☕ Microsoft may host China's DeepSeek & Nvidia unveils cooling system that nearly eliminates data center water use.
WhatsApp gets a new chief & China imposes restrictions on US rare earth companies.
Breaking News
Microsoft is considering hosting DeepSeek, the fast-rising Chinese AI model that has already disrupted the AI market with its low-cost approach. If approved, it would give DeepSeek significantly more global distribution while increasing pressure on OpenAI and Anthropic, showing that AI competition is increasingly shifting from model quality to pricing and accessibility.
Meta is investing $900M in Indian fintech startup Cred and appointing founder Kunal Shah to lead WhatsApp, one of Meta’s most important products with billions of users. The move signals Meta’s growing focus on turning WhatsApp into a larger business platform through payments, subscriptions, advertising, and AI-powered services.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
Warren, a Ghent-based workplace pension and financial coaching platform, raised €10M in Seed funding. The round was led by Motive Partners, with participation from F Capital, Entourage, Syndicate One, and 100IN.
SEED
Tugboat Solutions, a Grand Forks-based AI-powered consumer insurance claims analysis platform, raised $3M in Seed funding. The round was led by ResilienceVC, with participation from Sure Ventures, South Dakota First, and Gener8or.
Tringbox, a Mumbai-based environment-aware AI music intelligence platform, raised ₹5 crore ($600K) in Seed funding. The round was led by Nikhil Gandhi (GIPL), with participation from MGB Family Office, Narendra Singh Yadav, and other angel investors.
Orthogonal, a San Francisco-based discovery, orchestration, and payments layer for AI agents, raised $4.3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, Pioneer Fund, Decasonic, Blast, Outbound, and Surreal.
ChemT Biotechnology, a Singapore-based AI-driven biotechnology company building intelligence infrastructure for biomanufacturing, raised $4M in Seed funding. The round was led by Wavemaker Ventures, with participation from SEEDS, Wavemaker 360 Health, Draper University Ventures, and Temasek Life Sciences Accelerator.
Ploy, a San Francisco-based marketing platform, raised $27M in Seed funding. The round was led by First Round Capital and Y Combinator.
Swsh, a New York-based digital fan engagement and photo-sharing platform, raised $4M in Seed funding. The round was led by Game Changers Ventures, with participation from Stellation Capital, SignalFire, MaC Venture Capital, Scooter Braun, and Guy Oseary.
Clair Health, a San Francisco-based wearable hormone monitoring company for women, raised $11.6M in Seed funding. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Brydge Club, Cartan Capital, AGI House, Insiders VC, and Anne Wojcicki.
Renaiss, a Hong Kong-based RWA liquidity infrastructure project, raised $1.5M in funding. The round was led by YZi Labs, with participation from Gate Ventures, Hash Global, XIN Family, Redline Labs, and angel investors from Mask Network, Far East Group, Logoman, Hoopi, and Legit App.
GROWTH
DeepSeek, a Hangzhou-based developer of open-source AI foundation models, raised over $7.4B in its first external funding round at a valuation exceeding $50B. The round was anchored by founder Liang Wenfeng, who personally contributed $3B.
Superlight, a UK-based manufacturer of medium-duty electric commercial trucks, raised $21M in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Engine Ventures and 2150, with participation from Avila Ventures.
American Perpetuals Exchange, a developer of decentralized financial infrastructure and derivative trading systems, raised $30M in funding at a $300M valuation. The round was led by Lux Capital.
Isometric, a London-based industrial certification and compliance platform, raised $40M in Series A funding. The round was led by AXA Venture Partners (AVP), with participation from Plural, Lowercarbon Capital, John Doerr, and Walter Kortschak.
Nearfield Instruments, a Rotterdam-based semiconductor metrology company, raised $380M in Series D funding at a $1.6B valuation. The round was led by Fidelity Management and Research Company, with participation from Temasek, Walden Catalyst Ventures, Innovation Industries, M&G Investments, Invest-NL, Qatar Investment Authority, TNO Ventures, and ING.
fomo, a New York-based trading platform, raised $75M in Series V funding. The round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from Union Square Ventures and Benchmark.
Bionyra Pharma, a Paris- and Boston-based biopharmaceutical company, raised $165M in Series A funding. The round was led by Jeito Capital and Sofinnova Partners, with participation from Arkin Bio, Sanofi Ventures, Sixty Degree Capital, Vives Partners, and Apollo Health Ventures.
Upscale AI, a Santa Clara-based AI networking infrastructure company, raised $190M in Series A-1 financing. The round was led by Premji Invest, with participation from NVIDIA, Salesforce Ventures, Seligman Ventures, Temasek, Maverick Silicon, Mayfield, Prosperity7 Ventures, StepStone Group, and Tiger Global.
SubBase, a Fort Lauderdale-based construction material procurement platform, raised $7M in Series A funding. The round was led by FINTOP, with participation from Fika Ventures.
Nura Bio, a South San Francisco-based neuroprotective therapeutics company, raised $73.8M in Series B funding. The round was led by The Column Group, with participation from Euclidean Capital, Samsara BioCapital, and Sanofi Ventures.
Vedana Therapeutics, a Seattle-based biotechnology company developing migraine therapies, raised $46M in Series A funding. The round was led by Westlake BioPartners and Canaan Partners, with participation from Dawn Biopharma and Alexandria Venture Investments.
Cargofy, a Chicago-based AI-powered freight operations platform, raised $11M in Series A funding. The round was led by u.ventures, Toloka, and Movens Capital, with participation from Des Traynor and angel investors.
H3 Zoom, a Singapore-based AI-powered inspection and asset intelligence company, raised $3.6M in Series A funding. The round was led by JRE Ventures, with participation from SGInnovate, M7 Holdings, Moringa Ventures, and Lotus One Investment.
Syntax Bio, a Chicago-based synthetic biology company, expanded its Series A to $14.4M. Participants included Astellas Venture Management, Illumina Ventures, DCVC Bio, Civilization Ventures, EGB Capital, Portal Innovations, Draper Associates, Allegis Capital, Mayo Clinic, Illinois Ventures, and other investors.
CuspAI, a Cambridge-based AI-powered materials discovery platform, is closing a $400M funding round at a $2.6B valuation. The round was co-led by Bezos Expeditions and Kleiner Perkins.
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Los Angeles, CA-based Mantis VC is raising a fourth fund targeting $100m. Established in 2019, Mantis VC is a partnership that invests $500,000 – $2 million in early-stage startups across cybersecurity, AI, frontier tech, data and cloud infrastructure, and healthtech.
Anti Fund, a San Francisco, CA-based vc firm, closed its Anti Fund Growth I, at $100M. The fund is backed by a global base of limited partners, including Aquarian Holdings, an anchor investor across both Anti Fund Venture I and Growth I through its investment advisory platform, which manages approximately $27.1 billion in AUM
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
OpenAI wants AI to help secure the internet’s open-source software
OpenAI launched “Patch the Planet,” a new initiative with cybersecurity firm Trail of Bits to help open-source maintainers identify, review, and fix security vulnerabilities before they become major threats.
The program will combine human security experts with OpenAI’s coding and security tools, reducing the burden on maintainers who often lack the time and resources to handle growing volumes of bug reports.
As AI makes it easier to discover software vulnerabilities, OpenAI is positioning AI as part of the solution, helping protect critical open-source infrastructure that underpins much of the global software ecosystem.
Nvidia unveils cooling system that nearly eliminates data center water use
Nvidia unveiled a new warm-water cooling system that can eliminate nearly all on-site water consumption inside AI data centers by using a closed-loop cooling process that recirculates water instead of constantly replenishing it.
While the technology could dramatically reduce water used for cooling, experts argue it only addresses part of the problem because large amounts of water are still consumed outside data centers through electricity generation and chip manufacturing.
As long as AI infrastructure continues relying heavily on fossil fuel power plants, which consume billions of gallons of water annually, the industry’s overall water footprint will remain a significant challenge despite improvements in data center efficiency.
SpaceX lands $6.3B compute deal with open-source AI startup Reflection
Open-source AI startup Reflection AI signed a compute agreement worth up to $6.3 billion with SpaceX, gaining access to Nvidia’s latest GB300 chips at the Colossus 2 data center through 2029.
Reflection will pay $150 million per month, making it the latest AI lab after Anthropic and Google to rent SpaceX’s growing AI infrastructure instead of building its own massive compute clusters.
The company says the partnership strengthens its push for open-weight AI models, positioning itself as an alternative to closed AI labs amid growing debate around AI access and government restrictions.
Groq raises $650M after Nvidia hired away its founder and key talent
AI chip startup Groq has raised $650 million, months after Nvidia signed a licensing deal for its technology and hired away founder Jonathan Ross, president Sunny Madra, and several other key employees.
With Nvidia now controlling the core LPU chip technology, Groq is shifting its focus toward its AI cloud business, which operates 13 data centers globally and serves millions of developers and AI companies.
The company is rebuilding leadership, hiring executives from xAI, Meta, Microsoft, and EY-backed startups, betting that demand for AI inference infrastructure remains strong enough to fuel its next phase of growth.
Meta pauses employee-tracking program after internal data exposure concerns
Meta has paused its internal mouse-tracking and activity-monitoring program, which was being used to collect employee interactions for AI training, while investigating potential data security issues.
An internal security report revealed that sensitive information — including private conversations, performance data, tax details, and medical information — may have been accessible to employees across the company.
The controversy adds to growing employee backlash against Meta’s AI-driven workplace transformation, which has already included layoffs, workforce restructuring, and increased monitoring tools.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
China imposes restrictions on US rare earth companies
China placed 10 U.S. industrial suppliers on its export control list and barred 46 American firms, mostly defense contractors, from government procurement, retaliating against the Pentagon adding Chinese companies to its 1260H military blacklist.
The export control list targets rare earth miners MP Materials and USA Rare Earth, drone makers Teal Drones and Jaia Robotics, plus Oshkosh Defense and Ball Aerospace, blocking exports of any dual-use items originating in China to them.
Analysts called the countermeasures largely symbolic since most targeted firms have little business in China, while the Pentagon’s 1260H list bars the Defense Department from awarding direct contracts to listed companies starting June 30.
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