☕ Microsoft adds Anthropic’s AI to Copilot, Google launches an AI-powered mood board app & Instagram hits 3B monthly active users.
Y Combinator launches ‘Early Decision’ for students who want to graduate first, build later.
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📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks: Sales playbook, usage-based pricing, startup compensation, financial model template, pitch deck guide, 40 real decks, Bezos’ decision framework, 60-sec pitch formula.
Y Combinator launches ‘Early Decision’ for students who want to graduate first, build later.
Billionaire VC Mike Moritz slams new H-1B visa fee as ‘brutish extortion scheme.
Microsoft adds Anthropic’s AI to Copilot.
Google launches an AI-powered mood board app.
Meta creates super PAC to fight AI rules.
Tokio Marine partners with OpenAI to build AI agents.
Microsoft is building an AI marketplace for publishers.
Trump to sign TikTok executive order on Thursday.
OpenAI expands Stargate, explores debt to finance chips.
Instagram hits 3B monthly active users.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
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🗞️ What else is brewing
The Sales Playbook For Founders | Startup School. (Link)
Getting Started with Usage-Based Pricing. (Link)
Alejandro Cremades on startup compensation. (Link)
Excel template: Early-stage startup financial model for fundraising. (Link)
All-In-One guide to pitch deck storytelling - free template & curated resources. (Link)
40 real startup pitch decks that raised $350M+ (Including leading startups decks) (Link)
Jeff Bezos’ decision-making framework for founders. (Link)
The 60-second pitch formula that gets investors to say “Yes”. (Link)
Elad Gil’s list of biotech companies he wishes existed is well worth a read. (Link)
What is the Price of Demand? (Link)
Why LLMs can’t really build software. (Link)
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
WeTravel, a San Francisco, CA-based operating system for multi-day travel businesses, raised $92M in Series C funding. The round was led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from Left Lane Capital, Base10, Cross Creek and other angel investors.
Synthesized, London, UK-based agentic AI-native test infrastructure and test data company for enterprises, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by Redalpine, with participation from IQ Capital, Mercia Ventures, UBS and Seedcamp. Deutsche Bank, who invested previously into the company, has deepened its strategic relationship with Synthesized after deploying the platform.
Bastion, a NYC-based stablecoin infrastructure provider, raised $40M in total funding to date. The round was led by Coinbase Ventures, with participation from Sony Innovation Fund, a16z crypto, Samsung Next and Hashed.
Sparrow Pharmaceuticals, a Portland, OR-based cardiometabolic therapeutics company, raised $95M Series B financing. The round was co-led by RA Capital Management and Forbion with participation from existing investors including OrbiMed, RiverVest, and US Venture Partners.
Stablecorp, a Toronto, Canada-based financial technology company building bank-grade digital asset infrastructure, raised ~$5M CAD in a strategic financing. The round was led by FTP Ventures.
AmplifyMD, a Los Gatos, CA-based provider of a integrated virtual care solution, raised $20M in Series B funding. The round was led by Forerunner Ventures with participation from F-Prime, Greylock, Tau Ventures, and strategic partner Memorial Hermann Health System.
Belfort, a San Francisco, CA-based KU Leuven spin-off company which specializes in encrypted compute, raised $6M in Seed funding. The round was led by Vsquared Ventures, with participation from Anagram, Protocol VC, Inovia Capital, Syndicate One, Prototype, Credibly Neutral, and angel investors including Jeff Dean (Google’s Chief Scientist) and Naval Ravikant.
BizzyCar, a St.Peters, MO-based provider of AI-powered recall management solutions for dealerships, raised $20M in funding. The round was led by Dealer Tire, with participation from new investor FM Capital.
Signal AI, a London, UK-based global risk and reputation intelligence platform provider, received a $165M investment. The round was led by Battery Ventures.
Distyl AI, a San Francisco, CA-based startup helping leaders worldwide build AI-native enterprises, raised $175M in funding, at $1.8 Billion valuation. Backers included Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, DST Global, Coatue, and Dell Technologies Capital.
Lifeguard, an Austin, TX-based AI-powered security guard enabling digital life private and secure, raised $1.3M in Seed funding. The round was led by ScOP Venture Capital.
FYR, a Missoula, MT-based biotechnology company leveraging extracellular vesicles (EVs), raised $8M in funding. Backers included Sontag Innovation Fund, Yuvaan Tiwari Foundation and Two Bear Capital.
Sonomind, a Paris, France-based company developing a medical device for non-invasive, personalized ultrasound-based brain stimulation, raised €3M in funding. The round consisted of a €2M ($2.35M) in seed capital from Critical Path Ventures.
Mimica, a London, UK-based process intelligence company, raised $26.2M in Series B funding. The round was led by Paladin Capital Group, with participation from Khosla Ventures, LGVP, and Entrepreneurs First.
Oriane, a Dover, CO-based AI video search engine company, raised $1.5M in funding. The round was led by Clint Capital (FR), followed by Hartmann Capital (US), Secways (ES), Archipelago Next (IC), and strategic angels from Google, PayPal, Sony, and Jellysmack.
Duel, a NYC-based provider of a brand advocacy platform, raised $16M in Series A funding. The round was led by Molten Ventures and Bright Pixel, alongside existing investor Peter Bauer, founder of Mimecast.
PredictAP, a Boston, MA-based company which specializes in AI-driven accounts payable (AP) automation solutions for the real estate industry, raises additional $5M in funding. The round was led by RET Ventures, with participation from Wise Ventures.
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
Y Combinator launches ‘Early Decision’ for students who want to graduate first, build later:
YC introduced a new track called Early Decision, letting students apply and get funded while in school but defer participation until after graduation.
The move marks a cultural shift from Silicon Valley’s dropout-hero myth, offering a middle ground between finishing college and pursuing startups.
YC cites Spur’s co-founders, who joined through Early Decision and later raised $4.5M, as proof the model can work for student founders.
Billionaire VC Mike Moritz slams new H-1B visa fee as ‘brutish extortion scheme’
The Trump administration imposed a $100,000 annual levy on H-1B visas, sparking outrage from veteran VC Michael Moritz, who likened it to a mob-style shakedown.
Moritz argues the policy misunderstands why companies hire foreign talent, warning it will push tech jobs abroad to places like Istanbul, Warsaw, or Bangalore.
He urges expanding H-1B access or granting citizenship to STEM PhD grads, citing leaders like Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai as proof of its long-term benefits.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
Microsoft adds Open AI’s rival Anthropic’s AI to Copilot:
Microsoft will integrate Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.1 and Claude Sonnet 4 into its Copilot assistant, giving business users model options beyond OpenAI.
The move follows a recent deal to bring Anthropic’s AI into Office 365 apps like Word, Excel, and Outlook, signaling Microsoft’s shift away from exclusivity with OpenAI.
Opus 4.1 targets complex reasoning and coding, while Sonnet 4 is built for routine dev tasks, data processing, and content generation.
Google launches an AI-powered mood board app:
Google launched Mixboard, a new app that creates AI-powered mood boards from text prompts, so you don’t need a collection of pictures to start your creative project.
The service incorporates Google’s new Nano Banana image editing model, letting you generate visuals, ask the AI for edits, combine images, and make other small changes to your board.
Mixboard lets you regenerate the pictures for more ideas, find similar options by asking for “more like this,” and can even have the AI generate text for your creations..
Meta creates super PAC to fight AI rules:
Meta is launching a national super PAC called the American Technology Excellence Project, investing tens of millions of dollars to fight what the company calls “onerous” AI regulation in states.
The group, run by a Republican operative and a Democratic consulting firm, will support the election of pro-AI state candidates from both parties to defend U.S. technology leadership.
This action responds to over 1,000 state-level policy proposals introduced this year, which Meta believes could damage America’s standing in the AI race with China.
Tokio Marine partners with OpenAI to build AI agents
Japanese insurer Tokio Marine will collaborate with OpenAI to develop AI agents capable of advanced data analysis for customer service and product planning.
A Tokio Marine unit plans to use OpenAI’s deep research tools to design sales strategies for branch offices across Japan.
Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed, but the move signals Japan’s insurance industry leaning on AI for efficiency and growth.
Microsoft is building an AI marketplace for publishers:
Microsoft is developing a pilot program called the Publisher Content Marketplace, a system designed to pay publishers when their content gets used by AI products like its Copilot assistant.
This platform is intended to handle ongoing transactions, which differs from competitors like OpenAI that have primarily focused on securing one-off content licensing deals with individual media companies.
The initiative arrives as Microsoft faces a major copyright lawsuit from The New York Times, which claims millions of its articles were used without permission to train generative AI models.
Trump to sign TikTok executive order on Thursday:
President Trump will sign an order approving the White House’s deal to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations from ByteDance, satisfying requirements of a 2024 law.
TikTok, with 170M U.S. users, has been credited by Trump for aiding his re-election; he himself has 15M followers on the app.
The order is expected to grant another extension to finalize the divestiture, bringing in U.S. investors to meet legal ownership requirements.
OpenAI expands Stargate, explores debt to finance chips:
OpenAI has widened its $500B Stargate AI infrastructure plan, now covering nearly all chip and data center projects, with close to 7 GW of compute capacity secured — about 70% of its goal.
The company plans to use debt financing, backed by Nvidia’s new $100B commitment, to lease chips rather than buy them outright, aiming to save 10–15% in costs.
Microsoft is excluded from Stargate projects as OpenAI works with Oracle, SoftBank, and others to accelerate its U.S. data center buildout, including a flagship 1,100-acre site in Abilene, Texas.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other news
Instagram hits 3B monthly active users:
Mark Zuckerberg announced Instagram has reached 3 billion monthly active users, up from 2B last disclosed in 2022.
Instagram now contributes over half of Meta’s U.S. ad revenue, powered by features like Reels competing directly with TikTok and YouTube Shorts.
The app, bought by Meta in 2012 for $1B, has become one of the world’s most dominant social platforms.
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
💼 Today’s VC & startup job opportunities
All-In-One VC Interview Preparation Guide: With a leading investors group, we have created an all-in-one VC interview preparation guide for aspiring VCs. Don’t miss this. (Access Here)
Investor - AI Tools - Samsung next | USA - Apply Here
Associate - Venture Capital - Artha Venture Fund | India - Apply Here
Executive Assistant - AN Venture Partner | USA - Apply Here
Investor Relations Manager - Beco Capital | UK - Apply Here
Senior Associate - Strike Capital | USA - Apply Here
Investment Associate - Beco Capital | UAE - Apply Here
Head of Platform - Pledge Venture | UK - Apply Here
General Partner Gaikka Capital | Singapore - Apply Here
Partner 22 - a16z | USA - Apply Here
ESG Intern - ESG Enterprise | UK - Apply Her
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