Cerebras shares surged 68% in their Nasdaq debut, raising $5.55 billion and reaching a market cap of roughly $95 billion. CNBC has more here.

OpenAI is reportedly exploring legal action against Apple over a ChatGPT integration that it expected would drive billions in subscriptions but that instead left the company frustrated that its features were buried and difficult for iPhone users to find. TechCrunch has more here.

Anthropic has reportedly agreed to terms for a $30 billion fundraising that would value the AI lab at $900 billion just three months after it raised money at a $350 billion valuation. The Financial Times has more here.

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By Julie Bort

The Cerebras Systems IPO was a smash hit on Thursday, generating billions for itself, its founders, and its major investors. 

Among the big winners is major shareholder Benchmark, which owns 9.5% of the company. One of the firm’s general partners, Eric Vishria, has been a Cerebras board member since 2016, the year the AI chipmaker was founded, having co-led its $25 million Series A round. 

But these billions only happened for Benchmark because Vishria met with the startup almost against his will, he told TechCrunch. 

“It was five founders and a deck, and it was our first hardware investment in 10 years,” Vishria told TechCrunch about that first meeting. “I had been a venture capitalist for like, 18 months.” (Prior to being a VC, Vishria sold the social browser startup he co-founded, RockMelt, to Yahoo for a reported $60-$70 million in 2013.) 

Benchmark is famously selective in the companies it chooses, and backs hardware companies so rarely that Vishria was kicking himself for giving time to Cerebras. 

“Why did I take this meeting?” he kept muttering. At one point, he even messaged his assistant, who manages his calendar, and bugged her: “Why did you let me take this meeting?” Vishria recalls. 

But his grumpy attitude vanished by the third slide, as co-founder and CEO Andrew Feldman laid out Cerebras’ grand plans. 

Create Medicines, a seven-year-old startup based in Cambridge, MA, that develops RNA-lipid nanoparticle cell therapies that reprogram immune cells inside the body for cancer and autoimmune conditions, raised a $122 million Series B round. Previous investors Newpath Partners, Arch Venture Partners, and Hatteras Venture Partners co-led the deal, with Alexandria Venture Investments also joining in. BioPharma Dive has more here.

UroMems, a 15-year-old company based in Minneapolis and Grenoble, France, that is working on implantable mechatronics technology to treat stress urinary incontinence using a smart automated artificial urinary sphincter that adjusts urethral pressure based on patient activity, raised a $60 million round. Ajax Health provided the funding. The company has raised a total of $107 million. MassDevice has more here.

Anomaly Insights, a six-year-old New York startup that analyzes healthcare claims data to help providers identify and challenge insurance payment denials, underpayments, reimbursement discrepancies, and payer behavior patterns, raised a $17 million round led by Sound Ventures, with Alumni Ventures as well as previous investors Link Ventures, Redesign Health, and RRE Ventures also chiming in. The company has raised a total of $34 million. More here.

BranchLab, a two-year-old New York and Boulder startup that uses AI to help pharmaceutical companies identify patients, target healthcare providers, and optimize therapy commercialization workflows in real-time, raised a $26 million Series A round led by McKesson Ventures, with FCA Venture Partners, Sanofi Ventures, and AIX Ventures also investing. The company has raised a total of $35 million. More here.

Degron Therapeutics, a five-year-old Shanghai and San Diego startup that creates molecular glue degraders that target disease-causing proteins for cancer and immunology therapies, raised a $40 million Series A extension led by Lapam Capital, with GTJA Investment Group, Fortune Capital, CSPC & Growth, ApicHope, GF Xinde, CASSTAR, Kinghall Ventures, and GAGE Capital also participating. The company has raised a total of $95 million. More here.

Equipifi, a five-year-old startup based in Scottsdale, AZ, that enables banks and credit unions to offer BNPL and installment lending within their digital banking platforms, raised a $34 million Series B round led by Left Lane Capital, with Curql and PHX Ventures also contributing. The company has raised a total of $49 million. More here.

GovWell, a three-year-old New York startup that uses AI to automate permitting, licensing, inspections, fee collection, and other local government workflows for municipalities and counties, raised a $25 million Series A round led by Insight Partners, with Work-Bench and Bienville Capital also digging in. More here.

Iceotope, a 21-year-old company based in Sheffield, UK, that develops chassis-based liquid cooling systems for AI data centers and edge computing infrastructure, raised a $26 million Series B round co-led by Two Seas Capital and Barclays Climate Ventures. Tech Funding News has more here.

Mantle8, a two-year-old startup based in Grenoble, France, that is developing subsurface modelling and exploration technologies to identify commercially viable natural hydrogen reserves, raised a $36.2 million Series A round led by Sandwater, with Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Ecotechnologies 2, IP Group, Wind Capital, and Calderion also taking part. The company has raised a total of $43.2 million. EU-Startups has more here.

Nectar Social, a three-year-old Seattle startup that builds autonomous AI agents for social intelligence, community management, creator workflows, and conversational commerce, raised a $30 million round co-led by Menlo Ventures and Anthology Fund, with True Ventures, GV, and Kinship Ventures also pitching in. More here.

Onramp, a three-year-old Austin startup that provides bitcoin custody, brokerage, cash accounts, IRAs, and gold access through a multi-institution custody platform, raised a $12.5 million round at a $135 million valuation. Early Riders was the deal lead. More here.

Optura, a two-year-old startup based in Franklin, TN, that helps healthcare organizations evaluate AI business value, prioritize AI investments, deploy healthcare-specific AI agents, and track enterprise-wide impact in real-time, raised a $17.5 million Series A round led by Salesforce Ventures and including Echo Health Ventures as well as previous investors Susa Ventures, Matrix Partners, and HC9 Ventures. The company has raised a total of $25+ million. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Stitch, a four-year-old Riyadh startup that develops enterprise banking software for onboarding customers, monitoring transactions, and managing financial products, raised a $25 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Arbor Ventures, COTU Ventures, Raed Ventures, and SVC also participating. The company has raised a total of $35 million. Bloomberg has more here.

Wirestock, an eight-year-old startup based in San Jose, CA, that supplies multimodal datasets including images, videos, and 3D assets to AI labs, raised a $23 million Series A round led by Nava Ventures, with SBVP, Formula VC, and I2BF Ventures also investing. The company has raised a total of about $26 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Atech, a Copenhagen startup founded this year that uses AI to help users build hardware prototypes through conversational prompts and starter kits, raised an $800,000 pre-seed round from Lovable, Andreessen Horowitz’s scout fund, Sequoia Scout Fund, and Nordic Makers. TechCrunch has more here.

Autoimmunity BioSolutions, a 10-year-old Houston company that develops genetically targeted therapies for autoimmune diseases by modulating soluble IL7 receptor levels in specific patient populations, raised a $1 million seed round led by Eos BioInnovation, with family offices and NewTech Investment Holdings as well as previous investors Independent Capital and Elmstead Partners also joining in. More here.

Avant Genomics, a three-year-old startup based in Charlottesville, VA, that is creating automated liquid biopsy sample preparation systems for precision cancer detection, raised a $3 million round. Investors included TitletownTech, Halyard Ventures, Virginia Venture Partners, CAV Angels, and Global Impact Fund. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Cimento AI, a Salt Lake City startup founded this year that provides an AI-native human risk management platform that continuously analyzes employee behavior and runs multi-channel social engineering simulations to reduce security threats, raised a $3 million pre-seed round co-led by Bowery Capital and Indie.vc. More here.

Dolfin, a three-year-old Barcelona startup that helps finance, compensation, and sales operations teams manage sales compensation plans, commissions, and incentive programs without spreadsheets or external consultants, raised a $2.4 million seed round led by Swanlaab, with Archipelago Next, Inveready, and Dozen also joining in. More here.

Furientis, a one-year-old startup based in Dallas and El Segundo, CA, that is developing ship-based interceptor missiles designed for low-cost, high-volume production, raised a $5 million pre-seed round led by Silent Ventures, with Bessemer Venture Partners, SV Angel, Vanderbilt University, and Channel 39 Ventures also opting in. Fortune has more here.

Graphon, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that is building a relational intelligence layer that helps AI models reason across connected multimodal data from documents, video, audio, images, and databases, raised an $8.3 million seed round led by Novera Ventures, with additional support from Perplexity Fund, Samsung Next, GS Futures, Hitachi Ventures, Gaia Ventures, B37 Ventures, and Aurum Partners. More here.

Holmes, a five-year-old Ghent startup that automates end-to-end software testing for web applications by learning how users interact with products and continuously testing those workflows, raised a $1.3 million pre-seed round led by Syndicate One, with NewSchool, RDY, and 100IN also participating. The SaaS News has more here.

Ranger AI, a three-year-old New York and Canadian startup that deploys AI agents to manage industrial tendering, bid evaluations, and revenue-cycle workflows for complex RFPs, raised an $8.4 million seed round led by Bonfire Ventures, with 25madison, Inovia, and Panache Ventures also anteing up. More here.

Synthetic, a six-month-old San Francisco startup that automates accrual-basis bookkeeping by connecting bank accounts, payroll systems, billing tools, and inbox data to generate accounting records and financial workflows, raised a $10 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures, with Basis Set Ventures also stepping up. TechCrunch has more here.

Zerops, an eight-year-old Prague startup whose cloud infrastructure platform lets developers build, test, and deploy applications in the same runtime environment, raised a $2 million seed round led by Gi21 Capital. Tech Funding News has more here.

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Lansdowne Partners launched a venture fund focused on scaling UK university and startup innovation globally, announcing a $150 million first close anchored by British Business Bank, Aviva Investors, and Lloyds Banking Group ahead of a targeted $200 million final close in December. More here.

SpaceX could publicly release its IPO prospectus as soon as next week ahead of a planned June roadshow for what is expected to be the largest IPO ever, with Elon Musk’s combined SpaceXAI business reportedly targeting a $70 billion to $75 billion offering after being valued at $1.25 trillion earlier this year. CNBC has more here.

Jurors in the Elon Musk v. OpenAI trial are now weighing whether Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Microsoft violated charitable obligations tied to Musk’s donations to OpenAI, with a ruling in Musk’s favor potentially threatening OpenAI’s current for-profit structure. TechCrunch has more here.

xAI co-founder Igor Babuschkin is reportedly seeking to raise up to $1 billion at a valuation of as much as $5 billion for a new AI research startup called River AI, the latest “neolab” betting that elite researchers can attract massive funding before building a product or generating revenue. Forbes has more here.

Cerebras’ blockbuster IPO turned co-founders Andrew Feldman and Sean Lie into billionaires, with stakes worth roughly $3.2 billion and $1.7 billion, respectively. CNBC has more here.

Meta employees are reportedly bracing for layoffs affecting about 10% of the company’s workforce next Wednesday as morale sinks amid widening pay disparities, aggressive AI-driven restructuring, mandatory employee-activity tracking software, and fears that AI investments are replacing human workers even as Meta posts record profits. Wired has more here.

A new Gallup survey found that 7 in 10 Americans oppose data centers being built in their communities, highlighting mounting political resistance to the AI infrastructure boom as voters increasingly worry about electricity costs, water use, environmental damage, and quality-of-life impacts. The Washington Post has more here.

Ford shares surged 25% over two days after the 122-year-old automaker said it is investing $2 billion to expand into energy storage for AI infrastructure, fueling investor hopes that Ford could become a major supplier of batteries for power-hungry data centers. Bloomberg has more here.

Chinese graduates returning home for work rose 12% in 2025 from a year earlier and have more than doubled since 2018, fueling Beijing’s efforts to lure AI and tech talent back from U.S. companies like Meta, Google, OpenAI, and Amazon with Silicon Valley-level pay packages, subsidies, and expanded leadership opportunities. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

More than 50 researchers and engineers have reportedly left Elon Musk’s newly rebranded SpaceXAI since February, with rivals including Meta and Mira Murati’s Thinking Machine Labs recruiting away talent as employees question the company’s AI strategy, extreme work culture, and commitment to developing frontier models. TechCrunch has more here.

A man who spent nearly $100,000 over 30 years storing the contents of a Connecticut weekend house he no longer owned finally emptied the unit after his family intervened, highlighting the emotional grip and enormous long-term cost of America’s booming self-storage industry.

An Atlanta cul-de-sac was overrun by Waymos; hijinks ensued.

Brandy (a fine girl) in couples therapy.

San Diego-based hi-fi company Wrensilva unveiled a $9,900 all-in-one vinyl record console that can integrate directly with Sonos multi-room audio systems, pairing a built-in turntable, amplifier, and speakers with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth streaming inside a handmade walnut cabinet.

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