☕ Meta's new AI turns your thoughts into text & China debuts biggest AI model trained on local chips.
Amazon launches $1B AI deployment engineering team & Internet pioneer Vint Cerf retires after two decades at Google.
Breaking News
Meta unveiled Brain2Qwerty v2, a non-invasive AI system that converts brain activity into text with 61% word accuracy—far surpassing previous methods. The breakthrough could eventually help people with brain injuries or paralysis communicate without speaking or typing.
China’s Meituan introduced LongCat-2.0, a 1.6-trillion-parameter AI model it says was trained entirely on domestically developed chips. The launch marks a major step toward China's AI self-sufficiency, reducing reliance on Nvidia and other U.S. technologies despite export restrictions.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
SuperPlane, a San Francisco, CA- and Serbian-founded developer of an open-source automation engine and AI-first engineering control plane, raised $2.6M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Credo Ventures, with participation from First Momentum Ventures and strategic infrastructure angel investors.
SEED
Taxwire, a New York City-based AI-powered sales tax automation platform, raised $25M in combined Seed and Series A funding. The Seed round included backing from Headline Ventures, XYZ VC, Vinyl, Recall Capital, and Nomo Ventures.
Arcturus, a Los Angeles, CA-based developer of carbon-infused advanced conductor materials, raised $8M in Seed funding. The round was led by Initialized Capital, with participation from 1517, Breakthrough Energy Discovery, Toyota Ventures, and Wireframe Ventures.
Build, a San Francisco, CA-based AI-native real estate development platform, raised $8.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from Pebblebed, Puzzle Ventures, Tiny.vc, and technology executives including Sarah Friar and John Stecher.
Baz Technologies, a San Francisco, CA-based autonomous codebase management platform, raised $9M in Seed funding. The round was co-led by Battery Ventures and boldstart ventures, with participation from AFG Partners and Disruptive VC.
GROWTH
Pie, a NYC-based AI-powered growth platform for small businesses, raised $19.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Capital One Ventures, SciFi VC, F-Prime, Commerce Ventures, WEX Venture Capital, and existing investors.
BR-DGE, an Edinburgh, Scotland-based payment orchestration and transaction intelligence platform, raised £10M in funding. The round was led by Bettor Capital, with continued participation from existing institutional investors.
Jota, a São Paulo, Brazil-based AI-powered conversational banking platform, raised $30M in Series A funding at a $185M post-money valuation. The round was led by Haun Ventures, with participation from HOF Capital, Alter Global, and Greyhound Capital.
1001, a GCC- and London-based sovereign AI operating systems company, raised $30M in Series A funding. The round was led by Lux Capital, with participation from Sanabil Investments, Hanabi, 9Yards, General Catalyst, CIV, and Chris Ré.
Higharc, a Durham, NC-based generative AI platform for homebuilding, raised $95M in Series C funding. The round was led by Insight Partners, with participation from Wellington Management, Fifth Wall, Spark Capital, Lux Capital, and SE Ventures.
Digitt, a Guadalajara, Mexico-based consumer lending platform, secured a $50M financing facility from Victory Park Capital.
Dominion Dynamics, an Ottawa, Canada-based defense systems company, raised C$139M (approximately US$100M) in Series A funding. The round was led by Georgian, with participation from Valor Equity Partners, Expeditions, Lakestar, OMERS, BDC, RBC, Deloitte Ventures, JDY Capital, BCI, Bessemer Venture Partners, Garage Capital, Golden Ventures, and Silent Ventures.
Qashier, a Singapore-based merchant operating system provider, raised US$6.125M in Series A+ funding. The round was led by Cocoon Capital, IFP Securities, and BlackSoil Global, with participation from strategic angel investors.
Stathera, a Montreal, Canada-based semiconductor company, raised US$55M in Series B funding. The round was led by Maverick Silicon, with participation from Celesta Capital, BDC Capital, MediaTek Innovation Fund, TXC Corporation, and Ultratech Capital Partners.
Omen AI, a San Francisco, CA-based continuous fluid analysis company, raised $31M in Series A funding. The round was led by Nava Ventures, with participation from CRV, Sheryl Sandberg, Mike Mattacola, Vanderbilt University, Mann+Hummel, Starhill Holdings, Hard Launch Capital, and executives from Bridgestone, GM, Johnson Controls, and TensorWave.
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)
Guy Kawasaki’s test for aspiring VCs - Most people want to get into venture capital because it looks glamorous from the outside. Guy Kawasaki’s VCAT flips the question and asks whether you’ve actually built, sold, failed, invested, or operated enough to be useful to founders. (Read Here)
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Vicus Ventures, a New York and San Francisco-based early-stage venture firm founded by brothers Raj Singh Sandhu and Sunny Singh Sandhu, closed its debut $55 million fund. The firm focuses on a “network-as-a-service” model, helping founders access customers, operators, and strategic connections beyond capital. Its LPs include General Catalyst, Kleiner Perkins, Jeff Wilke, Mike Novogratz, David Blitzer, Tom Hale, and Zak Brown.
General Atlantic, a global private equity firm, appointed tennis legend Novak Djokovic as a global strategic advisor, where he will work with the firm’s leadership, portfolio companies, and investors. The firm is expanding its investments in health, wellness, and sports, and plans to leverage Djokovic’s network and industry expertise.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
Amazon launches $1B AI deployment engineering team
AWS has launched a new $1 billion Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) organization, embedding AI engineers inside customer companies to build custom AI agents and help teams deploy them independently.
The move follows similar initiatives from OpenAI and Anthropic, reflecting growing demand for hands-on AI implementation rather than just access to foundation models.
Inspired by Palantir’s FDE model, Amazon’s new team aims to accelerate enterprise AI adoption by combining technical deployment with long-term knowledge transfer to customers.
Internet pioneer Vint Cerf retires after two decades at Google
Vint Cerf, widely known as the “Father of the Internet” and co-creator of the TCP/IP protocols, is retiring from Google after serving as its Chief Internet Evangelist for more than 20 years.
Reflecting on AI’s future, Cerf argued that autonomous AI agents will require standardized communication protocols rather than relying on natural language to ensure reliable coordination.
His retirement marks the end of one of technology’s most influential careers, spanning the creation of the modern internet to shaping its evolution inside Google.
US lifts export restrictions on Anthropic’s AI models
The Trump administration has removed export restrictions on Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable models, allowing the company to restore global access starting July 1 after weeks of negotiations.
In return, Anthropic agreed to work closely with the US government on AI safety standards, proactively address security risks, and report malicious use of its frontier models.
The policy reversal comes as Chinese and Japanese AI companies unveiled competing frontier models, increasing pressure on the US to keep its leading AI technologies globally competitive.
Google launches Nano Banana 2 Lite for faster, low-cost AI images
Google has introduced Nano Banana 2 Lite, a new AI image generation model that creates images in about four seconds and costs just $0.034 per 1,000 images, making it ideal for high-volume creative workflows.
The model is designed for rapid iteration and large-scale content creation, while Google continues offering Nano Banana Pro for more advanced image generation tasks.
Google also expanded access to Gemini Omni Flash for AI video generation and unveiled Omni Product Studio, a tool that turns AI-generated images into cinematic e-commerce videos.
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.
Microsoft to cut under 2.5% of workforce in latest layoffs
Microsoft is reportedly preparing to cut fewer than 2.5% of its workforce, with layoffs expected to affect thousands of employees across sales, consulting, and Xbox as the company continues restructuring around AI.
The move follows broader cost-cutting across the tech industry, where companies are reducing headcount while increasing investment in AI infrastructure and data centers.
The reported cuts come less than a year after Microsoft laid off nearly 4% of its workforce, as it continues to reshape its business priorities and gaming division.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
UK may force Apple to allow Apple Pay rivals
Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority has proposed forcing Apple to let third-party rivals to the Apple Wallet app handle contactless payments, opening the door to competitors to Apple Pay on iPhones.
Such payments require access to the NFC chip built into modern iPhones, which Apple currently blocks banks and other financial institutions from using, and the CMA wants to change that restriction.
Apple opposes the proposal, and the article argues the case is weak because Apple’s fees are very small and users are unlikely to abandon having all their contactless payment options inside one app.
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
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