by DSC Investment and LB Investment, with participation from IMM Investment, Korea Development Bank (KDB), SV Investment, Cortentia, ASQ, Foothill Ventures, Storm Ventures, Zeitgeist Capital, Xquared, and CarbonBlack Fund.
Wultra, a Prague, Czech Republic-based provider of post-quantum authentication and digital identity solutions, raised €6.8M in Series A funding. The round was led by Seventure Partners, with participation from Marc Norlain, Guillaume Despagne, J&T Ventures, and Elevator Ventures.
Aligned, a New York City- and Tel Aviv-based AI-powered deal workspace platform, raised $60M in Series B funding. The round was led by PeakSpan Capital, with participation from Hetz Ventures, JAL Ventures, and NFX.
TwelveLabs, a San Francisco, CA-based video intelligence company, raised $100M in Series B funding. The round was co-led by NEA and NAVER Ventures, with participation from Amazon, Radical Ventures, Korea Investment Partners, Index Ventures, Quadrille Capital, and Red Bull Ventures.
Materna Medical, a Mountain View, CA-based OBGYN platform company, raised $5M in Series B3 financing. The round was led by InnovaHealth Partners, Wavemaker360 Health, and Band of Angels, with continued support from existing investors.
Telum Therapeutics, a Noáin, Spain-based biotechnology company, raised €18M in Series A funding. The round was led by AMR Action Fund, with participation from Inveready, Invivo Partners, CDTI (SICC Innvierte), Clave Capital, and Sodena.
EquiLibre Technologies, a Prague, Czech Republic-based frontier AI trading research lab, closed an undisclosed Series A funding round. The round was led by Creandum.
DAILY PICKS
🗞️ Must read writeups
The founder’s guide to secondaries - Private companies are staying private longer, leaving many founders wealthy on paper but illiquid in real life. This piece breaks down how secondaries work, when founders can sell a small portion of their stake, and how to avoid common traps around ROFR, 409A, taxes, and investor signalling. (Read Here)
Will customers still buy SaaS in the AI era? - A useful framework for thinking about whether customers will keep paying for software when AI can help them build internal tools faster than ever. The piece explains the “zone of viability” - where SaaS products remain worth buying because they are still cheaper, safer, and easier to maintain than rebuilding them in-house. (Read Here)
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Harpoon Ventures, a San Diego, CA-based early-stage venture capital firm, closed Fund IV, at $155m. Limited partners include U.S. pensions, endowments, and family offices. Fund IV, which brought AUM to over $450m, will continue Harpoon’s strategy of partnering with founders at the frontier, building mission-critical technologies across artificial intelligence, deep tech, and defense.
Tapestry VC, a London, UK-based venture capital firm, has launched an $80m Fund III. The $80M Fund III is co-anchored by a $40m commitment from new sovereign investor British Business Bank, alongside returning institutional co-anchors Railpen – a £35B pension plan – and Molten Ventures – a £1B fund-of-fund, as well as notable tech leaders, such as OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar.
Ashton Kutcher, an actor and investor, is leaving Sound Ventures to launch a new early-stage venture firm with former NFX general partner Morgan Beller. The new firm will focus on investing in AI infrastructure, energy, and deep tech startups, while Kutcher will continue serving as an adviser to Sound Ventures.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
SpaceX is reportedly building its own AI device
SpaceX has reportedly shown investors an early prototype of a “handset-like” AI device powered by xAI, though Elon Musk has denied the report and called it “utterly false.”
If developed, the device would reportedly run a proprietary operating system and could integrate with Starlink and xAI, positioning SpaceX as a potential competitor to OpenAI and Apple in AI hardware.
The report highlights growing competition to build AI-native consumer devices, even as earlier products from companies like Humane and Rabbit struggled to gain mainstream adoption.
US lifts export restrictions on Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos AI models
The U.S. Commerce Department has removed export controls on Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models after the company introduced additional safeguards and agreed to work more closely with the U.S. government.
Anthropic is partnering with Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and other Glasswing members to develop shared standards for detecting and mitigating AI jailbreaks, while expanding early access for trusted government partners.
The move follows a nearly three-week suspension that forced Anthropic to disable both models globally after national security concerns over potential misuse.
Apple prepares new iPad Pro and MacBook Pro lineup for 2027
Apple is reportedly planning to launch four new iPad Pro models, a new entry-level MacBook Pro, and its first M7 chip in the first half of next year.
The new MacBook Pro is expected to be a full-fledged Pro model, expanding Apple’s lineup as it refreshes its Mac and iPad portfolio.
The upcoming launches come as Apple navigates supply chain challenges, recent product price hikes, and preparations for its next generation of hardware beyond the Tim Cook era.
SoftBank revives $10B loan talks backed by its OpenAI stake
SoftBank has reopened negotiations for a $10 billion loan backed by its OpenAI stake, this time offering a corporate guarantee to reassure lenders if the collateral loses value.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Mizuho are expected to join the lending consortium as SoftBank seeks fresh capital to fund its expanding AI investments.
The financing comes as SoftBank has committed over $60 billion to OpenAI and AI infrastructure projects, while OpenAI’s planned IPO could make the stake easier to value in the future.
Meta is planning to launch a cloud business
Meta is reportedly planning to launch a cloud business that rents out AI compute and models, aiming to compete with AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure while generating returns from its massive AI infrastructure investments.
The strategy mirrors recent moves by SpaceX, highlighting a growing trend where companies monetize excess AI data center capacity instead of relying solely on AI applications.
With nearly $183 billion committed to AI infrastructure, Meta is betting that owning large-scale compute could become as valuable as building the best AI models.
Anthropic launches Claude Sonnet 5 for cheaper AI agents
Anthropic has introduced Claude Sonnet 5, a new mid-sized model that delivers near-Opus performance while offering stronger reasoning, coding, and autonomous agent capabilities at a significantly lower cost.
The model is now the default for Claude’s Free and Pro plans, with pricing starting at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, undercutting several competing frontier models.
Sonnet 5 also improves safety by reducing hallucinations, prompt injection attacks, and misuse, making it a more reliable option for developers building AI agents and workflow automation.
Google's new Nano Banana 2 makes AI images in 4 seconds
Google has launched Nano Banana 2 Lite, the fastest and cheapest model in its Nano Banana family, generating AI images in four seconds and costing under four cents per thousand images for developers working at scale.
The model is built for speed rather than quality, aimed at rapid ideation and high-velocity developer pipelines, while keeping reliable prompt adherence, strong character consistency, and legible text rendering inside the images it produces.
Available now in Google AI Studio, the Gemini API, and the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, it replaces the original Nano Banana and rolls out to surfaces like AI Mode, the Gemini app, NotebookLM, and Google Photos.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Japan plans sovereign AI and 10 million robots
Japan has unveiled a plan to build its own homegrown AI model and put 10 million AI-equipped robots to work across different sectors by the year 2040, led by a consortium called Noetra.
Noetra, which includes SoftBank and Sony, will focus on physical AI, meaning artificial intelligence used in real-world settings like self-driving cars, factory robots, and android butlers, with about $6 billion in government money over five years.
The effort ties into Japan’s push to cut its reliance on US and Chinese AI models and address its aging, shrinking population, part of a 14-year plan investing 370 trillion yen across 17 sectors.
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