What is Uber in 2026, exactly? The company that started as a ride-hailing app now juggles autonomous vehicles, delivery, hotel bookings, and a fleet of robotaxi partners it also happens to compete with. We asked Chief Product Officer Sachin Kansal to untangle it all — how Uber manages its complicated, coopetition-fueled relationship with Waymo, keeps its 10 million human drivers happy (it definitely still needs them!), and decides which of its many bets are actually worth chasing. Listen to the full conversation on the StrictlyVC Download podcast, or read the highlights here.

According to Bloomberg, Chinese LLM startup DeepSeek is preparing for an IPO – potentially as soon as later this year – while seeking to raise about $1.5 billion at a $71 billion valuation. DeepSeek has grown fast by offering lower-cost, open-source AI models, including ones that run on Huawei chips rather than U.S.-made chips that are subject to export controls. TechCrunch has more here.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the nation’s first statewide moratorium on hyperscale data centers, pausing approvals for projects using 50 megawatts or more for one year while the state studies their impact on energy demand, water use, air quality, and utility bills. The New York Times has more here.

Reuters is reporting that xAI installed 59 unpermitted natural gas turbines for its Colossus 2 data center project near Memphis – more than double the 27 turbines the company previously acknowledged – with potential pollution far above federal permitting thresholds. Reuters has more here.

OpenAI’s first hardware device is reportedly a screenless, mobile smart speaker designed as a “humanlike AI companion” for the home, with moving parts, ChatGPT integration, and the ability to personalize responses using information from a user’s digital life. TechCrunch has more here.

28% of companies clear the Rule of 40. Do yours? 

We analyzed 1,377 venture-backed private companies with $1M+ in revenue that report through Standard Metrics. Only 28% cleared the Rule of 40, and 89% of those did it through growth, not profitability. See how your portfolio stacks up to the rest of the private markets in our latest report. Read the report. 

By Rebecca Bellan

For several weeks this summer, the AI industry was fixated on Anthropic’s latest frontier models and Washington’s fight to control who was granted access to them. But while everyone was watching the frontier, developers kept building — and they weren’t waiting around for permission from the Anthropics and OpenAIs of the world.

Chinese open-weight models accounted for 41% of downloads on Hugging Face this spring, surpassing U.S. models. On OpenRouter, the top six most popular models are all open models from Chinese firms, including Tencent, Xiaomi, DeepSeek, MiniMax, and Z.ai. Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.7 trails in seventh place, at the time of this writing. And data from Vercel shows that open-weight models are absorbing much of the volume-heavy infrastructure of AI apps, while closed models operate as the higher-cost, premium layer. Open models handled nearly a third of AI requests on the platform in June.

Those platforms only capture one slice of the AI ecosystem; in particular, they leave out sessions hosted by major labs, which likely account for the bulk of OpenAI and Anthropic’s usage. But open source models’ large and growing share of the market raises a difficult question: How much do frontier models still matter if most production AI ends up running on cheaper, customizable alternatives?

Some see the growth of open source models as a sign that the most intelligent models may end up being used for only the most specialized use cases. “Maybe in a few years, the frontier models will be for experimenting and [for] some really high-value tasks, and most of the production workloads will actually be powered either by private models within companies or by open source models,” Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue said on a recent episode of Equity.

Hugging Face is a platform and developer community best known for hosting, sharing, and helping companies deploy open models. Delangue says Hugging Face’s customers and community members are increasingly touting the benefits of owning their own AI models rather than renting them, a trend that’s picked up steam in the cold light of day after getting the bill associated with the cost of scaling closed frontier models.

“If you’re an AI company or a technology company, you don’t want to outsource your core capabilities to another company, to a black box API that you don’t control, don’t have any visibility on, and don’t really have any sort of ownership,” Delangue said. 

Brinc, a seven-year-old Seattle startup that builds drones for police, fire, and other emergency-response agencies, raised a $125 million round led by Motorola Solutions, with previous investors Index Ventures and Figma founder Dylan Field also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $280+ million. GeekWire has more here.

Chai Discovery, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that develops AI models that help drugmakers design molecules by predicting and reprogramming how molecules interact, raised a $400 million round at a $3.8 billion post-money valuation. The deal was co-led by Index Ventures, with Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Dimension, Bain Capital Ventures, Thrive Capital, OpenAI, and Yosemite also participating. The company has raised a total of $600+ million. Fierce Biotech has more here.

Draig Therapeutics, a two-year-old Cardiff startup that develops experimental medicines that target brain signaling imbalances in major depressive disorder and other psychiatric conditions, raised a $65 million Series B round led by Deep Track Capital, with Janus Henderson Investors, Marshall Wace, British Business Bank, and Jefferson Life Sciences also buying in. BioPharma Dive has more here.

Drug Farm, an 11-year-old company based in Shanghai and Albany, NY, that develops therapies for rare inflammatory eye disease, heart and kidney conditions, hepatitis B, liver cancer, and metabolic disorders, raised a $55 million Series D round co-led by Shanghai Pudong Leading Area Investment Center and Shanghai Puxing Collaborative Private Equity Fund Partnership Enterprise, with Tukar Capital, Fuzhou Xinhe Fund, Shenzhen Luohu Donghai Chempartner Investment Fund, and Keyuan Pharma as well as previous investors BioVeda China Fund, YD Capital, Jiashan State VC, Detong Capital, Wedo Capital, and Biometas also chiming in. More here.

Flex, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that provides private banking for business owners managing payments, accounts, credit, and cards across multiple entities, currencies, and countries, raised a $70 million Series B1 round at a $1.2 billion valuation. The deal was led by Halo Fund, with Portage, Wellington, Crosslink Capital, 53 Stations, Titanium Ventures, Spice, and Florida Funders also digging in. The company has raised a total of $180 million in equity and $300 million in debt. Tech Funding News has more here.

Instalily AI, a three-year-old New York startup that deploys AI agents to build and run company-specific sales, operations, and field service workflows, raised a $60 million Series B round led by Energize Capital, with Home Depot Ventures and United Rentals as well as previous investor Insight Partners also pitching in. The company has raised a total of nearly $100 million. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

LimX Dynamics, a four-year-old Shenzhen startup that develops autonomous humanoid robots for commercial service work and entertainment deployments, raised a $200 million round at a $2.2 billion post-money valuation. Investors included Stone Venture, GGG, Redstone VC, Lens Technology, IDG Capital, WestSummit Capital, Nio Capital, and Hefei Binhu Industry Development Group. CNBC has more here.

Neko Health, an eight-year-old Stockholm startup co-founded by Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek that offers full-body preventive health scans using proprietary sensors, blood analysis, and clinician consultations, raised a $700 million Series C round. The deal was co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and O.G. Venture Partners, with additional support from Liberty City Ventures, Positive Sum, BDT & MSD, and individual investors including Mark Zuckerberg, Ari Emanuel, Maria Sharapova, Tim Ferriss, and will.i.am, as well as previous investors Atomico, General Catalyst, and Lakestar. Reuters has more here.

Pearl Health, a six-year-old New York company that uses AI to help healthcare providers manage risk and deliver value-based care for Medicare patients, raised $110 million in capital, including a $50 million equity round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Viking Global Investors, AlleyCorp, and Ulysses Capital also engaging; and a $60 million credit facility led by Trinity Capital. More here.

PixVerse, a three-year-old Singapore startup that helps consumers, developers, filmmakers, and marketing teams create AI-generated videos and virtual worlds from images and prompts, raised a $439 million Series C round at a $2+ billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by CDH Investments, with Alibaba, Lollapalooza Capital, Ivy Capital, Grand Mount Capital, Eastern Bell Capital, Mirae Asset, BlueFocus, and CloudAlpha as well as previous investors iGlobe Partners and OCBC’s Lion X Ventures also taking stakes. TechCrunch has more here.

Singularity, a three-year-old startup based in El Segundo, CA, that builds counter-weapons for military users with automotive-style manufacturing designed to increase production volumes, raised an $80 million Series A round at a $400 million valuation. The deal was co-led by Khosla Ventures and Felicis, with Long Journey, Harpoon, Menlo Ventures, Y Combinator, Decisive Point, New Vista, Sunflower, and Soma as well as previous investors AE Ventures and NEA also piling on. More here.

State Affairs, a five-year-old startup based in Washington, DC, that helps lawmakers, agencies, and companies track legislation, regulations, hearings, and policy trends using statehouse reporting and government data, raised a $70 million round. Investors included Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Tru Arrow Partners, and Alumni Ventures. More here.

TerraFirma, a two-year-old Austin startup that develops remote-operated and semi-autonomous construction equipment, raised a $115 million round from Kleiner Perkins and Bain Capital Ventures. CNBC has more here.

Augmodo, a three-year-old Seattle startup that develops wearable AI assistants that map physical work environments and guide employees in retail, logistics, warehousing, and industrial supply chains, raised an additional $21 million round led by previous investor TQ Ventures at a $350 million valuation, with prior backers Lerer Hippeau, Arena Holdings, New Fare, Interlace Ventures, Webb Investment Network, and Jefferson River Capital also contributing. More here.

Corner Health, a two-year-old startup based in Santa Monica, CA, that helps nurse practitioners launch and run independent primary care practices by automating billing, scheduling, referrals, lab orders, and patient communications, raised $32.5 million in seed and Series A financing. The Series A was led by Oak HC/FT, with previous investors First Round Capital and Zigg Capital also anteing up. MobiHealthNews has more here.

Flexell Space, a two-year-old South Korean startup that develops lightweight, flexible solar cells for satellites, high-altitude drones, space stations, and probes that need lower-cost power in harsh space conditions, raised a $20 million Series A round. Investors included Mirae Asset Venture Investment, Mirae Asset Capital, IBK Industrial Bank of Korea, NH Venture Investment, IBK Investment & Securities, Seoul Z Venture Capital, Korea Investment & Securities, and Korea Credit Guarantee Fund as well as previous investors Intervest, L&S Venture Capital, and Quad Ventures. DBR has more here.

Hadrius, a three-year-old New York startup that uses AI to help financial services firms review compliance risks and maintain audit-ready records, raised $27 million in seed and Series A funding led by CRV, with Y Combinator and Pathlight Ventures also opting in. More here.

Keyper, a five-year-old Dubai startup that lets tenants pay rent monthly while landlords receive upfront rental income through property management and financing tools, raised an $11 million Series A round led by Speedinvest, with NeoVentures, Middle East Venture Partners, Dubai Future District Fund, Property Finder, Arab National Bank, Ellington Properties, Dar Ventures, and Abbey Road Investment Group also stepping up. CairoScene has more here.

Raxio Group, an eight-year-old Amsterdam startup that operates carrier-neutral colocation data centers across Africa for cloud providers, telecom companies, financial institutions, and enterprises, raised a $30 million round. Investors included prior backers Roha and Meridiam. The company has raised a total of $380+ million in committed capital. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Thira, a startup founded this year based in Bellevue, WA, that builds AI agents to automate complex back-office workflows across enterprise IT systems, raised a $21 million seed round led by Madrona, with FUSE also digging in. More here.

TYLsemi, a San Jose startup founded this year that develops chiplet-based systems to help companies design custom AI accelerators faster and more cheaply, raised $43 million in early-stage funding led by Matter Venture Partners, with Viola Ventures, GHOVC, Egis Technology, and unnamed strategic semiconductor investors also participating. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Velocity, a one-year-old London startup that develops stablecoin treasury and settlement infrastructure for enterprises, payment providers, and financial institutions, raised a $38 million Series A round co-led by Dragonfly and FirstMark, with Activant Capital, Capital One Ventures, QED Investors, Coinbase Ventures, Wintermute Ventures, and Ripple also participating. The company has raised a total of nearly $50 million since May. The Block has more here.

Guthrie AI, a two-year-old Philadelphia startup that helps trade contractors extract relevant project information from blueprints and communications to prepare construction bids, raised a $4 million seed round led by Chicago Ventures. More here.

Prolo, a two-year-old London startup that combines AI-powered construction procurement with up to 90 days of credit for small contractors, raised a $5.6 million seed round led by Triple Point Ventures, with Anamcara Capital, Concrete VC, Foundation Ventures, Haatch, Koro Capital, Love Ventures, and Portfolio Ventures also participating. Tech Funding News has more here.

SONATA, a recently founded New York startup that provides preventive healthcare memberships that combine genetic, blood, hormone, and wearable data with ongoing physician-led care, raised a $7 million round. Investors included Lux Capital, BoxGroup, and Sunflower Capital. Femtech Insider has more here.

General Compute is making a $300m bet against GPUs 

General Compute raised $15m 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. ASIC silicon is also far more energy efficient, so it deploys in air-cooled data centers, making growth and expansion dramatically easier. Learn more here. 

Greylock, a 61-year-old venture firm based in Menlo Park, CA, that backs early-stage startups across AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, applications, deep tech, consumer, and fintech, raised $1.5 billion for its 18th fund. More here.

Delivery Hero confirmed it is in advanced talks with Uber over a potential takeover offer, a deal that would expand Uber Eats across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America while likely drawing antitrust scrutiny over the companies’ overlapping food-delivery footprints. Reuters has more here.

Lucid Motors denied a report that it is considering Chapter 11 bankruptcy, saying it has enough liquidity to operate well into next year even as the luxury EV maker’s stock briefly plunged more than 50% amid layoffs, weak demand, and restructuring. TechCrunch has more here.

Switch, a 26-year-old Las Vegas company that operates large-scale data center campuses providing power, cooling, and connectivity for AI computing, has hired Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan for an IPO that could raise up to $10 billion and value the company at nearly $80 billion. Reuters has more here.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri says Meta may eventually cap AI token spending by engineer, warning that heavy AI usage could soon cost as much as an employee’s salary and will need to be managed like payroll, GPU capacity, or other operating expenses. TechCrunch has more here.

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis is calling for an independent standards body to review frontier AI models before release, arguing that an industry-funded, government-backed regulator modeled on FINRA would be more technical, transparent, and consistent than the Trump administration’s ad hoc model reviews. TechCrunch has more here.

Miles Wang, an OpenAI researcher whose work includes using AI to accelerate scientific and biological discovery, is leaving the ChatGPT maker to launch a new startup focused on developing AI models for drug discovery, reports TechCrunch, which says he may hit the ground running with a $200 million round of funding. More here.

Adweek reports that OpenAI’s ad business is on pace to miss the company’s own five-year forecast by 90%, with Emarketer estimating the entire chatbot ad market will reach just $5.41 billion by 2030, far below OpenAI’s projected $100 billion in ad revenue. More here.

Ars Technica examines the promise and limits of “world models,” a fast-emerging category of AI meant to simulate physical environments for uses like robotics, scientific modeling, and 3D asset generation even though experts debate how well these systems can learn real-world physics from video. More here.

Barcelona’s tourism chief says the city’s new message is “not one tourist more,” with officials aiming to cap visitors at about 16 million a year, curb day-tripping cruise passengers, preserve neighborhood shops, and make overrun places like the Boqueria market useful to residents again.

A Los Angeles promoter is turning warehouse parties into sober, ambient “quiet evenings,” where guests bring blankets and pillows, listen to singing bowls, modular synths, and atmospheric guitar, and treat Saturday night less like a rave than a communal sound bath.

Fans of director Christopher Nolan are crossing oceans, lining up for 1 a.m. and 7 a.m. screenings, and paying up to $600 on resale sites to see The Odyssey.

California startup Aboard has unveiled the T4, an $80,000+ hybrid electric travel trailer with a 41 kWh battery, a 60 kW generator, powered axles, and up to seven days of off-grid power.

Turns out a $349 ring that says you're in "top form" when you are actually mid-migraine isn't quite the health tracker TechCrunch's Amanda Silberling signed up for.

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