Kalshi is drawing regulatory scrutiny again after nearly one million trades in a single ether market were placed in nearly identical $5,500 amounts, accounting for more than $5 billion in volume. The CFTC is examining the activity, while Kalshi says it found no evidence of wash trading. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

San Francisco just sued Trump Media over Truth Social’s $100,000-a-month data feed, arguing that giving paying subscribers fractional-second early access to President Trump’s potentially market-moving posts violates California’s Unfair Competition Law by giving wealthy traders an advantage over ordinary investors. The New York Times has more here.

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By Connie Loizos

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis came to San Francisco on Monday night to promote Greece, but he also did something that heads of state on trade missions don’t typically do. In front of roughly 250 founders, investors and operators, he said openly that he doesn’t have answers to many of the AI questions leaders around the world are more privately debating.

The prime minister, speaking with this editor at an event hosted by Endeavor, a global nonprofit that supports entrepreneurs in emerging and growth markets, described his Bay Area trip as partly a fact-finding mission. He’d spent the morning touring Tesla and Sequoia Capital, among other stops, with plans to head this week to the U.N. General Assembly in New York. But the trip was also meant to build bridges; indeed, he was pitching anyone in tech who might consider setting up shop in Greece, which is set to regain developed market status next year from MSCI, the influential index provider.

“I think it’s another indication that the economy is doing well and that Greece is no longer treated as a special case,” Mitsotakis said.

Mitsotakis, who earned a master’s degree at Stanford and called the visit “a homecoming,” made the economic case first and foremost during our sit-down. Greece is paying down its debt at a record pace, and, he added, borrows more cheaply than the United States. “I don’t know if I should say this,” he told the crowd, smiling.

Amber Electric, a nine-year-old Melbourne startup that optimizes home battery, rooftop solar, and electric vehicle energy use based on wholesale electricity prices, raised a $56.3 million Series E round led by Morgan Stanley, with ETF Partners, Innovation Victoria, and E.ON also participating. ESG Today has more here.

Ande, a three-year-old New York startup that helps companies book and manage corporate entertainment while automating approvals, contracts, and expense reconciliation, raised more than $52 million across seed and Series A rounds from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Duration Ventures, and Sierra Ventures, with Bain Capital Ventures also participating. More here.

Brahma AI, a three-year-old London startup that helps enterprises manage, create, localize, and distribute audiovisual content using AI, raised a $150 million round led by Multiples Alternate Asset Management. More here.

Confido, a four-year-old New York startup that helps consumer brands manage finance, accounting, sales, and operational workflows in one system, raised a $55 million Series B round led by Insight Partners, with Trenches Capital, Watchfire, and Barrel Ventures as well as previous investors Footwork and Y Combinator also participating. The company has raised a total of $77 million. More here.

Cyera, a five-year-old Israeli cybersecurity startup that helps enterprises secure sensitive data and control access by people, software, and AI agents, raised a $400 million extension of its Series G from Goldman Sachs Alternatives. The company has raised more than $2 billion in total funding. CTech has more here.

Firecrawl, a four-year-old San Francisco startup that gives AI agents a single interface for searching the web, official data sources, and specialized indexes, raised a $75 million Series B round led by Smash Capital, with additional support from Altos Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Y Combinator, Freestyle, Offline Ventures, YC, and Offline. Dealroom has more here.

Go.AI, an eight-year-old Chicago startup that sells on-premises AI hardware and software to organizations with strict security and regulatory requirements, raised an $85 million Series A round led by Updata Partners, with LAUNCH and previous investor GFT Ventures also stepping up. The company has raised a total of $90 million. More here.

Heidi Health, an Australian startup whose AI software transcribes clinical encounters and generates notes, summaries, and follow-up materials, raised a $100 million Series C at a $900 million post-money valuation. The deal was led by Blackbird, with previous investors Phoenix Court, Point72 Private Investments, and Headline also participating. The company also secured $240 million in nondilutive growth financing from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Mirendil, a San Francisco startup founded this year that develops self-improving AI models designed to advance with little or no human input, is in talks to raise up to $1 billion at a $5 billion post-money valuation, with Kleiner Perkins in talks to lead and Andreessen Horowitz also possibly investing. Bloomberg has more here.

Rainmaker, a three-year-old startup based in El Segundo, CA, that uses drones to seed storm clouds and radar systems to measure the resulting rain and snow, raised a $100 million Series B round from NOA VC, Upfront Ventures, DCVC, Lowercarbon Capital, and Dream Ventures. More here.

Snorkel AI, a seven-year-old San Francisco startup that creates and vets training datasets and reinforcement-learning environments for AI models, raised a $350 million round at a $3.5 billion post-money valuation co-led by Insight Partners and S32, with significant participation from previous investor Addition. The round included March Capital, Blumberg Capital, Allegis Capital, Frontline, Standard, and Third Point Ventures as well as prior backers Greylock, Lightspeed, GV, Factory, Prosperity7, Walden Catalyst, and Wells Fargo. Reuters has more here.

Verda, a six-year-old Helsinki startup that provides on-demand cloud computing infrastructure for companies running AI workloads, raised a $189 million Series B round at a $1+ billion post-money valuation. The deal was led by Emergence Capital, with MUFG Innovation Partners, Supermicro, Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company, Lifeline Ventures, 6 Degrees Capital, byFounders, and Tesi also investing. The company has raised a total of $450+ million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Baselayer, a three-year-old New York startup that provides identity verification and fraud-risk assessments for financial institutions, including credentials that verify AI agents, raised a $35 million Series A round led by M13, with Picus Capital, Torch Capital, Afore Capital, and Socure also engaging. The company has raised a total of about $40 million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Biolevate, a three-year-old French startup that uses AI agents to automate auditable scientific and regulatory workflows for life sciences organizations, raised a $34.4 million Series A round co-led by RAISE France and Orange Ventures, with MSD Global Health Innovation Fund and Station F as well as previous investor EQT Ventures also buying in. The company has raised a total of $41.3 million. Tech.eu has more here.

Bird&Be, a seven-year-old Toronto startup that sells fertility supplements and at-home reproductive health screening tests for women and men, raised a $13 million Series A round co-led by BDC Thrive and BFG Partners, with BAM Ventures, Founder Collective, Rejuvenation Ventures, and HSR Ventures also chiming in. More here.

Chamelio, a two-year-old New York startup that uses AI agents to draft, review, and negotiate contracts and automate workflows for corporate legal departments, raised a $26 million Series A round led by Entrée Capital, with Bright Pixel Capital as well as previous investors Work-Bench and Emerge Ventures also pitching in. More here.

Morphotonics, a 12-year-old Dutch company that develops nanoimprint lithography machines that mass-produce optical components for augmented reality glasses and data centers, raised a $45.9 million Series B round. Investors included Invest-NL, EIC Fund, Ernij Next, and EIB as well as prior backers 3M Ventures, Innovation Industries, and BOM. TechCrunch has more here.

Paymob, an 11-year-old Cairo company that provides infrastructure that lets businesses accept and manage digital payments across online and physical sales channels, raised a $35 million round co-led by Mubadala Investment Company and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, with British International Investment as well as previous investors Global Ventures and DPI Ventures also chiming in. More here.

Sela, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that develops AI voice agents that automate mortgage sales calls and connect borrowers with loan officers when needed, raised a $21 million Series A round led by Costanoa, with Emergence Capital also anteing up. More here.

Teal Health, a six-year-old San Francisco startup that offers at-home HPV cervical cancer screening kits paired with telehealth visits, results interpretation, and follow-up care, raised a $22 million Series A round led by .406 Ventures, with Emerson Collective, Forerunner, Labcorp, Starfire Ventures, and MPower Partners also chiming in. The company has raised a total of $45 million. Tech Funding News has more here.

Blair Health, a two-year-old Toronto startup that encodes specialist-designed care protocols into software that helps generalist healthcare providers treat women’s health conditions, raised a $3 million pre-seed round co-led by Business Development Bank of Canada, Accelia Capital, and Ogaei, with Ontario Centre of Innovation also chipping in. More here.

Primo, a four-year-old Paris startup that uses AI agents to automate employee onboarding, access management, device administration, and IT support for businesses, raised an $8 million round co-led by Headline and Global Founders Capital. EU-Startups has more here.

Sol, a one-year-old San Francisco startup that finds commitments in users’ email and uses AI to complete the associated work for their approval, raised a $4 million round from General Catalyst, Nexus Venture Partners, DeVC, Peercheque, and Kunal Shah. More here.

Zeliq, a three-year-old Paris startup that uses AI agents to help mid-market sales teams identify prospects and automate email and phone outreach, raised an $8 million seed round led by The Moon Venture, with JJCapinvest and Freelance.com as well as previous investors Ora Global and Cleo Ventures also opting in. The company has raised a total of $24.1 million. Tech Funding News has more here.

RealSense, the Haifa robotics and computer-vision company spun out of Intel just 14 months ago, is being acquired by Cognex for roughly $600 million. The company raised $50 million after its spinout, tripled revenue, and has been profitable for the past two quarters. CTech has more here.

Iambic Therapeutics, a seven-year-old San Diego AI drug discovery startup that has raised about $462 million from investors including Nvidia, Coatue, Nexus Venture Partners, and Catalio Capital, filed to go public on Nasdaq under the ticker IAM. MobiHealthNews has more here.

President Donald Trump said the U.S. government will begin referring to AI as “super intelligence” in official documents after polling the public on alternative names; it remains unclear when or how the change will be implemented. The Washington Post has more here.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is being considered for President Donald Trump’s new “AI czar” role, alongside White House science adviser Michael Kratsios, OPM Director Scott Kupor, and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross. Trump has not made a final decision. Semafor has more here.

Microsoft is laying off 268 Xbox employees as part of a broader restructuring that has already affected 1,600 workers, while Ninja Theory, the British game studio that Microsoft acquired in 2018, may close after two attempts to sell it fell through. The Verge has more here.

Waymo is opening its robotaxi service to teenagers as young as 13 in Nashville, its second market with teen accounts after Phoenix, as the Alphabet-owned company looks to drive growth beyond geographic expansion. TechCrunch has more here.

Amazon’s Prime Air drone deliveries are drawing backlash in Richardson, Texas, where residents complain of dozens - sometimes more than 100 - noisy flights a day, even as Amazon plans to expand the service to 500 U.S. towns and cities by year-end. The New York Times has more here.

Colleges are still struggling to police AI-assisted cheating, as increasingly accurate detectors such as Pangram collide with concerns about false accusations, privacy, and an escalating arms race with tools designed to make AI-written work appear human. The Atlantic has more here.

Andreessen Horowitz is investing $35 million in an unaccredited, two-year San Francisco college alternative for 16- to 22-year-olds, with Anthropic, Google, Meta, Nvidia, and OpenAI providing software, compute, office access, and internships, and a16z taking all of the equity. (No, just kidding about that last part.) TechCrunch has more here.

The first trailer for Judd Apatow’s documentary about comedian Norm MacDonald just dropped.

A new bakery in New York’s SoHo is selling a loaf of rye bread for $60.

Updated Jane Austen titles.

Steve McQueen’s 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4*S NART Spider - the sixth of only 10 built, and still carrying its original engine, transaxle, and body - is heading to public auction for the first time. It’s estimated to sell for $15+ million.

Viture unveiled the $299 camera-free Vonder smart glasses that use bone-conduction microphones to passively capture the wearer’s speech and then build an AI-powered “memory graph” of their habits, ideas, and goals.

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