☕ OpenAI fires back at Apple & US drafts ban on Chinese data gear.
Bending Spoons to acquire Airtable for $1.28B & Taiwan investigates 17 Chinese firms over suspected tech talent poaching.
Breaking News
Anthropic has reportedly signed a 6-year, $10 billion cloud infrastructure deal with Volta to expand AI compute capacity. The partnership adds another major infrastructure provider to Anthropic’s growing network as AI labs race to secure enough compute for next-generation models.
Bending Spoons has agreed to acquire Airtable for $1.28 billion, adding another major software company to its portfolio after Evernote, WeTransfer, Vimeo, and Eventbrite. Airtable serves over 500,000 organizations and generated about $480 million in annual recurring revenue as of June 2026.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
ChatFeatured, a Toronto, Canada-based AI search optimization platform, raised US$2M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Storytime Capital, with participation from Garage Capital and BY Venture Partners.
SEED
Pie, a U.S.-based AI-powered growth platform for small businesses, raised a strategic investment from Amex Ventures, the venture arm of American Express. The company helps local merchants get discovered across AI-powered search platforms and convert demand into calls, bookings, and revenue.
Claryx, a New York City-based provider of a genomic intelligence platform for hospital infection prevention, raised $3.5M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Outlander, with participation from Company Ventures, Boost VC, Neon, Mana Ventures, 640 Oxford, and Precursor.
Decade, a São Paulo, Brazil-based AI-native wealth advisory platform, raised $85M in Seed funding. Backers included Greenoaks, Benchmark, and Diffusion.
Maximum, a Miami, FL-based AI-native operating system for banks, raised $30M in Seed funding. The round was led by CRV, with participation from Pear VC, Restive, Plug and Play Ventures, Anthemis, and others.
JIJ Inc., a Tokyo, Japan-based developer of a quantum- and AI-enabled optimization platform, raised approximately $5.2M in equity financing. The round was led by Global Brain and a fund managed by Fujitsu Ventures, with participation from KDDI Open Innovation Fund III, ME Innovation Fund (Mitsubishi Electric), ANA Future Frontier Fund, and KURONEKO Innovation Fund II.
Aavalynx, a London, UK-based AI-powered risk and capital management platform for enterprise dispute resolution, raised £1.5M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Omega Ventures, with participation from Two Ravens and others.
Palabra, a London, UK-based real-time speech AI company, raised $8.4M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Seven Seven Six (776), with participation from Creator Ventures, Max Mullen, Anne Lee Skates, Mehdi Ghissassi, and Namat Bahram.
Actualyze AI, a Pasadena, CA-based enterprise AI platform, raised $7M in Seed funding. Backers included Storm Ventures, Canaan Partners, Morado Ventures, and Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures.
GROWTH
Buzz Solutions, a Palo Alto, CA-based AI software company for energy infrastructure, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by S3 Ventures, with follow-on participation from GoPoint Ventures, HearstLab, and Blackhorn Ventures.
QuantHealth, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based AI-driven clinical trial simulation platform, raised $45M in Series B funding. The round was led by Qumra Capital, with participation from Pitango HealthTech, Sanofi Ventures, Artofin Venture Capital Fund, Bertelsmann Healthcare Investments, GC Ventures, NewHealth Ventures, Shoni Top Ventures, and Esplanade Ventures.
Zao Asian Grill, a Salt Lake City, UT-based fast-casual restaurant chain, received an undisclosed investment from Savory Fund.
Obsidian Security, a Palo Alto, CA-based platform securing AI agents and non-human identities, raised $85M in Series D financing. The round was led by Crescent Cove Advisors, with participation from Greylock Partners, Menlo Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, IVP, GV, and Wing.
Delightree, a Denver, CO-based AI operating system for franchise brands, raised $25M in funding. Backers included Innovius, Accel, Timber Grove Ventures, and Emergent.
HappyRobot, a San Francisco, CA-based AI agent platform for enterprise operations, raised $150M in Series C funding. The round was led by Prysm Capital and Eurazeo, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Base10, Y Combinator, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Orange, T.Capital, Bankinter, Endeavor Catalyst, Kfund, and Wave-X.
Yellow Card, an Atlanta, GA-based global stablecoin infrastructure platform, raised $40M in strategic funding. Backers included SC Ventures (Standard Chartered), Sony Innovation Fund, Polychain Capital, Blockchain Capital, and other strategic investors.
Isengard Industries, a San Francisco, CA-based defense technology company, raised an undisclosed funding round. Backers included Backswing Ventures, A3 Management Group, and other strategic investors.
Olix, a London, UK-based infrastructure provider for frontier AI inference, raised $312M in Series B funding at a $3.3B valuation. Backers included Hummingbird Ventures, Crane, Plural, Creandum, Phoenix Court, Transition, Fundomo, Arm, Hudson River Trading, and angel investor Reed Hastings.
Mariana Minerals, a San Francisco, CA-based critical minerals platform, raised $310M in Series B funding. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Greenoaks, Halo Fund, Pax Ventures, StepStone Group, BHP Ventures, Washington Harbour Partners, Greycroft, General Innovation Capital Partners, Mitsubishi Corporation, In-Q-Tel, Earthshot Ventures, and other strategic investors.
Function, a New York City-based personalized health intelligence and diagnostics platform, raised $450M in growth funding. The round was led by General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund.
Base Power, an Austin, TX-based distributed energy and home battery company, raised $1B in Series D financing at a $13B valuation. The round was led by Ribbit, Addition, Valor Equity Partners, and JPMorganChase Strategic Investment Group, with participation from Altimeter, D1 Capital Partners, Sands Capital, Coatue, Layer Global, Energy Impact Partners, Thrive Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed, Trust Ventures, CapitalG, and others.
DAILY PICKS
🗞️ Must read posts
What does a VC really write in their internal notes after they reject you? (Most founders never see it): Most founders only see the polite rejection email. But inside the fund, there is often a sharper internal note explaining why the deal was passed and what would make it worth revisiting later. This piece shows founders how to read between the lines, avoid overreacting to bad-fit rejections, and turn useful passes into future fundraising opportunities.
What founders should never automate: AI can save founders time, but automating the wrong work can quietly destroy the customer signals they need most. This piece shows founders how to separate low-signal busywork from high-signal customer interactions, so they automate internal repetition first and protect the conversations that reveal product-market fit.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
U.S. Venture Partners, a Menlo Park, CA-based early stage venture capital firm, is raising up to $400m for its 14th fund. Founded in 1981, U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) is a venture capital firm that focuses on investments in an array of segments including enterprise software, cyber security, consumer, e-commerce, healthcare, and IT-enabled healthcare services.
Index Ventures, a London and San Francisco-based venture capital firm, raised $2 billion across three new funds, including a $400 million seed fund, a $900 million venture fund, and $700 million added to its growth fund. The firm invests in startups across AI, enterprise software, fintech, and other technology sectors.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
OpenAI fires back at Apple
OpenAI is fighting back against Apple’s lawsuit over stolen trade secrets, publishing chat messages it says prove Apple’s own staff kept contacting former colleague Chang Liu for technical help after he left for OpenAI.
The messages show Apple employees asking Liu for assessments and schematics, and adding him to a group chat where he pointed to internal folders before writing, “this is highly irregular, please remove me from this thread.”
OpenAI also says Apple’s outside lawyer emailed the wrong person after confusing two Asian last names and falsely claimed a phone call with OpenAI’s General Counsel, though none of this refutes the core theft accusations.
SpaceX buys $329M worth of Tesla Megapacks in 2026
SpaceX purchased $329 million worth of Tesla Megapacks so far this year, including $295 million in the second quarter, according to its latest earnings report.
The battery systems are expected to support xAI’s data centers by providing backup power and helping manage the fluctuating electricity demands of AI workloads.
The purchases further highlight the close integration across Elon Musk’s companies, following SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI earlier this year.
Open-weight AI models are closing the capability gap, but safety concerns remain
A SaferAI report found that Z.ai’s open-weight GLM-5.2 is approaching frontier models like OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.7 in cyber and biology capabilities, but it lacked the safety refusals seen in closed models.
Unlike closed AI models that use API-level safeguards, open-weight models can run on anyone’s hardware, allowing users to remove protections, modify safeguards, or fine-tune models for unrestricted use.
The debate is shifting from whether open-weight models can match frontier AI to how dangerous capabilities can be limited while preserving the benefits of open access for developers and cybersecurity defenders.
Anthropic signs $10B cloud compute deal with Volta
Anthropic has reportedly signed a six-year, $10 billion cloud infrastructure deal with AI cloud startup Volta to expand compute capacity for its AI models.
Volta, alongside Bitdeer, will build a 133MW data center in Norway powered by Nvidia’s Vera Rubin GPUs as part of Nvidia’s Cloud Partner program.
The agreement adds to Anthropic’s growing infrastructure partnerships, following recent compute deals with SpaceX and Amazon.
Elon Musk spends nearly half of Tesla earnings calls talking about AI and robots
Analysis of Tesla earnings calls since 2019 shows Musk now spends nearly 50% of his speaking time discussing AI, robotaxis, Full Self-Driving, and Optimus, while talking less about Tesla’s core car business.
Mentions of robotics have surged since the Optimus project launched, reflecting Musk’s growing focus on positioning Tesla as an AI and robotics company rather than just an automaker.
Other Tesla executives remain more focused on vehicle manufacturing and sales, though they have also increasingly shifted attention toward AI as Tesla’s automotive growth has slowed.
Apple plans iPhone-Windows copy-paste
Apple has agreed to build a feature that lets you copy something on your iPhone and paste it on a Windows 11 PC, syncing the two clipboards after a request from Microsoft.
To make cross-device copy and paste work, Apple would give Microsoft broader access to the iPhone clipboard, which today only lets apps read it while running in the foreground.
Apple called the work a “significant engineering effort” and doesn’t expect it before late 2027, and it may limit the feature to European Union users to comply with the Digital Markets Act.
Taiwan investigates 17 Chinese firms over suspected tech talent poaching
Taiwan searched 64 locations and questioned 114 people as part of an investigation into 17 Chinese companies suspected of illegally recruiting semiconductor and high-tech talent.
Authorities allege the companies disguised themselves as Taiwanese or foreign businesses, operated unlicensed offices, and attempted to recruit local engineers in violation of Taiwan’s laws.
Taiwan said protecting its semiconductor talent is critical to maintaining its competitive advantage as global competition in AI and chip development intensifies.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
US drafts ban on Chinese data gear
The Trump administration is drafting a ban on Chinese-made hardware used in US data centers, aiming to keep Chinese technology out of the infrastructure behind the country’s AI buildout, according to Reuters.
The gear likely covered includes networking switches, servers, storage, and management chips, all treated as possible supply-chain weak points or paths for remote access back to Chinese vendors.
The move follows a recent ban on Chinese humanoid robots and power inverters, and it faces hurdles like resellers and relabeled parts, plus higher costs since some equipment has few affordable non-Chinese options.
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
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