☕ TikTok challenger once worth $1B shuts down, Meta’s $14B bet on Scale AI is already under strain & Lovable valuation jumps over $4B.
Nvidia's two customers made up 39% of it's $46.7 billion Q2 revenue & More.
Ever wondered what that tiny pocket in your jeans is for? Well, originally, this was made for pocket watches in the 1800s.
Now it’s just a sad little void holding nothing but lint and one of your AirPods cause you lost the other.
Love or hate this intro? Hit reply and tell us why!
📬 What’s in store:
Today’s Picks: SaaS model template, a16z Gen AI apps, AI hires, founder Q&A kit, EU VC valuations, idea validator, Racecar Growth, landing pages, CC/CD LLM.
Investors chase Lovable as valuation jumps past $4B.
Nvidia revealed that two unnamed customers made up 39% of its Q2 revenue.
Meta’s $14B bet on Scale AI is already under strain.
TikTok challenger once worth $1B shuts down.
Alibaba develops new AI chip to replace Nvidia.
Meta in talks to use Google and OpenAI AI.
Musk fights SEC over Twitter stake lawsuit.
xAI sues ex-engineer for stealing secrets for OpenAI.
VC & Startup Jobs: VC & investors backed startup hiring for remote roles.
FROM OUR PARTNER - MECO
The best new app for newsletter reading
Reading newsletters in the inbox is frustrating - it is noisy and easy to lose control of subscriptions. Now with Meco you can enjoy your newsletters in an app built for reading, while giving your inbox space to breathe.
Meco connects to Gmail & Outlook, allowing you to instantly move your newsletters to the app (and clear your inbox)
The experience is packed with features to supercharge your reading including the ability to group newsletters, set smart filters, bookmark your favorites and read in a scrollable feed.
You can try the experience for free and available on iOS, Android and web (desktop)
Over 30k readers are enjoying their newsletters (and decluttering their inbox) with Meco - try the app today!
PARTNERSHIP WITH US
💪 Get your startup in front of over 95,000+ audience.
Our newsletter is read by thousands of tech professionals, founders, investors (VCs / Angel Investors) and managers around the world. Get in touch today.
DAILY PICKS
🗞️ What else is brewing
SaaS startup financial model: all-in-one excel template.
a16z Report: The state of Gen AI consumer apps (Top 100).
Should you hire an AI engineer?: Linktree’s surprising results.
What investors ask and how to answer : A practical Q&A prep kit for founders.
VC valuations in Europe are climbing.
A 3-step pay-or-pass idea validator framework.
Anatomy of high-converting landing pages
A new framework for building on LLMs: CC/CD framework.
What makes $1M micro-SaaS ideas win?
Startup legal document templates – legal docs for founders.
40 real startup pitch decks that raised $350M+ (Including leading startups decks)
STARTUPS RAISING MILLIONS
💰 Startup funding updates
Axelyf, Inc., a Brookline, MA-based biotechnology company developing next-generation lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery systems for RNA therapeutics, closed a $2.6m seed funding. The round, which has the potential to reach a total of $4.1m during Fall 2025, was led by Brunnur Ventures with participation from Omega ehf and Silfurberg ehf.
Sensorium Therapeutics, a Boston, MA-based neuroscience therapeutics company, raised $25m in Series A funding. Backers included Mockingbird Capital Partners, Mission BioCapital, Hatteras Venture Partners, and Dolby Family Ventures.
FriendliAI, a Redwood City, CA-based AI inference platform company, closed a $20m seed extension funding. The round was led by Capstone Partners, with participation from new investors from Sierra Ventures, Alumni Ventures, KDB, and follow-on investment from KB Securities.
Sheba Joy, a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based mobile gaming studio, raised $293k (SAR 1.1 m) in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Merak Capital.
Copper, a Berkeley, CA-based appliances company, raised $28M in funding. The round was led by Prelude Ventures, with participation from Building Ventures, as well as existing investors Voyager, Collaborative Fund, Climactic, Designer Fund, Necessary Ventures, Leap Forward Ventures, and Climate Capital.
Terraton, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a biochar platform, raised $11.5m in seed funding. The round was led by Lowercarbon Capital and Gigascale Capital with participation from ANA Future Frontier Fund and Takanawa Gateway Global Co-Benefits Fund.
Mantic, a London, UK-based provider of a platform that forecasts world events, raised $4m in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Episode 1 with participation from DRW and angels.
Credit Coop, a NYC-based provider of a protocol supporting credit markets by turning business cash flows into programmable collateral, raised $4.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Maven 11 and Lightspeed Faction, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Signature Ventures, Veris Ventures, TRGC, and dlab.
aPriori, a San Francisco, CA-based developer of an intelligent order flow coordination layer for high-performance blockchains, raised $20m in funding. Backers included HashKey Capital, Pantera Capital, Primitive Ventures, IMC Trading, GEM, Gate Labs, Ambush Capital, and Big Brain Collective.
M0, a Zug, Switzerland-based universal stablecoin platform, raised $40m in Series B funding. Backers included Polychain Capital, Ribbit Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, Road Capital, Pantera, and Bain Capital Crypto.
EnsiliTech, a Bristol, UK-based biotechnology startup, raised £4.5M in Seed funding. The round was led by Eos Advisory and Calculus Capital with participation from Empirical Ventures, Fink Family Office, QantX, Angel Investors Bristol (AIB), HERmesa, Penn Park Capital, chANGELS, and other individual angel investors.
Wugen, a St. Louis, MO-based clinical-stage biotechnology company, raised $115M in funding. The round was led by Fidelity Management and Research Company, with participation from RiverVest Venture Partners, Lightchain Capital, Abingworth, ICG, LYZZ Capital, Tybourne Capital Management, Aisling Capital Management, and other life sciences investors.
TOOL FOR FOUNDERS
📑 Know your startup worth before investors tell you
Most valuation guides online are fluff. This one was built with real VCs and founders to give you the frameworks investors actually use.
Inside you’ll get:
7 valuation methods (Berkus, Scorecard, VC Method, DCF & more)
A 5-step framework to calculate your number
Excel templates + real benchmarks
How to present valuation in your deck without losing credibility
NEW VCs IN THE MARKET
🏦 Venture Capital updates
Veteran Ventures Capital, a McLean, VA-based venture capital firm investing in dual-use national security technologies, closed Veterans Fund II, at $60m. Fund II received support from institutional investors—including the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation, the State of Tennessee, and university endowments—alongside Hersh Family Investments, prominent family offices, and wealth management firms.
KEY STORIES IN TECH
📜 Latest in tech
Investors chase Lovable as valuation jumps past $4B:
Financial Times reports investors are making unsolicited offers valuing Swedish startup Lovable at over $4B, weeks after its $200M fundraise at a $1.8B valuation led by Accel
CEO Anton Osika and the company say they are not fundraising despite heavy inbound interest from investors
Lovable hit $100M in annual recurring revenue in July with more than 10M projects built, just nine months after launch, making it one of Europe’s fastest growing unicorns
Nvidia’s record sales hinge on just two customers:
Nvidia revealed that two unnamed customers made up 39% of its Q2 revenue, with one contributing 23% and the other 16%.
The company reported $46.7 billion in revenue for the quarter, with data center sales — mostly AI-related — driving 88% of the total.
Analysts warn that overreliance on a few customers is risky, but note that these buyers are cash-rich and expected to keep investing heavily in data centers.
Meta’s $14B bet on Scale AI is already under strain:
Just two months after Meta’s $14.3B investment, Scale AI exec Ruben Mayer has left, and Meta’s AI lab is reportedly favoring competitors Surge and Mercor for higher-quality data labeling.
Researchers inside Meta Superintelligence Labs see Scale’s crowdsourced data as low quality, while Scale faces layoffs and the loss of OpenAI and Google as customers.
Internal chaos and high-profile departures raise questions about whether Meta’s largest AI investment can stabilize its AI push and deliver results.
TikTok challenger once worth $1B shuts down:
The California tech startup Flip, a TikTok-esque shopping and reviews app valued at over $1 billion this year, has abruptly shut down its website and mobile application.
The company combined short-form video with an Amazon-like shopping cart, rewarding users with product discounts for watching and paying creators based on the engagement on their posts.
In a farewell message, Flip confirmed its closure and listed past achievements, including paying out $13.4 million to content creators and generating $375 million in sales for brands.
Alibaba develops new AI chip to replace Nvidia:
Alibaba has designed a new artificial intelligence chip optimized for inference workloads that will support a broader range of use cases than the company’s earlier custom processors.
The new processor will reportedly be capable of running applications originally written for Nvidia silicon, a feature that could remove the need for making extensive software code changes.
Alibaba is reportedly using Chinese fabs to build the custom silicon, relying on a combination of legacy foreign-made chipmaking equipment and some of its own homegrown hardware.
Meta in talks to use Google and OpenAI AI:
Meta is in talks with both Google and OpenAI to potentially integrate their Gemini and GPT models, a move that would enhance conversational features in its own AI chatbot.
These potential partnerships are reportedly a temporary solution, as the company is racing to make its own next-generation model, Llama 5, competitive with other major systems.
The company confirmed an "all-of-the-above approach" to building AI products, a strategy which already includes using Anthropic models internally to provide teams with coding support.
Musk fights SEC over Twitter stake lawsuit:
Elon Musk asked a federal judge to dismiss the SEC’s case alleging he delayed disclosure of a 5% Twitter stake in 2022, saving $150M at investors’ expense.
Musk argued the delay was inadvertent, called the case government overreach, and said the proposed $150M fine was excessive compared to past penalties.
The SEC says intent doesn’t matter and Musk violated key disclosure rules meant to protect investors; the feud continues years after his 2018 Tesla case.
LAST COFFEE SIP
☕Other news
xAI sues ex-engineer for stealing secrets for OpenAI:
Elon Musk's xAI is suing former engineer Xuechen Li for allegedly stealing confidential material tied to the Grok chatbot before starting a new role at rival company OpenAI this month.
The filing claims Li downloaded and concealed files after accepting the job offer and selling $7 million of his xAI stock, later admitting to the theft during an internal meeting.
Now, xAI is seeking monetary damages plus a restraining order to prevent Li from working for OpenAI, though the artificial intelligence firm itself is not a defendant in the case.
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)
Investor Relations Analyst - Griffin Gaming Partner | USA - Apply Here
Associate - OMERSE Venture | USA - Apply Here
Investment Analyst - Caanan | USA - Apply Here
Investor, SF Launch - Entrepreneur First | USA - Apply Here
Events and Operations Intern - Plug and Play Tech Centre | UK - Apply Here
Partner 16 - a16z | USA - Apply Here
Portfolio Associate - W Health Venture | India - Apply Here
Investor Relations Analyst - Techstar | USA - Apply Here
Associate Telescope Partner | USA - Apply Here
Operations & Finance Analyst - Faraday Venture Partner | Spain - Apply Here
WHEN YOU’RE READY, HERE’S HOW I CAN HELP:
💁 You might need our help!
Reach 95,000+ Founders & Investors: Partner with our newsletter to reach a highly engaged audience.
Build Your Pitch Deck: We write, design and model your pitch deck into a storyteller book within 4-5 days.
Do you have any news to share about your Startup or VC fund? Please email us.
We’ll be back in your inbox on Tomorrow.