☕ OpenAI adds skills framework to ChatGPT and Codex CLI & Google Translate now lets you hear real-time translations in your headphones.
Altman’s World project launches its ‘super app’ & 1X to deploy 10,000 humanoid robots in factories.
Sudan has more pyramids than any other country.
Yes, more than Egypt.
History flexed, and everyone picked the wrong postcard.
📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks: Startup legal docs, AI categories VCs overpay for, unicorns staying private longer, China AI pullback, 2700+ US investor database, viral mega prompt, lonely founder leadership.
Factorial Capital a NYC-based VC firm raised $25M fund.
OpenAI adds skills framework to ChatGPT and Codex CLI.
1X to deploy 10,000 humanoid robots in factories.
Altman’s World project launches its ‘super app’.
Runway unveils first “General World Model”.
Oracle reportedly delays OpenAI data centers to 2028.
Google Translate now lets you hear real-time translations in your headphones.
Trump’s AI executive order promises one rulebook, startups may get legal limbo instead.
With iOS 26.2, Apple lets you roll back Liquid Glass again, this time on the Lock Screen.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
FROM OUR PARTNER - SEMRUSH
🤝 See what drives your competitors’ growth — before they do
Every winning strategy starts with the right data. With Semrush’s Traffic & Market Toolkit, you can uncover exactly where your competitors’ traffic comes from — search, social, or even AI referrals.
Track their top pages, monitor emerging trends, and find the untapped channels fueling their growth. Whether you’re a marketer, agency, or enterprise, you’ll get daily and weekly insights to outpace rivals and lead your market with confidence. Trusted by 10M+ marketers worldwide.
Try the Traffic & Market Toolkit free →
PARTNERSHIP WITH US
💪 Get your startup in front of over 103,000+ audience.
Our newsletter is read by thousands of tech professionals, founders, investors (VCs / Angel Investors) and managers around the world. Get in touch today.
DAILY PICKS
🗞️ What else is brewing
Startup legal document pack – essential legal Docs for founders. (Link)
The AI categories VCs are overpaying for right now. (Link)
Why unicorns are staying private for much longer. (Link)
VCs pull back from China AI investment - why? (Link)
2700+ US angel investors & VC firms contact database (Email + LinkedIn Link). (Link)
This mega prompt will make you viral on social media. (Link)
Why does startup leadership feel so lonely? (Link)
The only question that predicts startup success. (Link)
Big Ideas 2026 by a16z. (Link)
Debunking the hype of innovation and continuous growth. (Link)
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
SafeinHome, a US based company which specializes in remote supports for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD), raised $25M in Series D funding. The round was led by SEMCAP Health with participation from existing investors. The raise brought the total amount to $67M.
Sun King, a Nairobi, Kenya-based solar energy company, raised $40M in Equity funding. Lightrock made the investment.
Gracia AI, a London, UK-based company building a production-ready infrastructure for 4D Gaussian Splatting (4DGS), raised $1.7M in funding. Backers included EWOR.
Valinor, a San Francisco, CA-based AI company leveraging machine learning models to increase the probability of clinical trial success, raised $13M in Seed funding. The round was led by CRV, Harpoon Ventures, Amino Collective, and Pelion Venture Partners. Other participants included numerous leading angel investors and operators such as Charlie Songhurst, Surya Midha (co-founder of Mercor), Axel Ericsson, and Kyle Harrison.
Serval, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a AI-native IT service management (ITSM) platform, raised $75m in Series B funding, achieving a $1 billion valuation. The round, which brings Serval’s total funding to $127 million was led by Sequoia, with participation from Redpoint, Meritech, First Round, General Catalyst, Evantic, and others.
On Me, a San Francisco, CA–based personalized digital gifting platform provider, raised $6m in seed funding. The round was led by NFX with participation from pre-seed investors Lerer Hippeau and focal.
Keeper Keeper, a NYC-based AI matchmaker service company, raised $4M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Lightbank and Lakehouse Ventures, with participation from Champion Hill Ventures, Goodwater Capital, and others.
Cyphlens, a NYC-based visual encryption company, raised $3.8M in Seed funding. Backers included Salesforce Ventures, Motivate Ventures, DCG, ex/ante, and Cambrian Ventures.
Medra, a San Francisco, CA-based company developing a platform for physical AI scientists, raised $52M in Series A funding. The round was led by Human Capital, with participation from existing investors Lux Capital, Neo, and NFDG, alongside new investors Catalio Capital Management, Menlo Ventures, 776, Fusion Fund, and others.
On Me, a San Francisco, CA–based personalized digital gifting platform provider, raised $6m in seed funding. The round was led by NFX with participation from pre-seed investors Lerer Hippeau and focal. NFX general partner Pete Flint is also joining the On Me board.
FROM OUR PARTNER - VENTURE CREW
🤝 We Write, Design And Model Your Pitch Deck Into Storytelling Book
Decks get you meetings. Without meetings, you have no shot at getting funded. Investor meetings get you funded.
But most founders fail to impress investors through their pitch deck. Many make mistakes by adding the wrong content and including too many slides. Investors don’t like that.
If you’re feeling confused while building a pitch deck, we can help.
We’ve created an internal team of experts, designers, and investors to build and review your pitch deck.
Schedule a call with us today →
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
Factorial Capital, a NYC-based early-stage venture capital firm focused on AI, closed its Fund II, at $25m. The fund will continue Factorial’s thesis of backing technical founders who code, investing at the angel, pre-seed and seed stages in companies building at the frontier of newly possible technology. The firm invests in founders who code at the intersection of AI infrastructure, B2B productivity, consumer AI and emerging technology categories.
Brainworks Ventures, a San Francisco, CA-based AI-native venture capital firm, launched a $50m fund specifically designed for what they call “the new mathematics of AI-native companies.” The fund is targeting a first close of $15m by Q1 2026, with a target fund size of $50m, scalable to $75m. Led by Managing Partner Dr. Phillip Alvelda, Brainworks Ventures will leverage the funds to focus on AI applications, infrastructure, and tooling, healthcare and life sciences, enterprise productivity, and education. Investment sizes range from $250k to $10m.
ALM Ventures, a Mountain View, CA-based venture capital firm, launched ALM Ventures Fund I, a $100m early-stage fund dedicated to humanoid robots, embodied AI, and spatial intelligence. The fund, which invests at the seed and pre-seed stages, targets the foundations of scalable humanoid deployment, spanning next-generation platforms, intelligent motion systems, spatial reasoning, embodied intelligence, world-modeling approaches, and the supporting infrastructure required for early commercial rollout.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
OpenAI adds skills framework to ChatGPT and Codex CLI
OpenAI is apparently adding a new skills framework to both ChatGPT and the Codex CLI, closely mirroring a modular system that competitor Anthropic introduced for its assistants back in October.
User Elias Judin discovered directories named “pdfs” and “spreadsheets” holding “skill.md” files while testing a “5.2 pro” model, suggesting the company is organizing AI tools into app-like modules for specific tasks.
The design lets a prompt call instructions for processing a complex subtask, meaning you can easily adapt the software by simply creating a single folder and a script.
1X to deploy 10,000 humanoid robots in factories
Robotics startup 1X says it will ship up to 10,000 of its Neo humanoid robots to manufacturing and logistics sites owned by its investor EQT between 2026 and 2030.
This strategic partnership marks a pivot for the Neo, which 1X previously marketed as a $20,000 consumer-ready bot designed to handle chores and interact with people inside the home.
Industrial use cases are likely an easier sell than personal use, which faces hurdles like potential safety issues and a privacy element involving human operators looking through the robot’s eyes.
Altman’s World project launches its ‘super app’
World — the identity project cofounded by Sam Altman — released a major new version of its app that adds encrypted messaging (similar to Signal) and expanded crypto payments, including paycheck deposits and bank transfers.
The new “World Chat” uses color-coded bubbles to show whether a user is verified via World’s iris-scan system, aiming to create a safer, bot-resistant social experience.
The expanded wallet lets users send, receive, and convert crypto more easily, as the company pushes for mass adoption; despite Altman’s goal of 1B verified users, fewer than 20M people have completed World’s verification.
Runway unveils first “General World Model”
Runway has introduced GWM-1, a new General World Model designed to simulate interactive environments in real time, alongside an upgraded Gen-4.5 that now features native audio generation and editing.
This technology builds an internal representation of scenes to generate video frame by frame, shipping in three versions for creating explorable environments, speaking GWM Avatars, or synthetic training data for robots.
The startup joins a crowded race against Google DeepMind and World Labs, as researchers view these systems as a critical evolution beyond conventional language models that lack understanding of the physical world.
Oracle reportedly delays OpenAI data centers to 2028
Oracle has reportedly pushed back the delivery schedule for massive AI data centers built for OpenAI, shifting the timeline from 2027 to 2028 because of setbacks impacting the Stargate program.
Sources attribute the setback to shortages of skilled labor and materials, but the overall project scope remains unchanged with plans for two million AI accelerators and 5 GW of power.
Chief executive Clay Magouyurk says the company only accepts orders it can fulfill, citing a SuperCluster in Texas that is on track with over 96,000 Nvidia Grace Blackwell GB200 chips.
Google Translate now lets you hear real-time translations in your headphones
Google is rolling out a beta feature that plays real-time translations directly into your headphones, preserving the speaker’s tone, emphasis, and cadence for easier conversation tracking.
The feature works with any headphones, supports 70+ languages, and is launching first on Android in the US, Mexico, and India, with iOS and more countries coming in 2026.
Google Translate is also getting Gemini-powered improvements for more natural translations of slang and idioms, plus expanded language-learning tools and progress tracking in nearly 20 new countries.
Trump’s AI executive order promises one rulebook, startups may get legal limbo instead
Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to challenge state AI laws, arguing that AI should be regulated federally as interstate commerce, but the order does not create an actual national framework.
Legal experts warn the move could trigger prolonged court battles, leaving state AI laws in force during litigation and forcing startups to operate amid regulatory uncertainty.
Critics say large tech companies can absorb the legal risk, while startups face higher compliance costs, slower sales cycles, and reduced trust from customers in regulated industries.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other news
With iOS 26.2, Apple lets you roll back Liquid Glass again, this time on the Lock Screen
Apple’s iOS 26.2 adds a new control that lets users reduce Liquid Glass transparency specifically for the Lock Screen clock, following complaints about poor readability.
This builds on iOS 26.1’s system-wide opacity slider, signaling Apple is softening its stance on the Liquid Glass design after mixed feedback.
The update also includes AirDrop share codes, alarms in Reminders, offline lyrics in Apple Music, AI-generated podcast chapters, a Sleep Score for Apple Watch, and critical security patches across devices.
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)
Investment Associate - Uphonest Capital | USA - Apply Here
Head of Atlassian Ventures - Atlassian Venture | USA - Apply Here
Program & Events Manager - Plug and Play Tech Centre | USA - Apply Here
Associate - Allocator One | UK - Apply Here
AI Lead / Technical Builder - Pan Adria Partner | USA - Apply Here
Associate, Secondary Investments - Adam Street Partner | USA - Apply Here
Chief of Staff – DeVC - Z47 | India - Apply Here
VC Investment Intern - First Momentum Venture | USA - Apply Here
VC Investor - Quamtum Light | UK - Apply Here
Head of Operations - Sagest Capital | USA - Apply Here
WHEN YOU’RE READY, HERE’S HOW I CAN HELP:
💁 You might need our help!
Reach 95,000+ Founders & Investors: Partner with our newsletter to reach a highly engaged audience.
Build Your Pitch Deck: We write, design and model your pitch deck into a storyteller book within 4-5 days.
Do you have any news to share about your Startup or VC fund? Please email us.
We’ll be back in your inbox on Tomorrow.