☕ Perplexity offers $34.5B to buy Chrome from Google, China urges firms not to use Nvidia H20 chips & Altman to back Musk's Neuralink's rival.
Musk threatens to sue Apple over App Store rankings & More.
The Eiffel Tower can be 15 cm taller during the summer.
That's due to thermal expansion, meaning the iron heats up, and the particles gain kinetic energy and take up more space.
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📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks: Investor CRM guide, financial model, narrative violations, US investors, Delta-4 test, investor Q&A, SEO cheat codes, 40 pitch decks, marketing must-haves.
Sam Altman, OpenAI will reportedly back a startup that takes on Musk’s Neuralink.
Perplexity offers $34.5B to buy Chrome from Google.
Australian court rules Apple, Google abused app store dominance.
Anthropic offers Claude to all branches of U.S. government for $1.
Musk threatens to sue Apple over App Store rankings.
China urges firms not to use Nvidia H20 chips.
How Nvidia’s small research lab grew into a robotics and AI powerhouse.
Threads surpasses 400 million monthly active users.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
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🗞️ What else is brewing
How to build an investor CRM (with a template).
Excel Template: Early Stage Startup Financial Model For Fundraising.
How one VC turns “dead” markets into billion-dollar bets: Narrative Violations Strategy.
2700+ US Angel Investors & VC Firms Contact Database (Email + LinkedIn Link).
The simplest test for a $10 billion idea: Delta-4.
What investors ask and how to answer : A practical Q&A prep kit for founders.
SEO cheat codes every startup founder should know.
40 real startup pitch decks that raised $350M+ (Including leading startups decks).
Marketing Max is on every website’s non-negotiable.
Free Software & the future of Software business models.
Inside Duolingo's growth engine.
Investor Data Room Guide & Templates for Founders.
40% of all VC deployed this year has gone to 10 startups.
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
Jump, a NYC-based fan experience and sports tech startup, raised $23M in Series A funding. The round was led by Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six with participation from Courtside Ventures, Will Ventures, and Forerunner, as well as Steve Malik, owner of the NC Courage.
TILKI, a London, UK-based AI-powered game creation platform, closed $2.2M in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Twin Path Ventures and with participation from Atlas AI^VB Fund I (Atlas sgr), XTX Ventures, and SFC Capital.
Gameto, an Austin, TX-based clinical-stage biotechnology company developing stem cell-derived therapies for reproductive health, raised $44M in Series C funding. The round was led by Overwater Ventures, with participation from Insight Partners, RA Capital, Two Sigma Ventures, BOLD Capital Partners, Future Ventures, Ingeborg Investments, Arcadia Investment Partners, PAGS Group, Pontiva Healthcare Partners, Portfolia, and additional investors.
Profound, a NYC-based provider of a platform that helps businesses control how they appear in AI responses, raised $35M in Series B funding. The round was led by Sequoia with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, Saga VC, and South Park Commons.
Mako, a NYC-based artificial intelligence company which specializes in GPU kernel code generation, raised $8.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by M13, alongside key partnerships with AMD and Tenstorrent.
Jocasta Neuroscience, a Scottsdale AZ-based preclinical stage, longevity-focused company, raised $35M in Series A financing. The round was led by True Ventures and joined by Moore Strategic Ventures, SC8 Investments, Glentura, Yagan Family Foundation, and others.
Dealops, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an AI-native deal pricing platform, raised $7M in funding The round was led by Pear VC and General Catalyst with participation from Depth VC, Elsa Ventures, Weekend Fund, Flex Capital, Allison Pickens, 20Sales, and a range of individuals from companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, and Salesforce.
Squint, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a manufacturing intelligence platform, raised $40M in Series B funding. The round was led by The Westly Group and TCV, with repeat investors Sequoia Capital and Menlo Ventures.
Ultraviolette, a Bangalore, India-based company which specializes in electric motorcycles, raised $21M in funding. The round was led by TDK Ventures.
Inclined Technologies, a Sausalito, CA-based company providing a technology platform helping consumers optimize the living benefit of the cash value in their whole life insurance policies, raised $8M in Series B funding. The round was led by HSCM Ventures with participation from Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, the venture capital arm of Northwestern Mutual, alongside other new and existing investors.
1Kosmos, an Iselin, NJ-based company which specializes in unifying identity proofing and passwordless authentication, raised $57M in Series B funding, including a $10M line of credit from Bridge Bank. The round was led by Forgepoint Capital, and Origami’s Oquirrh Ventures with participation by Craig Abod, Founder and President of Carahsoft, NextEra Energy Ventures, Gula Tech Adventures, and the 1Kosmos management team.
Mabylon AG, a Schlieren, Switzerland-based company which specializes in the discovery, characterization, and development of human-derived antibodies, raised CHF 30M in funding. Backers included private investors, with the major investment coming from former management and board members of Roche.
Softwear Automation, an Atlanta, GA-based autonomous sewing technology company, raised $20M in Series B1 funding. The round was led by Invest FWD, BESTSELLER. Current investors including CTW Venture Partners, SRI Capital, MacDonald Ventures also participated.
Liquid, a São Paulo, Brazil-based real estate startup, raised $2.1m in funding. The round was led by SaaSholic, with participation from Flourish Ventures, Honey Island by 4UM, and Crivo Ventures.
Tako, a São Paulo, Brazil-based AI powered payroll management startup, raised $18m in funding. The round was co-led by Ribbit Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
JMI Equity, a Washington, DC-based growth equity software investor, closed JMI Equity Fund XII, at $3.1 Billion. JMI partners with B2B software companies, primarily throughout North America. The firm makes both minority and majority shareholder investments across sectors, including education, finance, insurance, legal services, healthcare IT, government, security, and more.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
Sam Altman, OpenAI will reportedly back a startup that takes on Musk’s Neuralink:
Sam Altman is reportedly co-founding Merge Labs, a brain-computer interface startup valued at around $850M, potentially backed by OpenAI Ventures.
The company would compete with Elon Musk’s Neuralink, which is in human trials for brain implants enabling paralyzed patients to control devices.
Merge Labs is said to be working with Alex Blania of Tools for Humanity, linking Altman’s vision of “The Merge” with next-gen human–AI integration.
Perplexity offers $34.5B to buy Chrome from Google:
AI search engine Perplexity made an unsolicited $34.5B cash offer to acquire Google’s Chrome, pledging to keep Chromium open source and invest $3B into the project.
The bid comes amid DOJ efforts to force Google to sell Chrome after a monopoly ruling; Google has vowed to fight the decision.
Perplexity’s offer far exceeds its $1.5B total funding and $18B valuation, and follows its recent launch of its own browser, Comet.
Australian court rules Apple, Google abused app store dominance:
The Federal Court of Australia found Apple and Google engaged in anti-competitive conduct in their app stores, siding with Epic Games in part of its lawsuit.
While rejecting claims of “unconscionable conduct,” the ruling could pave the way for Fortnite and the Epic Games Store to return in Australia.
Both Apple and Google disagreed with aspects of the ruling, defending their app store practices as secure and user-friendly.
Anthropic offers Claude to all branches of U.S. government for $1:
Anthropic is offering its Claude AI models to all three branches of the U.S. government for $1 per year, expanding on OpenAI’s earlier $1 offer to only the executive branch.
The deal includes Claude for Enterprise and Claude for Government, with FedRAMP High certification for handling sensitive unclassified data, and access via AWS, Google Cloud, and Palantir.
Anthropic aims to strengthen its foothold in the public sector, already working with agencies like Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the D.C. Department of Health.
Musk threatens to sue Apple over App Store rankings:
Elon Musk says his company xAI will take legal action against Apple for an antitrust violation, claiming the company manipulates App Store rankings to exclusively favor OpenAI over its competitors.
He points to the recent WWDC deal integrating ChatGPT into iOS as the reason for the chatbot's prominent placement, suggesting this favoritism is a direct result of the partnership.
Musk specifically questions why his apps X and Grok AI are excluded from Apple's "Must-Have Apps" section, where OpenAI's chatbot is currently the only featured AI application.
China urges firms not to use Nvidia H20 chips:
Chinese authorities are discouraging local companies from using Nvidia’s H20 chips, demanding firms justify orders over domestic alternatives and raising questions about potential hardware security issues.
Officials in Beijing are worried the processors could have location-tracking and remote shutdown capabilities, a specific concern that Nvidia has strenuously denied in recent statements to the press.
The government's push also targets AMD's MI308 accelerators as part of a wider state-led effort to develop homegrown semiconductor capabilities and reduce reliance on Western technology.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕Other news
How Nvidia’s small research lab grew into a robotics and AI powerhouse:
Nvidia’s research lab, founded with a dozen staff in 2009 under chief scientist Bill Dally, grew to over 400 researchers and played a pivotal role in shifting the company from gaming GPUs to AI leadership.
The lab has expanded into physical AI and robotics, with VP of AI research Sanja Fidler leading work on Omniverse simulations, 3D reconstruction, and world AI models for training robots.
Nvidia’s latest releases include new world AI models, libraries, and infrastructure for robotics developers, though humanoid robots remain years away from widespread use.
Threads surpasses 400 million monthly active users:
Two years after launch, Meta’s Threads has reached over 400 million monthly active users, adding 50 million in the last quarter.
Threads is closing the gap with X in daily mobile users, with 115.1 million on iOS and Android in June 2025, up 127.8% year-over-year, while X saw a decline to 132 million.
Despite mobile growth, X still leads in daily web visits, though Threads continues expanding features like DMs, fediverse integration, and AI tools.
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)
Manager, Venture Investing - Capital One Venture | USA - Apply Here
Chief of Staff - Grey Line Partner | USA - Apply Here
Capital Formation Associate - B Capital Group | USA - Apply Here
Investment Principal - Cota Capital | USA - Apply Here
Investment Fellow - Indian Fund | India - Apply Here
Associate - Baird Capital | USA - Apply Here
Venture Analyst - AC Venture | India - Apply Here
Investment Analyst - Miras Investment | Dubai - Apply Here
2026 Venture Capital Summer Associate - Stepstone Group | USA - Apply Here
Investment Analyst - Miras Investment | Dubai - Apply Here
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