☕ OpenAI raises $110B at $730B pre-money valuation & Trump bans Anthropic from US federal agencies.
Jeff Bezos seeks billions to buy industrial companies disrupted by AI & More.
Breaking News
OpenAI has raised $110 billion at a $730 billion pre-money valuation, one of the largest private funding rounds ever. Backers include Amazon ($50B), Nvidia ($30B), and SoftBank ($30B), with massive infrastructure commitments across AWS Trainium and Nvidia Vera Rubin systems totaling multiple gigawatts of compute. The round marks a decisive shift from frontier research toward industrial-scale AI infrastructure — positioning OpenAI more like a hyperscaler than a startup.
President Donald Trump ordered U.S. federal agencies to stop using Anthropic, escalating tensions after the company refused to grant the Pentagon unrestricted AI access. Defense officials labeled Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” potentially pressuring partners like Nvidia and Amazon to choose sides. The move turns AI safety policy into a federal power struggle — signaling that frontier labs are now operating directly inside geopolitical fault lines.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
Ark Climate, a Munich, Germany-based software company that offers an end-to-end solution for municipal climate action, raised €2.1M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Satgana, with participation from another.VC, the Voyagers Climate Fund and angel investors.
Alpa, a London, UK-based provider of a fintech platform for hospitality, raised $3.5M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Daphni, with participation from True Capital, 2100 Ventures, Firedrop, Oprtrs Club, Kima Ventures, and Sonorcap.
SEED
Bluprynt, a Washington, DC-based provider of a compliance operating system for digital assets, closed a $4.25m Seed funding. The round was led by Valor Capital Group, with participation from Cultivation Capital and other investors including Robinhood, Coinbase Ventures, Quona Capital, Kazea, Flourish Ventures, Radical Investments, and Selah Ventures.
Jest, a San Francisco, CA-based builder of a marketplace for messaging games, raised $7m in seed funding. The round was led by Innovation Endeavors.
ElastixAI, a Seattle, WA-based provider of a software platform that improves FPGA-based servers, raised $18M in Seed funding. Backers were not disclosed.
Clee Medical, a Geneva, Switzerland-based company developing intraoperative imaging for brain surgery, raised an undisclosed amount in Seed funding. The round was led by HTGF with participation from Zürcher Kantonalbank, Kickfund, FONGIT, Venture Kick, and Wyss Center Geneva.
Gushwork AI, a Bengaluru, India-based agentic AI startup, raised $9M in Seed funding. The round was led by Susquehanna Asia VC with continued participation from Lightspeed, B Capital, Seaborne Capital, Beenext, Sparrow Capital, and 2.2 Capital.
Rlwrld, a Seoul, South Korea-based Physical AI company developing robotics foundation models, raised $26M in Seed funding. Backers included Headline Asia, Z Venture Capital, CJ Logistics, Kakao Investment, Lotte Ventures, Hanwha Asset Management, Mirae Asset – Emart Investment Fund I, Hyosung Ventures, Smilegate Investment, T Investment, and Hashed Ventures.
STS Digital, a Zug, Switzerland-based principal trading company specialised in digital-asset derivatives, raised $30M in funding. The round was led by CMT Digital, with participation from Payward, Strobe Ventures, Arrington Capital, F-Prime and BitRock Capital.
GROWTH
BrainCheck, an Austin, TX-based digital platform for cognitive assessment and care, raised an additional $13m in Series A financing. The round was led by Next Coast Ventures, with participation from S3 Ventures and UPMC Enterprises.
VITURE, a San Francisco, CA-based company developing XR solutions, raised $100M in funding. The round was led by Legend Capital, with participation from Bertelsmann Group and others.
Sensera Systems, Inc., a Denver, CO-based provider of jobsite intelligence solutions, raised $27M in Series B funding. The round was led by 10 Atlantic Group, LLC with participation from Egis Capital Partners and MUUS Asset Management.
Third Way Health, a Los Angeles, CA-based AI-enabled services company for healthcare organizations, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by Health Velocity Capital.
Dots, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a global payouts platform for marketplaces and service-based businesses, raised $8.9M in Series A funding. The round was led by DCM with participation from Y Combinator.
Encord, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an AI data development platform for advanced vision and multimodal teams, raised $60M in Series C funding The round was led by Wellington Management, with participation from Y Combinator, CRV, N47, Crane Venture Partners, Harpoon Ventures, Bright Pixel Capital and Isomer Capital.
Rebound Technologies, a Denver, CO-based developer of the IcePoint thermal energy storage and cooling platform, received a strategic investment of an undisclosed amount. The amount was led by Taronga Group, with participation from INNOPOWER, Skyview Ventures and True North Institute.
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Quantonation Ventures, a NYC and Paris, France-based venture capital firm focused on quantum and physics-based technologies, closed its second flagship fund, at €220m. LPs included Vertex Holdings; Fonds National d’Amorçage 2, managed by Bpifrance on behalf of the French State; and Bradley M. Bloom, co-founder and former Managing Director of Berkshire Partners, as well as new backers European Investment Fund, Grupo ACS, Novo Holdings, Planet First Partners, and Toshiba.
Peak XV, the India- and APAC-focused venture firm that split from Sequoia Capital in 2023, has raised $1.3 billion across new funds, with most of the capital earmarked for India. Based in India and managing over $10B in AUM, the firm plans to deploy the fund over the next 2–3 years, focusing heavily on AI, fintech, and consumer startups. Led by managing director Shailendra Singh, Peak XV says it will prioritize returns over scale as competition from global VCs like General Catalyst intensifies in the Indian market.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
Jeff Bezos seeks billions to buy industrial companies disrupted by AI
Jeff Bezos’s AI lab, Project Prometheus, is raising “tens of billions of dollars” to acquire companies expected to be disrupted by AI and then apply the technology to improve their margins.
Project Prometheus raised $6.2 billion last year at a $30 billion valuation, and this marks the first time Bezos has taken an official operational role in a company since leaving Amazon.
The company has hired nearly 100 employees, including researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Meta, and already acquired computer agent maker General Agents late last year.
Nvidia plans new chip to speed AI processing
Nvidia is working on a new processor built for “inference” computing, designed to help OpenAI and other customers run AI systems that respond to queries more quickly and efficiently.
The new platform, which will include a chip designed by startup Groq, is set to be shown at Nvidia’s GTC developer conference in San Jose next month.
Nvidia previously struck a $20-billion licensing deal with Groq, which ended OpenAI’s own talks with the startup about getting chips for faster inference processing.
ChatGPT nears 1B weekly users amid record subscriber growth
OpenAI’s ChatGPT now has over 900 million weekly users and 50+ million paying subscribers globally, with January and February marking its strongest subscriber growth ever.
Usage spans everyday tasks like emails, coding, research, trip planning, and business workflows, with feedback loops helping improve speed and reliability as adoption scales.
India has emerged as a key growth market — previously reporting 100M weekly users — driven by a young, internet-first population and affordable tiers like ChatGPT Go, making it the second-largest user base after the U.S.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Sam Altman announces Pentagon AI deal with “technical safeguards”
Sam Altman said OpenAI reached an agreement to deploy its models within the U.S. Department of Defense’s classified network, following a standoff between the Pentagon and Anthropic over unrestricted military use.
Altman stated the deal includes explicit safeguards against domestic mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons without human responsibility, and that OpenAI will build a dedicated “safety stack” to ensure models cannot be forced to perform restricted tasks.
The agreement comes amid political escalation, with President Donald Trump directing agencies to phase out Anthropic’s products and the Defense Secretary labeling it a supply-chain risk, intensifying the AI industry’s growing entanglement with national security.
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