Anthropic is spending $50 billion to build AI data centers in Texas and New York, a massive U.S. infrastructure push with partner Fluidstack that underscores how the AI arms race is shifting toward physical compute power. CNBC has more here.

Waymo is expanding its robotaxi service to include freeway routes across Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix, a key step toward scaling autonomous rides. TechCrunch has more here.

Affinity's Tech Stack Spotlight reveals how Picus Capital eliminated manual work and accelerated deal velocity with AI-powered workflows. Join us November 20 (10 AM PT / 1 PM ET) as Abhijay Thacker shares real automation strategies, firm-wide adoption tactics, and integration approaches with Affinity as the foundation. See exactly how a leading European early-stage fund built a system that drives competitive advantage. This quarterly series goes behind the scenes with firms winning through technology.

By Julie Bort

When former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt, someone from the audience asked him if HBO’s hit satire Silicon Valley would be revived. Costolo, who was a writer for the show, essentially answered no (at timestamp 38:17).

While the writers talk about that regularly, he said, they don’t pursue it because today’s actual Silicon Valley is so bizarre, it can’t be parodied.  

The latest case in point is a new company called Clad Labs that launched out of Y Combinator this week. Clad’s product is so outside-the-box that people thought it was an April Fool’s joke in November. 

But it’s a real product, founder Richard Wang told TechCrunch. The product is called “Chad: The Brainrot IDE.” It is yet another vibe coding integrated development environment — an IDE is the software developers use to code — but with a twist. While waiting for the AI coding tool to finish its task, the developer can mess around with their favorite brainrot activities within a window of the IDE. 

Or, as the company’s website advertises: “Gamble while you code. Watch TikToks. Swipe on Tinder. Play minigames. This isn’t a joke — it’s Chad IDE, and it’s solving the biggest productivity problem in AI-powered development that nobody’s talking about.” 

The founders say their IDE increases productivity by helping with “context switching.” Their argument is, by doing your brainrot activities within the IDE itself, as soon as the AI is done with the task, you’ll get right back to work rather than be focused on your phone or browser. 

D-Matrix, a six-year-old Santa Clara company that develops AI inference chips for data centers, raised a $275 million Series C round at a $2 billion valuation. BullhoundCapital, Triatomic Capital, and Temasek co-led the deal, with Qatar Investment Authority, EDBI, M12, Nautilus Venture Partners, Industry Ventures, and Mirae Asset also contributing. The company has raised a total of $450 million. More here.

GC AI, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that builds AI tools to help in-house legal teams draft, review, and analyze documents, raised a $60 million Series B round at a $555 million post-money valuation. The deal was co-led by Scale Venture Partners and Northzone, with Sound Ventures, Aglaé Ventures, SilverCircle Partners, News Corp, The Council, and Guillermo Rauch also engaging. The company has raised a total of $73 million. More here.

Iambic Therapeutics, a five-year-old San Diego company that uses artificial intelligence to design and develop small-molecule cancer drugs, raised a $100+ million round. Investors included Abingworth, Alexandria Venture Investments, Alumni Ventures, ARK, Ascenta, Catalio, Everbright Biofund, Freeflow Ventures, Illumina Ventures, Mubadala, Pegasus Tech Ventures, Qatar Investment Authority, Regeneron Ventures, Sequoia, Tao Capital Partners, and Terra Magnum Capital Partners. Fierce Biotech has more here.

Sweet Security, a three-year-old Tel Aviv startup that helps enterprises detect and stop cloud attacks in real time, raised a $75 million Series B round led by Evolution Equity Partners and including Munich Re Ventures, Glilot Capital Partners, and Key1 Capital. The company has raised a total of $120 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Tenzai, an Israeli startup founded this year that is building an AI platform for autonomous penetration testing, raised a $75 million seed round co-led by Battery Ventures, Greylock Partners, and Lux Capital, with Swish Ventures and Jibe Ventures also investing. CTech has more here.

Teradar, a five-year-old Boston startup that develops a solid-state terahertz sensor for automotive driver-assistance and self-driving systems, raised a $150 million Series B round led by Capricorn Investment Group, with Lockheed Martin Ventures, Ibex Investors, and VXI Capital also participating. TechCrunch has more here.

Valar Atomics, a three-year-old startup based in El Segundo, CA, that develops high-temperature helium-cooled nuclear reactors, raised a $130 million Series A round co-led by Snowpoint Ventures, Day One Ventures, and Dream Ventures, with Palmer Luckey also contributing. The company has raised a total of $150+ million. CNBC has more here.

Wonderful, a Tel Aviv startup founded this year that develops AI agents for customer-facing enterprise applications across voice, chat, and email, raised a $100 million Series A round led by Index Ventures, with additional participation from Insight Partners, IVP, Bessemer, and Vine Ventures. The startup has raised a total of $134 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Attentive.ai, an eight-year-old San Francisco startup that helps contractors automate construction takeoffs and estimating with AI, raised a $30.5 million Series B round led by Insight Partners, with Vertex Ventures, Tenacity Ventures, and InfoEdge Venture Fund also participating. The company has raised a total of $48 million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Beside, a two-year-old Paris startup that helps frontline businesses manage and analyze phone and text interactions, raised a $32 million round led by EQT Ventures, with Index Ventures also joining in. Tech Funding News has more here.

Evidium, a five-year-old San Francisco startup that converts medical knowledge into computational models to support clinical and insurance decision-making, raised a $22 million Series A round co-led by Health2047 and WGG Partners, with Interwoven Ventures and Mindset Ventures also chipping in. More here.

House Rx, a five-year-old San Francisco startup that helps specialty clinics run in-house specialty pharmacies, raised a $55 million Series B round co-led by New Enterprise Associates and Town Hall Ventures and including LRVHealth, First Round Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Silicon Valley Bank. The company has raised a total of $100 million. CityBiz has more here.

Humanix, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that helps enterprises detect and stop social engineering attacks in real time, raised an $18 million seed and Series A round co-led by Acrew Capital and BoldStart Ventures. More here.

Lighthouse Canton, an 11-year-old Singapore company that provides wealth and asset management services for entrepreneurs, family offices, and institutional investors, raised a $40 million round led by Peak XV Partners, with Nextinfinity and Qatar Insurance Company also investing. Entrepreneur has more here.

Lumonus AI, a three-year-old Sydney startup that develops software to automate radiation oncology workflows, raised a $25 million Series B round led by Aviron Investment Management, with Oncology Ventures also stepping up. SmartCompany has more here.

Miko, an eleven-year-old Mumbai company that makes an AI companion robots for families, raised a $10.5 million round led by iHeartMedia. The Economic Times has more here.

Tavus, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that develops agentic AI humans for face-to-face, voice, and text interactions, raised a $40 million Series B round led by CRV, with Scale Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Y Combinator, HubSpot Ventures, and Flex Capital also chiming in. VentureBeat has more here.

Uare.ai (fka Eternos), a one-year-old San Francisco startup that develops personal AI models based on individuals’ life stories and expertise, raised a $10.3 million seed round co-led by Mayfield and Boldstart Ventures. TechCrunch has more here.

Appetronix, a five-year-old Toronto startup that builds robotic kitchens for high-traffic foodservice environments such as airports and universities, raised a $6 million seed plus round co-led by the Grote family and AlleyCorp. The company has raised a total of $10 million. AgFunderNews has more here.

Deductive AI, a two-year-old startup based in Mountain View, CA, that uses artificial intelligence to detect and troubleshoot software failures, raised a $7.5 million seed round led by CRV, with Databricks Ventures, Thomvest Ventures, and PrimeSet also pitching in. VentureBeat has more here.

Extellis, a two-year-old startup based in Durham, NC, that develops satellite imaging technology to provide consistent, all-weather Earth observation, raised a $6.8 million seed round led by Oval Park Capital, with Duke Capital Partners, First Star Ventures, New Industry VC, Front Porch Venture Partners, EGB Capital, and Blue Lake VC also piling on. More here.

NLPatent, a five-year-old Toronto startup that is working on an AI patent search and analytics platform, raised a $3 million round co-led by Draper Associates and Mighty Capital and including The LegalTech Fund, Storytime Capital, and The51. BetaKit has more here.

Relixir, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that helps brands generate qualified leads from ChatGPT and other AI search engines, raised a $2 million seed round led by Y Combinator, with z21 Ventures, 468 Capital, and DG Daiwa Ventures also anteing up. More here.

Robyn, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that has created an emotionally intelligent AI companion app to help users reflect and build self-awareness, raised a $5.5 million seed round led by M13. TechCrunch has more here.

Self.co, a 10-year-old Lithuanian company that develops digital allergy and intolerance tests, raised $3 million in financing, including $1.4 million round led by Iron Wolf Capital, with Coinvest and NGL Ventures also participating; and a $1.6 million grant from Innovation Agency Lithuania. Tech Funding News has more here.

Spectral Compute, an eight-year-old London startup that develops GPU compiler technology to make CUDA-based AI applications run on non-Nvidia hardware, raised a $6 million seed round led by Costanoa, with Crucible also opting in. SiliconANGLE has more here.

WisdomAI, a two-year-old startup based in San Mateo, CA, that provides AI-driven data analytics to answer business questions from structured and unstructured data, raised a $50 million Series A round led by Kleiner Perkins, with NVentures also engaging. TechCrunch has more here.

Turkish entrepreneurship ecosystem ranked among the top 10 in EMEA. TÜSİAD’s report highlights the ecosystem’s growth in recent years and its potential as a regional entrepreneurship hub for tech companies. Türkiye ranks in the top 10 in the EMEA across several verticals: gaming, fintech and defense. With 3,000+ startups, unicorns, tax advantages, young and digital friendly population, the ecosystem opens its doors to global entrepreneurs and investors who embody the spirit of entrepreneurship. Learn more about the Turkish entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Glasswing Ventures, a seven-year-old Boston VC firm that backs AI-native and frontier technology startups in enterprise and security, raised its third fund in the amount of $200 million. More here.

Groww, a nine-year-old Bengaluru-based fintech that lets retail investors trade stocks and mutual funds, raised approximately $748 million in its IPO at a $9 billion valuation, marking India’s largest fintech listing this year. TechCrunch has more here.

Einride, a nine-year-old Stockholm startup that provides battery-electric and autonomous freight trucks, plans to go public through a SPAC merger with Legato Merger Corp. III at a $1.8 billion valuation. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

ElevenLabs, a New York company that develops AI voice-cloning technology, announced that it has struck deals with Michael Caine, Matthew McConaughey, Liza Minnelli, and Dr. Maya Angelou to create authorized digital voices for its new celebrity voice marketplace. TechCrunch has more here.

Deepwatch, a six-year-old Palo Alto startup that has built an AI-powered cybersecurity detection and response system, laid off between 60 and 80 employees to “[align] our organization to accelerate our significant investments in AI and automation.” TechCrunch has more here.

AI stocks are wobbling as investors question whether the sector’s trillion-dollar spending spree on data centers and chips can translate into real profits. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Apple has added a new feature to Apple Wallet that lets iPhone and Apple Watch users store and use their U.S. passports at TSA checkpoints. TechCrunch has more here.

A Deezer–Ipsos survey found that 97% of listeners can’t tell AI-generated songs from human ones, highlighting how synthetic music is flooding streaming services and forcing new debates over labeling, royalties, and copyright. Reuters has more here.

An analysis of 47,000 public chatbot conversations found that one in 10 involved emotional topics. The Washington Post has more here.

A Russian humanoid robot made its heavily anticipated debut to the theme of Rocky, only to stagger and collapse on stage as 50 journalists looked on.

The University of Miami has become the country’s unofficial “college of influencers,” where students chase brand deals, campus drama spills onto TikTok, and social media clout is front page news.

RIP the penny.

An $8 million Monticello, NY, home inside the private Monticello Motor Club features a 10-car race shop with a scissor lift, Tesla-powered geothermal systems, and direct access to the club’s four-mile racetrack.

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