Our chat with Jon Callaghan of True Ventures “dropped” yesterday. You can find that latest StrictlyVC Download here.

Anthropic is reportedly raising $10 billion at a $350 billion valuation, nearly doubling its price tag in four months. GIC and Coatue are the leads, according to The Wall Street Journal, which has more here.

Character.AI and Google have agreed to settle lawsuits with families of teenagers who died or harmed themselves after using the AI chatbot. The parties are now negotiating the terms of the settlements, which will be among the first in cases accusing AI companies of damaging users. The WSJ has more here.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s board unanimously rejected Paramount’s $108 billion debt-heavy bid as “illusory” and reaffirmed support for Netflix’s $82.7 billion offer. TechCrunch has more here.

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By Julie Bort

Over the past few days, several posts on LinkedIn and Twitter/X went viral after one of the most talked about AI companies in San Francisco suddenly vanished from LinkedIn: Artisan AI.  

The company’s LinkedIn page, individual employee profiles, and posts from executives all displayed a “This post cannot be displayed” message.  

The startup had been banned from the site, Artisan CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack confirmed to TechCrunch. However, after working with LinkedIn over the past two weeks — and addressing the social network’s concerns — Artisan is now being reinstated. 

“Every startup inevitably has some kind of thing that comes back to bite them [from things] that they do early on,” Carmichael-Jack said.

Contrary to what the rumors in the viral posts said, LinkedIn did not ban the company because its AI agents were spamming users. LinkedIn did, however, object to the startup using LinkedIn’s name on its website and also alleged that the company was using data brokers who had scraped the site without permission, Carmichael-Jack said. Data scraping is a violation of LinkedIn’s terms of service. 

Artisan AI is a graduate of startup accelerator Y Combinator and became one of San Francisco’s buzziest startups via its “Stop hiring humans” billboards posted around town. Artisan offers an AI agent it calls Ava that does outbound sales by finding and contacting potential customers. LinkedIn is famously precious turf for outbound marketing salespeople — both human and, increasingly, AI.

While a couple of LinkedIn users seemed to notice Artisan’s ban about a week ago, the posts and tweets about it really picked up steam this week. 

Corsera Health, a three-year-old Boston startup that develops preventive RNAi medicines and predictive tools for cardiovascular disease, raised an $80 million Series A round co-led by Forbion and Population Health Partners. More here.

Soley Therapeutics, an eight-year-old South San Francisco startup that develops oncology drugs using cell stress sensing to discover first-in-class compounds, raised a $200 million Series C round led by Surveyor Capital, with HRTG Partners and RWN Management as well as previous investors Doug Leone Family Fund, Breyer Capital, and GordonMD Global Investment also digging in. More here.

Spiro Medical, a one-year-old startup based in Irvine, CA, that is developing a pulmonary neuromodulation system to treat asthma, raised a $67 million Series A round co-led by Andera Partners, Omega Funds, and Sherpa Healthcare Partners, with HSG, Supernova Invest, Northern Light Venture Capital, and Hero also investing. MassDevice has more here.

Swap, a four-year-old London startup that builds software to unify global e-commerce operations across shipping, returns, inventory, tax, and compliance, raised a $100 million Series C round co-led by DST Global and ICONIQ Capital, with Cherry Ventures, QED Investors, 9900 Capital, and Portfolio Ventures also anteing up. The company has raised a total of $149 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Babylon Labs, a four-year-old Palo Alto startup that develops infrastructure to let native bitcoin be used as on-chain collateral, raised a $15 million round from Andreessen Horowitz. CoinDesk has more here.

Blackbird.AI, an eight-year-old New York startup that protects organizations and executives from narrative-based disinformation attacks, raised a $28 million round. Investors included Ten Eleven Ventures and Dorilton Ventures. The startup has raised a total of $58 million. More here.

GS Microelectronics, a five-year-old startup based in San Jose, CA, that provides semiconductor design, packaging, and supply chain services, raised a $35 million Series B round. Maverick Silicon was the deal lead. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Qualinx, an 11-year-old Dutch company that designs ultra-low-power satellite positioning chips, raised a $23.4 million round led by Invest-NL, with previous investors FORWARD.one, InnovationQuarter Capital, and Waterman Ventures also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $46.7 million. More here.

Semafor, a three-year-old New York startup that publishes global business and political journalism and hosts live events for executives and policymakers, raised a $30 million round at a $330 million post-money valuation. Investors included PSP Partners, Thomas Leysen, and Antenna Group as well as previous investors Henry Kravis and David Rubenstein. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Vitrealab, an eight-year-old startup that develops photonic chips for augmented reality displays, raised an $11 million Series A round co-led by LIFTT Italian Venture Capital and LIFTT EuroInvest, with Constructor Capital, aws Gründungsfonds, Gateway Ventures, PhotonVentures, xista Science Ventures, Moveon Technologies, and Hermann Hauser Investment also participating. Tech Funding News has more here.

Biographica, a four-year-old London startup that uses machine learning to identify gene-editing targets for crops, raised a $9.5 million seed round led by Faber VC, with SuperSeed, Cardumen Capital, and The Helm as well as previous investors Chalfen Ventures and Entrepreneurs First also taking part. AgFunderNews has more here.

Oasys, a two-year-old New York startup that helps mental health providers manage operations and integrate clinical and physiological data into care, raised a $4 million seed round led by Pathlight Ventures, with Twine Ventures and Better Ventures also participating. The startup has raised a total of $4.6 million. More here.

Pluto Financial Technologies, a one-year-old New York startup that lets investors borrow against private market assets without selling, raised an $8.6 million seed round. Investors included Motive Ventures, Portage, Apollo, Hamilton Lane, Tectonic Ventures, and Broadhaven Ventures. More here.

Tesoro XP, a one-year-old Austin startup that lets retailers fund in-game currency for free-to-play gamers through verified real-world purchases, raised a $5.4 million seed round co-led by Treasury and TK MediaTech Ventures. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Arm’s 20 predictions for the future of intelligent computing. 

As AI moves beyond centralized clouds, computing is entering a new era defined by distributed, power-efficient intelligence across cloud, edge, and physical systems. In a new predictions blog, Arm shares 20 technology predictions for 2026 and beyond, from modular chiplet design and secure-by-design silicon to smaller, purpose-built AI models and the rise of physical AI. Together, these predictions highlight why intelligence-per-watt will shape the next wave of innovation.  

Read Arm’s predictions for 2026 

Lux Capital, a 25-year-old Menlo Park VC firm that focuses on frontier science, defense technology, and early-stage AI, raised its ninth fund in the amount of $1.5 billion, its largest ever, bringing total assets under management to $7 billion. TechCrunch has more here.

Fireblocks, an eight-year-old New York-based company that helps institutions custody and move digital assets, agreed to acquire TRES Finance, a four-year-old Tel Aviv-based crypto accounting company that helps CFOs track and reconcile crypto holdings, in a cash-and-equity deal valued at $130 million. Fortune has more here.

Flexera, a 38-year-old company based in Itasca, IL, that sells technology spend and risk management software, acquired ProsperOps, an eight-year-old Austin startup that automates public cloud cost optimization, for a rumored nine-digit, all-cash purchase price. ProsperOps raised just $700,000 in venture capital from Active Capital; PE firms H.I.G. Growth and Snowhawk also bought secondary shares. More here.

PicPay, a 14-year-old São Paulo-based fintech that offers digital payments and consumer financial services, has reapplied for a U.S. IPO after scrapping a prior attempt. Banking Dive has more here.

Google co-founder and former CEO Larry Page has shifted multiple business entities out of California into Delaware and Florida ahead of a proposed billionaire wealth tax, a move that underscores growing founder anxiety about retroactive state taxation and could accelerate capital flight from Silicon Valley. Business Insider has more here.

In related news, Page just dropped $173.4 million on two Miami estates in Coconut Grove. The WSJ has more here.

Chen Zhi, the China-born chairman of Cambodia-based Prince Group, was arrested in Phnom Penh and extradited to China after U.S. prosecutors accused him of running a pig butchering scam empire that targeted Americans and seized roughly $12 billion in bitcoin tied to the operation. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Niko Bonatsos, a 15-year General Catalyst veteran who spent the last decade as a managing director finding then-nascent startups like Discord and Mercor, is spinning up something new. TechCrunch has more here.

U.S. venture capital fundraising fell 35% in 2025 as startups stayed private longer, returns remained scarce, and limited partners concentrated money with established firms, pushing capital-hungry AI companies toward sovereign wealth funds and other nontraditional backers. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Polymarket is refusing to settle more than $10.5 million in wagers that the U.S. would invade Venezuela, arguing the raid that captured Nicolás Maduro did not meet its definition of an invasion. Financial Times has more here.

The Wall Street Journal digs into how Google rebounded from an early consumer AI stumble by unifying its research teams, accelerating internal chip development, and redesigning search to absorb conversational behavior, all without undermining its ad business. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

The Financial Times examines how surging data center demand and Trump-backed policy support are reviving U.S. nuclear power, while investors, utilities, and Big Tech remain wary that high costs, long timelines, and regulatory risk could derail ambitions to use SMRs to scale electricity supply for AI. More here.

According to social media researcher Genevieve Oh, Grok is posting 84 times more sexual deepfakes per hour than other platforms. Bloomberg has more here.

San Francisco is weighing whether to dismantle or mothball Vaillancourt Fountain, a widely derided but globally revered skateboarding landmark.

Why your McMansion is making you miserable.

What happened to Happy Hour?

Verge Motorcycles says it will begin delivering a $30,000 electric motorcycle with solid-state batteries this quarter, promising up to 370 miles of range and a 0-60 time of 3.5 seconds.

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