Mark Cuban isn’t shy about his investing advice as a general rule, and he isn’t shy about it in his latest interview with TechCrunch’s Rebecca Bellan, either. Cuban explains why he thinks the real financial mother lode isn't buried in some shiny new AI model but in helping small and mid-size businesses use the tools we already have. Only time will tell if he’s right, but he certainly has a knack for seeing what others miss — he did it with streaming and healthcare, and, according to him, he’s doing it again with AI. Check out their chat in the newest episode of Equity to learn more.

Also, TechCrunch just dropped its 2025 Startup Battlefield 200 — the cream of the crop from thousands of applicants spanning AI, climate, health, fintech, and beyond. And the battle isn’t over. From the 200, 20 finalists will duke it out live at Disrupt SF this October for $100,000 and the attention of a whole lot of VCs. See who makes the cut; grab your Disrupt tickets here.

Top News

A new report from Anthropic warns that “vibe-hacking” cyberattacks in which AI agents like Claude are used to run end-to-end extortion schemes and even craft psychological ransom notes are making it possible for lone bad actors to pull off hacks that once required whole teams. The Verge has more here.

Meta’s high-profile superintelligence lab is already losing steam, with at least three researchers quitting within weeks, including two returning to OpenAI, highlighting how nine-figure offers are no match for bureaucratic headaches and frequent reorgs. Wired has more here.

OpenAI’s restructuring is likely to drag into 2026 as it hammers out thorny issues with Microsoft over API access, IP rights, and the controversial AGI clause, delays that could jeopardize SoftBank’s $10 billion commitment and stall a potential $500 billion valuation. The Financial Times has more here.

The Trump administration's plan to take a 15% cut of Nvidia's AI chip sales to China remains stuck in early discussions, with the company warning it could face legal risks if forced to pay what amounts to a government commission without proper paperwork. Nvidia's CFO says they'll proceed with recently approved China sales without the unusual fee unless the government provides actual regulatory documentation. Bloomberg has the story here.

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911 Centers Are So Understaffed, They’re Turning to AI to Answer Calls

By Marina Temkin

When Max Keenan joined Y Combinator’s summer 2022 batch, he was working on Aurelian, a company that automated appointment bookings for hair salons. But less than a year later, a conversation with one of his clients led him to a far more significant problem.

A nearby school’s carpool line was constantly blocking the parking lot of one of Aurelian’s hair salon clients. The salon owner called the city’s non-emergency line and was put on hold for 45 minutes before reaching a dispatcher. “She called me into her office afterwards, and was like, ‘Max, do you want to help me out?’” Keenan told TechCrunch.

When he started to research how municipal non-emergency response call centers work, he discovered that they are often handled by the same people who are answering actual 911 emergencies.

Aurelian pivoted to building an AI voice assistant that helps 911 call centers offload non-emergency call volume. The company announced on Wednesday that it raised a $14 million Series A led by NEA.

The company’s AI voice agent is designed to triage non-urgent issues like noise complaints, parking violations, and even stolen wallet reports — situations that don’t need an officer’s immediate response or can be handled without dispatching personnel to the scene.

Aurelian’s AI is trained to recognize a real emergency and immediately transfer those calls to a human dispatcher, Keenan said. In other situations, the system collects key information and either creates a report for or relays the details directly to the police department for follow-up action.

Massive Fundings

Assort Health, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that builds AI systems to answer and process patient phone calls for healthcare providers, raised a $50 million Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners at a $750 million valuation, according to TechCrunch. The company just raised a $22 million round four months ago. TechCrunch has more here.

Vercel, a 10-year-old San Francisco company that helps companies build web and AI applications in the cloud, is reportedly raising hundreds of millions of dollars at a valuation of approximately $9 billion, triple the valuation of its 2024 round. The purported lead is previous investor Accel. The company has raised a total of $500+ million. Bloomberg has the scoop here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Debut, a six-year-old San Diego startup that develops biotech-based ingredients for beauty, health, and wellness products, replacing traditional chemical processes with lab-grown alternatives, raised a $20 million round. Investors included Fine Structure Ventures, EDBI, Wealthberry, BOLD, GS Futures, Sandbox Industries, and Material Impact. More here.

Leal Therapeutics, a five-year-old startup based in Worcester, MA, that is developing oral small-molecule drugs that cross the blood–brain barrier to target mitochondrial dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, raised a $30 million Series A round led by SV Health Investors' Dementia Discovery Fund and including previous investors OrbiMed, Newpath Partners, Chugai Venture Fund, Euclidean Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, and PhiFund. More here.

OpenLight, a three-year-old startup based in Santa Clara, CA, that makes silicon-based chips that use light instead of electricity to move data more efficiently, raised a $34 million Series A round co-led by Xora Innovation and Capricorn Investment Group, with Mayfield, Juniper Networks, Lam Capital, New Legacy Ventures, and K2 Access also participating. Data Center Dynamics has more here.

Smaller Fundings

AiGent, a Houston startup founded this year that is developing AI-powered distributed power plants designed to make the electric grid more reliable and resilient, raised a $6 million seed round. ZIP and CIV were the co-leads. More here.

Central, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that builds AI software that lets startups manage payroll, HR, and finance directly inside Slack, raised an $8.6 million seed round led by First Round Capital, with Y Combinator, Ritual Capital, Multimodal Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and Surgepoint Capital also investing. The company has raised a total of $9.1 million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Kira, a one-year-old Miami startup that sells an AI-powered operating system that serves as infrastructure for embedding financial products, raised a $6.7 million seed round. Investors included Blockchange Ventures, Vamos Ventures, Stellar Blockchain, Grit Ventures, and Credibly Neutral Ventures. LatamList has more here.

Nauta, a one-year-old New York startup that develops AI software that helps importers manage and automate global shipping operations by consolidating their data and workflows into one control system, raised a $7 million seed round co-led by Construct Capital and Predictive. PYMNTS has more here.

Sleep.ai, a nine-year-old startup based in Carlsbad, CA, that analyzes sleep patterns and sells its sleep-tracking and coaching software to insurers, wellness apps, and device makers, raised a $5.5 million round led by Treasure Coast Ventures, with additional participation from Nurture Ventures, the Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York, and Supermoon Capital. More here.

Sola, a three-year-old Atlanta startup that is building a property insurance practice that handles sales, underwriting, and servicing itself instead of outsourcing them to third parties, raised an $8 million Series A round co-led by Fintop Capital and JAM Fintop, with 10vc and Georgia Tech also taking part. The company has raised a total of $11.7 million. More here.

Therna Biosciences, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that develops oral small-molecule drugs that target RNA to treat viral infections and cancers, raised a $10 million seed round co-led by AIX Ventures, Pear VC, and Fusion Fund. More here.

Vox AI, a three-year-old Amsterdam and San Francisco startup that builds voice recognition software that lets fast food restaurants automate drive-thru ordering, raised an $8.7 million seed round led by Headline, with True and Simon Capital as well as previous investor Souschef Ventures also stepping up. The company has raised a total of $10 million. More here.

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New Funds

BlankPage Capital, a new London-based VC firm co-founded by Graphcore founder and CEO Nigel Toon that will focus on growth-stage deeptech investments in the UK and Europe, is raising its first fund, though the target size has not yet been disclosed. Sifted has more here.

People

General Catalyst’s Hemant Taneja tells the FInancial Times that we’re in “peak ambiguity” as AI investors chase growth while facing the risk of mass job losses, blurred lines between durable startups and features that models will subsume, and a sovereign AI race that could shape which regions capture the next wave of productivity. More here.

Elon Musk’s lawyers are trying to block OpenAI from forcing Meta to hand over documents tied to his failed $97.4 billion bid for the company, the latest skirmish in a legal fight that has both sides accusing the other of bad-faith maneuvers ahead of a 2026 jury trial. Reuters has more here.

Will Wells, a former Lightspeed partner who founded and sold Hummingbird Technologies, has joined Speedinvest to lead its deep tech team. More here.

Data

So far in 2025, 33 U.S. AI startups have pulled in $100+ million rounds, including multiple billion-dollar raises, underscoring that last year’s momentum hasn’t slowed. TechCrunch has the complete list here.

Essential Reads

OpenAI and Anthropic briefly dropped their guardrails to test each other’s models, exposing trade-offs between hallucinations and refusals while reigniting calls for AI labs to collaborate on safety even as fierce competition and tragic real-world consequences raise the stakes. TechCrunch has more here.

AI-trained grads are being hired straight out of college with little work experience and landing salaries that reach as high as $1 million as companies chase “AI natives” to fill critical roles rather than seasoned engineers. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

With a ruling on Google’s search monopoly expected as early as this week, Columbia law professor Tim Wu lays out possible remedies ranging from a Chrome or Android spinoff to forced data-sharing. The New York Times has more here.

AI “deadbots” are moving from grief tools to potential ad vehicles, with researchers warning that resurrected avatars of the deceased could soon be exploited for commercial persuasion in a market projected to hit $80 billion. NPR has more here.

Detours

Pinkie rings are having a moment as women embrace the look with bold, personalized designs, turning the overlooked fifth finger into the jewelry world’s newest status symbol and sales driver.

Scientists in the U.K. have isolated the microbes that give fine chocolate its fruity, floral notes and successfully used them to ferment beans in the lab, a breakthrough that could let farmers standardize high-end cocoa flavors.

More than half of Miami homes priced above $1 million are now bought in cash, with luxury condo and single-family sales seeing all-cash shares as high as 83% and 79%, respectively.

Dating apps’ height filters are creating a brutal cutoff at six feet, leaving men who are 5’11” feeling penalized and fueling both fibbing and frustration in an already gamified search for status.

Brain Rot

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Retail Therapy

Miami’s latest trophy listing is a $50 million Harrods-designed penthouse at the Mandarin Oriental, complete with a salt-wall sauna, Swarovski-crystal dumbbells, a crystal elevator, and a speakeasy bar.

A $1,000 pair of boxers.

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