New details about the TikTok deal are emerging. According to Bloomberg, Bytedance will receive approximately 50% of the profits from the U.S. joint venture and will be in charge of U.S. business operations; the American side will control the app’s data, content, and algorithm. However, China’s conspicuous silence about the deal may be due to the fact that TikTok has been valued at just $14 billion, a price that is more comparable to a sleepy company like General Mills than a high-growth social media app. Bloomberg has more here.

The Trump administration is floating a plan to force chipmakers to match every imported semiconductor with one made in the U.S., a rule backed by tariff threats that could shake global supply chains. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

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By Julie Bort

Fintech Checkout.com announced on Friday that it reached a $12 billion valuation as part of an employee stock buyback program. 

On the one hand, very few startups ever achieve decacorn status, so $12 billion is nothing to sneeze at. It’s a valuable enough company to have landed its founder and CEO Guillaume Pousaz on Forbes’ billionaire list.

On the other, there was a short period of time when Checkout.com was valued at a whopping $40 billion, as part of its $1 billion Series D round closed in 2022. By the end of that year, with the venture world crashing into a bear market, it had already internally slashed its valuation to $11 billion.

So $12 billion represents a billion-dollar step up from that.

But this valuation isn’t being obtained because an investor is plunking down cash. The company is the only one buying employee shares back, with no other investors involved in a tender offer, a company spokesperson tells us.

Instead, the valuation comes from a 409A valuation, a spokesperson tells TechCrunch. That’s an assessment made by an independent third-party. It’s not the same as a vote of confidence from a professional investor, but it’s also not simply the company giving itself a bump.

In fairness, Checkout.com’s arch rival Stripe also had its own valuation set-back during the same venture capital bear market, crashing from $95 billion at the height of the froth in 2021, to $50 billion during the doldrums in 2023. Stripe has since clawed its way back to $91.5 billion as of February through its own series of employee tender offers. Stripe, however, did have outside investors helping to value it. And, the Stripe is rumored to be working on yet another tender offer at a $106.7 billion valuation, Axios just reported.  

Inspiren, a 9-year-old New York startup that develops AI-powered safety and emergency response systems for senior living communities, raised a $100 million Series B round led by Insight Partners, with Avenir, Primary Venture Partners, Scale Venture Partners, Story Ventures, Third Prime, and Studio VC also investing. The company has raised a total of $155 million. More here.

Thyme Care, a 5-year-old Nashville startup that provides value-based cancer care through virtual navigation and oncology analytics, raised a $97 million Series D round at a $1+ billion valuation. Investors included CVS Health Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Concord Health Partners, Foresite Capital, Town Hall Ventures, Frist Cressey Ventures, AlleyCorp, Morgan Health, Humana, Memorial Hermann Health System, and Texas Oncology. The company has raised a total of $275 million. Mobi Health News has more here.

Valence, an eight-year-old New York startup that provides AI coaching software for employees, raised a $50 million Series B round. Bessemer Venture Partners was the deal lead. More here.

Axon Therapies, an 11-year-old New York company that is developing medical devices for minimally invasive heart failure treatments, raised a $32 million Series A round co-led by Earlybird Venture Capital and Santé Ventures, with additional participation from Deerfield Management, CD Capital, and KOFA Healthcare. Mobi Health News has more here.

Beroe, a 19-year-old company based in Chennai, India, and Raleigh, NC, that provides AI-powered procurement tools for enterprise customers, raised a $34 million round. Investors included Relativity Resilience Fund and Alchemy Long Term Ventures. More here.

Daymark Health, a one-year-old Philadelphia startup that delivers virtual and in-home care for cancer patients in partnership with oncologists and health plans, raised a $20 million Series A round led by Healthier Capital, with Blue Venture Fund as well as previous investors Maverick Ventures, Yosemite, and Oncology Ventures also contributing. More here.

Prelude Security, a five-year-old New York startup that provides endpoint security software to detect and stop attacks at the moment of code execution, raised a $16 million round led by Brightmind Partners, with Sequoia Capital and Insight Partners also engaging. The company has raised a total of $45 million. More here.

Alguna, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that helps B2B companies automate pricing, quoting, and billing operations, raised a $4 million seed round co-led by Mango Capital and Atlantic Labs, with Y Combinator also participating. FinTech Futures has more here.

BeeSpeaker, a three-year-old Stockholm startup that offers a mobile app for learning foreign languages through AI-driven speaking and listening practice, raised a $2.3 million seed round led by Movens Capital, with SpeedUp Venture Capital Group also taking part. Tech.eu has more here.

Bonsai Health, a one-year-old Los Angeles startup that uses AI to automate healthcare front office workflows and keep patients on track with follow-up care, raised a $7 million seed round co-led by Bonfire Ventures and Wonder Ventures. CityBiz has more here.

FREDsense, an 11-year-old Calgary company that develops portable water testing devices for detecting PFAS contaminants, raised a $7 million Series A round led by HG Ventures, with Emerald Technology Ventures also pitching in. More here.

MaxHome.AI, a one-year-old startup based in Fremont, CA, that helps real estate agents and brokerages automate back-office workflows like document management and compliance, raised a $5 million seed round led by Fika Ventures, with BBG Ventures, 1Sharpe Ventures, and Four Acres Capital also stepping up. The company has raised a total of $7 million. HousingWire has more here.

Scorecard, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that enables developers to test and improve AI agents through automated evaluations, raised a $3.75 million seed round. Investors included Kindred Ventures, Neo, Inception Studio, and Tekton Ventures. More here.

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Touring Capital, a two-year-old San Francisco VC firm that backs early-growth AI-driven software startups, raised its first fund in the amount of $330 million. The firm was founded by veterans of Microsoft's M12 fund and SoftBank Vision Fund. The Economic Times has more here.

Ethos Technologies, a nine-year-old San Francisco startup whose digital platform is designed to streamline the buying, selling, and underwriting of life insurance for consumers, agents, and carriers, has filed to go public on Nasdaq after hitting $320 million in trailing 12-month revenue. Ethos’s VC backers include Accel, Sequoia Capital, GV, and SoftBank. More here.

Aaron Sorkin is bringing Facebook back to the big screen with The Social Reckoning, a 2026 sequel starring Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg and centering on Frances Haugen’s leaks that exposed Meta’s alleged prioritization of profits over user safety. TechCrunch has more here.

In an editorial in The Guardian, veteran tech investor Roger McNamee warns that the tech industry is on track to invest more in AI in the next couple of years than it has invested in all other technologies since 1956, a stunning capital concentration that he believes will lead to a massive shakeout. More here.

TechCrunch takes a hard look at Seongnam and finds that it still has a long way to go before it can live up to its nickname as “Korea’s Silicon Valley.” More here.

Anthropic is tripling its overseas workforce and opening offices from Tokyo to Zurich as nearly 80% of Claude’s usage comes from outside the U.S. CNBC has more here.

The wildest looks at the Ryder Cup.

TikTok trend alert: friends opening joint bank accounts to fund trips and shared experiences. What could possibly go wrong?

“Manly” fragrances.

Statement coats.

The new Segway GT3 Pro Super Scooter can go from 0-30 mph in 3.9 seconds and handle a 38% uphill slope.

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