☕ Samsung fears first-ever smartphone loss & Google plans to invest up to $40B in Anthropic.
DeepSeek launches V4 models & Meta signs major deal with Amazon for AI CPUs.
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Breaking News
Samsung may face its first-ever smartphone loss in 2026 despite strong Galaxy sales, as rising memory costs crush margins. The real issue isn’t demand — it’s AI, with chips like those from Nvidia consuming massive amounts of DRAM and driving prices up. This shows how the AI boom is quietly reshaping entire industries, even hurting giants that aren’t directly in the AI race.
Google plans to invest up to $40B in Anthropic to lock in massive compute via its cloud infrastructure. The move highlights how the real AI race is shifting from models to compute dominance, with Big Tech fighting to control the backbone powering next-gen AI systems.
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup Funding Updates
PRE-SEED
QMatter, a London, UK-based quantum compression startup, raised $1.2M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by 55 North, with participation from XTX Ventures, Bellstate Oy, and Conception X Angel Syndicate.
Quillon, a Sofia, Bulgaria-based AI accounting platform, raised $1.5M in Pre-Seed funding. The round was led by 42CAP, with participation from angel investors.
SEED
Iridius, a Seattle, WA-based compliance-by-design AI platform, raised $8.6M in Seed funding. The round was led by Chalfen Ventures, with participation from Osage Venture Partners, Accenture Ventures, and Rock Yard Ventures.
TheStorage, a Tampere, Finland-based thermal energy storage company, raised €3.6M in Seed funding. The round was led by Voima Ventures, with participation from Superhero Capital, 2C Ventures, and Momentum Partners.
RE Joule (VREY), a Berlin, Germany-based solar solutions startup, raised €3.3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Rubio Impact Ventures, with participation from High-Tech Gründerfonds and Kopa Ventures.
Nava, a blockchain startup building guardrails for the agentic economy, raised $8.3M in Seed funding. The round was led by Polychain and Archetype.
Astor, a San Francisco, CA-based AI-native investment advisory platform, raised $5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Monashees, with participation from Y Combinator, Goodwater Capital, Gilgamesh Ventures, 468 Capital, Valutia, Sunshine Lake, and others.
GROWTH
Subbyx, a Milan, Italy-based subscription infrastructure platform, raised a Series A round bringing total funding to €50M. The round was led by Systemiq Capital, with participation from Azimut and Flashpoint.
LightFury Games, a Bengaluru-based AAA game-tech studio, raised $11M in Pre-Series A funding. Backers included Blume, V3 Ventures, MIXI, Times Internet, and others.
Minish Technology, a Los Angeles, CA-based dental health-tech company, raised $22M in funding. The round was led by VIG Partners.
Smart Robotics, an Eindhoven-based AI robotics company, raised €10M in Series A funding. The round was led by Rotterdamse Havendraken, with participation from Innovation Industries and Ernij Next.
Decade Energy, a Paris-based power infrastructure startup, raised €22M in funding. The round was led by Eiffel Investment Group and SET Ventures, with participation from Ananda Impact Ventures and Contrarian Ventures.
HrFlow.ai, a Paris-based AI HR data company, raised $7M in Pre-Series A funding. The round was led by 115K and EmergingTech Ventures, with participation from multiple angels.
Atmos Space Cargo, a Germany-based orbital transport company, raised €25.7M in Series A funding. The round was led by Balnord and Expansion, with participation from Keen Defence and Security.
Univity, a France-based satellite internet infrastructure startup, raised $32M in Series A funding. The round was led by Bpifrance, with participation from Blast and Expansion.
Signit, a Riyadh-based digital signature platform, raised $15M in Series A funding. The round was led by Raed Ventures, with participation from STV, Seedra Ventures, Takamol Ventures, and Suhail Ventures.
Verda (DataCrunch), a Helsinki-based AI infrastructure company, raised $117M in funding. The round was led by Lifeline Ventures, with participation from byFounders, Tesi, Varma, and others.
QUICK HITS
🔋 Founder Fuel
Useful Data: 350+ Indian angel investors & venture capital firms contact database (Email + LinkedIn Link) (Link)
Trends with Benefits: Stanford AI Index Report reveals: Is AI progress plateauing or quietly compounding? (Link)
Founder Resource: Investor outreach email sequence pack: 20+ proven templates used & approved by VCs (Link)
From Social: Khosla Venture’s Guide: Pitch the way VCs think. (Link)
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital Updates.
Mighty Capital, a San Francisco, CA-based venture capital firm specializing in product-led investing, closed Fund III, at $91m. The vehicle is backed by The Blackstone Group, on behalf of its clients, alongside existing limited partners and new institutional investors, including a Northern California public pension plan.
Oncology Ventures, an Austin, TX-based venture capital firm investing in startups transforming cancer care, closed its $62m Fund II. The Fund is anchored by Texas Oncology, a large physician-led oncology-focused practice, Moffitt Cancer Center, City of Hope, Atlantic Health, and Cardinal Health, Texas Oncology, Fred Hutch Cancer Center, and other institutions.
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KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest In Tech
Thinking Machines hires Meta talent as AI talent war intensifies
Thinking Machines Lab is aggressively hiring researchers from Meta, including key engineers and leaders behind major AI projects.
The startup recently secured a multibillion dollar cloud deal with Google and access to advanced Nvidia chips, boosting its infrastructure capabilities.
With a $12 billion valuation and growing team, Thinking Machines is emerging as a serious competitor in the AI talent and research race.
Tesla starts Cybercab robotaxi production
Tesla has begun making its Cybercab robotaxi, though Elon Musk warned on the earnings call that production will be slow through the rest of the year before picking up speed in late 2026 and beyond.
Musk sounded unusually cautious about the robotaxi rollout, citing the need for rigorous validation, even though Tesla has reported 14 crashes to federal regulators since the Austin launch and routinely redacts details about what happened.
The Cybercab lacks a steering wheel, pedals, and mirrors, but Tesla says it won’t be subject to the 2,500-vehicle federal cap because the company is self-certifying that it meets existing safety standards, similar to Zoox.
DeepSeek launches V4 models aiming to close gap with top AI systems
DeepSeek introduced V4 Flash and V4 Pro models with up to 1.6 trillion parameters, positioning them among the largest open weight models.
The models show strong reasoning and coding performance, competing with systems from OpenAI and Google, though still slightly behind in knowledge benchmarks.
DeepSeek is aggressively undercutting rivals on pricing, offering significantly cheaper inference costs while narrowing the performance gap with frontier AI models.
Meta signs major deal with Amazon for AI CPUs amid shift beyond GPUs
Meta will use millions of AI focused CPUs from Amazon’s AWS Graviton chips to support its growing AI workloads.
The deal reflects a shift toward CPUs for agent driven tasks like reasoning and coordination, beyond traditional GPU heavy model training.
Move strengthens Amazon’s position in AI infrastructure as it competes with Google and Nvidia in the evolving chip landscape.
OpenAI launches GPT 5.5 as it moves closer to AI super app vision
OpenAI introduced GPT 5.5 with improved reasoning, speed, and performance across coding, research, and enterprise use cases.
The model is a step toward a unified “super app” combining ChatGPT, Codex, and browser based AI tools into a single platform.
GPT 5.5 outperforms models from Google and Anthropic on several benchmarks, expanding capabilities in science, cybersecurity, and knowledge work.
Judge drops Musk fraud claims against OpenAI
A federal judge has thrown out Elon Musk’s fraud claims against OpenAI and Sam Altman, though the lawsuit will still head to trial on his separate accusations of breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment.
Jury selection is set to start Monday, with opening arguments following on Tuesday, kicking off a closely watched courtroom fight between Musk and the company he helped launch before his departure.
Musk is asking for $150 billion in damages, with the money going to OpenAI’s charitable arm rather than to him personally, tying the claim to the nonprofit mission behind the original organization.
Anthropic tests AI agents negotiating real marketplace deals
Anthropic ran Project Deal, a pilot where AI agents acted as buyers and sellers, completing 186 transactions worth over $4,000.
More advanced models achieved better deal outcomes, but users often failed to notice differences, highlighting potential “agent quality” gaps.
Experiment shows early potential for agent driven commerce, where AI can autonomously negotiate and execute transactions.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕ Other News
Truecaller faces slowing growth as competition intensifies
Truecaller is seeing slowing growth, especially in India, as telecom providers and platforms like Apple and Google build native caller ID and spam features.
Downloads are declining while ad revenue faces pressure due to dependence on partners, though in app purchases and enterprise services continue to grow.
Company is expanding AI features, subscriptions, and business offerings, but long term growth depends on adapting to platform level competition and privacy concerns.
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)
Partner 18, Healthcare - a16z | USA - Apply Here
Associate - DN Capital | Germany - Apply Here
Investment Intern - DTCP | UK - Apply Here
Venture Scout - First Momentum Venture | UK - Apply Here
Analyst, Global Investment Team - 500 Global | USA - Apply Here
Associate, Data Operations - Iconiq Capital | USA - Apply Here
Investor - AI - Samsung Next | USA - Apply Here
Finance Associate - RA Capital | USA - Apply Here
Fund Controller - NFX | USA - Apply Here
Vice President, Investor Relations - General Atlantic - Apply Here
Senior Associate - RA Capital | USA - Apply Here
PE & VC Partner Manager - Dealhub | UK - Apply Here
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