Rippling employee admits to spying for rival Deel & Amazon submits bid to acquire TikTok.
OpenAI forms expert group to guide nonprofit-to-profit transition & More
🤔 When billion-dollar AI startups pop up overnight, how do VCs separate hype from real opportunity? Former NEA Partner - Vanessa Larco’s “Due Diligence 2.0” framework is what you need to see. Watch now.
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Today’s Picks: Sales guide, 2700+ US VCs, OpenAI insight, liquidity shift, financial templates, sales tech stack, SaaS pricing, space-tech VC trend, 250+ LatAm VCs, legal docs, 1000+ Euro VCs, top AI tools.
Rippling employee admits to spying for rival Deel in explosive affidavit.
OpenAI’s o3 model might be costlier to run than originally estimated.
Meta's $1,000 AR glasses are coming soon.
Amazon reportedly submits last-minute bid to acquire TikTok.
Deepmind outlines AGI safety strategy, warns of risks by 2030.
OpenAI forms expert group to guide nonprofit-to-profit transition.
Apple Card drama continues as Visa and Amex try to win Apple’s business.
Epic CEO calls Apple and Google “gangster-style” over app store practices.
WordPress maker Automattic lays off 16% of staff.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
⏱️ Read Time: 4 minutes
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SaaS Startup Financial Model: All-in-One Excel Template.
250+ Latin America VC Firms & Angel Investors Database.
Startup legal document pack – essential legal docs for founders.
1000+ Euro Tech VC Firms Database.
VC TACTICS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW…
🚀 Due Diligence 2.0: Strategies for the AI Era
When AI startups reach billion-dollar valuations in months and market conditions can shift overnight, traditional due diligence approaches are pushed to their limits. VCs are challenged to validate complex technologies, assess business model sustainability, and pick out the highest quality deals amid the hype.
Join this webinar to see how Vanessa Larco, former Partner at New Enterprise Associates has evolved her due diligence process and the investments she’s considering to support the next generation of innovative companies.
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STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
Lumai, an Oxford, UK-based AI accelerator startup using optics to address global computational challenges, raised over $10M in funding. The round was led by Constructor Capital, with participation from existing investor IP Group, alongside new investors PhotonVentures, Journey Ventures, LIFTT, Qubits Ventures, State Farm Ventures, and TIS Inc.
RapidClaims, a NYC-based provider of an AI-powered revenue cycle management platform provider, raised $11M in funding. The amount consisted of $8M Series A led by Accel with participation from Together Fund, and $3M in previously unannounced seed led by Together Fund with angel investors including Oscar Benavidez (Executive Director, Massachusetts General Hospital), Matthew Zubiller (ex-CEO, e4health), Ankit Jain (founder & CEO, Infinitus), and Sachin Jain (healthcare leader), among others.
SchoolAI, a Lehi, UT-based provider of an AI platform for teaching and learning, raised $25M in Series A funding. The round was led by Insight Partners. Existing investors, including NextView Ventures, The General Partnership, and Peterson Ventures, also participated, bringing SchoolAI’s total funding to $32M to date.
TwinKnowledge, a NYC based construction tech company, today announced the successful completion of its $3.7 million Series Seed equity funding round. The round was led by Camber Creek, with participation from Great Wave Ventures.
FurtherAI, a San Francisco, CA-based tech company that makes AI assistants handling complex insurance tasks, raised $5m in funding. The round was led by Nexus Venture Partners with participation from Pioneer AI Fund, South Park Commons, Y Combinator, ConvergeVC, and strategic backers like Xceedence.
Emovid, a Washington, DC-based provider of a platform built to enable unified and asynchronous video, text, and audio communication for businesses, raised an undisclosed amount in Seed funding. The round, which brought the total amount to approx. $7M, was led by o-kaisha Investments.
vopemed, a Montreal, Canada-based MedTech startup enhancing surgical vision with AI-powered image clarification, raised $2.29M pre-seed funding. The round was led by Genson Capital Inc., which invested $1.5M CAD, and Investissement Québec, which contributed $750K CAD.
Ropes, a NYC-based provider of an AI-driven platform for engineering talent evaluations, raised $3.1M in Seed funding. The round was led by GSV Ventures with participation from Box Group.
TrialKit, a NYC-based provider of an AI-powered discovery platform for criminal defense attorneys, raised $4.25M in Seed funding. The round was led by UpWest, with participation from 97212 Ventures, Kaedan Capital, and NYU Law’s Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital Program.
Cyberhaven, a Palo Alto, CA-based AI-powered data security company, raised $100M in Series D funding, at $1 Billion valuation. The round was led by StepStone Group (Nasdaq: STEP) along with new investors Schroders and Industry Ventures.
Opsera, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of an AI-powered DevOps platform, raised $20M in Series B funding. The round was led by Prosperity7 with participation from Hitachi Ventures, Clear Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Taiwania Capital, and Alumni Ventures.
Hi Auto, a Dayton, OH-based startup developing AI-powered voice technology for the quick-service restaurant (QSR) industry, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round, which brought the total amount to $23M, was led by Delek Motors, the Zisapel Family, Vasuki Tech Fund, with participation from Allied Group, Goldbell Investments, and the Meir Barel Group.
Northwind Climate, a Boston, MA-based data platform and SaaS tool provider for the climate economy, raised $1M in Pre-Seed funding. Backers included Tom Steyer, former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Alexander Hoffmann of Susty Ventures, among others.
Warlock Labs, a San Francisco, CA-based crypto infrastructure startup, raised $8m in seed funding. The round was led by Polychain Capital with participation from Greenfield Capital, Reciprocal Ventures, Symbolic Capital, Ambush Capital, and TRGC.
Cambrian, a San Francisco, CA-based company that enables developers to build AI agents, raised $5.9M in Seed funding. The round was led by a16z’s Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX), joined by Blockchain Builders and angels.
Markmi, a Ghent, Belgium-based fashion tech startup providing an AI-driven markdown assistant service, raised €1.1M in Seed funding. Backers included Wolf (Luc Van Mol, ex-ZEB), the Torfs family, and Lorenz Bogaert, Matthias Geeroms, Jan Teerlinck, Roeland Delrue, Jonas Deprez, and PMV.
Actively AI, a NYC-based startup using reasoning-driven AI to optimize B2B sales targeting, raised $17.5M in Series A funding led by Bain Capital Ventures.
Roam, a NYC-based startup making home buying more affordable by enabling access to assumable mortgages, raised $11.5M in Series A funding led by Keith Rabois at Khosla Ventures.
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
Construct Capital, a Washington, D.C.-based early-stage VC firm focused on manufacturing, transportation, and defense tech, raised a $300M third fund. Founded by Dayna Grayson and Rachel Holt, the firm has backed startups like Hadrian and Veho.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
Rippling employee admits to spying for rival Deel in explosive affidavit:
Rippling employee Keith O’Brien admitted in a newly released affidavit that he was paid by Deel’s CEO and CFO to spy on Rippling, passing along sensitive internal data including customer leads, roadmaps, and employee intel.
Rippling uncovered the espionage by staging a Slack trap, then confronted O’Brien, who wiped his phone, faked flushing it, and later smashed another device before cooperating with authorities.
Deel denies all wrongdoing, but Rippling claims to have “smoking gun” evidence implicating Deel leadership in the corporate spying scheme; the case includes RICO and trade secret violations.
OpenAI’s o3 model might be costlier to run than originally estimated:
ARC Prize Foundation revised the cost estimate of OpenAI’s o3 “high” model from $3,000 to around $30,000 per task on the ARC-AGI benchmark, citing higher-than-expected compute usage.
The new estimate is based on o1-pro pricing as a proxy, noting that o3 high used 172x more compute than its lowest configuration, o3 low.
While OpenAI hasn’t released or priced o3 officially, the findings highlight how costly high-performance reasoning models may be for certain tasks, especially in enterprise use cases.
Meta's $1,000 AR glasses are coming soon:
Meta is reportedly planning to launch advanced Ray-Ban smart glasses, codenamed Hypernova, featuring a built-in screen visible in the right lens, controlled by hand gestures and touch, potentially arriving by year's end.
The new glasses will support apps, photo viewing, and have an improved camera, while carrying a hefty price tag between $1,000 and $1,400, significantly higher than the current $299 Meta Ray-Ban model.
Meta's product roadmap includes a future Hypernova 2 version with dual screens expected in 2027, while reserving its most sophisticated AR technology for the separate Orion glasses still under development.
Amazon reportedly submits last-minute bid to acquire TikTok:
Amazon has reportedly submitted a last-minute bid to acquire TikTok, though sources say the offer isn’t being taken seriously by those involved in ongoing deal talks.
The bid comes just days before the April 5 deadline for ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations or face a ban under U.S. law.
Other bidders include Oracle, Andreessen Horowitz, and private equity firms like Blackstone, all working to craft a deal acceptable to the U.S. government.
Deepmind outlines AGI safety strategy, warns of risks by 2030:
Google DeepMind published a 145-page paper forecasting the arrival of AGI by 2030 and outlining potential “severe harm,” including existential risks if safeguards aren't implemented.
The paper critiques rivals like Anthropic and OpenAI for weak safety strategies, and highlights risks from recursive AI improvement — where AI builds better AI.
Some researchers dispute the paper’s assumptions, arguing AGI is ill-defined and pointing to more immediate concerns, like AI models learning from false or misleading outputs.
Openai forms expert group to guide nonprofit-to-profit transition:
OpenAI is assembling an expert group to advise its philanthropy during its transition from a nonprofit to a for-profit entity, with a focus on challenges in health, education, and public services.
The group’s insights will be delivered to OpenAI’s board within 90 days, helping shape how the nonprofit arm deploys its resources before year-end.
As OpenAI shifts to a traditional corporate structure, backers like SoftBank are watching closely, with billions in funding contingent on the transition’s success.
Apple Card drama continues as Visa and Amex try to win Apple’s business:
Visa and American Express are competing to replace Mastercard as the payment network for Apple Card, with Visa reportedly offering Apple a $100 million upfront payment to secure the business.
Goldman Sachs, currently backing the Apple Card but seeking to exit the partnership after significant financial losses, has prompted Apple to search for both a new issuing bank and potentially a new payment network.
American Express is uniquely positioning itself to serve as both the issuer and network for Apple Card, while Mastercard is fighting to maintain its current role by exploring integration of its Finicity platform with Apple's ecosystem.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕Other news
WordPress maker Automattic lays off 16% of staff:
Automattic, the parent of WordPress.com and Tumblr, laid off 16% of its workforce—about 281 employees—citing market competition and the need for greater agility.
The layoffs span 90 countries and affect roles in product, sales, marketing, community, and more, including staff from WooCommerce, Tumblr, Day One, and AI divisions.
CEO Matt Mullenweg said the cuts aim to boost productivity and profitability, as the company canceled its 2025 retreat and navigates a legal dispute with WP Engine.
HIRING ALERT: STARTUPS & VC ROLES
💼 Today’s VC & startup job opportunities
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Program & Events Manager - Plug and Play Tech Center | USA - Apply Here
Summer Venture Capital Associate - Acumen - Apply Here
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Principal - Venture Capital - Artha Group | India - Apply Here
Investment Principal -M12 | USA - Apply Here
Investment Analyst - Node VC - Apply Here
Investor Relations -Kotak Mahindra | India - Apply Here
Associate Director - Operations -Upaya Social Venture | India - Apply Here
Junior Partner - Outlander VC | USA - Apply Here'
Investment Associate - Galvanize Group | USA - Apply Here
Principal - Stepstone Group | USA - Apply Here
Deal Sourcing Manager - Tracxn | India - Apply Here
Finance Associate - Thomvest | USA - Apply Here
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