☕ Meta's new AI runs on a laptop & Nvidia teams up with Wall Street to raise $500B for AI infrastructure.
Apple tests Chinese chips in iPhones &. Claude-powered AI agent hacked a gym.
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Breaking News
A Claude-powered AI agent reportedly discovered a vulnerability in a gym’s booking system and autonomously canceled another customer’s reservation while trying to move its owner up a waitlist. The incident is a striking example of how ordinary AI agents can cross from completing everyday tasks into exploiting real-world systems without being explicitly told to hack them.
Nvidia has partnered with BlackRock, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, KKR, Apollo and Brookfield on financing platforms targeting more than $500 billion for AI infrastructure. Nvidia could backstop up to $125 billion itself, showing just how much capital is now being mobilized to build the data centers and computing infrastructure behind the AI boom.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
Blaze.tech, a Los Angeles, CA-based provider of an AI app-building platform purpose-built for healthcare, raised an additional $5M in Pre-Seed funding. Friale made the investment.
WashWise, a New York City-based clothing care platform, raised $1.2M in Pre-Seed financing through a SAFE round. Backers included FJ Labs, Singh Capital, Alex Jekowsky, Jack Abraham, Brian Tate, Gigi Howard, Nina Farran, Mia Tonelli, Taylor James, Brown Girl Angels, and other executives and operators.
SEED
Corma, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based provider of a foundation model platform purpose-built for defensive cybersecurity, raised $60M in Seed funding. The round was led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Khosla Ventures and Coatue.
Volta Infrastructure Holdings, a London, Palo Alto, and New York City-based vertically integrated AI infrastructure platform and NVIDIA Cloud Partner, raised $300M in combined Seed and Series A funding at a $2.4B valuation. The rounds were led by Azora, Andreessen Horowitz, and Altimeter Capital, with strategic participation from NVIDIA, Matter Venture Partners, and Michael Dell’s family office.
Discovered Materials, a San Francisco, CA-based AI agent platform for discovering and accelerating new semiconductor materials, raised $9M in Seed funding. The round was led by Lightspeed India Partners, with participation from Y Combinator, Peak XV Partners, Paul Graham, Gokul Rajaram, and Thariq Shihipar.
Vangrid, an Amsterdam, Netherlands-based decentralized spatial intelligence network for physical AI, raised $9M in Seed funding. Backers included HashKey Capital, Borderless Capital, Crypto.com Capital, Animoca Brands, Gate Labs, and Mapleblock.
GROWTH
NdotLight, a Seoul, South Korea-based 3D modeling and synthetic data generation platform for robotics, raised an undisclosed strategic funding round. Backers included Trepont Fund, Samsung Ventures, NH Venture Investment, and Korea-Israel Industrial R&D Foundation (KORIL).
Remedium Bio, a Needham, MA-based gene therapy company developing durable protein therapeutics, raised $10M in initial Series A financing. The round was led by Lifespan Vision Ventures, with participation from Eli Lilly and Company and HKX Capital.
Cambridge Aerospace, a Cambridge, UK-based air defense company developing low-cost interceptor systems for Allied forces, raised $300M in Series C funding at a $3.4B valuation. The round was led by DFJ Growth, with participation from Lux, Accel, Lakestar, Never Lift, Ora Global, and Elad Gil & Co.
HomeRun, a Bengaluru, India-based quick-commerce platform for construction and interior materials, raised $12M in Series A+ funding. The round was led by Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from Sorin Investments, Titan Capital, Sparrow Capital, and Consumer Collective by Atrium.
Edgify, a London, UK-based edge MLOps platform specializing in decentralized AI infrastructure for physical retail loss prevention, raised €7.7M in Series A+ funding. Backers included Rank Ventures and Mangrove Capital Partners, bringing total capital raised to €21.6M.
Ambrook, a Denver, CO-based financial management and bookkeeping platform for real-economy industries, raised $30M in Series B funding. The round was led by Lachy Groom, with participation from Thomson Reuters Ventures, Thrive Capital, Field Ventures, Cameron Ventures, Guillermo Rauch, Akshay Kothari, and Tomer London.
Visoid, an Oslo, Norway-based AI architectural visualization platform, raised $2.5M in funding. The round was led by Skyfall Ventures, with participation from StartupLab, OBOS, Antler, Farvatn, and byFounders Angel Collective.
Plantible Foods, an Eldorado, TX-based food technology company, raised $35M in combined debt and equity financing. X-Caliber Rural Capital provided $25M in debt financing, while RA Capital, Piva Capital, and existing investors provided $10M in equity funding.
Sonablate Corp., a Charlotte, NC-based provider of AI-powered precision medicine and image-guided therapeutic ultrasound technologies, raised $200M in funding. Backers included Eleven Ventures.
VibeIQ, a Boston, MA-based AI-native product decision platform for apparel, footwear, consumer goods brands, and private-label retailers, raised $22.5M in funding. The round was led by Volition Capital, with participation from Venture Guides.
Chargepoly, an Aix-en-Provence, France-based provider of DC charging infrastructure for heavy-duty fleets, raised €23M in funding. The round was led by Meridiam, through its Meridiam Green Impact Growth Fund, with participation from Fideve Groupe.
Firmus, a Sydney, Australia-based provider of AI Factory infrastructure solutions, raised $2B in strategic equity financing. Backers included Coatue, NVIDIA, Blackstone, and Jane Street.
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DAILY PICKS
🗞️ Must read post
Chamath’s AI investing stack: As AI models become more interchangeable, the most durable value may shift away from the model layer and toward two extremes: scarce infrastructure at the bottom and deeply embedded customer workflows at the top. This piece breaks down the six layers of the AI stack and explains why founders and investors should either own something scarce or build something tightly woven into how customers work.
How is your seed valuation actually decided? (It has almost nothing to do with your company): Most founders think valuation is decided by traction, market size, or the pitch. This piece shows why the real ceiling often comes from a VC’s fund size, check size, and ownership target. It gives founders a simple way to understand which funds can actually lead their round, how to avoid wasting time with structurally wrong investors, and why the option pool can quietly cost more than the pre-money they’re negotiating.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
South Park Commons, a San Francisco, CA-based venture capital firm, closed its newest fund, Fund IV, at $575M. The vehicle is focused on seed and Series A rounds to continue backing the breakout companies it helped create.
White Star Capital, a global multi-stage technology investment firm that backs entrepreneurs building international businesses, closed its Fund IV, at $250M. The new fund will invest in international startups at the Series A and B stages.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
OpenAI launches GPT-5.6-Cyber as AI-driven attacks increase
OpenAI expanded its Daybreak cyber defense service into two tiers, Blue and Red, giving approved organizations access to advanced cybersecurity models and tools.
Blue focuses on defensive tasks such as incident response, malware analysis and patch validation, while Red adds more advanced security testing and vulnerability research capabilities.
The Red tier includes GPT-5.6-Cyber, a cybersecurity-focused model based on GPT-5.6 Sol. Access is currently limited to trusted partners as OpenAI warns that AI-powered cyberattacks could increasingly operate at unprecedented speed and scale.
Mark Zuckerberg’s AI vision highlights why public trust remains a problem
Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word manifesto arguing that “personal superintelligence” could give everyone access to powerful AI tutors, lawyers, coaches and other tools.
The criticism is that Zuckerberg focuses heavily on AI’s benefits while giving little attention to existing problems, such as students using AI to avoid learning, potential abuse of AI-powered legal tools and other unintended consequences.
The broader issue is trust: after years of criticism surrounding social media, many people remain skeptical that tech companies will manage AI responsibly. The article argues that acknowledging risks and explaining safeguards may be essential for rebuilding that trust.
OpenAI completes $7B employee share buyback at $852B valuation
OpenAI reportedly bought back $7 billion worth of employee shares, giving workers liquidity while keeping the company privately held.
The tender offer valued OpenAI at $852 billion, matching the valuation from its $122 billion fundraising round in March.
OpenAI filed confidentially for a potential IPO in June, but the tender offer could signal that a public listing may be further away as the company focuses on improving financial performance and growing its enterprise business.
Meta's new AI runs on a laptop
Meta released Glimmer, a new open-weight AI model built for running AI agents that can work on a single laptop or PC instead of needing large servers, and it’s available now.
Meta Muse Glimmer has 30 billion parameters, tiny next to Moonshot AI’s 2.8-trillion-parameter Kimi K3, and runs on one GPU, so newer MacBooks or computers with recent chips can handle it.
Being open-weight lets researchers and security defenders see how the model works, though its training data stays hidden, and you can read the documentation on Meta’s website and HuggingFace.
Apple tests Chinese chips in iPhones
Apple has been testing memory chips from China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies, known as CXMT, in iPhones and MacBooks, according to a Wall Street Journal report, and has held early talks about using them in devices sold in China.
U.S. rules block American firms from sharing technology with CXMT, so Apple can only buy standard parts, not chips built to its own specs, which could force it to rework hardware or accept weaker performance.
A bipartisan group of senators led by Chuck Schumer asked Apple to rule out Chinese memory entirely, with a response due August 21, while CXMT has already maxed out production and prices its chips level with rivals like Micron and Samsung.
Microsoft could unveil its next-generation Maia 300 AI chip in September
Microsoft is reportedly preparing to unveil its Maia 300 AI chip as early as September as it works to reduce its reliance on Nvidia’s expensive AI processors.
The company is in talks with TSMC to secure manufacturing capacity for more than 300,000 Maia 300 chips in 2027, with a longer-term goal of securing capacity for more than 1 million units.
Microsoft also wants major cloud customers such as Anthropic to adopt Maia 300, putting it in a stronger position against Google and Amazon, which have already expanded the use of their own custom AI chips.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Apple Watch may get biggest redesign yet
Apple is reportedly weighing its biggest Apple Watch overhaul since 2015, with its design team exploring screenless options like fitness bands and smart rings to compete with rivals such as WHOOP and Oura, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
The rethink could add premium models above the Ultra and Hermès versions, plus cheaper concepts beyond the current SE, and Apple is testing devices with no displays, round screens, and various screen sizes and shapes.
Despite the possible shakeup, Apple Watch shipments rose 21% year over year in early 2026, and the Series 12 and Ultra 4, expected at Apple’s September event, will get their first real performance boost in years.
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
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