☕ OpenAI files for IPO & Apple launched Siri AI powered by Google Gemini.
Perplexity AI plans to go public in 2028 & Instagram AI chatbot breach hits 20,000 accounts.
Breaking News
OpenAI has confidentially filed for an IPO just days after Anthropic, setting up one of the biggest public market battles in tech history. Despite nearly 900 million weekly users, OpenAI still faces massive infrastructure costs, making access to public capital increasingly important as the AI race shifts from model building to funding compute at unprecedented scale.
Apple has finally launched a rebuilt Siri powered by Google Gemini, alongside major AI upgrades across iPhone, Messages, Photos, Safari, and Search. The release marks Apple’s most significant AI move yet and signals its transition from an AI observer to a serious platform player competing with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.
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DAILY PICKS
🗞️ What else is brewing
Is workflow debt silently killing your AI returns? What the 5% who actually win do differently. (Link)
What the best AI-native founders know that everyone else is still figuring out. (Link)
What did 7,200 developers reveal about AI coding?: The State of Web Dev AI 2026 report. (Link)
How fast should founders ship features in the AI era? A framework from a former Facebook executive. (Link)
Why nobody wants to build this boring AI category (Even though it’s worth billions.) (Link)
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
InfoHawk, an Austin-based startup building AI systems to detect deception at internet scale, raised $2.25M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Moonshots Capital.
BeatpulseLabs, a London-based provider of data infrastructure for enterprise AI, raised $1.8M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Araya Ventures and Lighthouse Ventures.
SEED
Lexful, a Salt Lake City-based AI-native IT documentation platform built for managed service providers (MSPs), raised $7M in Seed funding. The round was led by Top Down Ventures and York IE.
Reset, a Menlo Park-based embedded earned wage access platform for credit unions and community banks, raised $6M in Seed funding from Georgia’s Own Credit Union, InTouch Credit Union, Chartway Credit Union, VyStar Credit Union, One Washington Financial, Curql, Navari, and the Bankers Helping Bankers Fund.
Breaking Change, a Wales-based technology company developing tools for the global games industry, raised over £1M in funding. The equity portion was led by the Development Bank of Wales and Haatch, alongside support from Innovate UK Growth Catalyst.
GROWTH
Edge Markets, a NYC-based financial services company creating products for gaming, crypto, and prediction markets, raised $29.2M in Series A funding. The round was led by CoinFund with participation from Indicator Ventures, Mantis VC, StepStone Group, and Bullpen Capital.
PhysicsX, a London-based physics AI company developing engineering software for hardware industries, raised $300M in Series C funding at an approximately $2.4B valuation. The round was led by Temasek, with participation from M&G Investments, Intrepid Growth Partners, Applied Materials, Atomico, General Catalyst, July Fund, NGP, NVIDIA, Radius, and Siemens.
A Security, a NYC-based cybersecurity platform protecting organizations from weaponized AI attacks, raised $37M in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Cyberstarts, and angel investors including Assaf Rappaport (Wiz), Yotam Segev (Cyera), and Cerca Partners.
PointFive, a NYC-based AI and cloud efficiency company, raised $60M in Series B funding. The round was led by Accel, with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Entrée Capital, Perpetual Growth, Vesey Ventures, Sheva Ventures, and Index Ventures.
Rejuvenate Bio, a San Diego-based biotechnology company developing gene therapies for age-related diseases, raised $6M in funding. The round was led by VCapital, with participation from Merck Animal Health, Kendall Capital Partners, Connecticut Innovations, and Digitalis.
GR3N, a Switzerland-based developer of chemical recycling systems for PET plastics, raised €15.5M in Series B funding. The round was led by 360 Capital, with participation from VP Textile.
Clear Robotics, a Hong Kong-based maritime technology company, raised $1.75M in Pre-Series A funding. The round was led by Shipsfocus Ventures, with follow-on investments from Katapult Ocean, SGInnovate, M7 Holdings, MGS Ventures, and other strategic partners.
Rapidus, a Tokyo-based semiconductor manufacturer, secured approximately $943M in additional funding. Investors included Canon, Development Bank of Japan, Fujitsu, NTT, SoftBank, and Sony Group, alongside support from IPA.
Blnk, an Egypt-based AI-enabled digital consumer finance platform, raised $36.9M in equity and debt financing. The Series A equity round was led by Algebra Ventures, with participation from SANAD Fund for MSME, Endeavor Catalyst, and Emirates International Investment Company (EIIC).
NewOrbit, a UK-based satellite manufacturer, raised $18.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Voyager Ventures, with participation from David Kirk, Laurence Leuschner, Custos, Atlantic.vc, Lifeline Ventures, LGF, and Illusian.
Volteum, a London-based fleet management platform for electric vehicles, raised €2.5M in funding. The round was led by Movens Capital, with participation from WakeUp Capital, Aidiom, Day One Capital, Techstars, and Nesprit.
Grapheal, a France-based biosensor startup, received a €2.5M grant from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator.
Accelevate Solutions, an Arizona-based company developing AI-powered fleet decision intelligence software, raised $1M in funding. The round was led by Brand Engagement Network.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Dimension Capital, a New York City-based venture capital firm, is raising up to $750m for its third fund. According to a form filed with the SEC, Dimension Capital III, L.P., has not raised any sum, yet. The document lists Adam Goulburn as the person related to the fund raise. Led by Goulburn and Zavain Dar, Dimension is a multistage, research oriented, investment firm partnering with companies across the frontiers of science and compute.
Benchmark Capital, the Silicon Valley venture firm behind early bets in eBay, Uber, Snap, and Twitter, has raised $2 billion across two new funds, including its first-ever $1.25 billion growth fund for later-stage investments. The firm is expanding beyond its traditional early-stage strategy to back larger AI and growth-stage companies, while its new $750 million early-stage fund gives it more firepower to compete in today’s increasingly expensive startup market.
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KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
Mercor CEO accuses VCs of valuation ‘dual-pricing’ tactics
Mercor CEO Brendan Foody claimed some VCs invest through multiple tranches at different valuations, creating inflated headline valuations that may not reflect the true deal price.
He specifically called out Sequoia, though partner Shaun Maguire defended the practice, saying it occurs when investors disagree on pricing and is not intended to mislead founders or markets.
The debate highlights growing concerns around startup valuation optics, especially in AI, where headline valuations and ARR figures can sometimes paint a more optimistic picture than underlying fundamentals.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s World project faces layoffs amid IPO buzz
Just as OpenAI confidentially filed for an IPO, reports say Altman-backed Tools for Humanity is conducting layoffs as it struggles to generate meaningful revenue.
The company’s flagship product, World, uses biometric iris scans to verify human identity and support transactions using its cryptocurrency, Worldcoin.
Despite raising money at a $2.5B valuation, the project has faced privacy and regulatory challenges in countries including Kenya, India, Hong Kong, and South Korea, where concerns have centered on collecting biometric data in exchange for crypto rewards.
Instagram AI chatbot breach hits 20,000 accounts
Meta has confirmed that hackers compromised at least 20,225 Instagram accounts by exploiting a flaw in its AI-powered support chatbot, marking the first time the company has put a number on the scope of the breach.
The “High Touch Support” account recovery tool sent password reset links to any email address without checking whether it actually belonged to the Instagram account, a bug that attackers exploited from April 17 to May 31, 2026.
Potentially exposed data includes contact info, birth dates, posts, direct messages, and profile information; Meta disabled the chatbot, invalidated reset links, and placed affected users into a mandatory security checkpoint to reset passwords.
Perplexity targets 2028 IPO despite OpenAI and Anthropic race
Perplexity AI plans to go public in 2028 regardless of how upcoming IPOs from OpenAI, Anthropic, or SpaceX perform, according to CEO Aravind Srinivas.
Srinivas said successful IPOs from AI leaders would benefit the broader industry, though SpaceX’s debut is expected to be an important signal for investor appetite toward AI listings.
Perplexity says sticking to its 2028 IPO timeline has allowed the company to focus on building a healthy, high-growth business rather than rushing to public markets.
Founders name VCs who burned them on X
Startup founders flooded X over the weekend with stories calling out venture capitalists they say mistreated them, with Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince leading the charge by naming Vinod Khosla in a disputed account from 2012.
Prince said Khosla offered him his co-founders’ stock if he fired them during a Series C dinner, while Khosla denied the story on X and was simultaneously ranked No. 1 on Forbes’s 2026 Midas List.
The thread, kicked off by Greg Isenberg’s story about a partner sleeping through his $15 million Series A pitch, drew mostly billionaires and past-exit founders like Mark Pincus, Travis Kalanick, and Liz Wessel.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Companies rehire workers laid off for AI
Companies that cut staff in favor of AI are now rehiring people for those same jobs, a pattern Robert Half consultants are calling the “AI boomerang” effect after surveying 2,000 U.S. hiring managers across industries.
Nearly a third of hiring managers, 32%, said their organizations eliminated a role or let someone go because of productivity gains from AI or automation, only to later rehire for that exact same position.
Finance led the rehiring trend at 44%, followed by HR at 35% and tech at 32%, with managers citing gaps in quality, oversight, and decision-making once business demands picked up after the initial cuts.
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