☕ Pentagon dumps Anthropic, builds its own AI systems instead & Nvidia unveils AI chip for orbital data center.
OpenAI has launched GPT-5.4 mini and nano & Mystery AI model sparks speculation of DeepSeek’s next breakthrough.
Breaking News
The United States Department of Defense is developing its own AI systems and integrating multiple LLMs after its $200M deal with Anthropic collapsed over restrictions on military use. Anthropic had tried to block applications like mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, but the Pentagon rejected those limits and instead partnered with OpenAI and xAI.
OpenAI has launched GPT-5.4 mini and nano, designed for faster, cheaper AI workloads. Mini delivers near flagship-level performance at over 2× speed, while nano handles lightweight tasks like classification and data extraction. The models are built for multi-agent systems, where smaller models execute tasks and larger ones plan — unlocking more scalable and cost-efficient AI applications.
FROM OUR PARTNER - FRAGMENT MEDIA
📰 Investors are backing a media network reaching 80M+ monthly readers
Fragment Media is building a portfolio of premium publications designed to be funded primarily by readers. Their model flips the traditional ad-driven newsroom by focusing on paid subscriptions, high-trust journalism, and aligned brand sponsorships.
Why investors are paying attention:
$47M cumulative revenue over the last 4 years across Fragment-managed publications
80M+ monthly reach across publications
1M+ free subscribers, 20K+ paying members
Inc 5000 Fastest-Growing Media Company (2022 & 2023)
Targeting a $17B U.S. subscription news market (145M adults willing to pay)
Leadership from Gawker, VICE, Vox, The Atlantic, Hearst
While most digital media depend on volatile programmatic ads, Fragment is shifting toward recurring reader revenue.
With media M&A deals reaching hundreds of millions and subscription platforms trading at strong revenue multiples, investors see a chance to own equity in the next generation of reader-owned media.
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
Certiv, a Seattle, WA-based cybersecurity startup, raised $4.2M in Pre-Seed funding. Backers included Aviso Ventures, Founders Co-op, Fortson, and others.
AmpliSi, a University of Sheffield, UK-based spin-out developing silicon anodes for next-generation lithium-ion batteries, raised £2M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Northern Gritstone and Clean Growth Fund.
eYou, a Zagreb, Croatia-based provider of a social media platform, raised €300K in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Fil Rouge Capital.
SEED
Standard Template Labs, a NYC-based provider of an AI-first service management platform, raised $49M in Seed funding. The round was led by ICONIQ and CRV.
SetSale, a Charlotte, NC-based developer of an AI-powered sales platform for the residential HVAC industry, raised $2M in Seed funding. The round was led by York IE, with participation from Palmetto and Finturf.
Quorus, a Westport, CT-based technology-driven asset manager service company, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by WisdomTree with participation from Connecticut Innovations and Nassau Financial Group.
GROWTH
Native, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based provider of a cloud security control platform, raised $31M in Series A funding. The round was led by Ballistic Ventures, with participation from General Catalyst, YL Ventures, and Merlin Ventures.
Tenkara, a San Francisco, CA-based company building ops agents for US manufacturers, raised $7M in funding. The round was led by True Ventures with participation from HF0, WndrCo, Articulate Capital and others.
BambooBox, a Bangalore, India- and San Francisco, CA-based B2B revenue company, raised $6.6M in funding. The round was led by Peak XV’s Surge with participation from Emergent Ventures, Arc180 and others.
Rubi, a San Francisco, CA-based company leveraging technologies that turn carbon into essential materials, raised $7.5M in funding. The round was led by AP Ventures and FH One Investments with participation from Talis Capital and others.
Gency AI, a San Francisco, CA-based AI and blockchain infrastructure company, raised $20M in funding. Backers included TikTok, HF0, XYZ and others.
Conduit Health, a NYC-based consumer-oriented provider of insurance-covered medical supplies and services, raised $17M in Series A funding. The round was led by Drive Capital with participation from XYZ Ventures, Twelve Below and Eniac Ventures.
Definity, a Covington, KY-based healthcare workforce platform provider, raised $7M in Series A funding. The round was led by Accrete Health Partners.
Turquoise Health, a San Diego, CA-based provider of a healthcare pricing and payment platform, raised $40M in Series C funding. The round was led by Oak HC/FT with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and others.
Sequen, a NYC-based company providing large-scale event models, raised $16M in Series A funding. The round was led by White Star Capital and Threshold Ventures with participation from Greycroft.
Knox Systems, a NYC-based federal AI-managed cloud provider, raised $25M in Series A funding. The round was led by B Capital with participation from M12, Okta Ventures and others.
R1 Therapeutics, a Redwood City, CA-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, raised $77.5M in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Abingworth, F-Prime and DaVita Venture Group.
Surf AI, a NYC-based provider of an agentic operations platform for security teams, raised $57M in funding. The round was led by Accel with participation from Cyberstarts and Boldstart Ventures.
GA Drilling, a Houston, TX-based geothermal drilling company, raised $44.1M in funding. The round was led by TomEnterprise with participation from Underground Ventures.
Mestag Therapeutics, a Cambridge, UK-based biotech company, raised $40M in funding. Backers included SV Health Investors, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Forbion, GV and Northpond Ventures.
GridBeyond, a Dublin, Ireland-based energy technology company, received a €12M investment. Backers included Samsung Ventures, Energy Impact Partners and others.
Tracebit, a London, UK-based cybersecurity platform provider, raised $20M in Series A funding. The round was led by FirstMark with participation from Accel and others.
Sequential, a Cambridge, UK-based genomic testing company, raised $3.5M in funding. The round was led by Sparkfood and Corundum Systems Biology with participation from SOSV and others.
RoboForce, a Milpitas, CA-based physical AI-powered robo-labor company, raised $52M in funding. The round was led by Zi Labs with participation from Jerry Yang and others.
TODAY’S RESOURCE PICK
🔢 The only startup valuation guide you need as a founder
Startup valuation is one of the most misunderstood parts of fundraising. Most online guides skip the real insights or ignore how investors actually think.
This guide gives founders a clear, practical framework to understand valuation and confidently discuss numbers with investors.
Inside:
What actually drives valuation at early stages
Key methods explained simply: Berkus, Scorecard, Risk Factor, VC Method, Market Multiples, and DCF
Investor benchmarks and real-world expectations
A 5-step framework to calculate your startup’s valuation
Excel templates and walkthroughs
How to present valuation clearly in your pitch deck
Built with insights from experienced founders and VCs - no jargon, just practical guidance.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Audeo Ventures, a NYC, San Francisco, CA- and Dubai, UAE-based venture capital firm specializing in early-stage investments, achieved $65m for Fund II. Audeo’s diverse, global LP base spans single and multi-family offices and sovereign entities. Founded in 2021 by Managing Partners Pavel Tinkov and Greg Laurent Josi, Audeo Ventures focuses on backing companies with strong fundamentals across US.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
Nvidia unveils AI chip for orbital data centers
Nvidia announced computing platforms designed for orbital data centers at its GTC 2026 conference, marking a significant move to bring artificial intelligence processing into space environments.
The company’s Vera Rubin Space-1 Module, which includes IGX Thor and Jetson Orin chips, is engineered for size-, weight- and power-constrained environments and will fly on missions led by multiple partners.
Cooling remains a key engineering hurdle because space lacks convection, while SpaceX — which acquired xAI for $1.25 trillion — has asked the FCC to launch 1 million satellites for AI centers.
OpenAI cuts side projects to focus on core business
OpenAI is shifting away from launching many products at once and will now focus its resources on two core areas: coding tools and business customers, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of Applications, called Anthropic’s success in enterprise and coding a “wake-up call” and told employees the company “cannot miss this moment because we are distracted by side quests.”
Products like the Sora video generator and an agent mode struggled after launch, with Sora’s usage going flat after briefly hitting number one in the Apple App Store and the agent losing most users.
Mistral launches Forge to help enterprises build custom AI models from scratch
Mistral introduced Forge, a platform that allows companies to train AI models on their own internal data instead of relying on generic internet-trained models, aiming to solve enterprise adoption challenges.
Unlike typical approaches like fine-tuning or RAG, Forge enables full model training from scratch, giving enterprises greater control over performance, data privacy, and long-term reliability.
The strategy positions Mistral against OpenAI and Anthropic by focusing deeply on enterprise use cases, with early partners including Ericsson, ASML, and the European Space Agency.
Mystery AI model sparks speculation of DeepSeek’s next breakthrough
An anonymous model called “Hunter Alpha” appeared on OpenRouter, featuring 1 trillion parameters and a massive 1 million-token context window, quickly gaining traction among developers.
Its capabilities and reasoning style closely resemble expectations for DeepSeek’s upcoming V4 model, fueling speculation that it could be a stealth test ahead of an official launch.
Despite strong signals, experts remain divided, highlighting how anonymous releases are increasingly used to test models at scale and gather real-world feedback before public announcements.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Whistleblowers say Meta and TikTok profited from ragebait
Whistleblowers from Meta and TikTok told a new BBC documentary that both companies knowingly allowed harmful ragebait content on their platforms because it drove engagement and growth.
A Meta engineer said staff were told to keep borderline material like misogynistic posts and conspiracy theories visible in feeds to compete with TikTok, partly because the stock price was down.
Internal TikTok dashboards reportedly showed complaints from politicians were prioritized over reports from young users, including a 16-year-old girl who flagged fake sexualized images of herself on the platform.
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)
Analyst / Associate - Saints Capital | USA - Apply Here
Investor - Expresso NB | Thailand - Apply Here
Head of Investor Community - Inovexus | Remote - Apply Here
Associate - Lightbank | USA - Apply Here
General Partner - mHub | USA - Apply Here
Investment Analyst Intern - NAV Capital | Dubai - Apply Here
PE & VC Partner Manager - Dealhub | UK - Apply Here
Investment Analyst - Lunicorn Venture | UK - Apply Here
Program Manager - a16z | USA - 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 Tomorrow.