☕ OpenAI hits $500 billion valuation, Apple halts Vision Pro overhaul to focus on AI glasses & Google unveils Gemini for Home.
Meta will use your AI chats for targeted ads & More.
Australia has more camels than Egypt. You read that correctly.
The land down under is home to the world’s largest population of wild camels, thanks to humans bringing a bunch over in the Victorian times.
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📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks: 90s web design legends, OpenAI 2026 outlook, new AI browsers, financial model, VCs pre-traction.
OpenAI staff grapples with the company’s social media push.
CharacterAI removes Disney characters after receiving cease-and-desist letter.
Google unveils Gemini for Home.
Apple asks judge to toss Musk’s lawsuit over ChatGPT on iPhone.
Meta will use your AI chats for targeted ads.
OpenAI hits $500 billion valuation after share sale.
Apple halts Vision Pro overhaul to focus on AI glasses.
OpenAI ropes in Samsung, SK Hynix to source memory chips for Stargate.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
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DAILY PICKS
🗞️ What else is brewing
The 3 Gurus of 90s Web Design: Zeldman, Siegel, Nielsen.
What’s Ahead for OpenAI in 2026.
New AI Browsers Are Coming.
Excel template: Early stage startup financial model for fundraising.
How to find the right investors for your startup.
Braze’s Path to Product-Market Fit — How to Build for a Market That Doesn’t Exist Yet.
Microsoft’s AI Vision: An Open Internet Made for Agents.
Startup Legal Document Pack – Essential Legal Docs for Founders.
Amplitude’s product benchmark report: a must-read.
Elad Gil’s list of biotech companies he wishes existed is well worth a read.
What is the Price of Demand?
SaaS startup financial model: All-in-One Excel template.
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
Baselane, a NYC-based financial platform provider purpose-built for real estate investors, raised $34M in New funding. The round consisted of a recently closed $20M Series B led by Thomvest Ventures and a previously unannounced $14.4M Series A led by Matrix Partners.
Notch.cx, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based autonomous AI customer support platform provider, raised $15M in Seed funding The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from Jibe Ventures, LionTree, Phoenix, and Munich Re Ventures.
Price.com, a Los Angeles, CA-based AI-powered savings platform provider, raised $12M in funding. The round was led by Waterbridge Capital, with participation from TRAC VC, Larry O’Connor (Founder and CEO of Other World Computing), Ricky Caplin (Caplin Ventures chairman), Tim Tebow (Heisman Trophy winner and philanthropist), and Luis Neto (infrastructure leader).
Returnalyze, a Boston, MA-based retail’s AI-powered Returns Prevention Platform provider, raised a $6M Series A1 funding. The round was led by Fintop Capital with participation from Blu Ventures, Osage Venture Partners and Data Point Capital.
SolidCore.ai, a Menlo Park, CA-based risk identification company, raised $4M in Seed funding. The round was led by Runtime Ventures with participation from Epic Ventures and angel investors from the cybersecurity industry.
Prosper AI, a NYC-based provider of a healthcare voice AI platform, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Emergence Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, CRV, and Company Ventures.
Tokinvest, a Dubai, UAE-based regulated marketplace for real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation, raised $3.2M in Pre-Seed funding round. Backers included Triliv Holdings and Exponential Science.
Dashmote, an Amsterdam, the Netherlands-based provider of an AI-powered data analytics platform, raised $6M in Series A1 funding. The round was led by Blossom Street Ventures, and Rabobank.
Phaidra, a Seattle, WA-based company building AI agents for AI factories, raised more than $50M in Series B funding. The round was led by Collaborative Fund, with participation from Helena, Index Ventures, NVIDIA, Sony Innovation Fund, and others.
Apricot, an Oklahoma City, CA-based provider of an AI-native documentation platform, raised an undisclosed amounting Series A funding. The round was led by Insight Partners.
AudioShake, a San Francisco, CA-based company that helps make sound usable for both humans and machines, raised $14M in funding. The round was led by Shine Capital, with participation from Thomson Reuters Ventures, Origin Ventures, Background Capital, and existing investors Indicator Ventures and Precursor Ventures.
Pinc Technologies, a Pasadena, CA-based Caltech spinout company developing advanced integrated nonlinear photonic devices and circuits, closed its Seed+ round, bringing total funds raised to date to $6.8M. The round was led by Quantonation, with participation from Wilson Hill Ventures, Freeflow Ventures, Hamamatsu Ventures, Qubits Ventures, Santec, and the Caltech Seed Fund.
Forge Genetics, a University of Nottingham, UK-based spinout that has developed a novel gene-editing tool, raised £2m in funding. Midlands Engine Investment Fund II, through its appointed fund manager, Mercia Ventures, provided the funding.
Mondoo, a San Francisco, CA-based agentic vulnerability management company, raised $17.5M in additional funding. The round was led by HV Capital, with participation from new strategic investor T.Capital and existing investors Atomico, Firstminute Capital, and System.One.
Visana Health, a Minneapolis, MN-based virtual-first women’s health clinic providing whole-person medical care for women ages 18-65 while improving the care experience, raised $24M Series A funding. The round was led by Noro-Moseley Partners with participation from The Cigna Group Ventures and Intermountain Ventures, Flare Capital Partners and Frist Cressey Ventures.
Gelt, a Miami, FL-based AI-native tax firm for high-earning professionals, raised $13M in Series A funding. The round was led by Zvi Limon of the Rimon Group, Vintage Investment Partners, and TLV Partners.
Hupside, a Washington, DC-based provider of an original Intelligence platform helping organizations identify, measure, and scale human originality, raised $1.7M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Ruxton Ventures, with participation from strategic angel investors.
Athernal Bio, a Cambridge, UK-based company developing targeted immunotherapies to treat blood cancer precursor conditions, raised £3.5M in funding. The round was led by Delin Ventures.
Mesta, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an enterprise-grade cross-border payment network, raised $5.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Village Global, with participation from Circle Ventures, Paxos, WTI – Western Technology Investment, Garuda Ventures, Canonical Crypto, Everywhere Ventures, and Inventum Ventures.
Longeye, a San Francisco, CA-based developer of AI-powered investigative tools for law enforcement and the justice system, raised $5M in funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism fund, with participation from Seven Stars Capital and angels.
Vercel, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a platform for building AI-native applications and agents at enterprise scale, closed a $300M Series F funding round, at a post-money valuation of $9.3 billion. An approximately $300M secondary tender offer for certain employees, former employees, and early investors will close in November. The round was co-led by Accel and GIC, with participation from funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, StepStone, Khosla Ventures, Schroders, Adams Street Partners, General Catalyst, and existing investors GV, Notable Capital, Salesforce Ventures, and Tiger Global.
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
Better Tomorrow Ventures, a San Francisco-based fintech-focused VC firm, has closed its $140 million third fund. Led by Sheel Mohnot and Jake Gibson, the firm continues to back early-stage fintech startups, with recent investments in Basis, Layer, and InScope. Existing portfolio includes Unit, Coast, and Relay.
American Exceptionalism, a SPAC launched by VC Chamath Palihapitiya, has gone public with $345 million raised. The SPAC, aimed at acquiring startups in energy, AI, crypto/DeFi, or defense, is 98.7% institutionally backed. Palihapitiya has warned retail investors to avoid buying the stock, citing volatility and poor historical returns of SPACs.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
OpenAI staff grapples with the company’s social media push
OpenAI’s launch of Sora, a TikTok-style AI video feed, has sparked mixed reactions from researchers, with concerns over deepfakes and whether it aligns with the company’s nonprofit mission.
CEO Sam Altman defended the move, saying consumer products help fund research toward AGI, while critics argue OpenAI risks repeating social media’s addictive incentive loops.
Regulators are scrutinizing OpenAI’s for-profit transition, raising questions about whether revenue goals could overshadow its stated mission of advancing AI for humanity.
CharacterAI removes Disney characters after receiving cease-and-desist letter
Disney sent a cease-and-desist accusing Character.AI of copyright infringement and harming its brand, citing concerns over inappropriate chatbot behavior.
Searches for Disney-owned characters like Mickey Mouse, Captain America, and Luke Skywalker now return no results, though some Disney-affiliated characters still appear.
The move highlights growing legal pressure on AI platforms that let users generate chatbots of copyrighted or trademarked characters.
Google unveils Gemini for Home:
Google unveiled Gemini for Home, a revamped app with Gemini intelligence that loads camera feeds 70 percent faster and experiences 80 percent fewer crashes for improved speed and reliability.
Gemini will interpret video streams from connected cameras to power features like AI-enhanced notifications with activity descriptions and the Home Brief tool, which summarizes everything that happens each day.
Google’s new Home subscription will retain the same price as the old Nest subs but is set to include more AI features, although some of the Gemini functions will be free.
Apple asks judge to toss Musk’s lawsuit over ChatGPT on iPhone
Apple filed a motion to dismiss the antitrust lawsuit from xAI and X, arguing the claim of an illegal scheme to control the AI market is based on pure speculation.
The company’s lawyers stated it intends to partner with other generative AI chatbots, framing the OpenAI integration as a starting point to undermine the monopoly accusation.
The filing contends that antitrust laws do not compel it to work with every available AI chatbot, letting it first consider their quality, safety, and technical feasibility.
Meta will use your AI chats for targeted ads
Starting December 16, Meta will use information from your interactions with Meta AI to deliver targeted ads on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, with no option to opt out.
This new data collection policy extends beyond chatbot conversations to include voice recordings and visuals from Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, as well as its AI-video feed, Vibes, for advertising.
The company says it will not use sensitive topics like health or politics for advertising, and the policy change applies globally except in the UK, European Union, and South Korea.
OpenAI hits $500 billion valuation after share sale
OpenAI reached a $500B valuation after current and former employees sold ~$6.6B worth of shares in a secondary deal, according to Reuters.
The transaction comes weeks after reports of OpenAI targeting a ~$500B valuation through stock sales to let employees cash out.
The milestone cements OpenAI as one of the world’s most valuable private companies, driven by rapid revenue growth and heavy AI infrastructure investments.
Apple halts Vision Pro overhaul to focus on AI glasses
Apple has paused work on a cheaper Vision Pro headset (N100) to prioritize smart glasses development, Bloomberg reports.
The first model, N50, will pair with iPhones and lack its own display, expected to be unveiled as early as 2026 ahead of a 2027 release.
A second version with a built-in display is targeted for 2028, as Apple looks to rival Meta’s new Ray-Ban Display smart glasses.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other news
OpenAI ropes in Samsung, SK Hynix to source memory chips for Stargate
OpenAI signed LOIs with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to fabricate DRAM wafers and scale to ~900,000 HBM chips per month—more than double today’s industry capacity—plus collaborate on building AI data centers in South Korea.
The deals slot into OpenAI’s $500B Stargate buildout (with Oracle and SoftBank), coming on the heels of Nvidia’s up-to-$100B investment (10+ GW systems) and five new U.S. data centers targeting ~7 GW of compute.
Partnerships also include work with Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT, an SK Telecom AI data center, and broader Samsung/SK Group integrations of ChatGPT Enterprise and OpenAI APIs.
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)
Capital Formation Associate - B Capital Group | USA - Apply Here
Trade Operations Lead - Manhattan Venture Partner | USA - Apply Here
VP of Fundraising - Scale Asia Venture | Japan - Apply Here
Research Analyst - Positive Sum | USA - Apply Here
Fund Operations Associate - TNB Aura | Singapore - Apply Here
2026 Venture Capital Summer Analyst - Stepstone Group | USA - Apply Here
AI Venture Analyst Intern - Untaped Venture | USA - Apply Here
Investor Relations Manager - Beco Capital | UK - Apply Here
Associate - Venture Capital - Artha Venture Fund | India - Apply Here
Executive Assistant - AN Venture Partner | USA - Apply Here
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