Our newest StrictlyVC Download episode is out, with Delian Asparouhov of Founders Fund and Saif Khawaja of Shinkei, a robotics company with big ambitions to reimagine the seafood industry. We recorded this one at our most recent StrictlyVC night in L.A. If you’re going to be in New York on September 10, we hope you’ll join us for our next one (they’re fun). You can nab a seat here; space is limited.

Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview developed new attacks against weakened versions of AES, the widely used encryption standard protecting online banking, private communications, and other internet traffic, making one assault up to 1,000 times faster than previous human methods. The New York Times has more here.

Runlayer, a nearly one-year-old New York AI security startup backed by Khosla Ventures, has sued Rippling, alleging the $16 billion HR software company used confidential source code and architecture from their partnership to build a competing AI governance product. TechCrunch has more here.

The EPA said power plants built solely for data centers and disconnected from the public grid may be exempt from the Clean Air Act’s Acid Rain Program, a move intended to accelerate AI infrastructure and reduce pressure on regional grids. Reuters has more here.

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says that it may be time to “pace” AI development so the world will be ready for it.

“We may have to pace the rate of AI development to give ourselves enough time for society to harden around some of these new capability levels,” he told Patrick O’Shaughnessy, the host of the Invest Like the Best podcast, while also “trying to figure out how we do that in a way that does not feel like regulatory capture for anyone and also does not feel like collusion among the frontier labs.”

Both OpenAI and Anthropic came out in support of a petition circulated by employees at the frontier labs, calling on the US government to “support an international effort to develop the technical and governance tools needed to deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development.”

Altman has avoided signing on to past campaigns to slow AI progress, calling a 2023 open letter that proposed a similar slowdown “missing most technical nuance about where we need the pause.”

Apparently, he’s softened on the idea, thanks in part to the incident where one of OpenAI’s advanced models managed to break out of a secure computing environment and hack into Hugging Face, an online model database, using several zero-day exploits.

On the podcast, the OpenAI co-founder called it an “extremely sci-fi cyber incident…[t]his is the first security incident that I have felt very viscerally.”

Claris Bio, an eight-year-old startup based in Jersey City, NJ, that develops an experimental eye drug for limbal stem cell deficiency, a rare condition that can damage vision, raised a $118 million Series B round co-led by Samsara BioCapital and Catalio Capital Management, with Sofinnova Investments and Novo Holdings also chiming in. The company has raised a total of $170+ million. BioPharma Dive has more here.

Dwelly, a three-year-old London startup that buys UK residential property-management businesses and uses AI to automate tenant inquiries, onboarding, rent collection, maintenance, and compliance, raised a $95 million Series B round co-led by EQT Growth and General Catalyst, with s16vc, Begin Capital, DVC, and Trinity Capital also chipping in. Tech Funding News has more here.

Spur Intelligence, a nine-year-old startup based in Lake Mary, FL, that helps security and fraud teams identify VPNs, residential proxies, bots, and other obscured sources of internet traffic, raised a $200 million round from Insight Partners. TechCrunch has more here.

Act Security, a one-year-old Tel Aviv startup that reduces unused cloud access permissions for employees and AI agents so companies can limit the paths attackers can use to move through cloud systems, raised a $40 million Series A round led by Notable Capital, with Startpoint Capital and SVCI also buying in. The company has raised a total of $60 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Fish Audio, a one-year-old Palo Alto startup that makes voice-generation and speech-to-text models for creators and enterprises, raised a $52 million seed round co-led by Coreline Ventures and Capital Today, with 359 Capital, Parable, Play Time, Alphalist Partners, Bayhouse Ventures, Carya Venture Partners, and HF0 also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Harmony, a one-year-old New York and Tel Aviv startup that handles workplace requests such as onboarding, software access, password resets, approvals, and policy questions inside Slack and Microsoft Teams, raised a $34 million seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with Hitachi Ventures, Fin Capital, Mercer Ventures, Operator Partners, the Wiz founding team, Assaf Rappaport, and Ofir Ehrlich also participating. Business Insider has more here.

Healia, a five-year-old startup based in Columbus, OH, that helps employers compare family health plan options and reimburse dual-income employees who enroll in a spouse’s plan, raised a $14 million Series A round led by 111° West Capital, with Y Combinator, First Round Capital, Pioneer Fund, GoAhead Ventures, and North Coast Ventures also engaging. More here.

Hush Security, a two-year-old Tel Aviv startup that helps companies discover, control, and audit autonomous software agents and their access to enterprise systems, raised a $30 million Series A round. Investors include Akamai Technologies as well as previous investors Battery Ventures and YL Ventures. The company has raised a total of $41 million. SecurityWeek has more here.

Mate, a one-year-old Tel Aviv startup that helps enterprise security teams use AI agents to investigate alerts, respond to threats, and distinguish attacks from planned activity, raised a $25 million Series A round led by Canaan Partners, with M12, Insight Partners, and Team8 also investing. The company has raised a total of $50+ million. CTech has more here.

ProphetX, an eight-year-old New York startup that operates a regulated peer-to-peer exchange for sports-focused event contracts, letting users set prices and trade directly with counterparties, raised a $35 million round co-led by Parlay Capital and Data Point Capital, with FDJ Ventures, Greenwave Ventures, Connexa Capital, Impellent Ventures, the Operating Group, Sharp Alpha Advisors, Chicago Trading Company Ventures, Belvedere Trading, and Ematiq also piling on. More here.

Sent, a three-year-old New York startup that routes business messages across SMS, WhatsApp, and RCS through one API while managing carrier and compliance requirements, raised a $12 million Series A round led by Companyon Ventures, with Bessemer Venture Partners, Urban Innovation Fund, and CP Overture also participating. More here.

SoundHealth, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that makes non-invasive devices that personalize acoustic treatments for nasal congestion and sleep wellness using craniofacial data, raised a $12.25 million Series A round led by Shangbay Capital. More here.

ZuriQ, a two-year-old Zurich startup that develops trapped-ion quantum processors that arrange ions on two-dimensional chips to support larger, more scalable quantum computers, raised a $25.5 million seed round led by Quantonation, with Forward.one, Extantia, and Firgun Ventures also taking part. Tech.eu has more here.

5U AI, a one-year-old Munich startup that deploys AI workers that help freight forwarders quote, book, track shipments, and reconcile invoices across air, sea, and road freight, raised a $3.2 million pre-seed round led by Emerge Capital. Tech Funding News has more here.

ETN, a one-year-old London startup that operates livestreamed shows covering European tech news, startup fundraising, and venture capital trends, raised a $1.6 million seed round. Investors included Powerhouse Capital and Axel Springer. TechCrunch has more here.

Perceptual Robotics, a 10-year-old company based in Bristol, UK, that uses autonomous drones to inspect wind turbine blades, classify damage severity, and produce repair-ready reports for wind operators, raised a $5.3 million round. Backers included Investing for Purpose as well as previous investors Loggerhead Ventures and One Planet Capital, with Innovate UK providing grant co-funding. Dronelife has more here.

Throne Science, a three-year-old Austin startup that makes a toilet-mounted camera that tracks gut health and hydration by analyzing stool and urine, raised a $10 million Series A round led by Will Ventures, with Emerson Collective, Workshop, LEAD VC, Salt VC, Accomplice, and Moxxie Ventures also participating. The company has raised a total of nearly $18 million. Crunchbase News has more here.

General Compute raised $15 million to build the world's first ASIC cloud. By removing the GPU bottleneck, it runs frontier LLMs up to 16x faster than standard GPU clouds. And because ASIC silicon is far more energy efficient, it deploys in air-cooled data centers, making expansion dramatically easier. Learn more at generalcompute.com. 

Jump Capital, a 14-year-old Chicago venture firm, raised its eighth fund in the amount of $350 million to back early-stage startups in areas such as AI applications, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and small-language models. The Information has more here.

Cyera, an Israeli cybersecurity company valued at $12 billion, signed a letter of intent to acquire Oasis Security, a four-year-old Israeli startup that manages access for AI agents and other non-human identities, for roughly $1 billion. Oasis has raised a total of $195 million from investors including Craft Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Accel, and Cyberstarts. TechCrunch has more here.

GrubMarket, a 12-year-old San Francisco food supply-chain platform that connects wholesalers and distributors with grocers, restaurants, and other buyers, confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO months after raising $50 million at a $4.5 billion pre-money valuation. Reuters has more here.

Shein disclosed that the Federal Trade Commission is investigating its U.S. business as the fast-fashion company prepares for a Hong Kong IPO, warning that the unresolved probe could result in a settlement and significant financial penalties. CNBC has more here.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the company does not support banning open-weight AI models, but warned that advanced systems developed by authoritarian governments could threaten U.S. security and called for chip controls, anti-distillation measures, and global safety testing. TechCrunch has more here.

New York magazine profiles Justin Sun, the crypto billionaire who invested $45 million in World Liberty Financial and is now suing the Trump-linked venture for alleged fraud after it froze his tokens. More here.

Visa is cutting 2,600 jobs – about 7% of its workforce – mostly across technology and product teams, as AI, stablecoins, and agentic commerce reshape the payments industry. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

BuzzFeed laid off roughly 180 employees – more than a third of its remaining staff – as new owner Byron Allen moves to cut losses after acquiring the struggling digital-media company for $120 million in May. The New York Times has more here.

Amazon is winding down most of its flagship Nova models, reorganizing its AI teams, and shifting engineers and computing resources toward a new frontier model expected to debut at re:Invent later this year. Business Insider has more here.

Police say Binance has made it harder for them to investigate crypto fraud and money laundering by routing more cross-border information requests through foreign governments, slowing responses as senior compliance staff have departed. The New York Times has more here.

eBay and several former executives agreed to pay nearly $56 million to settle claims from a Massachusetts couple subjected to a 2019 harassment campaign involving threats, surveillance, and deliveries of live insects, a funeral wreath, and a bloody pig mask after their e-commerce blog criticized the company. TechCrunch has more here.

PJM Interconnection, the largest U.S. grid operator, will begin temporarily cutting power to data centers using 50 megawatts or more during shortages starting in June 2027, after an auction failed to secure enough new generating capacity. TechCrunch has more here.

Has NASA already found life on Mars?

Hidden App Store gems.

The Washington Post profiles celebrity photographer Timothy White, whose new memoir recounts the stories behind iconic portraits of Aretha Franklin, Mel Gibson, Miley Cyrus, James Brown, Harrison Ford, Whitney Houston, Björk, and others.

The Adidas ball Diego Maradona used to score both the “Hand of God” and “Goal of the Century” against England in the 1986 World Cup is heading to auction with an estimate in excess of $10 million.

Speaking of Adidas, the company’s new Hyperboost Edge boasts a 45-millimeter stack of foam to deliver what it claims to be race-like energy return with a more natural stride.

The de Kooning of Patagonia fleeces.

A Biarritz condo.

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