Discord is dealing with a catastrophic breach that exposed 1.5 terabytes of user data, including selfies, government IDs, emails, and phone numbers from roughly 70,000 people, after hackers compromised customer service vendor Zendesk and began leaking files to extort the company. 404 Media has more here.

Federal regulators have opened a new investigation into Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software after more than 50 reports of cars running red lights or veering into wrong lanes, marking a major escalation of safety scrutiny around the company’s driver-assist tech. TechCrunch has more here.

Google researchers revealed that Russia’s Clop gang exploited a zero-day flaw in Oracle’s E-Business Suite to steal significant corporate data from dozens of organizations starting in July, roughly three months before Oracle discovered the breach. TechCrunch has more here.

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By Rebecca Bellan

Reflection AI, a startup founded just last year by two former Google DeepMind researchers, has raised $2 billion at an $8 billion valuation, a whopping 15x leap from its $545 million valuation just seven months ago. The company, which originally focused on autonomous coding agents, is now positioning itself as both an open source alternative to closed frontier labs like OpenAI and Anthropic, and a Western equivalent to Chinese AI firms like DeepSeek.

The startup was launched in March 2024 by Misha Laskin, who led reward modeling for DeepMind’s Gemini project, and Ioannis Antonoglou, who co-created AlphaGo, the AI system that famously beat the world champion in the board game Go in 2016. Their background developing these very advanced AI systems is central to their pitch, which is that the right AI talent can build frontier models outside established tech giants.

Along with its new round, Reflection AI announced that it has recruited a team of top talent from DeepMind and OpenAI, and built an advanced AI training stack that it promises will be open for all. Perhaps most importantly, Reflection AI says it has “identified a scalable commercial model that aligns with our open intelligence strategy.”

Reflection AI’s team currently numbers about 60 people — mostly AI researchers and engineers across infrastructure, data training, and algorithm development, per Laskin, the company’s CEO. Reflection AI has secured a compute cluster and hopes to release a frontier language model next year that’s trained on “tens of trillions of tokens,” he told TechCrunch.

“We built something once thought possible only inside the world’s top labs: a large-scale LLM and reinforcement learning platform capable of training massive Mixture-of-Experts (MoEs) models at frontier scale,” Reflection AI wrote in a post on X. “We saw the effectiveness of our approach first-hand when we applied it to the critical domain of autonomous coding. With this milestone unlocked, we’re now bringing these methods to general agentic reasoning.”

MoE refers to a specific architecture that powers frontier LLMs — systems that, previously, only large, closed AI labs were capable of training at scale. DeepSeek had a breakthrough moment when it figured out how to train these models at scale in an open way, followed by Qwen, Kimi, and other models in China.

Arthrosi Therapeutics, a nine-year-old San Diego startup that develops a URAT1 inhibitor for gout, raised a $153 million Series E round. Prime Eight Capital was the deal lead, with CR Biotech, HighLight Capital, HM Venture Partners, and ReliantTech also contributing. Fierce Biotech has more here.

Base Power, a two-year-old Austin startup that leases home battery systems to homeowners to provide affordable backup power and grid support, raised a $1 billion Series C round at a $3 billion pre-money valuation. Addition led the investment, with Ribbit, CapitalG, Spark, BOND, Lowercarbon, Avenir, Glade Brook, Positive Sum, and 1789 as well as previous investors Trust Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, Thrive Capital, Lightspeed, Andreessen Horowitz, Altimeter, StepStone, Elad Gil, 137 Ventures, Terrain, and Waybury also piling on. TechCrunch has more here.

DUOS, a five-year-old startup Minneapolis startup that helps health plans guide older adults through benefits and care, raised a $130 million strategic growth equity round. FTV Capital was the lead investor, with previous investor Forerunner Ventures also pitching in. Mobi Health News has more here.

Expedition Therapeutics, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that is developing drugs for inflammatory and respiratory diseases including COPD, raised a $165 million Series A round co-led by Sofinnova Investments and Novo Holdings, with Forbion, Dawn Biopharma, Adage, Balyasny, Logos Capital, and Sanofi Ventures as well as previous investors BVF Partners and Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners also taking part. More here.

n8n, a six-year-old Berlin startup that helps businesses automate and orchestrate AI-powered workflows, raised a $180 million Series C round at a $2.5 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Accel, with Meritech, Redpoint, Evantic, Visionaries Club, NVentures, and T.Capital as well as previous backers Felicis Ventures, Sequoia, Highland Europe, and HV Capital also participating. The company has raised a total of $240 million. Tech.eu has more here.

Nilo Therapeutics, a two-year-old New York startup that is developing drugs that regulate inflammation and the immune system by targeting nerve cells, raised a $101 million Series A round co-led by DCVC Bio, Lux Capital, and The Column Group, with Alexandria Venture Investments and the Gates Foundation also digging in. BioPharma Dive has more here.

Raise Financial Services, a four-year-old Indian startup that runs Dhan, a stockbroking platform for retail investors, raised a $120 million Series B round at a $1.2 billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Hornbill Capital, with MUFG Bank and Beenext also stepping up. Entrepreneur has more here.

Spellbook, a seven-year-old Toronto startup that uses AI to help lawyers review and draft contracts, raised a $50 million Series B round at a $350 million valuation. Khosla Ventures was the deal lead, with Threshold Ventures as well as previous investors Inovia Capital, Bling Capital, Moxxie Ventures, and Path Ventures also engaging. The company has raised a total of $80 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Stoke Space, a seven-year-old startup based in Kent, WA, that is developing reusable rockets for national security and commercial missions, raised a $510 million Series D round led by U.S. Innovative Technology and joined by Washington Harbour Partners and General Innovation Capital Partners as well as previous investors 776, Breakthrough Energy, Glade Brook Capital, Industrious Ventures, NFX,  Sparta Group, Toyota Ventures, and Woven Capital. TechCrunch has more here.

AiPrise, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that helps businesses verify customers and partners across countries, raised a $12.5 million Series A round led by Headline, with Y Combinator, SixThirty Ventures, and Correlation Ventures also joining in. Tech Funding News has more here.

Authentic8, a 16-year-old company based in Mountain View, CA, that provides a secure browser isolation platform for enterprises, raised a $16.7 million round. Vistara Growth provided the funding. BC Technology has more here.

CipherOwl, a San Francisco startup that uses AI to turn blockchain transactions into explainable, auditable compliance decisions for financial institutions, raised a $15 million seed round co-led by General Catalyst and Flourish Ventures, with Coinbase Ventures, Sancus Ventures, Enlight Capital, OKX Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, Road Capital, and Predictive VC also participating. Blockworks has more here.

Datacurve, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that uses paid “bounties” to crowdsource complex AI training data from skilled software engineers, raised a $15 million Series A round led by Chemistry. TechCrunch has more here.

Glue, a five-year-old San Francisco startup that embeds agentic AI and MCP-powered tools into team chat, raised a $20 million Series A round led by Abstract Ventures and including Chapter One, Goldcrest Capital, and Craft Ventures. More here.

HiOctave, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that uses AI to help small and mid-sized businesses automate and personalize customer experiences, raised a $15 million round led by Khosla Ventures, with Celesta Capital, Anthology Fund, and Carya Venture Partners also chipping in. More here.

QuoteWell, a four-year-old Austin startup that helps insurance brokers place complex commercial risks through an AI-driven wholesale platform, raised a $12 million round led by New Enterprise Associates, with Brand Foundry Ventures, ClockTower Ventures, Goldcrest Capital, and Floating Point also opting in. The company has raised a total of $32 million. Life Insurance International has more here.

Routefusion, a seven-year-old Austin startup that helps platforms and financial institutions embed cross-border payments and multi-currency accounts, raised a $26.5 million Series A round led by PeakSpan Capital, with Silverton Partners also participating. The company has raised a total of $40.7 million. More here.

Splash Sports, a five-year-old Denver startup that lets fans run and compete in real-money sports contests, raised a $14.5 million Series B round led by Dream Ventures, with Boston Seed, Velvet Sea Ventures, Green Wave Ventures, Evolution Partners, and EP Golf Ventures also anteing up. CityBiz has more here.

Tigris Data, a four-year-old startup based in Sunnyvale, CA, that builds distributed data storage for AI workloads so data can move and replicate close to where computing happens, raised a $25 million Series A round led by Spark Capital, with Andreessen Horowitz also contributing, TechCrunch has more here.

Vulcan Technologies, a one-year-old Austin startup that helps government agencies and legal teams with regulatory drafting and compliance, raised a $10.9 million seed round. General Catalyst and Cubit Capital were the co-leads, with SV Angel, A*, Liquid 2 Ventures, Transpose, 468 Capital, and Y Combinator also investing. CityBiz has more here.

375ai, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that uses AI and sensor networks to capture and analyze real-world vehicle data for insights into offline consumer behavior, raised a $5 million round co-led by Delphi Ventures, Strobe Ventures, and HackVC, with 6MV, ARCA, EV3, Peaq, and Heartcore also participating. The company has raised a total of $10 million. Blockworks has more here.

AnyTeam, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that automates sales tasks for sales professionals, raised a $10 million seed round. SignalFire was the deal lead, with Crosslink Capital also participating. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Everyset, a 10-year-old Los Angeles company that provides a digital platform for managing and processing payroll for background actors in film and TV productions, raised a $9 million round co-led by Crosslink Capital and Haven Ventures. More here.

Knapsack, a five-year-old startup based in Portland, OR, that helps enterprise design and engineering teams unify specs, code, and branding across digital products, raised a $10 million Series A round led by Builders VC, with Crosslink Capital, Epic Ventures, Mana Ventures, and Lorimer Ventures also participating. The company has raised a total of $20.8 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Kneu Health, a three-year-old London startup that uses AI and smartphone-based monitoring to help clinicians track and treat neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s and dementia, raised a $5.6 million seed round co-led by Oxford Science Enterprises and Cedars-Sinai, with Social Impact Enterprises, JIMCO, G.K. Goh Ventures, and SXSW London also taking part. The company has raised a total of $11.2 million. More here.

Onos Health, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that uses AI to help health insurers improve how they evaluate, authorize, and coordinate behavioral-health care, raised a $6.3 million round co-led by Haystack and Pathlight Ventures, with Bertelsmann Healthcare Investments and Nebular also investing. 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.

Ascenta, a two-year-old, venture firm in Florida that backs platform biotechs, or startups that are developing multiple medicines from a single underlying technology, raised an inaugural $325 million fund. Fierce Biotech has more here.

Coinbase and Mastercard have each held separate advanced talks to acquire BVNK, a four-year-old London startup that helps businesses use stablecoins for payments and treasury management, in potential deals valuing it between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion. Fortune has the scoop here.

With the government shut down and SEC staff unable to review filings, the agency announced that companies can go public without formal approval during the shutdown, saying it won’t penalize them for missing pricing details. TechCrunch has more here.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled the company’s first Nvidia-powered AI “factory,” emphasizing that Microsoft already has more than 300 global data centers ready to power frontier AI, a pointed reminder amid OpenAI’s trillion-dollar buildout. TechCrunch has more here.

Roger Ver, known as “Crypto Jesus” for his early evangelism of Bitcoin, has agreed to pay roughly $48 million to settle a U.S. tax fraud case, a deal that underscores how the Trump administration is unwinding its predecessors’ crypto crackdown. The New York Times has more here.

A new study from Anthropic finds that just 250 malicious documents are enough to create a backdoor in a large language model during training, showing how little data attackers need to compromise even massive AI systems. Engadget has more here.

Instagram is exploring a dedicated TV app to bring Reels and other videos to larger screens, signaling Meta’s push to challenge YouTube and capture viewing time as short-form video consumption shifts to televisions. Bloomberg has more here.

A Washington Post columnist found that Amazon’s fall Prime Day prices were virtually unchanged from regular days, with average savings of just 0.6 percent, reinforcing concerns that the event benefits Amazon far more than its shoppers. More here.

A new trailer dropped today for Mercy, a techno-thriller starring Chris Pratt as a detective who must plead his innocence before an AI judge after being accused of murdering his wife in a future ruled by algorithmic justice. [H/T Mashable]

Quarterback Fernando Mendoza, a Haas business grad now enrolled at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, has become a Heisman frontrunner by applying the same discipline he used in finance internships to mastering new playbooks and NIL deals.

A 293-acre Hudson Valley estate called Deep Acres has hit the market in Kinderhook, New York, for $14.5 million, offering a renovated 1858 Greek Revival manor, guesthouse, pool, and barns that channel a mini-Central Park vibe.

Solid leaf blowers.

AI isn’t just for productivity anymore. It is quickly becoming entertainment. Consumers are beginning to engage with AI in new ways, fueling the rise of AI companions that combine conversation, play, and personality. These companions are creating entirely new forms of interaction and signaling a major shift in how technology will be experienced. Have a portfolio company interested in exploring AI companions? Reach out to Genies here or learn more about their tech stack for AI companions here. 

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