☕ OpenAI to nearly double workforce & Elon Musk misled Twitter shareholders, jury finds.
Nvidia to supply 1 million AI chips to Amazon by 2027 & Apple is behind in AI and still making a fortune from it.
Breaking News
Elon Musk was found by a California jury to have misled Twitter shareholders during his $44B acquisition attempt, after tweets about bot numbers triggered an 8% stock drop. The case could result in up to $2.6B in damages, turning one of tech’s most chaotic deals into a legal consequence moment — even if the amount is small relative to his fortune.
Nvidia will supply 1 million AI chips to Amazon by 2027, marking one of the largest infrastructure deals in AI history. The partnership reinforces Nvidia’s dominance and signals how hyperscalers are going all-in on compute to power the next wave of AI.
FROM OUR PARTNER - SUPERPOWER
🔥 A new way to take control of your health — with Superpower
You’ve never had a health check like this. Venture Daily Digest has partnered with Superpower to give you access to advanced health testing that goes 5x deeper than a routine check-up.
Every Superpower membership begins with a simple blood draw that tests 100+ biomarkers to detect early signs of 1,000+ conditions.
This is just the beginning of your health journey.
PARTNERSHIP WITH US
🤝 Get your startup in front of over 115,000+ audience.
Our newsletter is read by 115,000+ of tech professionals, founders, investors (VCs / Angel Investors) and managers around the world. Get in touch today.
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
Cleavr, a Paris, France-based developer of an AI-powered accounts receivable automation platform, raised €1M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Kima Ventures, Better Angle, Another VC, Aonia Ventures, and Super Capital, with participation from angels Raphaël Nahum, Régis Samuel, and Olivier Brourhant.
Reson8, an Amsterdam, The Netherlands-based developer of an automatic speech recognition (ASR) platform, raised €5M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Balderton Capital, with participation from NP Hard.
SEED
Hosted.ai, a San Jose, CA-based provider of a software platform that increases the efficiency of GPU infrastructure, raised $19M in Seed funding. The round was led by Creandum, with participation from People Ventures and Repeat VC.
Ringtime, a Ghent, Belgium-based developer of an AI-driven conversational platform, raised €1.8M in Seed funding. The round was led by Volta Ventures, with participation from Syndicate One, JK Invest, New School VC, and Allusion.
Health Universe, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an enterprise AI platform that automates healthcare workflows, raised $6M in Seed funding. The round was led by Kleiner Perkins.
Ezra, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a voice AI interviewing platform, raised $3.2M in Seed funding. The round was led by Penny Jar Capital and LMNT Ventures, with participation from a16z Speedrun and Telegraph Hill Capital.
GROWTH
Arc, a Los Angeles, CA-based developer of electric boats and propulsion systems, raised $50M in Series C funding. Backers included Eclipse, Andreessen Horowitz, Menlo Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Necessary Ventures, and Offline Ventures.
UpSurgeOn, a Milan, Italy-based developer of surgical simulation platforms, raised €5M in funding. The round was led by CDP Venture Capital, with participation from SIMEST, Deep Blue Ventures, Azimut Libera Impresa SGR, and FBH S.p.A..
Bluesky, a Seattle, WA-based social app provider, raised $100M in Series B funding. The round was led by Bain Capital Crypto, with participation from Anthos Capital, Bloomberg Beta, Knight Foundation, Alumni Ventures, and True Ventures.
Meadow, a New York-based developer of a digital funeral planning platform, raised $9M in Series A funding. The round was led by Lachy Groom and Haystack.
Paraform, a San Francisco, CA-based AI recruitment marketplace, raised $40M in Series B funding. The round was led by Scale Venture Partners, with participation from Felicis, A Capital, Liquid 2 Ventures, and notable operators.
Verily, a Dallas, TX-based provider of a data platform for AI-enabled health solutions, raised $300M in funding. The round was led by Series X Capital, with participation from Alphabet, UCHealth, and the University of Colorado Anschutz.
games2gether, a Paris, France-based co-creation platform, raised €4.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by Griffin Gaming Partners.
Oasis Security, a NYC-based provider of an identity and access governance platform, raised $120M in Series B funding. The round was led by Craft Ventures, with participation from Cyberstarts, Sequoia Capital, and Accel.
Flexzo AI, a London, UK-based provider of an AI workforce system for healthcare, raised $12M in Series A funding. The round was led by Octopus Ventures, with participation from Fuel Ventures.
DAILY PICKS
🗞️ Fundraising curated resources for you -
When you’re building a startup, no one hands you the folder, one with all the stuff you need.
Investor lists that work.
Financial models that make sense.
Legal docs that don’t cost a fortune.
Templates that save hours.
So we built it ourselves with input from founders who’ve bootstrapped and those who’ve raised millions, plus VCs who know what they’re looking for.
Here’s everything we’ve created (and keep improving):
Fundraising Tools
Strategic Templates
The Founder’s Guide to Building in Public (With 20+ Real Examples)
Communication Tools
Investor Outreach Email Sequence Pack: 20+ Proven Templates Used & Approved by VCs
Legal & Operational
You can explore them all here..
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Gradient, a San Francisco, CA-based early stage venture capital firm designed for founders in artificial intelligence, closed a new $220m flagship seed fund. Google is one of the limited partners in the fund. Founded in 2017 and led by Darian Shirazi, Managing Partner, the firm employs twelve professionals focused on pre-seed and seed stage investments in AI startups.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
OpenAI to nearly double workforce
OpenAI plans to nearly double its workforce from 4,500 to 8,000 by the end of 2026, according to a Financial Times report citing two people with knowledge of the matter.
Most of the new hires will work across product development, engineering, research, and sales, covering the core teams that build and sell OpenAI’s tools to customers.
The company is also recruiting specialists focused on “technical ambassadorship,” a role designed to help businesses make better use of its existing products like ChatGPT.
Cursor admits its Composer 2 model builds on Moonshot AI’s Kimi
Cursor acknowledged that its new coding model Composer 2 was built on top of Moonshot AI’s open-source Kimi 2.5, after developers spotted identifiers in the code.
The company says only about 25% of the compute came from the base model, with the rest driven by its own training and reinforcement learning, resulting in different performance.
Cursor admitted it should have disclosed the Kimi foundation earlier, highlighting growing transparency and geopolitical sensitivities in the AI model ecosystem.
Elon Musk unveils plans for Tesla–SpaceX chip manufacturing ‘Terafab’
Elon Musk is planning a massive chip manufacturing facility called “Terafab,” a joint effort between Tesla and SpaceX to meet growing AI and robotics demand.
The move is driven by chip shortages, with Musk saying existing suppliers can’t keep up, pushing him to vertically integrate semiconductor production.
The facility aims to produce chips supporting 100–200 gigawatts of compute annually on Earth, with ambitions extending to space-based computing infrastructure.
Google is replacing news headlines with AI ones
Google is now using AI to rewrite news headlines that appear in its search results, sometimes changing their meaning, after previously doing something similar in its Google Discover news feed.
The practice is not entirely new — Google has been altering headlines in search results for years — but recent examples show AI-rewritten headlines that poorly reflect the actual articles they link to.
Google Search maintains a visual tone of being a neutral directory, but its AI Overviews and rewritten headlines can misrepresent source material, making results misleading for people who trust them.
Apple is behind in AI and still making a fortune from it
Apple’s own AI products trail competitors, but the company is on track to pass $1 billion in generative AI revenue by 2026, mostly from App Store fees charged to chatbot apps like ChatGPT.
Generative AI apps paid Apple close to $900 million in 2025, with three-quarters coming from ChatGPT alone, and monthly revenue peaking at $101 million in August before dropping off.
Apple spends far less on chips and data centers than rivals, and Siri still runs on outdated technology — its new version will initially rely on Google’s Gemini after internal setbacks.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
SpaceX dominates US military and NASA contracts
SpaceX has become the go-to launch provider for the US military and NASA, with the Space Force again turning to a Falcon 9 rocket after ULA failed to meet its GPS satellite launch schedule.
ULA’s Vulcan rocket is grounded for the second time in under two years because its solid rocket boosters suffered the same type of failure on two of its four flights.
The Space Force shifted all four final GPS Block III satellite launches from ULA to SpaceX starting in 2024, giving ULA rights to a classified military mission in 2028 instead.
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
💼 Today’s VC & Startup Job Opportunities
Most aspiring VCs struggle with interviews, unclear expectations, no structured prep, and generic advice that doesn’t actually help. So we partnered with a leading investor group to build an all-in-one VC Interview Preparation Guide that gives you real clarity and frameworks. (Access Here)
Investment Scout - CVX Venture | USA - Apply Here
Director of Finance & Operations - Quona Capital | USA - Apply Here
Investor - Expresso NB | Thailand - Apply Here
Associate - Novo Venture | Singapore - Apply Here
Senior Scouting Manager - Antler | Australia - Apply Here
Head of Investor Community - Inovexus | Remote - Apply Here
Associate - Lightbank | USA - Apply Here
Investment Analyst Intern - NAV Capital | Dubai - Apply Here
PE & VC Partner Manager - Dealhub | UK - Apply Here
WHEN YOU’RE READY, HERE’S HOW I CAN HELP:
💁 You might need our help!
Reach 115,000+ Founders & Investors: Partner with our newsletter to reach a highly engaged audience.
Build Your Pitch Deck: We write, design and model your pitch deck into a storyteller book within 4-5 days.
Do you have any news to share about your Startup or VC fund? Please email us.
We’ll be back in your inbox on Monday.