☕ OpenAI developing a donut-shaped AI smart speaker & Google DeepMind boss steps down.
Alibaba plans to charge large users of its open-source AI model & TikTok lays off 250 employees.
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Breaking News
OpenAI is reportedly developing a screenless, donut-shaped AI smart speaker with Jony Ive’s design studio LoveFrom. Expected in 2027 at around $300–$400, the device could become OpenAI’s first major attempt to take ChatGPT beyond screens and into everyday consumer hardware.
Alibaba reportedly plans to introduce revenue-sharing for major commercial users of Qwen3.8-Max, changing how it monetizes its open-source AI models. The move suggests Chinese AI labs are adopting a new playbook: give powerful models away to drive adoption, then monetize companies building large businesses on top of them.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
SkinBit, a Los Angeles, CA-based provider of a full-body skin scanner platform for skin cancer screening, raised $6M in Pre-Seed funding. Backers included Boost VC, Cleo Capital, Manna Ventures, Profluent Capital, Logan Green, and nine board-certified dermatologists.
SEED
Malachyte, a New York City-based provider of a real-time individualization intelligence platform, raised $10M in Seed funding. The round was co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Gradient Ventures, with participation from Harpoon Ventures.
Superleap, a Bengaluru, India-based developer of AI-native enterprise CRM software, raised $3.7M in Seed funding. Peak XV Partners made the investment.
Shelfmark, a Pittsburgh, PA-based provider of a physical AI production intelligence platform for continuous-flow manufacturing, raised $3.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Armory Square Ventures, with participation from Grand Ventures, Hyde Park Angels, Argon Ventures, and Cultivation Capital.
Avatar Robotics, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an industrial labor platform, raised $6.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by AlleyCorp, following a Pre-Seed led by defy.vc, with participation from Headline, Henry Ford III, Refashiond, Paul Vogel, Jack Huffard, and Samuel Udotong.
GROWTH
Meduloc, a West Chester, PA-based orthopedic medical device company, raised $4M in Series B funding. The round was led by GenHenn Capital, with participation from Life Sciences Greenhouse Investments, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Broad Street Angels, Andre Ethier, and other investors.
NavVis, a Munich, Germany-based spatial twin platform for industrial assets and construction, raised $85M in funding. The round was led by The Jordan Company, with participation from Yttrium, KOZO KEIKAKU ENGINEERING, and Cipio Partners.
Lumilens, a San Jose, CA-based provider of connectivity infrastructure for AI systems, raised more than $700M in Series C funding at a $5.51B valuation. The round was co-led by Atreides Management, Bain Capital Ventures, Meritech, Seligman Ventures, and Spark Capital, with participation from Addition, Aiconic, Alkeon, EDBI, HarbourVest, J.P. Morgan Private Capital, Lingotto, Mayfield, Peak XV, Qualcomm Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, and others.
HealthSnap, a Miami, FL-based provider of an AI-powered virtual care management platform, raised $25M in funding. The round was led by Eastward Capital Partners.
Body Vision Medical, a Weston, MA-based provider of an AI-powered intraoperative imaging platform, raised an undisclosed amount in funding. The round was led by Business Asia Consultants and Sprim Global Investments.
conmeet, a Borken, Germany-based developer of an AI-powered operating platform for the construction and trade sectors, raised approximately $6.8M in funding. The round was led by Reimann Investors Venture Capital and Smedvig Ventures, with continued support from May Ventures.
River, a Bengaluru, India-based electric mobility company developing multi-utility electric two-wheelers, raised $120M in Series C funding. The round was co-led by Elev8 Venture Partners and Claypond Capital, with participation from Singularity AMC, Anicut Capital, 360 ONE Asset, JIF Capital, HDFC AMC, Yamaha Motor, Al-Futtaim Group, and Mitsui & Co.
Vaaree, a Bengaluru, India-based AI-powered home décor and furnishings marketplace, raised $6.6M in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Hero Enterprise and Cap Alpha Ventures, with participation from Peak XV Partners’ Surge, PeerCapital, All In Capital, Better Capital, OTP Ventures, and Kunal Shah.
Triangle, a Singapore-based end-to-end live entertainment platform, raised $15M in combined equity and debt funding. The round was led by DSG Consumer Partners, with participation from Golden Gate Ventures, Oberoi Family Office, Genesis Alternative Ventures, and angel investors.
Neuraspace, a Coimbra, Portugal-based provider of AI-enabled Space Domain Awareness and Space Traffic Management solutions, raised €15.6M in funding. Backers included Lince Capital, Explorer Investments, and Armilar Venture Partners, alongside funding under Portugal’s Recovery and Resilience Plan.
Omilia, a Larnaca, Cyprus-based provider of a self-learning agentic customer experience platform, raised $67M in Series B funding. The round was led by Expedition Growth Capital.
Vedanta Biosciences, a Cambridge, MA-based developer of microbiome-based oral therapies for gastrointestinal diseases, raised $60M in funding. The round was led by AMR Action Fund and BNP Paribas Asset Management Alts, with participation from BARDA.
Acrab, a Singapore-based provider of agentic AI compute infrastructure, raised $130M in Series B funding. Backers included Vertex Ventures SEA & India, Vertex Growth, and other institutional investors across Europe and Southeast Asia.
Hadrian, a Los Angeles, CA-based developer of automated factories for aerospace and defense, raised $1.37B in Series D funding at a $7.87B valuation. The round was co-led by WCM Investment Management, Washington Harbour Partners, Valor Equity Partners, 137 Ventures, and Baillie Gifford, with participation from 1789 Capital, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, Apollo, T. Rowe Price, CapitalG, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, Altimeter, Construct Capital, and others.
10x Banking, a London, UK-based provider of a cloud-native core banking platform, raised £40M in funding. The round was led by AshGrove Capital.
Sapiom, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an AI agent management platform, raised $35M in Series A financing. The round was led by Dragonfly, with participation from Accel, Gradient, Coinbase Ventures, Operator Collective, Formus Capital, VanEck Ventures, Okta Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Anthropic, and Array Ventures.
DAILY PICKS
🗞️ Must read post
How do you build personal and business AI agents with Claude if you can’t code?: Most founders use AI like a blank chat box they have to brief from scratch every day. This piece shows how to set up Claude so it remembers your context, understands your voice, and helps with repeatable work. It breaks down the four ingredients behind every useful agent - role, context, tools, and trigger - and gives founders ready-to-use setups for personal productivity and business workflows.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
G Squared, a Chicago, IL-based global venture capital firm specializing in the private secondary market, closed G Squared VII, its seventh flagship fund, with $2.3B in capital commitments. G Squared VII will invest across direct secondary transactions, company-led tender offers, bespoke structured investments, and select primary financings in leading growth-stage technology companies.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
Google DeepMind boss steps down
Demis Hassabis is leaving his day-to-day role running Google DeepMind to become Alphabet’s chief scientist and DeepMind chairman, saying he wants to focus on artificial general intelligence, which he believes is now close at hand.
Koray Kavukcuoglu, a 13-year DeepMind veteran and its chief technology officer, will take over as senior vice president reporting to Sundar Pichai, overseeing Gemini development, Frontier AI research, and the Gemini app, which now has over 950 million monthly users.
Hassabis will spend more time at Isomorphic Labs, the Alphabet-backed drug discovery firm, saying AI should first prove its worth by helping cure diseases like cancer, building on DeepMind’s AlphaFold work that predicted 200 million protein structures.
TikTok lays off 250 employees and closes Nashville office
TikTok is laying off 250 employees and shutting down its Nashville office, which included members of the company’s content-moderation team.
The company said the restructuring is intended to streamline operations and better align teams for long-term growth, while maintaining its commitment to safety for its 200 million U.S. users.
The cuts come as social platforms increasingly use AI for content moderation, with TikTok’s Nashville office scheduled to close on October 5.
Google Maps AI can now order food
Google is expanding Ask Maps, the chatbot it added to Maps in March, with new agentic capabilities that let you order food conversationally through partnerships with Toast and Square, with Uber Eats to follow at a later date.
The same integration lets Ask Maps help book hotels and find live events, while Personal Intelligence connects the chatbot to Gmail first, letting it check where you’re staying before suggesting nearby restaurants, though it stays off by default.
Ask Maps now generates live transit widgets showing wait times and delays, lets Local Guides suggest edits through photos, and is expanding to Australia, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico and 150 other countries in English.
OpenAI asks judge to toss Apple lawsuit
OpenAI has asked a U.S. judge to dismiss Apple’s lawsuit accusing it and two former Apple employees of stealing trade secrets, saying it has “no use, need or desire” for Apple’s confidential technology.
In the Wednesday motion, OpenAI argued that Apple’s July complaint names no specific trade secrets, fails to prove it owns protectable ones, and never shows the defendants took anything as it builds “something entirely new.”
The fight centers on AI-powered hardware, with analysts expecting OpenAI to make its own phone-like device; despite it, the two remain partners, since iPhone users reach ChatGPT through Siri and can subscribe from iOS settings.
Alibaba plans to charge large users of its open-source AI model
Alibaba reportedly plans to introduce revenue-sharing requirements for major commercial users of its upcoming Qwen3.8-Max open-source model, shifting from largely free self-hosted usage.
The approach follows Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3, which requires companies generating more than $20 million annually from offering the model as a service to negotiate a commercial agreement, with revenue sharing reportedly reaching 30%.
Chinese AI labs are increasingly adopting a freemium open-source strategy: offer powerful models cheaply or freely to drive adoption, then monetize large-scale commercial deployments and services.
Hackers target major US private equity and financial firms
Hackers created 72 malicious websites targeting employees at firms including Blackstone, Apollo, KKR, Bain Capital, Bridgewater, TPG and CME Group.
The attackers impersonated company IT help desks over phone calls, directing employees to fake websites designed to steal passwords and multifactor authentication codes.
Google says the group has recently shifted toward private equity, law firms and financial companies, targeting more than 200 businesses in five weeks. Reuters could not confirm which attempted breaches succeeded.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Meta ordered to pay $567M over teen safety concerns
A New Mexico court ordered Meta to pay $567 million into a teen mental health fund after finding that Facebook and Instagram harmed children’s wellbeing and created a public nuisance.
Meta must implement youth-safety measures for five years, including monthly usage limits for teens, notification restrictions, tighter controls on adult contact with minors, and safeguards around AI chatbots.
Meta plans to appeal the ruling. The decision could become an important precedent as more than 40 states and 1,300 school districts pursue similar cases against social media companies.
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