For this week's StrictlyVC Download podcast, we talked with Airtable founder and CEO Howie Liu about the company's progress and got an unexpected reveal: Airtable's first standalone product in its 13-year history, Superagent, which launched today. Is it a complement to Airtable or a potential successor? Liu has some surprising thoughts. (We also broke down the news here.)

According to reporting from the Financial Times, Anthropic has doubled its targeted fundraise to $20 billion amid surging investor demand, a move that would value the company at $350 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

Speaking of Anthropic, court filings show the company quietly spent tens of millions buying, slicing, scanning, and recycling millions of books in a scheme called “Project Panama” in order to feed its AI models. The Washington Post has more here.

SoftBank is reportedly in talks to invest up to an additional $30 billion in OpenAI, building on its existing 11% stake as the AI company seeks as much as $100 billion in new capital at a potential valuation of up to $830 billion. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

TikTok has joined Snap in settling a lawsuit accusing social media companies of engineering addictive products that harmed young users, with Meta and YouTube still remaining as defendants. TechCrunch has more here.

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By Julie Bort

Anduril founder Palmer Luckey’s eyes light up, and he talks a mile a minute, when discussing his company’s new recruiting event: the AI Grand Prix. 

This is a drone-flying contest with a twist. Rather than humans operating drones, the drones must operate autonomously. The humans will be tested on their software-writing skills that cause the drones to outfly their competition.  

There are prizes ranging from a $500,000 pot to be split amongst the highest-scoring teams, to jobs at Anduril and a chance to bypass the company’s standard recruiting cycle. 

“It was something that I decided we should do,” Luckey said in an interview with TechCrunch. Luckey and the team were meeting to discuss recruitment strategy, he recalled.

Someone suggested sponsoring a drone-racing tournament, which was somewhat in line with the company’s previous marketing tactics. For instance, Anduril sponsors the NASCAR Cup Series race known as the Anduril 250. 

Luckey generally liked the idea but then told the team, “‘Guys, that would be a really dumb thing for Anduril to sponsor. The whole point, our entire impetus and reason for being, is this pitch that autonomy has finally advanced to where you don’t have to have a person micromanaging each drone,’” he recalled, then added, “‘What we should really do is sponsor a race that’s about how well programmers and engineers can make a drone fly itself.’” 

After discovering that such an event didn’t exist, the company opted to create it themselves. Interestingly, though, Luckey pointed out that the teams in the AI Grand Prix will not be flying Anduril’s drones, but those built by another defense tech startup: Neros Technologies. According to Luckey, Anduril’s drones are too physically big to run in the contained course in Ohio where the finals will take place.  

Cyclic Materials, a five-year-old Toronto startup that recovers rare earth elements from end-of-life products and manufacturing waste, raised a $75 million Series C round led by T. Rowe Price, with the Canada Growth Fund also participating. The company has raised a total of $162+ million. BetaKit has more here.

Mesh, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that offers a unified crypto payments network connecting wallets, exchanges, and financial services platforms, raised a $75 million Series C round at a $1 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Dragonfly Capital, with Paradigm, Moderne Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, SBI Investment, and Liberty City Ventures also participating. The company has raised a total of $200+ million. The Block has more here.

Northwood Space, a three-year-old startup based in Torrance, CA, that develops ground-based communications infrastructure for satellites, raised a $100 million Series B round co-led by Washington Harbour Partners and prior backer Andreessen Horowitz. TechCrunch has more here.

Summize, an eight-year-old startup based in Manchester, UK, that provides contract lifecycle management software for in-house legal teams, raised a $50 million seed round. Investors included Kennet Partners and Federated Hermes Private Equity as well as previous investors Maven Capital Partners and YFM Equity Partners. UKTN has more here.

TRexBio, an eight-year-old South San Francisco startup that develops tissue-targeted regulatory T cell therapies for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, raised a $50 million round. Investors included Janus Henderson Investors, Balyasny Asset Management, and Affinity Asset Advisors as well as previous investors Alexandria Venture Investments, Avego BioScience Capital, Delos Capital, Eli Lilly and Company, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Pfizer Ventures, Polaris Partners, and SV Health Investors. BioSpace has more here.

Vention, a 10-year-old Montréal company that provides technology that lets manufacturers use AI to design, configure, and run robots and automated machines on factory floors, raised a $110 million Series D round led by Investissement Québec, with NVentures and Desjardins Capital as well as previous investor Fidelity Investments Canada also joining in. BetaKit has more here.

Concourse, a three-year-old New York startup that develops AI agents for corporate finance teams, raised a $12 million Series A round led by Standard Capital, with Andreessen Horowitz, CRV, and Y Combinator also investing. More here.

Evaro, an eight-year-old London startup that lets consumer brands embed regulated NHS-backed healthcare services into their apps, raised a $25 million Series A round led by AlbionVC, with Simplyhealth Ventures, Exceptional Ventures, Cornerstone VC, and BBI also contributing. Tech Funding News has more here.

Flora, a two-year-old New York startup that provides a node-based design tool for creating media assets using generative AI, raised a $42 million Series A round led by Redpoint Ventures, with Menlo Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and Long Journey Ventures as well as angels like Justin Kan, Mike Volpi, and Cyan Banister also taking part. The company has raised a total of $52 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Fulcrum, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that provides an AI platform for insurance brokerages to automate workflows such as policy checks and proposal generation, raised a $20 million Series A round led by CRV, with South Park Commons and previous investor Foundation Capital also investing. The company has raised a total of $25 million. More here.

Gigablue, a four-year-old New York startup that develops ocean-based carbon removal technology using marine microalgae to capture and store carbon dioxide, raised a $20 million Series A round. Planet Ocean Capital was the deal lead. ESG Today has more here.

Memcyco, a four-year-old Tel Aviv startup that provides real-time protection against phishing and account takeover attacks, raised a $37 million Series A round co-led by NAventures, E. León Jimenes, and Pags Group, with previous investors Capri Ventures and Venture Guides also participating. The company has raised a total of $47 million. CTech has more here.

Phia, a one-year-old New York startup that provides an AI shopping app that surfaces cheaper resale and alternative products while users browse, raised a $35 million Series A round led by Notable Capital, with Khosla Ventures as well as previous investor Kleiner Perkins also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Pixellot, a 13-year-old Israeli company that provides AI-powered automated video production and streaming tools for youth and amateur sports, raised a $15 million round led by previous investor PSG Equity. It also raised $20 million in debt. More here.

Raylo, a seven-year-old London startup that provides subscription infrastructure for consumer electronics brands, raised a $13.8 million round led by Citibank. The company also raised $27.5 million in debt from previous investor NatWest. EU-Startups has more here.

Barnwell Bio, a two-year-old New York startup that uses metagenomic sequencing to help poultry producers detect disease threats earlier, raised a $6 million seed round led by Twelve Below and including Max Ventures, Dorm Room Fund, Banter Capital, Planeteer Capital, AgVentures Alliance, Daybreak Ventures, and Alumni Ventures. AgFunderNews has more here.

Billdr, a six-year-old Montréal startup that provides vertical SaaS tools for small and mid-sized construction contractors, raised a $3.2 million seed round led by White Star Capital, with Desjardins Capital as well as previous investors One Way Ventures, asterX, and Formentera Capital also opting in. BetaKit has more here.

Brickanta, a one-year-old Stockholm startup that provides an AI platform for automating pre-construction workflows such as bid analysis, cost estimation, and procurement, raised an $8 million seed round led by Northzone, with Y Combinator and 20VC also pitching in. More here.

Consio AI, a two-year-old Toronto startup that uses AI and human voice agents to help e-commerce brands convert high-intent customers over the phone, raised a $3.3 million seed round led by RTP Global, with SaaStr Fund and Mu Ventures also anteing up. More here.

Mantas, a one-year-old Dubai startup that provides parametric insurance for cloud downtime, raised a $1.8 million seed round. Nuwa Capital, Suhail Ventures, Plus VC, and OQAL Angel Syndicate invested in the round. FinTech Global has more here.

Midship, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that uses agentic AI to automate Sarbanes-Oxley testing and internal audit workflows, raised a $4.15 million seed round led by Costanoa Ventures, with Seguin Ventures also chipping in. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Nerd Apply, a two-year-old New York startup that tracks anonymized college admissions outcomes to support counseling decisions, raised a $3.2 million seed round. Investors included Riverpark Ventures, Alumni Ventures, 1.61 Ventures, and Gokul Rajaram. More here.

Pace, a two-year-old New York startup that uses agentic AI to automate document-heavy insurance operations, raised a $10 million Series A round led by Sequoia Capital. Fintech Finance has more here.

Primmune Therapeutics, a nine-year-old San Diego startup that develops oral immunotherapies for solid tumors, raised a $8.6 million Series B extension round. Investors included Bioqube Ventures, Oberland Capital, and Samsara Biocapital also participating. More here.

Vennre, a five-year-old London startup that enables high-earning individuals to access Shariah-compliant private market investment opportunities, raised a $9.6 million pre-series A round co-led by Vision Ventures and anb seed Fund, with Sanabil 500, Ace & Co, and Plus VC also stepping up. Finextra has more here.

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Navam Capital, an 18-year-old VC firm based in Kolkata, India, that focuses on early-stage, IP-led deep-technology startups built in India for global markets, raised $34.4 million for its first institutional fund. Entrackr has more here.

Shares of the design tech company Figma, which went public last July, aren’t faring so well. Barron’s has more here.

Court filings in a New Mexico lawsuit allege that Mark Zuckerberg overruled the recommendations of Meta’s safety teams to restrict minors from accessing AI chatbots despite internal warnings about sexual interactions. Reuters has more here.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman criticized ICE violence tied to killings in Minneapolis, signaling rare public and internal pushback from leading AI executives even as both paired their remarks with praise for President Trump. TechCrunch has more here.

Mozilla Foundation president Mark Surman is assembling a self-described “rebel alliance” and deploying roughly $1.4 billion in reserves to back mission-driven AI startups and open-source efforts as a counterweight to OpenAI, Anthropic, and what he sees as a “winner-take-all” AI economy. CNBC has more here.

Fortune profiles Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, a crypto giant with $187 billion in assets and $15 billion in 2025 profit that has just announced a new U.S.-regulated alternative to its hugely popular USDT stablecoin. Fortune has more here.

Pinterest said it will cut up to 15% of staff (or more than 600 jobs) in order to shift resources toward AI-focused hiring and products, a move that led to a 9% stock drop. SFGATE has more here.

Amazon is shutting all 72 Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores to double down on Whole Foods and grocery delivery, conceding that a decade of experimentation failed to produce a scalable economic model even as online grocery and same-day delivery accelerate. TechCrunch has more here.

Business Insider reports that a viral online trading and automation app called Moltbot (née Clawdbot) has grown so popular that Anthropic forced it to change its name over trademark concerns, while Barrons claims that the app’s heavy use of Cloudflare tools helped push Cloudflare’s stock up nearly 18%. TechCrunch has everything you need to know here.

Meta spent $6.4 million on TV ads in late 2025 to recast AI data centers as job creators as lawmakers from California to Washington scrutinize their energy and water costs. The New York Times has more here.

Researchers using an AI tool to scan roughly 100 million archived Hubble image cutouts uncovered more than 800 previously undocumented cosmic anomalies in just two and a half days. Scientific American has more here.

Exhausted parents are turning to “carscrolling,” a newly coined term for sitting in their cars and scrolling on their phones before going inside.

Paul Newman’s trademark oversized pilot sunglasses, courtesy of Oliver Peoples.

Eerily realistic Batman action figures.

Cold weather clothing.

The cool kids will be at Disrupt. So will the awkward geniuses who'll probably become their bosses. You have two days (until January 30) to grab a plus-one pass at 50% off. The FOMO is real. The discount is also real, but only for three more days.

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