Breaking News
Anthropic reportedly plans to tell investors that AI could address more than $30 trillion of economic activity annually as models take on a growing share of knowledge work. The company is reportedly forecasting $190–$200 billion in annual revenue by 2028, making its ability to turn that enormous theoretical market into actual enterprise spending central to its future IPO story.
Perplexity has launched Portable Computer with Nvidia, allowing AI agents to run models, access files, and use tools directly on local hardware with no cloud token costs for local tasks. The bigger bet is that always-on AI agents could shift significant AI inference from expensive data centers onto personal computers while improving privacy.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
Light Links, a Campbell, CA-based provider of an optical wireless communication platform, raised $6M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Outlander, with participation from Anorak, Output Capital, Mana, Crosscourt, and others.
Itoflow, a London, UK-based provider of an AI-native systematic portfolio management platform, raised $2.5M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by Balderton Capital, with participation from Barney Hussey-Yeo and others.
SEED
Artwod, an Antwerp, Belgium-based provider of a guided learning and community platform for visual artists, raised €1.1M in Seed funding. Backers included Airbridge Equity Partners and ForsVC.
Noggin HQ, a Newcastle upon Tyne, UK-based consumer credit technology startup, raised £2.3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Blackfinch Ventures, with participation from Oxford Capital, Bethnal Green Ventures, and strategic fintech angel investors.
Keenable, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of independent web search infrastructure for AI, raised $26M in Seed funding. The round was led by Accel, with participation from Conviction and angel investors from Amazon, ClickHouse, Databricks, Google, Snowflake, and SpaceXAI.
DiscreteStack, a Sofia, Bulgaria-based AI infrastructure startup, raised €800K in Seed funding. The round was led by CleverPine Ventures, with participation from Milen Manev and Stoil Vasilev.
Living Roots, a Bangkok, Thailand-based agtech company specializing in biological crop inputs, raised an undisclosed amount in Seed funding. Backers included returning and new angel investors from Epic Angels.
Revier Therapeutics, a Heidelberg, Germany-based company developing therapies targeting class IIa HDACs for cardiometabolic diseases, raised €6M in Seed financing. The round was led by KHAN Technology Transfer Fund II, with participation from High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), VORNvc, and private investors through Revier Invest Heidelberg.
GROWTH
Qodia, a Hamburg, Germany-based medical fintech and SaaS startup, raised €1.2M in funding. Backers were not disclosed.
Standard Metrics, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an AI-driven portfolio management platform for venture capital and private equity firms, raised $20M in Series B funding. The round was led by 8VC, with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Spark Capital, January Capital, First Trust Capital Partners, Socii Capital, Kindergarten Ventures, Calm Ventures, Gaingels, and others.
AssistMe, a Berlin, Germany-based healthtech company developing digital assistance solutions for eldercare and nursing, raised €6.5M in funding. Backers included CRB Health Tech, Vorwerk Ventures, SUM Ventures, Brandenburg Kapital, Conle Family Office, Next Big Thing, and IBB Capital.
Liner, a San Francisco, CA-based AI agent research startup, raised $36.1M in Series C funding. The round was led by LB Investment, with participation from InterVest, Atinum Investment, CJ Investment, Korea Development Bank, KB Securities, Daishin Securities, STIC Ventures, and Helios Private Equity.
Airbound, a Bengaluru, India-based aerospace company designing and manufacturing efficient aircraft, raised $37M in Series A funding. The round was led by Greenoaks, with participation from DoorDash, Lachy Groom, Lightspeed, and Humba Ventures.
Hike Medical, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a platform automating device-based care from referral to dispense, raised $22.5M across Seed and Series A funding. The financing was led by Saga Ventures, with participation from Indicator Ventures, Fifth Down Capital, RiverPark Ventures, Orthofeet, Sam Blond, Jerod Mayo, and others.
Airway Therapeutics, an Atlanta, GA-based clinical biopharmaceutical company developing biologic therapies for respiratory, inflammatory, and infectious diseases, raised $50M in funding, consisting of $26M in SAFE financing and $24M through a Series E-2 round.
Emerald AI, a Washington, DC-based provider of a platform turning data centers into flexible assets for the power grid, raised $150M in Series A funding at a $1.05B valuation. The round was co-led by Energize Capital and DCVC, with participation from NVIDIA, Samsung Ventures, Siemens, Aramco Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, and GE Vernova.
Celera Semiconductor, a Santa Clara, CA-based provider of AI-driven analog IC solutions, raised $30M in Series B funding. Maverick Silicon made the investment.
Happy Health, an Austin, TX-based digital health and continuous remote monitoring company, raised $75M in Series A funding. The round was co-led by ARCH Venture Partners and OpenLoop.
Buddy Bites, a Hong Kong-founded D2C pet nutrition and e-commerce platform, raised $4.2M in Series A funding. The round was led by Digitalis Ventures, with participation from Adrian Lai.
Newcode, an Oslo, Norway-based developer of an AI harness and orchestration platform for the legal sector, raised $13.5M in Series A funding. The round was led by OnDean Forward, with participation from The LegalTech Fund, Antiportfolio Ventures, Rel Labs, and existing investors.
amber, an Aachen, Germany-based provider of an AI platform developing organizational knowledge services for SMEs, raised €7M in Series A financing. The round was co-led by Ventech and NRW.Venture.
Mantel, a Cambridge, MA-based company developing molten-borate carbon capture technology, received an $18M strategic investment. Backers included Constellation Technology Ventures, Azimut Investments, and existing investors.
DAILY PICKS
🗞️ Must read post
The ARR mistake AI founders keep making: Most founders annualize the latest month’s revenue and call it ARR. But for AI products with usage-based pricing, one customer spike can make growth look stronger than it really is. This piece shows founders how to report revenue more honestly by splitting committed revenue from variable usage, using rolling averages, and preparing the usage-retention data investors will ask for during diligence.
What VCs ask AI founders now: AI investors are no longer just testing the story. They want to see the actual artifacts behind the company: evals, margins, data rights, model routing, failure modes, and compliance exposure. This piece gives founders a clear view of the 21 questions shaping AI startup diligence and the documents they should prepare before the first serious investor meeting.
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Fiat Ventures, a San Francisco, CA-based venture capital firm, rebranded as FGV Capital and closed Fund II, at $35m. Fund II is backed by LPs including Reinsurance Group of America (RGA), MassMutual, Bank of America, and the Stellar Development Foundation, alongside foundations, fund of funds, family offices and high-net-worth individuals.
Makers Fund, a San Francisco, CA-based venture capital firm focused on interactive entertainment, closed its Fund IV, at $250M. The new fund, whose closing brought total assets under management by the company to $1.5 billion, will back founders building across gaming and interactive entertainment.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
Anthropic's top AI struggles to win users
Anthropic’s most powerful AI model, Opus 5, is failing to draw many users since its late-July launch, with cheaper options from the company pulling far more spending, according to billing data.
The Ramp AI index, built from card data across 70,000 companies, shows Opus 5 captured just 3.5% of Anthropic model spend in July, while the older Opus 4.8 led with 28% and Fable 5 sat at 8%.
Anthropic’s annualized revenue reached $65 billion in July, up from $47 billion in May, and the company told investors it now has 6,000 customers each paying $100,000 or more a year.
Apple launches M6 Mac Mini starting at $899
Apple unveiled a new Mac Mini powered by its M6 chip, starting at $899 with 16GB RAM and 256GB storage. It ships September 22 with macOS 27 and Siri AI.
Apple says the M6 delivers 4x better AI performance than the M4, along with roughly 2x faster storage and graphics. It features a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU.
Apple also introduced an M5 Pro Mac Mini starting at $1,699 and new Mac Studio models with M5 Max and M5 Ultra chips, targeting heavier AI and professional workloads.
OpenAI loses another senior executive as leadership churn grows
Chris Malone, OpenAI’s head of data centers, left after roughly 17 months at the company. His departure follows an infrastructure reorganization that moved the group under VP Sachin Katti.
Malone’s exit is particularly notable because OpenAI is in the middle of an enormous infrastructure expansion. The company says it still has experienced executives overseeing data center engineering, construction and delivery.
The departure adds to more than a dozen executive exits reported in 2026, including Brad Lightcap, Denise Dresser and Fidji Simo. The leadership churn is drawing greater scrutiny as OpenAI reportedly pushes its expected IPO into 2027 and faces questions around valuation and profitability.
Apple unveils M5 Ultra and M6 chips with a major focus on local AI
Apple introduced the M5 Ultra, calling it its “most powerful chip ever.” Built from two dual-die M5 Max chips, it offers up to a 36-core CPU, 80-core GPU and 1.2 TB/s of unified memory bandwidth for demanding AI, 3D and professional workloads.
The new M6 is built on a 2nm process with a 12-core CPU and dual 16-core Neural Engine. Apple says it delivers nearly 30% higher peak GPU compute for AI than the M5, improving on-device LLM performance.
Apple is positioning local AI as a key advantage: developers can run and fine-tune large models directly on Macs using the CPU, GPU and Neural Engine. This could give Apple a differentiated position around private, on-device AI even as it relies on Google Gemini for its upgraded Siri.
OpenAI’s Jalapeño chip beats current inference systems on speed and efficiency
OpenAI unveiled early benchmarks for Jalapeño, its custom AI inference chip developed with Broadcom. On SemiAnalysis’ InferenceX benchmark, it delivered higher per-user token speeds and better throughput per kilowatt than current state-of-the-art processors.
Jalapeño is optimized specifically for inference, reducing bottlenecks in data movement, communication and prefill. OpenAI designed the chip, memory, networking and models together to make serving AI responses faster and more power-efficient at large scale.
The benchmark comparison includes Nvidia’s Blackwell systems, though Nvidia may have newer hardware by Jalapeño’s broader rollout. OpenAI expects limited deployment by late 2026, followed by significantly larger deployment in 2027 as part of a multigenerational chip platform.
Meta's paid AI agent Hatch launches soon
Meta will soon roll out Hatch, a paid AI agent aimed at consumers, as part of Mark Zuckerberg’s push to make money from the company’s heavy AI spending and expand revenue beyond advertising.
Built as a consumer version of the OpenClaw agent, Hatch is expected to use tiered pricing, including a premium subscription costing as much as $199.99 a month, according to internal documents seen by The Information.
Hatch is designed to connect with sites like DoorDash, Etsy, Reddit, Yelp, and Outlook, and to offer a customizable dashboard with tools such as a fitness tracker or a trip planner.
Apple reportedly prepares iPhone price hikes ahead of iPhone 18 launch
Apple is reportedly preparing to raise iPhone prices alongside the upcoming iPhone 18 lineup, though the company has not yet decided the size of the increase.
Rising manufacturing costs from the global memory shortage are a major factor. With Samsung and Google raising flagship smartphone prices by roughly $100, Apple could make a similar move, potentially putting the base iPhone 18 Pro around $1,199.
Apple may have more flexibility to increase prices because of its new Upgrade program, which lets customers lease devices through recurring payments and upgrade later, potentially making higher-priced iPhones easier to afford.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Trump proposes $103K H-1B visa fee
The Trump administration has proposed a new rule that would charge a $103,265 fee for H-1B visas covering foreign workers who fall under the program’s yearly cap on applications.
The fee would help pay for running the immigration system, and unlike an earlier $100,000 version struck down by a judge in June, this one excludes universities, hospitals, and research institutions.
H-1B visas let U.S. companies hire skilled foreign workers, and computer jobs like software engineering make up nearly two-thirds of approvals; the public gets 30 days to comment once the rule is published.
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
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