The market is getting much less forgiving.
Miro is selling for nearly 90% below its peak valuation despite $600M in ARR. OpenAI is pushing its IPO plans out. Anthropic is proposing ways to slow frontier AI development, while mathematicians are openly challenging how AI labs claim scientific breakthroughs.
At the same time, Nvidia could put up to $10B into Anthropic’s potential mega IPO, showing just how much capital is still willing to chase the very top of the market.
Here’s what matters today:
Bending Spoons is buying Miro for $1.36B, nearly 90% below its peak valuation.
OpenAI says it will not go public in 2026.
Anthropic is proposing a framework to slow frontier AI development.
25 Fields Medalists are warning AI labs about how they claim research breakthroughs.
Nvidia could invest up to $10B in Anthropic’s potential mega IPO.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
At least $430.5M disclosed across today’s startup rounds
The three biggest rounds:
Ayar Labs: $150M
TAR: $120M Series A
Vheda Health: $47M
Together, those three companies accounted for nearly 74% of today’s disclosed funding.
PRE-SEED
Botsi: New York-based personalized monetization platform for consumer subscription apps raised $1.5M from Telegraph Ventures, Plain Sight Capital, Atlanta Tech Angels, VentureSouth, and angel investors.
SEED
Enigmata: Nashville-based cryptographic technology platform raised $6.5M led by Blockchange Ventures.
Kavia AI: San Francisco-based enterprise software engineering platform for complex codebases closed an undisclosed seed round.
GROWTH
Ayar Labs: San Jose-based co-packaged optics company raised $150M in additional funding from Wiwynn, Alchip, AMD, Intel, MediaTek, and NVIDIA.
TAR: Austin-based developer of off-grid power systems for AI data centers raised $120M Series A at a $1B valuation. The round was led by Spark Capital, with participation from Buckley Ventures, Align Fund, and others.
Vheda Health: Columbia-based health outcomes and analytics platform received a $47M investment from Agora.
Antioch: New York-based simulation platform for physical AI raised $32M Series A led by Greylock, with participation from A*, Category Ventures, BoxGroup, Icehouse Ventures, Shyam Sankar, Adrian Macneil, and Ian Andrews.
Cymphony: New York-based AI governance and security platform raised $30M co-led by Sequoia Capital and SMBC Fin Atlas Beyond Fund.
GenHealth.ai: Boston-based healthcare AI platform building agents for medical back-office operations raised $16.5M Series A led by Flare Capital Partners, with participation from Craft Ventures, Obvious Ventures, Eniac Ventures, InHealth Ventures, Epsilon Health Investors, and ARTIS.
Piston: Cupertino-based cardless payments platform connecting commercial fleets and gas stations raised $15M Series A led by FPV Ventures, with participation from Spark Capital and Pear VC.
Buildcheck AI: San Francisco-based AI-powered construction design review platform raised $12M Series A led by Telescope Partners, with participation from WND Ventures, Uncork Capital, Salt VC, and Xfund.
Verily Health: Dallas-based data and AI platform for precision health received an undisclosed investment from NVIDIA, with participation from existing investor CU Healthcare Innovation Fund II. Other backers include Alphabet, Series X Capital, UCHealth, and others.
Fullscript: Ottawa-based healthcare platform for practitioners delivering whole-person care received an undisclosed investment from L Catterton and Altas Partners.
📍 Funding Signal
The largest checks are clustering around the infrastructure needed to make AI useful in the real world.
Ayar Labs and TAR alone raised $270M for optical connectivity and off-grid data center power, while Antioch is building simulation infrastructure for physical AI. Rather than another wave of application startups, much of today’s capital is going toward solving the compute, energy, and simulation bottlenecks created by AI deployment.
Healthcare is the other notable cluster. Vheda Health, GenHealth.ai, Verily, and Fullscript show investors continuing to back platforms that combine software, data, and clinical workflows, suggesting vertical markets with complex operations remain attractive places to build defensible technology businesses.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Volition closes $950M fund as Khosla expands its platform into New York.
Volition Capital closed Fund VI at $950M, bringing the Boston-based growth equity firm’s total assets under management to more than $2.6B.
The firm will continue backing founder-owned, capital-efficient B2B software, internet, and consumer companies that have already demonstrated strong customer demand and meaningful growth without relying heavily on institutional capital.
Khosla Ventures is opening its first office outside Sand Hill Road, with a new New York City location planned for this fall. The office will house several investors, including Keith Rabois, and include an executive briefing center where portfolio companies can meet Fortune 500 companies for pilots and customer opportunities.
📍 Capital signal
Venture firms are increasingly competing on more than capital. Volition is leaning into companies that can prove efficient growth before taking large checks, while Khosla is investing directly in distribution and customer access for its portfolio. The emerging advantage for funds is becoming operational support that can translate into revenue, not just fundraising.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
Bending Spoons buys Miro for $1.36B, nearly 90% below its peak valuation
Bending Spoons is acquiring Miro for $1.36B in cash, compared with the collaboration software company’s $17.5B valuation in 2021.
Miro still has more than 100M users, over 4M paying customers, about $600M in ARR, and is profitable, making the valuation drop especially striking.
The deal follows Bending Spoons’ $1.28B purchase of Airtable, another former high-flying SaaS company that was once valued above $11B.
Why it matters: Bending Spoons is becoming a major buyer of mature SaaS assets at heavily compressed multiples. The bigger signal is that strong recurring revenue and brand recognition no longer guarantee anything close to 2021-era valuations.
Sam Altman says OpenAI will not go public in 2026
Sam Altman said going public this year would be “ill-advised,” citing the current safety environment around advanced AI systems.
OpenAI had already filed confidentially for an IPO and had reportedly been targeting late 2026, but the company is now leaning toward 2027.
Altman said OpenAI will go public only when the business, the company, and the broader social environment around AI are ready.
Why it matters: OpenAI’s IPO would be one of the biggest technology listings in years. Pushing it back shows that safety scrutiny, market volatility, and the company’s own financial challenges are becoming as important as growth when deciding when to enter public markets.
Anthropic proposes a framework to slow frontier AI development
Dario Amodei says Anthropic will begin embedding independent evaluators inside the company, giving them broad access to safety testing, incidents, and internal risk assessment work.
He is also calling for leading AI labs to coordinate common safety standards and limits on unchecked capability growth, with government support to avoid antitrust issues.
Amodei’s third proposal is broader international coordination, including possible agreements with China on narrowly defined dangerous uses such as biological weapons.
Why it matters: The debate is shifting from whether AI labs should slow down to how that slowdown could actually work. If Anthropic and OpenAI follow through, independent oversight and coordinated pacing could become part of the operating model for frontier AI labs.
25 Fields Medalists warn AI labs are threatening mathematical research
Twenty-five Fields Medal winners signed an open letter warning that AI labs are rushing to claim major mathematical breakthroughs without enough time for verification, attribution, or integration into the research community.
The letter follows accusations that OpenAI pressured an NYU mathematician over credit related to its Navier-Stokes work, while researchers have also questioned whether their use of tools like Codex could contribute to future model training.
Mathematicians warn that if AI labs can spend massive compute budgets to race ahead of researchers, it could push academics toward greater secrecy and weaken open scientific collaboration.
Why it matters: This is becoming a test of how AI-generated discoveries should be credited, verified, and shared. The same tension could soon affect other scientific and creative fields as AI systems become capable of contributing directly to original research.
NASA and IBM launch an AI foundation model for the Moon
NASA and IBM released the Lunar Foundation Model, an open-source AI system trained on decades of lunar observations to help scientists analyze the Moon.
The model can identify craters, volcanic formations, and possible ice deposits, and reportedly outperforms widely used methods by up to 23%.
They also released a large open lunar dataset combining tens of thousands of maps and images from nine instruments across four missions.
Why it matters: This shows foundation models moving beyond text and enterprise software into scientific discovery. For NASA, better lunar mapping could improve how researchers identify resources, terrain, and landing opportunities for future Artemis missions.
Anthropic says state-linked groups used Claude to help build weapons
Anthropic says Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and Yemen-linked actors used Claude for military tasks ranging from drone swarm software to anti-torpedo system design and targeting research.
A Russian-linked group reportedly used Claude across nine accounts to develop software that could identify targets and coordinate drone strikes, with testing on real hardware near Donetsk.
A China-based actor used Claude to draft a 200-page anti-torpedo proposal, while an Iran-linked group gathered targeting information on U.S. military personnel from public sources.
Why it matters: This is a concrete example of advanced AI moving from general assistance into weapons development and military planning. It will likely intensify pressure on AI labs to strengthen monitoring, access controls, and safeguards around dual-use capabilities.
Nvidia could invest up to $10B in Anthropic’s mega IPO
Anthropic is reportedly seeking to raise as much as $100B at a valuation of around $2T, with Nvidia considering an investment of up to $10B as an anchor investor.
The deal would deepen ties between Anthropic and one of its biggest compute suppliers, while giving the IPO a powerful early backer.
Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate reportedly exceeded $65B by the end of July, up from about $9B at the end of 2025.
Why it matters: A $2T Anthropic listing would reset expectations for how public markets value frontier AI labs. Nvidia’s involvement would also highlight how tightly AI model companies and chip suppliers are becoming financially intertwined.
LAST COFFEE SIP
🌎 Around The Ecosystem
Meta: Is asking some employees in its 7,000-person Applied AI group to move back into management roles, partially reversing the manager-light structure that followed Mark Zuckerberg’s 2023 “Year of Efficiency.”
Moonshot AI: One of China’s most prominent AI labs is targeting $2B in annualized revenue by year-end, roughly double its August run rate, as demand for its open-weight K3 model remains strong despite recent controversy over Anthropic’s allegations of large-scale model distillation.
Meta: Accidentally revealed Project Phoenix, a lightweight mixed reality headset with a glasses-like design, hand tracking, and a separate compute puck, ahead of its expected unveiling at Meta Connect later this month.
MUST READ
📚 Worth Your Time
Is AI-native hurting your valuation? The AI-native label can still help, but it no longer guarantees a premium. This piece shows how investors now judge AI startups on technical differentiation, proprietary data, workflow lock-in, and real unit economics.
The YC seed deck structure. Most founders build decks from random templates. This piece breaks down the repeatable structure used by YC startups that raised $450M+. It also covers the simple design rules that make a deck clear, readable, and easy for investors to understand quickly.
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
💼 Today’s VC & Startup Job Opportunities
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📍 Tips to Break Into VC
How VC firms grade candidates.
A practical breakdown of what happens after a VC interview. The piece explains the scorecard firms use, why “good” answers often aren’t enough, and how candidates can create the one clear spike that makes someone champion them.
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