☕ OpenAI explores massive fundraise at ~$750 Billion valuation & Coursera acquiresUdemy for $2.5 Billion.
Nvidia director Harvey Jones sells $44M worth of shares & Google tests an email based productivity assistant
📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks: Teens & AI chatbots, VC-approved outreach emails, software costs collapsing, an AI that actually fixes things, 40 top pitch decks, the real size of AI spend.
Google launches Gemini 3 Flash, makes it the default model in the Gemini app.
OpenAI explores massive fundraise at ~$750B valuation.
Google tests an email based productivity assistant called CC.
US threatens penalties against EU tech firms.
Google’s vibe-coding tool Opal comes to Gemini.
Amazon appoints longtime AWS exec Peter DeSantis to lead new AI org.
Adobe hit with proposed class action over alleged misuse of authors’ work in AI training.
Nvidia director Harvey Jones sells $44M worth of shares after decades-long hold.
Coursera and Udemy enter a $2.5B merger deal.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
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DAILY PICKS
🗞️ What else is brewing
Teens, social media and AI chatbots 2025. (Link)
Investor outreach email sequence pack: 20+ proven templates used & approved by VCs. (Link)
Has the cost of building software just dropped 90%? (Link)
We built an AI that actually knows how to fix things. (Link)
40 real startup pitch decks that raised $350M+ (Including leading startups decks) (Link)
How big is AI spend, really? Bigger than you think. (Link)
If funding is up, why are female founders losing VC share? (Link)
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
Addition Therapeutics, a San Francisco, CA-based genomic medicine company, raised $100M in funding. Backers included SR One, Pivotal Life Sciences, Abingworth, Osage University Partners, the Gates Foundation, and BEVC.
DataLane, a NYC-based provider of an identity graph service for local businesses, raised $22.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Amplify Partners with participation from Harry Stebbings, founder of 20VC, Basis Set, Mischief, and others.
Radiant, an El Segundo, CA-based company which specializes in portable, mass-produced nuclear microreactors, raised over $300M in funding. The round was led by Draper Associates and Boost VC with participation from other investors.
Codoxo, a Duluth, GA-based provider of AI and generative AI-powered healthcare payment integrity solutions, raised $35M in Series C funding. The round was led by CVS Health Ventures with participation from Echo Health Ventures, Sands Capital, 111 West Capital, Brewer Lane Ventures, Wipro Ventures, 450 Ventures (venture arm of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama) and QED Investors.
Gambit Cyber, a Leiden, the Netherlands-based AI-native preemptive cybersecurity company, raised $3.4M in Seed funding. The round was led by Expeditions, with participation from Bitdefender Voyager Ventures.
Leona Health, a Mexico City-based provider of an AI co-pilot for doctors built on WhatsApp, raised $14M in seed funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from General Catalyst (pre-seed lead), Accel, Maven Clinic’s Kate Ryder, Nubank’s David Vélez, and Rappi’s Simón Borrero.
Woodway Assurance, an Ottawa, Canada-based data assurance technology company, closed a seed funding round of $1m. The round was led by Aventure Capital, with participation from other angel investors.
Drive Health, a Gilbert, Arizona-based healthcare technology company behind Avery, a Google-powered agentic AI platform, raised $15M in funding. Backers included Vitalis Ventures and Inside Capital Partners. The total investment included an additional tranche scheduled to close in Q1 2026.
Tebra, a Newport Beach, CA-based EHR+ platform provider, received $250m in new financing. The financing was led by existing investor Hildred as well as a debt facility provided by J.P. Morgan, with participation from existing investors Montreux Growth Partners, Toba Capital, Transformation Capital, and HLM Venture Partners.
T-Curx, a Würzburg, Germany-based biotech company, raised $20M in Series A financing The round was led by BiomedVC and included Bayern Kapital, HighLight Capital (HLC), and i&iBio Fund, as additional investors along with existing and new individual investors.
Limenet, a Milan, Italy-based startup developing Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) solutions, raised €7M in funding. Backers included CDP Venture Capital and Fassa Bortolo.
Last Energy, an Austin, TX-based nuclear technology company, raised $100M in Series C funding. The round was led by Astera Institute, with participation from JAM Fund, Gigafund, The Haskell Company, AE Ventures, Ultranative, Galaxy Interactive, and Woori Technology Co., Ltd., among others.
Ferronova, an Adelaide, Australia-based medical technology company, raised $6M in funding. The round was led by Uniseed/UniSuper, South Australian Venture Capital Fund, Artesian Venture Partners and Renew Pharmaceuticals, bringing the total amount to $17.5M.
Scylos, a Nashville, TN-based stateless endpoint infrastructure company, raised $3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Galgano family investments, with participation from multiple private investors.
Ben, a London, UK-based provider of a platform using AI to help global enterprises manage employee benefits, raised $27.5M in funding. The round was led by Mercia Ventures with participation from existing investors Atomico, Cherry Ventures, DN Capital, and Seedcamp, along with new backing from Revolut founder Nik Storonsky’s QuantumLight Capital.
Sequence, a NYC-based provider of an AI-powered revenue platform, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by 645 Ventures, alongside a16z, Firstminute Capital, Passion Capital, Dig Ventures and Vor Capital.
Roamless Roamless, a Wilmington, DE-based provider of a travel connectivity app and mobile operator, raised $12M in Series A funding. The round was led by Rasmal Ventures with participation from Shorooq, Revo Capital, Finberg and JIMCO, bringing the total founding to date to $18M, following a $6M in Seed round in 2024.
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What investors are really testing with each question
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
S3 Ventures, an Austin, TX-based venture capital firm, announced its eighth $250M fund. Since its founding in 2005, S3 Ventures has been backed by one limited partner—a highly philanthropic family with a multibillion-dollar foundation—focused on empowering children and families. With Fund VIII, the firm will continue to lead Seed, Series A, and Series B rounds—with initial checks ranging from $500,000 to $15 Million and the capacity to invest over $25 Million throughout the life of a company.
MBX Capital, a Claymont, DE-based early-stage venture capital firm, crossed $100m in cumulative capital commitments to invest in early-stage biotech and health technology companies developing innovations that prevent and cure disease. Institutional limited partners include Industry Ventures, the State of New York, Tangram Asia Capital, Village Global, and Cathay Innovation’s InnoSquare fund.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
Google launches Gemini 3 Flash, makes it the default model in the Gemini app
Google released Gemini 3 Flash, a faster and cheaper model based on Gemini 3, and made it the default model across the Gemini app and AI mode in Search globally.
On benchmarks, Gemini 3 Flash shows major gains over Gemini 2.5 Flash and comes close to frontier models like Gemini 3 Pro and GPT-5.2, with strong results in multimodal and reasoning tasks.
The model is available to consumers, enterprises, and developers via Vertex AI, Gemini Enterprise, and APIs, with pricing positioned as a high-speed workhorse for large-scale, repeatable workflows.
OpenAI explores massive fundraise at ~$750B valuation
OpenAI has reportedly held early talks to raise up to $100B at a valuation of around $750B, a ~50% jump from its reported $500B valuation in October.
The discussions come as OpenAI prepares for what could become one of the largest IPOs ever, with a potential public valuation near $1T as early as 2026.
The move highlights the AI sector’s relentless demand for compute and capital, even as investors remain cautious about whether AI returns will justify the scale of spending.
Google tests an email based productivity assistant called CC
Google launched CC as a Google Labs experiment, an email based assistant powered by Gemini that connects to Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Calendar to send a daily “Your Day Ahead” brief with tasks, calendar summaries, and key updates.
Users can reply to CC by email to add to dos, store notes, set preferences, or ask it to search for information, making email the main interface instead of a separate app or chat window.
CC is currently limited to AI Pro and Ultra users in the U.S. and Canada, works only with consumer Google accounts, and joins a growing space of email based AI brief tools like Mindy and daily summaries from meeting assistants.
US threatens penalties against EU tech firms
The Office of the United States Trade Representative threatened to penalize the European Union in return for what it describes as a continuing course of discriminatory lawsuits, taxes, and directives.
This pronouncement signals a rocky period for trade relations because officials say Europe refused to walk back regulations while proceeding with investigations of major firms like Google, X, Amazon, and Meta.
After years of raising concerns without meaningful engagement, the government stated it has no choice but to counter these unreasonable measures using tools like fees and restrictions on service companies.
Google’s vibe-coding tool Opal comes to Gemini
Google is integrating Opal into the Gemini web app, letting users build AI-powered mini apps directly inside Gemini using natural language, no code required.
Opal works through Gemini’s Gems system, offering a visual editor where users can see, rearrange, and connect app logic step by step.
The move brings Google deeper into the vibe-coding wave, competing with tools like Cursor, Lovable, OpenAI, and Anthropic by making app creation more accessible to non-developers.
Amazon appoints longtime AWS exec Peter DeSantis to lead new AI org
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy named Peter DeSantis to lead a newly formed AI-focused organization overseeing AI models like Nova, custom silicon, and quantum computing.
DeSantis has spent 27 years at Amazon and most recently served as an AWS senior vice president, helping scale the cloud business that underpins a large share of the internet.
The move reflects Amazon’s push to integrate AI across models, chips, and cloud infrastructure as it ramps up enterprise AI efforts and deepens investments in companies like Anthropic and potentially OpenAI.
Adobe hit with proposed class action over alleged misuse of authors’ work in AI training
A proposed class action lawsuit claims Adobe used pirated books, including works by Oregon author Elizabeth Lyon, to train its SlimLM language model through datasets linked to RedPajama and Books3.
The complaint alleges SlimLM was trained on SlimPajama, a dataset derived from RedPajama, which is accused of containing large amounts of copyrighted material copied without consent or compensation.
The case adds to a growing wave of AI copyright lawsuits, following similar claims against Apple and Salesforce, and comes after Anthropic paid $1.5B to settle author claims over training data.
Nvidia director Harvey Jones sells $44M worth of shares after decades-long hold
Nvidia board member Harvey Jones sold 250,000 shares worth over $44M on December 15, at an average price of $177.33 per share, according to a regulatory filing.
The shares were part of a stake Jones has held since 1997, two years before Nvidia’s 1999 IPO; he still indirectly owns more than 7 million shares via a family trust.
The sale comes as Nvidia, now the world’s most valuable chipmaker with a ~$4.3T market cap, continues to benefit from surging AI-driven demand, with shares up ~28% this year.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other news
Coursera and Udemy enter a $2.5B merger deal
Coursera will acquire Udemy in an all stock transaction valued at around $2.5B, combining two of the largest online learning platforms. The deal is expected to close in the second half of next year, pending regulatory and shareholder approvals.
The merger comes as both companies face investor pressure despite recent revenue growth, with the combined entity positioning itself for stronger near term stability and long term scale.
Both platforms are betting heavily on AI driven education, with Coursera integrating ChatGPT and Anthropic content, and Udemy recently launching AI powered microlearning, aiming to become a central platform for AI skills and workforce reskilling.
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)
Senior Analyst - Iconiq Capital | USA - Apply Here
Associate, Secondary Investments - Adam Street Partner | USA - Apply Here
Chief of Staff – DeVC - Z47 | India - Apply Here
Lead, Growth Platform & Communications -Tall Venture | USA - 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
Portfolio Management Lead - Yzi Labs | Remote - Apply Here
Office Manager - Seedcamp | USA - Apply Here
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