☕ Robinhood to launch a publicly traded VC fund, CoreWeave-Nvidia sign $6.3 billion deal & China rules that Nvidia violated its antitrust laws.
Fiverr to lay off 30% of workforce in AI push & Nothing, a smartphone maker raises $200 million.
It took just 66 years to go from the Wright brothers’ first flight to the Moon landing.
One moment: wooden glider in a field. Next: humans walking on lunar dust.
That’s not progress, that’s sci-fi speed.
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📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks: Secretive VC behind Elon Musk, AI agent startups at $500M ARR, AI vibe analysis, 6000+ EU VC database, ESOP value calculator, startup legal docs, Tom Bilyeu’s $100K test.
Nothing, a smartphone maker raises $200 million.
Robinhood to launch a publicly traded VC fund - Robinhood Ventures Fund I.
OpenAI upgrades Codex with GPT-5-Codex.
China says Nvidia violated antitrust regulations.
With no DOJ breakup, Alphabet becomes a $3 trillion company.
Google Gemini overtakes ChatGPT in app charts.
OpenAI hires former xAI CFO Mike Liberatore as business finance officer.
Online marketplace Fiverr to lay off 30% of workforce in AI push.
CoreWeave, Nvidia sign $6.3 billion cloud computing capacity order.
Meta leaks its new smart glasses with a display.
Rolling Stone publisher sues Google over AI summaries.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
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DAILY PICKS
🗞️ What else is brewing
The secretive VC firm behind Elon Musk’s empire.
How AI agent startups hit $500M ARR in 2 years.
Vibe Analysis: AI is about to change how we work with data.
6000+ European VC Firms Contact Database (LinkedIn Links).
ESOP Value Calculator Template: How to communicate ESOP value to your team.
Startup legal document pack – essential legal docs for founders.
Tom Bilyeu’s $100,000 validation test before you build anything.
The 5-step cold email playbook every founder should copy.
The only startup valuation guide you need as a founder.
Step-by-step GTM funnel to close your first 10 B2B deals.
350+ Indian Angel Investors & Venture Capital Firms Contact Database (Email + LinkedIn Link).
How YC startups design LLM prompts that behave like agents.
Investor data room guide & templates for founders.
Y-Combinator Fall 2025 request for startups.
The CRM template every founder needs before starting their fundraise.
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
Nothing, a London-based consumer electronics startup founded by Carl Pei, raised $200 million in a Series C round led by Tiger Global, bringing its valuation to $1.3 billion. The company, known for its design-centric smartphones, plans to launch an AI-first device next year.
Divergent Technologies, a Los Angeles-based advanced manufacturing company, produces specialized military components such as missile parts using 3D printing. The company raised $290 million (including $40 million in debt) at a $2.3 billion valuation.
DianaHR, a San Francisco-based AI-powered HR-as-a-Service platform for SMBs, has raised a $3.7 million seed round led by SNR Ventures, with participation from General Catalyst, Y Combinator, and founders of Mercury, Twitch, and Dropbox.
Epoch Protocol, a Singapore-based intent-solver coordination layer for Web3, closed a $1.2m funding round. The round was led by L2Iterative Ventures, Alphemy Capital, G20 Group, Longhash Ventures, SAFE and HadronFC with participation from angel investors including Anurag Arjun (Avail), Prabal Banerjee (Avail), Adrian Brink (Anoma), Matt Wright (Gaianet), Christian Narvaez (Rayo Capital), Georgi Zlatarev (Blocksense), Harsh Rajat (Push Protocol), Denver Dsouza (Devfolio) and Shubham Bhandari (Manta Network).
MarqVision, a Los Angeles, CA-based provider of an AI-powered managed service platform for brand control, raised $48M in Series B funding. The round was led by Peak XV Partners, with participation from Salesforce Ventures, HSG, Coral Capital, Michael Seibel (Partner Emeritus of Y Combinator), and returning investors Y Combinator, Altos Ventures, and Atinum Investment.
Nestimate, a Lincoln, NE-based provider of an analytics platform that empowers 401(k) plan fiduciaries to implement income solutions, raised $3M in funding. The round was led by S3 Ventures, with participation from PruVen Capital, TIAA Ventures, and Invest Nebraska.
Arch, a NYC-based NYC-based company developing a digital way to track private market investments, raised $52M in Series B funding. The round was led by Oak HC/FT, with participation from Menlo Ventures, Craft Ventures, Quiet Capital and others.
Divergent Technologies, a Torrance, CA-based creator of the divergent adaptive production system, raised $290M in Series E funding. The round was led by Rochefort Asset Management and consisted of $250M in equity capital and $40M in debt capital.
GreenLite, a NYC-based construction technology company, raised $49.5M in Series B funding. The round was led by Insight Partners with participation from Energize Capital, as well as existing investors Craft Ventures, LiveOak Ventures, and Chicago Ventures.
PopChill, a Taipei, Taiwan-based luxury resale platform provider, raiesed USE$3M in Series A funding. The round was led by Darwin Ventures. Other participating investors include ITIC, AVA Angels, Taipei Angels (TA), and Dream coFounder.
Gyala Therapeutics, a Barcelona, Spain-based biotechnology company that specializes in developing immunotherapies to treat hematological malignancies, raised €3M in funding. Backers included Invivo Partners, Nara Capital and CDTI Innvierte.
Terra Security, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based provider of an agentic-AI continuous penetration testing platform, raised $30M in Series A funding. The round was led by Felicis, with participation from Dell Technology Capital and SVCI.
Spara, a NYC-based provider an enterprise-grade platform for voice, email, and chat AI agents to instantly engage, raised $15M in Seed funding. The round was led by Radical Ventures and Inspired Capital, with participation from XYZ Ventures, FJ Labs, Remarkable Ventures, and angel investors.
Pascal AI, a Bangalore, India-based company providing a vertical platform for agentic investment research workflows, raised $3.1M in Seed funding. The round was led by Kalaari Capital with participation from Norwest, Infoedge Ventures, Antler and angel investors.
GEOH, an Indianapolis, IN-based provider of practice management software and services for home care agencies, raised over $30M in Growth funding. The round was led by Council Capital with participation from Boomerang Ventures, First Leaf Capital, and VisionTech Partners.
Opticore, a Berkeley, CA-based AI computing company developing a photonic computing chip, raised $7.5M in funding. The round was led by Origin Ventures and Jetha Capital, with participation from Sagax Capital, Neotribe Ventures and Thunderbolt Ventures.
feld.energy, a Munich, Germany-based agricultural photovoltaics (Agri-PV) company, raised over €10M in Seed funding. The round was led by HV Capital, with participation from Future Energy Ventures, AENU and Angel Invest.
Apex, a Los Angeles, CA-based spacecraft manufacturer offering productized and configurable satellite bus platforms, raised $200M Series D funding, at over over $1 Billion valuation. The round was led by Interlagos.
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NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
Robinhood has filed an application with the SEC to launch “Robinhood Ventures Fund I,” a publicly traded fund that would allow retail investors to invest in high-growth startups before they go public. While the fund’s structure and fees are not yet finalized, it’s expected to target sectors like AI, defense, fintech, and robotics.
Summit Peak Ventures, a Ft. Worth, Texas-based venture capital firm, is raising $150m for its fourth fund.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
OpenAI upgrades Codex with GPT-5-Codex:
OpenAI launched GPT-5-Codex, a new model for its coding agent that dynamically adjusts “thinking” time from seconds to hours, boosting performance on coding benchmarks.
The update is rolling out to Codex products inside ChatGPT (Plus, Pro, Business, Edu, Enterprise) and IDEs, with API access coming later.
GPT-5-Codex outperforms GPT-5 on SWE-bench Verified and refactoring tasks, offering stronger code reviews with fewer incorrect comments and more impactful feedback.
China says Nvidia violated antitrust regulations:
China’s market regulator ruled Nvidia violated antitrust laws over its $7B Mellanox acquisition but has not yet announced penalties.
The decision comes amid tense U.S.-China trade talks, where access to Nvidia chips remains a major sticking point.
Export rules on AI chips have shifted repeatedly this year, with licensing restrictions, partial repeals, and a new 15% U.S. revenue cut on sales to China.
With no DOJ breakup, Alphabet becomes a $3 trillion company:
Alphabet crossed $3T in market cap after a judge rejected DOJ proposals to break up Google’s search business or force a Chrome sale.
The softer remedies eased investor fears, even as rivals like Perplexity and Ecosia had lined up with bids for Chrome.
Alphabet’s growth is driven not only by search but also by its fast-expanding AI-powered cloud unit, joining Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple in the $3T+ club.
Google Gemini overtakes ChatGPT in app charts:
Google's Gemini is now the most downloaded free iPhone app in the US according to Apple's latest charts, moving the previously dominant ChatGPT into the second spot on the list.
The app's sudden leap to the top is likely driven by buzz surrounding its new, free Nano Banana AI image editor, which is built directly into the main Gemini software.
This editing tool lets people change scenarios or backgrounds in a photo using natural language prompts while keeping the main subject's original appearance consistent throughout all the modifications.
OpenAI hires former xAI CFO Mike Liberatore as business finance officer:
OpenAI has appointed Mike Liberatore, ex-CFO of Elon Musk’s xAI, as its new business finance officer overseeing AI infrastructure.
Liberatore left xAI in July after helping raise $5B in debt and $5B in equity; he will now report to CFO Sarah Friar and work with Greg Brockman’s team at OpenAI.
His move comes amid rising rivalry between Musk’s xAI and OpenAI, and intensifying competition among tech giants for top AI finance and operations talent.
Online marketplace Fiverr to lay off 30% of workforce in AI push:
Fiverr will cut 250 jobs, or 30% of its staff, as part of a restructuring to become an “AI-first company,” CEO Micha Kaufman told employees.
The shift aims to build a leaner, faster operation with modern AI-focused infrastructure, fewer management layers, and higher productivity per employee.
Fiverr joins other tech firms like Salesforce in betting on AI to automate customer support and operations, while saying business activities won’t be materially impacted in the near term.
CoreWeave, Nvidia sign $6.3 billion cloud computing capacity order:
CoreWeave signed a $6.3B order with Nvidia, under which Nvidia will purchase any unsold cloud capacity through April 2032.
The deal strengthens CoreWeave’s role as a key Nvidia partner and reassures investors worried about demand beyond major clients like Microsoft and OpenAI.
CoreWeave already has multi-billion-dollar cloud contracts with OpenAI and reported surging AI demand, though rising operating expenses highlight financial strain.
Meta leaks its new smart glasses with a display
An unlisted Meta video revealed new Ray-Ban smart glasses with a built-in display and a wristband controller, likely called Meta Ray-Ban Display.
The display appears in the right lens, enabling navigation, translations, Meta AI queries, and gesture-based replies using sEMG wristband tech.
The video also showed Oakley “Sphaera” wraparound smart glasses with a nose camera, both expected to debut at Meta’s Connect keynote this week.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other news
Rolling Stone publisher sues Google over AI summaries:
Penske Media, the publisher of Rolling Stone, filed a lawsuit against Google claiming the company illegally uses its copyrighted articles to create answers for its AI Overviews feature.
The lawsuit argues Google now forces publishers to supply their content for AI summaries that cannibalize search referrals as a condition for being included in standard web results.
The publisher states it has seen “significant declines in clicks from Google searches” since the tool launched, which hurts the ad and subscription revenue that depends on site visits.
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)
Investment Analyst - Miras Investment | Dubai - Apply Here
Associate - Iconiq Capital | USA - Apply Here
Program Manager - Tenity | UK - Apply Here
Investor Relations Analyst - Griffin Gaming Partner | USA - Apply Here
Associate - OMERSE Venture | USA - Apply Here
Investment Analyst - Caanan | USA - Apply Here
Investor (AI) - Samsung Next | USA - Apply Here
Events and Operations Intern - Plug and Play Tech Centre | UK - Apply Here
Partner 16 - a16z | USA - Apply Here
VC Associate UK - Breega | UK - Apply Here
Investment Team - Noba Capital | UK - Apply Here
Venture Capital Analyst Intern - DRW Venture Capital | USA - Apply Here
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