Anthropic accidentally exposed the inner workings of Claude Code by publishing an internal source map file to npm — a vast public registry where developers share and download reusable code and where anything uploaded is freely accessible to anyone in the world. That means rivals and researchers now have a detailed look at how Claude Code's coding agent handles memory, orchestration, and background tasks. VentureBeat has more here.

Hackers linked to North Korea hijacked the widely used Axios JavaScript library on npm by compromising a maintainer’s account and slipping in malware that could give remote access to any systems that installed the poisoned update. TechCrunch has more here.

OpenAI has officially closed a record $122 billion funding round at an $852 billion post-money valuation, with capital from SoftBank, Andreessen Horowitz, D. E. Shaw Ventures, Amazon, Nvidia, and Microsoft as well as $3 billion from individual investors. TechCrunch has more here.

By Dominic-Madori Davis

Pete Martin remembers raising a $5 million seed round at a $25 million post-money valuation for his AI-powered cybersecurity company Realm way back in 2024, aka, like a thousand “AI years” ago.  

That valuation seemed high for that amount at the time, he recalled. But today, “it’s pretty typical” to see a $10 million seed round at a $40 million to $45 million post-money valuation, he said, especially if you are an AI company.  

Actually, that type of thing happens only if you are an AI company, as investors are showing little interest in anything else. 

At the most recent Y Combinator Demo Day held in March, everyone was talking about how high the companies were priced, said Ashley Smith, a general partner at the early-stage fund Vermilion. Many startups had already landed six- to seven-figure customer contracts, including a company that was only eight weeks old, she said, so there were companies asking for $5 million at a $40 million post money.

This time, it was more than the so-called “YC tax,” meaning how much more an investor is willing to pay just because the startup went through YC, she believed. Even with those early revenue numbers, Smith said investors in this market are pricing rounds “years ahead of traction.”

The big venture firms, flush with cash, are also moving into rounds earlier, driving up startup prices and valuations in hopes of cashing in big if these companies exit or IPO one day. Smaller VC firms have an insatiable appetite for AI companies, too. As an investor focused on AI infrastructure, Smith said she can easily find herself priced out of a round, especially when a larger firm moves in. That’s one reason why seed deal count is down but valuations are up, both founders and VCs said, and data from Carta shows.  

Shanea Leven, founder of the enterprise AI application platform Empromptu, blames Cursor, which, in early 2025, hit $100 million in revenue in just 12 months. It was one of the first high-profile AI companies to raise the bar for how fast these startups could gain traction, although it certainly wasn’t the only one. Others include Lovable, Bolt, OpenEvidence, ElevenLabs, all boasting about their fast traction. Though these are outliers, it’s hard for some not to feel the reverberated heat.  

9fin, a nine-year-old London startup that uses AI to enable credit professionals to analyze opportunities in global debt markets, raised a $170 million Series C round at a $1.3 billion valuation. The deal was led by HarbourVest, with CPP Investments as well as previous investors Redalpine, Highland Europe, Spark Capital, and Seedcamp also participating. More here.

Also, a Palo Alto startup and Rivian spinout that makes small electric vehicles for consumers and commercial delivery use, raised a $200 million round at a $1 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by previous investor Greenoaks Capital, with additional support from Prysm and DoorDash. The company also announced a partnership with DoorDash to work together on autonomous deliveries. TechCrunch has more here.

Crosby, a two-year-old New York startup that runs a law firm where AI reviews commercial contracts and human lawyers do a final legal check for startups and growth companies, raised a $60 million Series B round co-led by Lux Capital and Index Ventures, with Sequoia Capital, Elad Gil, Bain Capital Ventures, and 01 Advisors also contributing. Forbes has more here.

Depthfirst, a 17-month-old San Francisco startup that builds security-specific AI models and software to find vulnerabilities and deliver code fixes inside developer workflows, raised an $80 million Series B round led by Meritech Capital, with Forerunner Ventures and The House Fund as well as previous investors Accel, Box Group, Liquid 2 Ventures, Alt Capital, and Mantis VC also opting in. The company has raised a total of $120 million. More here.

Linx, a three-year-old New York startup that monitors identities across an organization and automatically remediates suspicious activity, raised a $50 million Series B round from Index Ventures, Cyberstarts, and Insight Partners. Business Insider has more here.

Midas, a two-year-old Berlin startup that has developed a protocol that turns institutional yield strategies into blockchain-based tokens, raised a $50 million Series A round co-led by RRE and Creandum, with Framework Ventures, HV Capital, Ledger Cathay, North Island Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Franklin Templeton, and GSR also anteing up. CoinDesk has more here.

OpenFX, a two-year-old Miami startup that builds stablecoin infrastructure for cross-border foreign exchange and payments, raised a $94 million Series A round at a $500 million valuation, according to Reuters. The deal was co-led by Accel, Atomico, Lightspeed Faction, M13, Northzone, and Pantera, with previous investors Flybridge and Hash3 also weighing in. PYMNTS has more here.

Saronic, a four-year-old Austin startup that makes autonomous surface vessels for the U.S. military, raised a $1.75 billion round at a $9.25 billion valuation, more than doubling its valuation from a round it raised last year. The deal was led by Kleiner Perkins. CNBC has more here.

Tenex.ai, a two-year-old startup based in Sarasota, FL, that has built an AI-enabled managed detection and response service designed to find, track, and respond to security threats with human oversight, raised a $250 million Series B round at a $1+ billion valuation. The deal was led by Crosspoint Capital Partners, with Shield Capital and DeepWork Capital also chiming in. More here.

Whoop, a 14-year-old Boston company that sells wearable devices and a subscription health platform that tracks biometrics and gives users personalized health guidance, raised a $575 million Series G round at a $10.1 billion valuation. The deal was led by Collaborative Fund, with additional participation from Mubadala Investment Company, Qatar Investment Authority, 2PointZero Group, Abbott, Mayo Clinic, Macquarie Capital, IVP, Foundry Group, Accomplice, Affinity Partners, Glade Brook, B-Flexion, Promus Ventures, and Bullhound Capital as well as prominent athletes like LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Rory McIlroy. The company has raised a total of approximately $900 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Create Wellness, a four-year-old New York startup that makes creatine monohydrate supplements in gummy and electrolyte formats for consumers, raised a $20 million Series B round. Alliance Consumer Growth and Impact Capital were the co-leads, with Unilever Ventures also taking part. Forbes has more here.

Jimini Health, a two-year-old New York startup that sells a clinically supervised mental health chatbot to healthcare providers, raised a $17 million seed round led by M13, with Town Hall Ventures, LionBird, Zetta Venture Partners, and OneMind also investing. The company has raised a total of $25+ million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Kestra, a five-year-old French startup that runs an open-source workflow orchestration platform for developers and data teams, raised a $25 million Series A round led by RTP Global and including Alven, ISAI, and Axeleo. The company has raised a total of $36 million. Tech.eu has more here.

PrismML, a Caltech spinout startup that compresses large language models to 1-bit precision to run efficiently on phones, laptops, and data centers, announced that it raised $16.25 million in a SAFE and seed round. Investors included Khosla Ventures, Cerberus Capital, and Caltech. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Scala Biodesign, a four-year-old Tel Aviv startup that enables pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to computationally engineer proteins with improved stability and binding capabilities for drug development, raised a $16 million Series A round led by Grove Ventures, with TLV Partners, Deep Insight, and the Israel Innovation Authority also investing. CTech has more here.

Standing Ovation, a five-year-old Paris startup that produces casein proteins via precision fermentation for use in dairy and food products, raised a $28.8 million Series B round. Ecotechnologies 2 and Crédit Mutuel Innovation were the co-leads, with Astanor, Bel Group, Seventure Partners, GoodStartUp, Danone Ventures, Big Idea Ventures, Angelor, Newtree, and Noshaq also stepping up. AgFunderNews has more here.

ThinkLabs AI, a two-year-old New York startup that enables utilities to simulate, plan, and optimize grid operations faster than traditional tools, raised a $28 million round led by Energy Impact Partners, with NVentures and Edison International as well as previous investors GE Vernova, Powerhouse Ventures, Active Impact Investments, Blackhorn Ventures, and Amplify Capital also engaging. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Variance, a five-year-old New York startup that creates AI investigative agents for risk and compliance teams at financial institutions and Fortune 500 companies, raised a $21.5 million Series A round led by Ten Eleven Ventures, with 645 Ventures, Y Combinator, Urban Innovation Fund, and Okta Ventures also digging in. The company has raised a total of $26 million. More here.

Cara, a two-year-old New York startup that automates sales and servicing workflows for insurance brokerages, agencies, and wholesalers, raised an $8 million seed round. Kearny Jackson led the transaction. More here.

Enclave, a recently founded Tel Aviv startup that reads code to find architectural security vulnerabilities in AI-generated applications, raised a $6 million round at a $33 million valuation. The deal was led by 8VC, with Patrick Collison, Aaron Levie, Diane Greene, Matt Huang, Jeremy Stoppelman, and Marc Benioff also pitching in. More here.

Linecook, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that uses AI to turn cooking photos and notes into shareable recipes and social posts, raised a $2.3 million pre-seed round from Ardent VC and Sweet Spot Capital as well as the founders of Strava, WHOOP, and MyFitnessPal. Fitt Insider has more here.

Nomadic, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that turns autonomous vehicle and robotics footage into structured, searchable datasets for training and evaluation, raised an $8.4 million seed round at a $50 million post-money valuation. The deal was led by TQ Ventures, with Pear VC and Jeff Dean also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Whirl AI, a recently founded San Francisco startup that uses AI to map how a company’s internal business systems, integrations, and custom configurations actually work so IT teams can change them faster, raised a $8.9 million seed round. Iconiq was the deal lead. More here.

Corazon Capital, a 10-year-old Chicago-based VC firm that backs “AI-native companies built around enduring human behaviors,” raised a $100 million fourth fund. More here.

Rec Room, a 10-year-old social gaming platform once valued at $3.5 billion that drew more than 150 million players, is shutting down on June 1st after failing to build a sustainable business. The company raised almost $300 million from investors like Sequoia Capital, Madrona, Coatue, Index Ventures, and Greycroft. TechCrunch has more here.

Yupp, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that let users compare outputs from 800 AI models and resold that user preference data back to AI labs, is shutting down less than a year after launch. It raised a $33 million seed led by Chris Dixon at Andreessen Horowitz. TechCrunch has more here.

SpaceX is reportedly lining up at least 21 banks for a planned June IPO – code-named Project Apex – that could value Elon Musk’s rocket company at about $1.75 trillion, with Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Citigroup serving as lead bookrunners. Reuters has more here.

Doug Leone is returning to active investing at Sequoia Capital in a newly created chairman role, four years after retiring as senior steward and following a turbulent stretch for the firm that has included leadership turnover and the spinouts of its China and India arms. Forbes has more here.

The primary isn’t until early June, but the CA-17 race between five-term incumbent Ro Khanna and tech founder Ethan Agarwal is already getting nasty. TechCrunch takes a quick look here.

As it continues to spend heavily on AI infrastructure, Oracle has begun laying off thousands of employees in an apparent effort to allay investors’ concerns about its debt load, cash flow, and stock price, which is down 25% this year. CNBC has more here.

Google researchers warned that future quantum computers may be able to crack the elliptic-curve cryptography used across crypto with about 20 times less hardware than previously estimated, adding pressure on Bitcoin and other blockchain communities to move faster toward post-quantum defenses. Bloomberg has more here.

Microsoft just logged its worst quarter on Wall Street since 2008, with the stock down 23% as investors fret over the payoff from its AI buildout, weak Copilot adoption, and the growing cost of supporting both Azure demand and its own AI products. CNBC has more here.

A New York Times writer who spent a month using a $1,119 red-light therapy mat found the strongest effect wasn’t smoother skin or thicker hair but a strange sense of stimulation and irritability that made the whole wellness craze seem a little more sinister.

Barbie Dream Fest, a Florida fan convention that charged up to $450 per ticket and promised a roller rink and immersive Barbie fun, is issuing full refunds after attendees found a mostly empty hall with pink cardboard cutouts, a handful of vendors, and little to do, in scenes reminiscent of Glasgow’s infamous Willy Wonka Experience.

Samsung has launched a $4,280 AI-equipped wine refrigerator in South Korea that uses an internal camera to identify bottles and track their location and temperature and also includes a dedicated compartment for pairings like cheese, fruit, nuts, and charcuterie.

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